Over 100 Businesses Attend City Giving Day Breakfast

The Lord Mayor of the City of London Alderman Professor Michael Mainelli joined over 100 City business representatives at Mansion House on 12 June to mark the three-month rundown to City Giving Day at the City Giving Day Engagement Breakfast. 

Taking place in September, City Giving Day is the City’s chance to showcase their charitable and community work via an annual event hosted by The Lord Mayor’s Appeal. Taking place on Tuesday 24 September this year, corporations big and small celebrate and promote the positive impact of philanthropy in a number of ways – from promoting their own charity partnerships and volunteering; to creating office-based activities on the day; to getting involved in The Appeal’s annual City Giving Day events. 

This year’s City Giving Day Engagement Breakfast gave City philanthropists and corporates the opportunity to share their plans for September and provided strategies to get the most out of the day. They also heard from an array of inspiring speakers including The Lord Mayor of the City of London Alderman Professor Michael Mainelli, Rebecca Howie, Data Solutions Senior Manager at Fidelity International and Charles Fulton, Founder at jumblebee. 

Since its launch in 2015, City Giving Day has grown year on year with 571 companies involved in 2023.

Rebecca Howie from Fidelity International was quick to remind businesses not yet signed up to ‘use this opportunity to showcase the brilliant fundraising and volunteering you do all year round and engage employees in a fun way’. Long-term City Giving Day participants, Fidelity International have hosted everything from their popular mini golf competition to catering team bake sales to entering multiple teams for Tour de City, and will take part again in 2024.   

Charles Fulton shared his experience on the positive power of fundraising since starting jumblebee 12 years ago and since raising over 55 million for a number of charities.

He said; “Having a fundraising goal, whether a financial target or a specific date in the diary creates a community, a group of people with a common cause. City Giving Day, with its network of hundreds of businesses, actually creates one of the biggest fundraising communities in the country, where thousands of associates have a common fundraising objective for the day.” 

Back for the second year running, jumblebee will host an online auction for City Giving Day. Raising funds for The Lord Mayor’s Appeal, the auction relies on prizes from City businesses and Fulton asked corporates across the Square Mile to dig deep before the auction opens for bids in early September. 

Since its launch in 2015, City Giving Day has grown year on year with 571 companies involved in 2023. Our aim is to inspire even more organisations to take part in 2024, not only in London but in other cities around the UK. 97% of the organisations that took part in 2023 said they would recommend City Giving Day to others while 73% said that City Giving Day inspired employees to take part in more charitable activity. 

The pre-City Giving Day breakfasts are a chance for companies to check in on their progress and be inspired from other event ideas from hosting an office sports day to organising a company-wide sponsored silence to putting on a bake sale. The annual breakfasts host a series of honoured guests from Alderman and Sheriffs of the City to CSR professionals and senior business leaders; as well as VIP guests and representatives from some of the City’s most prevalent companies. 

In addition to their own fundraising activities, The Lord Mayor’s Appeal also hosts a number of annual City Giving Day events which companies are welcome to join. These include Tour de City, a static Wattbike challenge where company teams of up to five people compete against each other in a thrilling 40 minute static bike race, divided into five eight-minute slots; City Walks – a one hour lunchtime walking tour taking place around the City hosted by expert City of London Guides; a Treasure Hunt inviting teams of up to six people to solve a series of clues discovering some little known facts about the City of London; and a Quiz Night challenging teams of up to six to test their general knowledge and compete with the greatest minds in the City

Funds raised by The Lord Mayor’s Appeal on City Giving Day will be used to support the work of its three charity partners, MQ Mental Health Research, Homewards and National Numeracy. Aiming to create a Better City for All that is Inclusive, Healthy, Skilled and Fair, The Appeal’s thought leadership initiatives Power of Inclusion, This is Me, We Can Be and City Giving Day offer learning, development and engagement opportunities for employees across the Square Mile.

To register for City Giving Day 2024 visit https://www.thelordmayorsappeal.org/initiatives/a-fair-city/register-and-get-involved/