International Charity Day

Here at Rethink, we're big on giving back.

We support a range of charities and offer our people 100 days paid leave a year to do something brilliant for a fantastic cause. This means that our amazing people can go out into their local communities and do some volunteering or fundraising for the causes they believe in.

To celebrate International Charity Day (5th September), here's a rundown of what we've been up to this year and what we have left in store for 2016.

The Diane Modahl Sports Foundation

The DMSF is an amazing organisation that helps young people from disadvantaged areas make the most of their potential. So far this year we have raised over £1000 with the help of our amazing employees in our Bristol and Manchester offices. We held some school-style sports days, in fancy dress of course, and fiercely competed in the likes of egg and spoon races and obstacle courses all day long!

Speaking of the day, Diane Modahl said: “Our charity’s about empowering and giving opportunities to disadvantaged young people and the funds raised will help us do more of that. Thanks, guys!”

The Booth Centre

Our guys in Manchester have been volunteering at The Booth Centre for the last couple of years and, last year, managed to raise a staggering £5000. The Booth Centre provides invaluable support to people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness, helping them find accommodation, education and supplying free healthy meals.

Once a month, four people take a day out of the office to lend a helping hand at the centre, where they'll get up to anything from cooking meals through to helping with basic IT skills and whatever else is asked of them.

Having done the Manchester Sleepout for the past two years, our guys are already gearing up for this year’s event in November.

Football shirt Friday

We participated in Football Shirt Friday 2016 in aid of the Bobby Moore Fund. Our Bristol team all donated money and wore their team colours to work. The day raised money that went towards funding bowel cancer research.

Bristol Mind

Earlier this year, the team from Bristol Mind came into the office to run a workshop on the effects of depression in the workplace. In return we thought we would hold a fundraising day to give back to such a worthy cause.

We are gearing up to a cycle challenge where we will go the distance between Land’s End and John O’Groats (on stationary bikes, in our office). That’s a whole 842 miles. It’s £50 for a half hour slot and there’s a prize for whoever manages to bike the furthest. If you think you can beat our guys get in touch with our Bristol office today!

Sifa Fireside

Our Birmingham team support Sifa Fireside. The team at Sifa do a fantastic job of changing the lives of people who are experiencing homelessness or are vulnerably-housed. To date, our Birmingham employees have given their time to help support the staff by serving food to the users of the day centre, providing general assistance in the kitchen and helping to relieve the pressure on the charity's wonderful volunteers - completely selfless people who continually give their time, sometimes for up to 5 days a week!

Caketober

Our Manchester office has signed up to participate in Caketober, a month long fundraising event that combines cake and fancy dress all in aid of Forever Manchester. Forever Manchester supports and funds community projects across the area and so far have helped 1.1 million people!

Rethink are planning a Manchester themed bake sale and fancy dress day in October with all the proceeds going towards this fantastic charity. We’re already hungry just thinking about it!

Dress for Success

Our Irish team supports Dress for Success. The mission of Dress for Success is to empower women to achieve economic independence by providing a network of support, professional attire and the development tools to help women thrive in work and in life.

The team in Cork runs a weekly roster of 2 appointments which focus on providing women, returning to the workplace, with advice on their CV and how to succeed in interviews.

Many of these women are coming from challenging circumstances where confidence is low and they find it difficult to get past the interview stage even though they are very capable of fulfilling the roles they are applying for. Berkley’s advice and coaching helps to ensure these women feel more confident on their job hunt and helps them get back into work.

Miles and Smiles

Rethink are a key sponsor of the Miles and Smiles event - a chance for colleagues to run, walk or cycle as many miles collectively as possible to raise money and awareness for Macmillan.

This year was our biggest turnout to date with loads of our RTM guys volunteering their time for this fantastic cause. At the end of the day everyone had managed to clock up a staggering 1,980 miles by either walking, running or cycling – there were definitely some tired legs on Monday morning!

Westminster Academy

Working with Westminster Academy and the Career Ready programme, Rethink sits on an advisory board that helps to run a programme that prepares 6th form students for work and higher education by setting up employer-led masterclasses and one to one tutoring in addition to offering placements ourselves.

Our last placement student, Marhab, told us about her time at Rethink:

"I really appreciate being given the chance to work at Rethink and I have learnt so much in my time here."