The greeting card industry is incredibly generous, through the various charity efforts of retailers, publishers and suppliers; the huge sums raised through the sale of charity cards, but also through The Light Fund, the industrywide charity, founded by PG’s Jakki Brown, Ian Hyder and chums from the industry, back in 2004.
Now is the chance for everyone in the greeting card community to have an input on how the £100,000+ that will have been raised by The Light Fund during the course of 2017 is put to good use, funding charity projects that will help men, women and children all over the world.
The Light Fund, which has raised over £1.1million for charities over the last 13 years – is now open for proposals from all registered charities for projects they would like to see funded.
Registered charities have until Tuesday November 21 to make their submissions online via The Light Fund website (http://www.lightfund.org/).
There are a few stipulations, which include that the projects should benefit children and/or adults, are capped at a cost of £5,000 and should be completed in 2018.
“Everyone in the greeting card industry embraced the idea of The Light Fund right from the start – a registered charity ‘umbrella’ that funds distinct projects to help those less fortunate than us,” said Ian Hyder, co-owner of PG and committee member of The Light Fund. “It is only right that anyone connected to the card trade who is a champion of a charity cause can urge them to submit a proposal. We really have made it as easy as possible.”
The Light Fund committee meets in early December to vote on which of the submitted charitable projects will be supported. Those who are successful will be informed in mid December and receive the funds by the beginning of January 2018.
A great example of how the greeting card industry has contributed directly to The Light Fund is via the raffle at The Henries awards event a fortnight ago which raised around £7,000 for The Light Fund. In addition, The Retas awards in the summer raised well over £4,000 for the charity. Meanwhile, several of Max Publishing’s other event, namely The Greats gift retailing awards raised £4,000 and The Licensing Awards and the B&LLAs collectively raised over £17,000. And all this is in addition to a whole programme of fundraising activities for The Light Fund during the course of the year.
Next year is a big year for The Light Fund as the charity is embarking on its most ambitious fundraising initiative – a 520 kilometre cycle ride from Bristol to Dublin over four days which is on course to raise £150,000+ for the charity.
Over 80 riders have already signed up for the challenge, which include PG’s Ian Hyder and Rob Willis, Moonpig’s Sarah-Jane Porter, Gemma’s Tim Rudd-Clarke, Danilo’s Dan Grant, Blueprint Stationery’s James Redfern, Pyramid’s Robert Ling, Charlotte Robertshaw and Michael Lipman.
