Carphone Warehouse 2009 Annual Report Download - page 29

Directors’ Report – Business Review
www.cpwplc.com 25
▪
setting up sponsored events, which
in the past have included skydiving,
overseas challenges, runs and football
tournaments;
▪
raising money via handset recycling;
▪
donating money saved by sending
out Christmas e-cards instead of
paper cards;
▪
holding a monthly collection in our
support centres; and
▪
using our call centre facilities and
volunteers to support major national
campaigns such as Comic Relief.
Community activities
We give Community a broad denition:
for us it encompasses not only our
immediate geographical community,
but other communities around the world
and the wider social community that
our services help to create and maintain.
Our activities here are distinct from
our charity work in that they are of
a more practical nature rather than
the combination of nancial and
skills support that we provide to
our charity partners.
Business in the Community (“BITC”)
This year we signed up to BITC, the
primary national organisation for helping
companies become better corporate
citizens across all areas of their activities.
We are currently undergoing their
rigorous benchmarking exercise to
assess how we rate in terms of corporate
responsibility relative to our peers. These
results will not be for publication but will
enable us to see where we are doing
well and where we should be looking
to improve; our intention is to become
part of their public benchmarking
programme next year.
Business Action on Homelessness
(“BAOH”)
BITC runs the BAOH programme, which
is a partnership between business,
homeless agencies and the Government.
BAOH aims to break the vicious cycle
of “no job, no home, no job” by helping
homeless people gain and sustain
employment. Carphone Warehouse
has been a partner of BAOH for a
few years and has provided several
work placements resulting in some
participants being employed by us and
some gaining employment elsewhere.
We plan to make BAOH one of our key
areas of focus and are stepping up our
placement programme. In addition,
Carphone employees are being trained
as mentors, who will be resources for
homeless people as they seek ongoing
advice on sustaining employment after
their placements.
Innovation in the Community
The Innovation in the Community Awards
were launched in 2007 to provide small
cash awards and broadband connectivity
to non-prot making institutions
looking to develop technology-based
applications to serve specic
communities. We believe technology
should be a social enabler, not something
that creates a divide between the “haves”
and the “have nots”, and these awards
aim to address this gap.
In 2008 the TalkTalk Innovation in the
Community Awards received over 2,200
entries – over three times the number
received in 2007. Winners for the year
included: Screenreader, which supplies
free software allowing blind people
to “read” websites; Connection at
St. Martin’s, which provides IT training
to homeless people to help them get
jobs and move off the streets; and
MusicLink, an arts project which gives
schoolchildren in isolated areas of
Cumbria a chance to experiment with
music technology. Martha Lane-Fox
was brought on board as a celebrity
judge to provide mentoring to ve
overall category winners.
Established in 1997 by a group of
parents, TreeHouse campaigns for better
autism education nationally and runs a
school for children and young people
with autism. It undertakes policy and
parliamentary work and research to
ensure that autism is a national priority,
supports parents in campaigning locally
and offers training and consultancy on
autism education.
Autism is a lifelong neurological condition
which affects communication, social
understanding and behaviour. One in
100 school age children have autism and
27% of them have been excluded from
school, the majority more than once
(Ofce of National Statistics, 2005).
In April 2009, TreeHouse launched a new
website, www.talkaboutautism.org.uk,
where professionals and parents
are being encouraged to talk more
about autism and share knowledge
and experiences to achieve the
best educational outcomes for
autistic children.
The launch was accompanied by the
publication of specially-commissioned
research that highlighted that parents
face a “postcode lottery” when it comes
to the quality of services available to
autistic children, and that over half
of teachers polled had not received
training to help them support children
with autism.
TalkTalk Group helped to fund the
development of the website and was
closely involved in the launch, helping
to generate signicant coverage in the
national and educational press.
The Carphone Warehouse Foundation
The Carphone Warehouse Foundation
was set up over ve years ago to support
employees with their own fundraising
initiatives for causes that are close to
their own hearts. Small grants are
awarded to charities nominated by
employees; or where there is a large
demand for the same charity, a larger
grant will be made on behalf of the whole
business.
We support our charitable activities
in a number of ways, including:
▪
awarding extra days holiday for
employees who commit to taking part
in fundraising activities organised by
the business;