1 March

City Giving Day 2021 launches¬

The City Giving Day 2021 campaign began on Monday 1 March with an online event to welcome new and old faces to the initiative. Every year the September event sees businesses and organisations in the City and beyond Go Red and make some noise about the power of charity, giving and philanthropy. This year’s event will take place on Tuesday 21 September 2021, and as ever, we want it to be bigger and better. This year’s goal is to have 692 organisations registering.

The event kicked off with CEO Caroline Wright welcoming nearly 190 people, both from those familiar with City Giving Day and new organisations, telling us about why the annual September has become such an important part of the City calendar. She explained just what our charity partners Place2Be, OnSide Youth Zones, Samaritans and DofE have been doing during the pandemic to support people in London and further afield. 

The Rt Hon The Lord Mayor Alderman William Russell, the 692^nd Lord Mayor, told us why he is thrilled to be Lord Mayor for a second year. The Lord Mayor’s Appeal’s multi year strategy will see us create A Better City For All. It's all part of our bid to create a City that is Inclusive, Healthy, Skilled and Fair.

In 2020 we ran a hybrid City Giving Day, online and offline. This year will be the same, and enable us to reach more people across the City and beyond. The expansion of City Giving Day since its inception shows how engaged City businesses are in CSR and giving. As Jan Foster, Programme Manager for City Giving Day, explained, it’s an opportunity for businesses to shout about what they are doing for philanthropy and charity – something often not done.

Fiona McArthur, Skanska explained how they support the communities they work in through their Lend A Hand week, an opportunity for employees to volunteer their time. In 2019 120 employees helped 8 organisations, and they were awarded the Best Community Engagement Award by City Giving Day. in 2020, online opened up more opportunities, and they helped 12 organisations with 9 projects.

Pranathi Praveen, EY, described the day as one ‘of celebration’ which helps them with their efforts to deliver sustainable and responsible business. 2020 was a different year, but they surpassed expectations, and ran a variety of activities that enabled people to celebrate giving, lend their time, and raise money for charity.

Samantha Barnwell, Nomura, explained how they ran a hybrid gardening event, embracing online and offline in a cross company collaboration. They were able to broaden their audience to include continental offices. They are planning on continuing to use this model for community and employee engagement in the future agile working environment. As well as having a charitable impact, City Giving Day can work as an opportunity for increasing employee engagement and improving health and wellbeing.

The launch breakfast was a great opportunity to connect with people from across the City, who are continuing to deliver innovative and effective CSR programmes during what are challenging times for us all. City Giving Day has always been an uplifting, joyous occasion that brings people together to have a real impact on society. We were delighted to see so many people embracing the theme, wearing red, even from home, and sharing their red selfie frames. We look forward to seeing some of the bold and bright events that people do this year, online and offline, to help us create A Better City For All.

If you would like to find out more, you can register here.