Businesses

Why support us?

Keyfund really delivers! With a core staff of just nine, a dynamic social licensing model and a volunteer base of over 1000 people, Keyfund is able to create a huge number of social outcomes, with limited financial resources. In 2010-11 Keyfund supported 6018 young people, rewarding them with £298k for their 844 different youth-led projects.

Keyfund is robust, highly effective and financially resilient. It demonstrates how brilliant models of social action can grow sustainably through grass roots partnerships. Keyfund stands out as a focussed, savvy and forward thinking organisation, using a dynamic mix of 19 years experience and expertise, with new and fresh approaches to meeting young people’s needs and the needs of those supporting them. Keyfund is succeeding within a fast-paced, confusing and changing landscape for civil society.

We don’t even need to blow our own trumpet. Plenty have done it for us

In 2009, The CEO, Hannah Eyres was named North East Woman Entrepreneur of the Year for Best Social Enterprise. We fought off even public sector competition to win Non Profit Organisation of the Year at the 2009 North East Business Awards. Keyfund picked up the Outstanding Organisation Award in the 2011 North East Voluntary Sector Awards and were even hand picked by the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, to be one of only 26 charities worldwide, to benefit from their Royal Wedding Charitable Gift Fund. 

Partnering with us

We won’t ask for your money. That’s lazy, short-termist and one sided.
We build win-win partnerships, where both organisations can address challenges, share learning and create new opportunities by working together. 

Examples of this in practice have included:

 • helping a bus company communicate vital messages to young people about changes to their fares and systems, in return for the provision of free transport for our young people to a big Keyfund event and free training rooms for our volunteer panel members.

• working with an established, regional motor group to add value to their staff personal development strategy. We trained their Apprentice Mentors as Keyfund facilitators, enabling their young apprentices to benefit from the Keyfund process, whilst providing other staff with rewarding volunteering opportunities. We integrated this delivery with their sponsorship of two local ‘Keyfund Blasts’, directly benefitting 120 young people and 25 youth workers around their dealerships.

• providing structured opportunities for employees of a leading supermarket chain to connect with the local communities around their stores, by training and supporting them as Keyfund Community Panel Members. In return, they provided ‘pot money’ to enable young people to turn their project ideas into reality, whilst also providing bursaries for 60 community members to take up this role too.

• Keyfund staff and young volunteers ran summer fete stalls at a staff family fun day for a global I.T. company. This raised funds directly for Keyfund and raised awareness among staff, who have gone on to provide vital pro-bono expertise and funding to address our I.T. support needs.

None of these were one-off projects, all have been the start of longer term and mutually beneficial partnerships. 

What you can do

We’ll work together to develop the right win-win projects, but here are some initial ideas;

• Sponsorship of: young people’s projects; training bursaries for young people, facilitators or community volunteers; Keyfund Blasts (an intensive Keyfund programme over 2 weeks).

• Register your company with Pennies ; a method of micro-giving based on asking if your customers would like to round up their card purchases to the nearest £1.

• In-kind: Provision of pro-bono expertise, advice or support; provision of free training rooms, facilities or services.

www.pennies.org.uk 

Who supports us

Our list of private sector supporters is growing all the time. Why not join: ASDA , Accenture, Go North East, Benfield, Vocalink , Greggs, and The Gate and make a lasting difference to the lives of disadvantaged young people. 

Contact us

If you would like to find out more about partnering with Keyfund, contact Kathryn Roper, Head of Partnerships on 0191 2614029 or kathrynroper@keyfund.org.uk