Community projects around the UK are bringing vital relief and support to people and animals in need. There are thousands of community organisations, charities and groups across the country offering their services around the clock, and many of them rely entirely on fundraising and donations.
Fortunately, there are lots of ways we can all get involved and help out – sometimes with very little effort on our part at all. Enter the mobile phone company giffgaff. One of more than 2,000 UK companies with B Corp status, it has been certified as a company that’s dedicated to being accountable and improving its social and environmental impact – and one of the ways it ensures it’s improving its social impact at grassroots level is through its payback scheme.
Customers of giffgaff (known as “members”) can earn payback points in various ways – from inviting friends to join the network to helping out the rest of the community. Then, twice a year, these points can be cashed in, used as credit or donated to charity – and if you choose to donate your points, giffgaff matches your donation pound for pound. “Payback is one of the most exciting projects to be a part of,” says Roxy Baciu, head of community at giffgaff. “It allows us to bring our values to life in a genuine and relevant way.”
Keen to know more? Here are three regional community projects that the giffgaff community has supported so far.
Hampshire Search and Rescue
Rescue volunteering is an incredibly important job, so it’s great to hear that Hampshire Search and Rescue received 10% of the overall donation pot from giffgaff members matched by giffgaff.
There are Lowland rescue groups operating all over the UK, and volunteers are on call to the police 24/7, every day of the year. This round-the-clock availability means they can be deployed quickly to search for vulnerable missing persons in greater numbers than are possibly available within police forces, making them a vital resource.
Volunteers have to train for up to six months, so it’s a commitment, but a worthy one. “We get to know each other, we work well together, and look after each other,” says Hampshire vice chair Trevor Vidler.
Hampshire Search and Rescue has been called out 19 times so far in 2024. Neighbouring counties can call upon search and rescue communities to send reinforcements, and Dorset and Wiltshire often ask Hampshire for backup.
As for how Hampshire is planning to spend its donation from giffgaff, Vidler says: “Our vehicles are kept in the south of the county, and it sometimes takes us a while to get the equipment we need to the north, so this money will help us to buy and equip another 4x4 to be kept in north Hampshire. This will significantly shorten the time it takes for us to arrive on scene when we’re needed in the area.”
Thames Valley Positive Support
Set up in 1985, in the early years of what was to become the Aids epidemic, Thames Valley Positive Support (TVPS) – which received 5% of the overall donation pot from giffgaff members matched by giffgaff – was initially established to support people living with HIV and Aids in the Slough/Windsor area.
Today, as well as continuing to support people coming to terms with an HIV diagnosis – helping them to connect with others who are affected by the virus, and offering advice on debt, benefits and housing – TVPS also provides space for the wider LGBTQ+ community to meet locally. “There was nowhere for this group to meet where they could be themselves,” says Sarah Macadam, chief executive at TVPS. “We set up this safe space for anyone to come and socialise, and it has since grown into peer support and counselling.”
The charity has found that peer support is by far the most popular and effective service it offers, and it also enables people to seek counsel outside traditional working hours. “Being someone who offers peer support can be a very empowering and rewarding experience,” Macadam says. The funding received from giffgaff will be spent on training and travel costs for people who want to become peer supporters – half for people who have HIV, and half for the LGBTQ+ community.
Animals in Need
As with the other organisations giffgaff customers have donated to, Animals in Need relies entirely on donations to keep its services going – so it was delighted to receive 40% of the overall donation pot from giffgaff members matched by giffgaff.
Animals in Need rescues wild and domestic animals across Northamptonshire, and provides rehabilitation services at its headquarters, Pine Tree Farm. “After Covid, it was younger animals, but now we’re rescuing more older animals with medical conditions who require more complex care,” says Louise Smith, marketing and communications officer.
The voluntary organisation rehabilitates and rehomes dogs (of which they currently have about 50), cats, farm animals and wildlife such as hedgehogs. The focus of its work is always to get the animals on the road to recovery and back out to homes, or to the wild.
Money from giffgaff will be used on a number of ongoing projects at the farm – reroofing part of the kennels in the dog isolation and medical block and improving the dog sensory garden, which provides the dogs they rescue with enrichment training with different textures.
Discover more ways giffgaff is “up to good” at giffgaff.com