Meet Fiona: Match Funding hero

This year Camelot will be taking part in Giving Tuesday (Tuesday 27th November), which arrived in the UK in 2014. Since then, the day has gone on to become one of Britain’s biggest days for charities, helping to raise much-needed awareness and funds. Giving Tuesday now runs in over 70 countries around the world.

At Camelot, we will be highlighting all the ways that we can help employees give back and celebrating those who are already doing it by sharing a selection of employee takeovers on our Instagram stories (more on that later).

How we do it

There are three key ways that we enable our employees to give back. Firstly, we offer everyone two days per year to volunteer with one of our charity partners. This is a great initiative that allows people to spend time out of the office and gives them real hands-on experience within the local community. As well as adding enormous value to local charities, it can be a great team building exercise and a fun way to get to know colleagues from other business areas. Teams get involved with all kinds of tasks but typically things like painting, DIY, gardening and assembling fundraising packs.

Secondly, our Give As You Earn scheme allows employees to give regularly and on a tax-free basis to the charities and good causes of their choice. Once set up, the donations happen automatically through payroll making it the perfect option for those who want to give back but are unable to donate their time.

The third way is via our match funding programme; Camelot will match fundraising up to £500 a year. A great way to give that little bit extra to your chosen charity and make sure your hard work really does pay off. One employee who has championed Match Funding is Retail Sales Executive, Fiona. Read her story below.

Fiona’s Match Funding Story

In 2016 I decided it was time to get a bit more serious about running, starting off with a 10k. My sister in law had been diagnosed with terminal breast cancer at the age of 42 so I decided if I was going to challenge myself running, I should do amazing stuff and raise money for charity along the way. Knowing that Camelot would match-fund whatever I raised was a huge motivator for me. I chose MacMillan Cancer Support as my charity of choice.

Once I completed my first 10k I couldn’t stop. I knew had to up the challenge and signed up for my first half marathon in 2017, again raising money for MacMillan Cancer Support. On the morning of the half, I had a moment of madness (driven by adrenaline I’m sure!) and signed up for the Loch Ness Marathon in September 2018, again raising funds for MacMillan.

Over these three races, I’ve raised a total of £1,350, with an additional £1,040 from Camelot’s Match Funding. It was a great result and I couldn’t recommend Match Funding more.

Check out Fiona’s Instagram story via @CamelotCareersUK and watch out for more Instagram story takeovers from Camelot employees over the next few days.