Home Retail Group
Home Retail Group, owner of Homebase and Argos,
chose the British Heart Foundation (BHF) as its first ever
group charity partner in a two year relationship from July 2008 to
July 2010.
The partnership, called ‘Keeping Hearts
Beating’, originally aimed to raise
£2 million for BHF, to
fund defibrillators and associated prevention and care work in
communities across the UK.
The partnership has gone from strength to
strength, and hit the £2 million target just 18
months into the partnership!!
Ceri Wootton, Community
Affairs & Workplace Manager, commented “Home Retail Group staff
and customers have been extremely generous with their time, support
and money and we are absolutely delighted to have raised over £2
million so quickly. We are committed to supporting the local and
national communities in which we operate and we are really excited
to be a part of increasing the number of life saving equipment,
defibrillators, across the country”.
More than 768
defibrillators have been placed as a result of the funding
received. 7
Community Resuscitation Development Officer (CRDO) posts have
also been funded for two years each. We have also been able to
provide vital equipment for 184
Heart Start UK schemes. Heart start UK is an initiative
co-ordinated by the BHF to teach members of the
public what to do in a life-threatening emergency.
How the money has been raised: 
Colleagues and Customers
The success of the partnership lies
predominantly with the amazingly dedicated colleagues in stores,
sites and offices and the generosity of their customers. Colleagues
have truly embraced fundraising for the BHF and held fundraising
activities up and down the country. Some of the activities have
included Wear Red days, sponsored cycle rides, leg waxes, head
shaves, skydives, overseas challenges – teams have climbed Mount
Kilimanjaro and trekked the Inca Trail, held talent nights, car
boots sales and even taken part in the odd Marathon or
two!
Argos and Homebase stores have also sold a
range of products for the BHF, including Trolley Coins, Bang on the
Door pin badges, Reindeer Food and 'Red for Heart' pin badges.
On pack sales promotions
Homebase have also raised further funds for
the BHF through on-pack sale promotions, including a Tomato
plant (raising £15,948) a Rose Bush (raising £8,628) and are
expecting to raise a further £36,000 from a sales promotion
on strawberry plants.
Argos also further supported the
BHF through a cause related marketing initiative on 4 health
& fitness products in the catalogue, which raised £25,000 for
the charity. This also helped to promote that regular exercise can
help to keep your heart healthy
Not only has the partnership been a huge fundraising
success, but Home Retail Group have also provided the charity with
some fantastic support for two of our National
campaigns
The BIG Donation
Group colleagues at Argos and Homebase stores,
sites and offices got fully behind the BHF’s first ever Nationwide
stock appeal,
The BIG Donation in September 2009. At Group Head Office in
Milton Keynes over 1500 bags were collected which had an estimated
value of between £12,000 and £30,000. Ceri Wootton, Community and
Workplace Manager, said “Our colleagues enjoy a fantastic
relationship with the BHF, so I was not surprised to see a strong
response to the stock donation appeal in the first few days.
However, what followed for the remainder of the month was quite
phenomenal and we couldn’t have asked for more – we simply didn’t
have the space!’ All together Home Retail Group collected a
outstanding 40,000 bags!
National Heart Month
All stores and sites took part in 'Red for
Heart', the BHF’s National campaign which runs throughout
National Heart Month in February. They got involved by selling
our heart shaped pin badges, taking part in red sweepstakes and
also in National “Wear Red to Work Day” on the last Friday of the
month. The BHF raised a fantastic £2.1 million
from the overall campaign, which wouldn’t have been possible
without the support of companies like Home Retail
Group.
For both campaigns, Homebase and Argos also
provided the charity with fantastic support in promoting the
campaign to their millions of customers and thousands of staff.
They placed adverts on their special offer emails, hosted banner
ads on their website, distributed thousands of campaign leaflets
and ran radio adverts in Homebase stores across the country.
To help support the ‘Keeping Hearts Beating’
charity partnership please look out for fundraising activities
taking place in Argos and Homebase stores across the UK.
Visit the Home Retail Group
website
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