I am pleased to report on this year's activities, especially as we have been able to sustain our charitable giving in an extremely difficult economic environment.
In a turbulent year, charities have continued to suffer from lower revenues, while facing increasing demand for their services. The number of clients in need has risen dramatically. The Connection at St Martin-in-the-Field, (a homeless charity based in London's Trafalgar Square) has seen the number of homeless people using their services increase by 20% in the last 18 months.
Reliable funding is crucial in these difficult times and we have maintained our philosophy of providing core funding and multi-year grants. In this way we hope to support our charities through the next challenging year where impending public sector funding cuts and uncertainty about the next comprehensive spending review could exacerbate an already difficult situation.
Man paid $9.6 million to the Trust and charitable committees of our overseas offices and $8.7 million was spent on charitable donations during the financial year 2009/10.
A range of charities were supported throughout the year covering our key areas of empowering disadvantaged young people through education, the arts and sport; literacy and numeracy; vulnerable populations and disaster relief. Our overriding principle is to support those charities that make the most difference to people's lives and that can effect real change in the communities in which we live and work. We continue to fund small to medium size charities, in areas that often receive little public support.
As an international company we are also keen to respond quickly to alleviate the suffering of those overseas who have been affected by a humanitarian or natural disaster. Through our support of Merlin, a specialist medical and humanitarian aid agency, we helped save lives by rebuilding shattered health services in the war torn Swat Valley in Pakistan and in the areas devastated by earthquakes in Indonesia and Haiti.
Our overseas charitable committees in Dublin, Switzerland, USA, Canada and Australia have been active in their local communities including the selection of employee annual charities – Child's Dream (Switzerland), Ronald McDonald House (New York), Chicago Wilderness (Chicago) and The Children's Sunshine Home (Dublin).
The Annual Charity chosen by our UK employees was the Alzheimer's Research Trust. With an initial donation of $150,000 from the Trust, UK employees raised an additional $75,000 for the charity by holding a number of dress down days, a quiz night and a 'Marathon' themed power day. Our new Annual Charity for 2010/11 will be The Prostate Cancer Charity and we look forward to working with them through our volunteering and fundraising activities next year.
Philanthropy is at its most powerful when combining financial support with employee engagement. The Trust was therefore delighted to launch ManKind, our new volunteering programme for all UK employees. Our people took part in many activities including serving breakfast to the homeless, facilitating employability workshops for disaffected youth and reading to primary school children. We look forward to engaging more of our employees next year, inspiring them to do something different within our local communities.
We would also like to thank all of our employees who volunteered their time and donated to so many charities over the year via their Give As You Earn accounts and the Trust's sponsorship matching scheme. Finally I would like to thank our Trustees, Andrew Scott, Victoria Pakenham, Verrona Browne and Colin Brumpton who retired this year, for their invaluable contribution and many years of service.
I am also delighted to welcome our new Trustees Jon Aisbitt, Triona O'Keeffe, John Angell and Jasveer Singh and look forward to working with them in the coming year.
Lesley King-Lewis
Director, Man Group plc Charitable Trust
