Two local charities in line for £50,000 donation

Gloucestershire Young Carers based near Cheltenham and Stroud-based Time Banking UK are two of 15 UK charities shortlisted to receive £50,000 in Ecclesiastical’s Movement for Good awards.

The awards, set up by specialist insurer Ecclesiastical, will see a total of £1million given to charities across the UK. Five hundred have already been awarded donations of £1,000 and now ten charitable organisations will benefit from £50,000 grants.

Gloucestershire Young Carers, which supports and enables young carers to build resilience and achieve their aspirations. The award would allow the charity to evolve its current respite support groups for young carers. The groups offer vital, life-changing help to isolated young people and reduce the impact of their caring responsibilities at home.

Time banking is a way of spending one hour of time helping someone out and Time Banking provides all the resources needed for anyone wishing to set up a time bank.The award would allow the charity to set up Time Banking in a Box, a model for GPs to use to implement time banking within their practices.

The charities are two of 15 organisations to make the shortlist from nearly 800 entries.

The £50,000 awards are designed to help charities take innovative projects to the next level in the fields of education, skills, arts, culture and heritage, as well as citizenship or community development. Charities were invited to apply online before Ecclesiastical’s partner the Charities Trust settled on the shortlist.

During the final stage, members of the public are being invited to show their support for their favourite charity with a simple click on the awards website, before the Movement for Good judging panel selects the ten winning charities.

Mark Hews, Group CEO of Ecclesiastical, said: “Ecclesiastical is unlike any other financial services group. Owned by a charity, giving is at the heart of our business. Each £50,000 award will fund innovative projects and good ideas that might not otherwise get financial support. Part of our ongoing pledge is to help charities test new ideas and take them to the next level, sometimes over several years – an area where we know funding is very limited. We think that this can help charities make even more of a difference.

“Our Movement for Good awards has been successful in helping 500 charities already this year and we’re thankful to everyone who nominated a cause close to their heart. We’re looking forward to seeing how this next financial boost will change even more lives for the better.”

The successful charities will be announced from Monday 30 September 2019.

During the first phase earlier this year, members of the public were invited to nominate causes close to their hearts, with 500 awards of £1,000 available for donation.

In total, an amazing 98,000 people around the UK supported the Movement for Good awards, with over 7,000 charitable causes up and down the country receiving votes. The 500 winning charities were picked at random from those nominated.

Owned by a charity, Ecclesiastical is the only financial services group that exists to give all its profits to charity. It has given £100million to charity over the past five years and is the fourth largest corporate giver in the UK2.

For further information on the Movement for Good Awards and for a full list of the 500 winning charities, and the shortlist for the next phase visit: www.ecclesiastical.com/movement-for-good