Morning – 7.55 am – 120 emails

07.55 and at my desk to begin the morning, more than 120 emails have come in over night, many about the emergencies we are currently responding to in Japan, Ivory Coast and Libya.  Thank goodness we have a Children’s Emergency Fund which enables us to respond to an emergency the moment it strikes.  The value of this fund is immense.  It enables us to reach children and their families as soon as disaster strikes without having to wait for extra funds to be raised.  This lifesaving rapid response work would not be possible without the commitment of donors such as RB, who have led the way with an annual commitment of £100k minimum which is supplemented further with additional financial contributions and valuable gifts in kind such as Dettol soap and liquid.

We have seen a huge increase in corporate support over the past 18 months not only from RB and it’s pledge to reach £10 million by 2015 with the Million Brighter Futures Campaign , but from a number of other existing and new partnerships.  One very pleasing email titled ‘customer bucket collections for Japan at Morrisons stores reaches £380k catches my attention – a good start to the day!

My attention turns to two key priorities – the Global Dettol / Lysol Mission for Health campaign, find out more and the UK business Boots in store activity planned for June.  Frankly I never cease to be amazed and impressed by the sheer drive and determination of RB employees to make a success of every opportunity.  However, what strikes me is how this culture has filtered and channels all the way through their partnership with us at Save the Children – have a quick look here to see what we have been achieving together around the world.

This relationship is known as and continues to be our flagship corporate partnership, a partnership many wish to emulate.  To enable both Save the Children and RB to make the most out of every opportunity presented by this every evolving partnership we have more than doubled the workforce on the account.

Lunch – 12.00pm – Afghanistan Talk

Lunch has already come and gone (on the move with a cling film wrapped sandwich, made by my very own hands) – popped down to a lunchtime talk to hear about our work in Afghanistan first hand from David Skinner, the Country Director who is currently visiting the UK, followed by a quick meet with the Global Children’s panel – a group of truly inspiring children working hard to spread the work of Save the Children and to improve children’s lives in the countries they come from including China, India, Congo, Mongolia, UK, US, and Brazil.

On to my next focus for the day, the RB global challenge 2011– This fantastic fundraising and employee engagement initiative involves more than 35 RB offices taking place in June 2011 in Brazil. A total of 30 employees will take part in a challenging but rewarding trek over 5 days and another team of 35 will take on the 5 day daunting but rewarding task of renovating and improving 2 crèches – we are well on our way to raising the target of £300k!  The 2009 challenge was a great success raising over £276k between 65 employees, watch the film.  I have literally just signed off hiring the role of a specialist consultant to oversee the Community Challenge, we must make this a huge success.

Aside from the work being funded in Brazil by the 2011 Global Challenge, half of the funds raised via the global challenge will also support RB’s core programmes in Angola and Tanzania where support is already into the 5^th year providing access to and supporting the health of babies, children under 5 and their mothers. More than 8 million children under five die each year from totally preventable causes – find out about our new ‘Born to’ (no child born to die) campaign here. The third RB core programme in India focuses on the rescuing, rehabilitation and retraining of child domestic workers in Kolkata, West Bengal, India, some of whom are as young as 5 years old when they are trafficked or sold into labour where they are often mentally, physically and sexually abused.

Evening – 7.30pm – Fly out to Uganda

Already 7.30pm and time to leave the office and get home in order to pack and be ready to fly out to Uganda tomorrow with another partner, I am really looking forward to seeing more of Save the Children’s work out in the field.  Most recently I was lucky enough to visit Huambo, Angola in August 2010 with Andraea Dawson Shepherd – SVP Global Corporate Communications and Affairs who has overall responsibility for the partnership at RB.  This was an amazing visit to the field where we were really able to see where the funds raised by RB are going and the impact the funds are having saving and improving the lives of children and their mothers. It also became very evident that as well as those who are directly benefitting from the programme, together we are actually reaching whole communities with key health and hygiene messages improving community health in the whole region.

More of the same tomorrow.

Hi everyone!

On Saturday we celebrated a fundraising event for Save the Children in RB Spain’s Logistics Centre (near Barcelona) and I just wanted to take the opportunity, as I’m blogging here, to thank everyone who helped to make it possible.
The effort of all RB volunteers was extraordinary (the event was set up in only one week as we decided to do a last minute action for 2009 and the 12th of December was the only date available).
Everyone worked really hard doing different tasks. I started coordinating all volunteers and I ended up recounting the products people were taking as a hand was needed there.

We finally raised more than €10,000 for Save the Children, which is fantastic!

The event was based on a RB Spain donation of products; the employees and their relatives, friends, etc. took these products and made cash donations for them.

Here are some pictures of it. I am on the top centre picture (I’m the first one on the left). Can you see how corporative volunteers were dressed? Pink & grey of course

Reckitt Benckiser’s partnership with Save the Children started in 2006 and since then a lot of RB countries, like Spain, have started to do fundraising actions to contribute to the global programs.

This year for example, RB launched the “Do something Big” program globally and, as you might have seen in posts on this blog, several countries are contributing to it (ie. Do something big challenge in Germany).

At RB Spain we are glad to announce that with the funds we raised on Saturday we’ve overachieved our local target for Do Something Big that will go over €50.000 this year!

Have you ever really wanted to make a difference, to do something that matters, to do something BIG?

German students have a  fantastic opportunity to do just that, by taking part in an amazing competition which challenges entrants to create a simple yet innovative idea to save children’s lives in Angola, one of the poorest places in the world.

The competition is being run by RB Germany together with Save the Children. Student groups are invited to plan the whole project and manage it like a real business case.
It needs to be realistic and efficient. Entrants also need to show strong problem-solving skills, sharp analytical skills and persuasiveness.
Projects will be rated by KPIs (key performance indicators) such as how well the project fits the region, how well social networks are used to raise awareness, how efficient the money would be used and, of course , the quality of the idea.

And the winners will be given the opportunity to visit Angola and see first hand the projects that Reckitt Benckiser is implementing there.
The winners’ idea will also be documented throughout as a case study for corporate social responsibility e.g. for universities.
This scheme follows a tradition of collaborations between RB and Save the Children in finding great projects that impact and really make a difference to the children who need help the most.
The closing date for entries is the end of March 2010 and they will be judged by experts at Save the Children and Reckitt Benckiser colleagues.

If you want to join in, you can find all the information on the Do Something Big website. The site is German only however, as the project addresses German students.
Plus you can even help just be subscribing to the newsletter – Reckitt Benckiser has pledged to add 1 Euro to the project budget for each e-mail address subscribed to the newsletter.

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So don’t wait – DO SOMETHING BIG!