Giving it back - working with the community, Lodestar's pro-bono marketing work
"Giving it back" is a fundamental principle of Lodestar’s philosophy.
We are committed to giving some time each year to charitable or pro-bono work, sharing business knowledge and expertise in order to help others.
TackleAfrica 2009
Lodestar's Becky Walsh is the Marketing, PR and Communications Trustee for TackleAfrica, a sports development charity that uses football to educate on HIV.
Established in 2002, TackleAfrica is run by a voluntary board for trustees and a part-time MD. Active in 6 sub-Saharan countries, TackleAfrica uses football as a coaching tool that communicates directly with young people and local partners to increase their understanding of HIV via a positive and proactive sports development activity.
TackleAfrica raised more than £120,000 from their 2009 Football Marathon hosted on Clapham Common. Supported by premiership footballer, Lee Dixon, visit the TackleAfrica website for photos and league tables from the day.
London Better Together
The London Better Together campaign is supported by the London Development Agency, business organisations and the voluntary sector in London and aims to help businesses make our city a better place.
The Lodestar team made the most of this initiative by holding their team away day on 16 May, working with Young Enterprise to develop a bespoke programme for 15 students aged 15-16 at Eltham Technology College in Greenwich.
The day was hugely enjoyable and helped educate the students on how to overcome the challenges of entering and the working world. In addition to this students were supported in producing life maps to clarify their personal and professional goals.
Design for Good
‘Design for Good’ encourages the use of design in the charity sector and seed-funds design projects put forward by charities in partnership with designers. Lodestar partners Julie Fitzsimmins and Judith Powling helped the Design Business Association establish the charity, and Julie is now a board member.The Renewal of St Martin-in-the-Fields
Julie Fitzsimmins is Non-Executive Director of St Martin-in-the-Fields Limited and is a Trustee of the St Martin–in-the-Fields Development Trust, which is raising finance for the £36 million renewal and restoration of the Trafalgar Square site. In order to develop the business plan for the main £14.7 million Heritage Lottery Fund bid, Julie directed the development of a marketing strategy to support the bid. This strategy took account of the needs of the many stakeholders and the various organisations which use the site whether commercial, charitable or church-based. In addition, a marketing plan for the site as it currently operates has been developed with a stakeholder strategy for managing the transition period while continuing to generate revenue for the site. The development of a re-launch strategy for the regenerated site is already underway
Lodestar is incredibly proud of this project and will continue to support and promote it. For more information about the brilliant work being carried out by the St Martin–in-the-Fields Development Trust please click here to read this fantastic article by Simon Jenkins, published in the Guardian on Friday, 2 May 2008.
IMechE - Sustainability for engineers
Lodestar provides consultancy to the Energy, Environment and Sustainability Board at the IMechE in order to support the development of tools and resources to help mechanical engineers move towards delivering sustainable solutions in their work.
