Matched Funding from your employer – are you eligible?   

Did you know that your fundraising efforts for FoWE could potentially be doubled by your employer if they offer a ‘match funding’ scheme? 

With more fundraising events being confirmed in our school calendar we thought it worth highlighting match funding and how you could help achieve our fundraising targets even faster! 

If your company offers a matched funding scheme it will often match some or all of the the amount raised at a fundraising event (up to a certain level) as long as you have helped out at the event. 

Your involvement in an event could be as little as creating a poster, selling tickets for the raffle or serving refreshments on the day of the fun run - you don’t have to be the event lead! 

If you'd like to help, speak to your employer or your company's HR department to ask if they operate a Matched Funding Scheme. If they do, usually all you need to do is complete an online form provided by your work and possibly provide them with a letter from our treasurer to confirm the details. 

Many companies offer matched funding schemes. Just a few of the companies that have provided this to us in the past include: Whitbread, Argos, GSK, Telereal and Trillium.  Lots of other companies operate a matched funding scheme: BP, PwC, Deloitte, Schroders, Barclays, RBS, Shell, Boots and Ocado to name just a few. 

Charity name: Wood End School Parent Teacher Association

Charity number:  1055324

For more information please contact: fowe@woodend.herts.sch.uk   

Want to know more about Match Funding?

Read our Q&A below with Katy, whose company Whitbread donated £750 to Friends of Wood End School 

Katy works for Whitbread Plc and after the 2021 Wood End Christmas Event she applied to their Raise and Match initiative and the Whitbread Charitable Trust donated a further £750. 

What did you do for the Christmas Event?

I was involved in some of the organisation of the event alongside other year 1 parents. I attended planning meetings and supported through completing various actions to enable the event to go ahead. On the day of the Christmas Event I helped out on one of the stalls selling festive cakes and biscuits.

After the event, who did you speak to at work?

Whitbread Raise and Match scheme falls under our CSR banner as part of our Force For Good programme within local communities.  I read the scheme overview on our internal intranet and downloaded the application form. This was then simply completed and submitted to the team internally for review and processing.   

What info do you need to apply?

In order to qualify I had to have been a team member for six months or more, to have helped in my own personal time and the event had to raise a minimum of £250 (these qualifications are all specific to Whitbread). I then had to answer some brief questions on the application form itself including how much money was raised and what it was raised in aid of, together with the charity name and number.

What happened next?

The application was reviewed by Whitbread’s Raise and March  team before being sent to the Whitbread Charitable Trust to process. A few weeks later I was delighted to learn that my application was successful and we had raised a further £750 for Friends of Wood End.

Any tips for anyone else thinking of applying for Matched Funding?

Go for it and see if you qualify. You don’t have to be in the thick of it and involved in every detail to get approval - sometimes helping out on the day is enough.