At Livingston James, we seek to make a difference to the communities we serve in three ways: we invest our time, we invest our money, and we fundraise!
Group Operations Manager, Cesca Christophersen, shares details of our community impact initiatives, including a run-down of this year’s Corporate Challenge.
Supporting Our Communities
Our Group purpose is to help people and organisations realise their potential, so that together we can impact lives and communities for the better. This involves supporting our candidates to achieve their career ambitions, helping our clients to hire the most impactful leaders for their teams, and training our colleagues to grow and develop in their roles.
When looking at how we can directly support our communities outside of work, many colleagues across Livingston James Group volunteer with local youth groups / sports teams, or serve on the boards of charities close to our hearts. We provide career and CV advice in local schools and universities, and we help facilitate community initiatives such as Project Present and Back to School Packs. To support these activities, each colleague is given two fully paid days a year to invest in the causes most important to them.
Each year our business also donates a percentage of Group profits to the individual community causes chosen by each colleague at the start of the year. You can see which causes we are supporting this year on our community impact page. Clients and candidates who are kind enough to provide feedback on our services are able to influence the weighting of the distribution of funds based on the causes that are most important to them.
As part of our annual fundraising efforts, our business runs a Corporate Challenge with a different adventure activity each year. We’ve climbed mountains, cycled around islands, and even run marathons over the years! To determine which charity we will support for the Corporate Challenge, all employee-chosen charities are added into a randomiser wheel. This year, the randomiser chose St Margaret’s Children and Family Care Society.
St Margaret’s Children & Family Care Society
St Margaret’s was initially founded in 1955 as an adoption society to support children and families in need throughout the UK. They have since gone on to develop additional education services and a therapy centre offering support to all children, families and professionals within a trauma informed framework.
This charity is one that is very close to our CEO, Jamie Livingston, and it has been great to hear about his personal experience with the charity and his own adoption. To find out more about St Margaret’s and the great work they do, please visit their website.
Charity Fundraising Quiz Night
For our Corporate Challenge this year, we decided on the classic combination of Pub Quiz and Long Distance Cycling…
On Thursday 17th August, we hosted a Quiz Night at Box Hub Glasgow. With the room full of family, friends, clients and candidates; we had 11 strong teams competing, and the fundraising was off to a super start! After a tightly contested 5 rounds, it was Hamilton Forth Consultant, Rachel Sim and her team who took home the win!
Alongside the quiz, our great presenters, (Rutherford Cross Consultants, Will Dodds and Fraser Burnett), ensured the raffle and auction ran smoothly. A big thank you to the amazing businesses who donated prizes, and to Box Hub Glasgow for providing the venue and staff on the night.
We were also delighted to have a table from St Margaret’s in attendance who were able to share details of their journey as a charity with all the guests on the night.
With the fun part over, it was straight into training for the second part of this year’s Corporate Challenge: The Office-to-Office Cycle.
Edinburgh to Glasgow: Office-to-Office Cycle
On Sunday 10th September, our team peddled off from our Edinburgh office on George Street (in the glorious sunshine) to our Glasgow office on St Vincent Street!
Thank you to our support team who met us at checkpoints along the route with water and snacks, and more importantly were able to collect a broken bike. The bouncing cobbles along the Avon Viaduct at Linlithgow proved too much for one of the rental bikes, so we were sadly a man down for the rest of the cycle.
Thank you to all the very kind cyclists who stopped in their tracks to try help us; however, it seemed there was no easy fix on the canal path!
The team then checked in together at the Falkirk Wheel for a quick bite to eat in the sun.
After heading off for the second half of the cycle, shine very quickly turned to almost an hour of torrential rain from Kilsyth to Bishopbriggs! With true passion and determination, the team made it to Glasgow in one piece, albeit completely soaked through!
Not the usual relaxing Sunday, but it was certainly worth the grind to support such a great cause.
Charity Funds Raised
We are delighted to have supported this Glasgow-based charity for our Corporate Challenge this year, and are thrilled to announce we have raised over £4,200 for St Margaret’s!
Thank you to everyone who supported us and donated to this wonderful cause.
We are still accepting donations on our JustGiving page, so if you didn’t get a chance and would like to support our fundraising efforts, please visit our JustGiving page to donate.
If you’d like to find out more about our charity and fundraising initiatives at Livingston James Group, please visit our community impact page.
Office-to-Office Cycle Finishers – Corporate Challenge 2023
