Here at Ultimate Finance a key part of our People Promise is our commitment to ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance). That encompasses many things including our approach to mental health and wellbeing, sustainability and EDI – it also includes our approach to charities and giving something back.
At Ultimate Finance we have a wide range of charity initiatives, from volunteering to fundraising, but we’ll come back to that. Here the main thing we want to talk about is the positive impact our charitable approach has had on employee engagement within our business. As the funding partner of choice we want to share what we’ve learnt in the hope that some of these initiatives can boost your own employee engagement, helping to keep your business moving too.
Here at Ultimate Finance, we’ve seen the introduction of charity initiatives significantly boost our employee engagement levels. But don’t just take our word for it…
Engagement isn’t the only thing to benefit from giving something back, it can also have a positive impact on factors such as recruitment, retention, referrals and brand reputation. That’s a lot of ‘r’s there – not intentional we promise! Again, don’t just take our word for it, research carried out by Porter Novelli has found this to be the case:
Whilst these outcomes are undoubtedly positive, they’re not the main reason we are intent on giving something back to the communities around us. For us, it’s fully in line with our core value of Decency and doing the right thing by our clients, introducers and everyone we interact with. Not only does our charity approach help us to put our core values of decency into action, it helps our employees feel connected to our business. Charity work is an opportunity for companies to reinforce their purpose — their greater cause, beyond just products and services — and help employees connect to that purpose.
The Ultimate Finance Approach
It’s been a great first half of the year here at Ultimate Finance in 2023 for supporting a wide number of charities. Now we’ll take a look at how we’ve been giving something back so far this year,
Give a Days
Our Give a Day scheme sees all employees at Ultimate Finance able to take one paid working day to spend volunteering. Our team of Charity Champions organise a regular calendar of Give a Day opportunities across the country over the course of the year, but everyone across our business is empowered to organise their own Give a Day, so they can spend time volunteering for a cause close to their heart.
Throughout the first 6 months of 2023, some of our team in Bristol have been getting involved with a fantastic charity called Community of Purpose and their Break Free 2023 initiative. Break Free is a holiday activity programme that targets holiday hunger by providing high quality activities and free food for children aged eight to 13 from the areas most in need in Bristol during school holidays.
Elsewhere in Bristol, our Relationship Management team spent the day at St Peter’s Hospice in Bristol sorting donations in their warehouse ready for distribution to the network of charity shops. A great day for a great cause and fantastic to see the team taking the initiatives to organise their own Give a Day to support a cause close to their collective hearts!
Funding Contributions
Now we turn to our Funding Contributions Programme to shine the spotlight on four fantastic fundraisers from across our business. Our Funding Contributions programme sees Ultimate Finance contribute towards our employees own individual fundraising efforts. Whilst fundraising and supporting charitable causes collectively is a big part of our People Promise we recognise that lots of our employees regularly take on their own individual fundraising efforts for causes close to their own hearts. As a business, we want to support that.
We’d like to say congratulations to some of our team on their fantastic achievements raising money for brilliant causes including; Bristol MIND, Macmillan Cancer Support, of Crohn’s & Colitis UK and Cancer Research UK. You can see them all in action below.
Our team conquered challenges such as: The Dragon Ride 2023, the Great Bristol Run, the Cotswold Way Challenge and the Big Hike. Such variety! One thing they all have in common though is that all of them have had their fundraising topped up by an additional 20% thanks to our Funding Contributions Programme.
Throughout H1, we’ve been delighted to support other charities such as Smart Works and the Marmalade Trust. We’ve also given our clients the opportunity to select a donation to a charity of their choice rather than accept an incentive payment. This has been well-received by our clients and has been a great way to donate to a wide range of charities and support the causes that mean a lot to our clients.
Looking ahead to H2, our team have plenty more Give a Days lined up and we’ll be collecting across our offices for the Trussell Trust in their campaign against school holiday hunger.
Here at Ultimate Finance we’re looking forward to growing our ESG approach to ensure we’re a business that our clients, introducers and, most importantly, our employees can be proud of. Every business has to start somewhere when it comes to charity work, but we can guarantee that once you get started, you won’t ever look back!
