Having exceeded our fundraising target for Alzheimer’s Society across 2023 and 2024, we are proud to announce our new Charity of the year. Chosen by vote from a variety of worthy nominations across the business, YoungMinds has been selected as our charity of the year for 2024-2025.
YoungMinds, who are on a mission to reach and support more young people.
These statistics are the reality of the issues surrounding the mental health of young people across the UK
Over the next year, the team at GatenbySanderson will be working alongside the charity to raise awareness and taking part in a series of fundraising initiatives so that they can continue the impactful work that they are doing. Some of the activities we will be doing include ‘Out in the Open’, a virtual walk that will encourage our colleagues to get active. We will also be doing team challenges, holding speaker sessions, running bake sales and raising awareness on key dates such as Hello Yellow by wearing yellow clothing.
Why we chose Young Minds
We seek suggested charities from across the business when considering our next Charity of the Year and Young Minds received the most votes from colleagues across the business with so many personal stories of why its a charity want to support.
Here’s what a few of the personal stories and reasons we’re so pleased to be supporting the charity:
“The number of children in mental health crisis has reached record levels in England, and the impact is being felt by a generation of children and their families. This has long-term ramifications to their future health and wellbeing.
GatenbySanderson is pleased to be able to support Young Minds in their mission to make sure all young people get the mental health support they need, when they need it, no matter what.”
Julia Roberts, Practice Lead, Education
“As a family, we have recently been sign posted to Young Minds as a resource, since helping my daughter battle with anxiety and OCD over the last few years. It was refreshing to finally have a resource that is aimed not just at helping young people, but also empowering their families to support too. As a parent you can feel helpless at times, with NHS resources being in high demand, support can take time to find. There isn’t a quick fix for these situations, but it feels better to know we are not alone.”
Sophie Pringle, Project Co-ordinator, Health Sector
“I am really pleased that we are supporting Young Minds as our chosen Charity. This comes at a time when more and more children have mental health problems and their access to the support they need and deserve is simply not there. With teenage children of my own I have personal experience of trying to access mental health support through the NHS. It was a painful process and one that I decided to walk away from. Indeed, this was largely due to the fact that I could instead draw upon the support provided through GS’s private health care provision. This access and the privilege I have here is not available for the majority of families and children, and this needs to change. As Young Minds put it, ‘most of the time those young people need to wait. And wait. And wait’. This is not right and together we can support Young Minds by raising money to drive forward their vision ‘to see a world where no young person feels alone with their mental health’, and give young people the access to the support they need, when they need it.”
Mark Powell, Head of Leadership & Talent Consultancy
“As a proud Dad of four young people all entering the world of adulthood, I’m conscious that there are so many challenges and influences which they feel which I I’m not equipped for or have had to deal with. Their mental health as well as their physical health is so very important in them feeling that they belong and can contribute to society. Recognising this and having the resources to guide, help and direct them is so important. Young people are our future and we should support them best we can. I am very pleased that GS is support Young Minds as our Charity of the Year.”
Simon Wing, Practice Lead Housing & Local Government
Fundraising Target : £5,000
Our Fundraising Target is £5,000, which we hope to exceed as we have done with both of our previously nominated charities.
About Young Minds
YoungMinds’ vision is to create a world where no young person feels alone with their mental health. It was founded in 1989 and is a youth-led movement providing support for young people. Their information and support page was viewed over 2.5 million times last year and their Instagram achieved 24 million impressions.
2023 was their seventh year of #HelloYellow, a yearly occurance on World Mental Health Day, where thousands of schools, offices and individuals rock neon yellow socks, bold banana suits and #HelloYellow wristbands to brighten the day and show young people they’re not alone with their mental health. So far, HelloYellow supporters have raised over £1.8 million and counting.
This is just one of many great initiatives that we will be supporting YoungMinds with. If you would like to donate to this great cause, you can do this through our Just Giving page.
Get in touch with a member of the CSR team or email one of our co-chairs, Ellie Masters-Gregory, to see how you can get involved.