Here at Lazy Susan, we’ve had a mission for several years now to try and Do Some Good. What started as an extension of our founder Michael’s philanthropy quickly evolved into an integral part of our business strategy.
Thanks to the photographs we’ve received from our customers, our Do Some Good charity initiative has raised over £376K since its inception in 2015, and this has enabled us to support some fantastic causes both at home and abroad.
2022 was another fantastic year and we're incredibly proud to announce that we were able to donate around £91K, along with many of the team (below) giving up their free time to volunteer in the local community.
To date, we’ve also helped to raise over £90K for the British Heart Foundation by donating our garden furniture to sell in their home stores.
This year we're taking our partnership a step further by launching a collection service, helping find new homes for your old garden furniture. We'll be sharing more details on that one over the coming weeks.
It is fair to say we are all incredibly proud of what we’ve achieved so far and, we hope, it can be bigger and better in 2023.
But that success is all down to the photographs you (our customers) send us, and we continue to be in complete awe of not only the number we receive but the quality of the photographs too.
In fact, such is the quality, that you'll often see them utilised across the product pages of our webshop and blog. …So, please keep them coming!
Our 2022 Do Some Good Highlights
Before we look ahead to 2023, we just wanted to highlight and share some of our donations from the previous 12 months:
Christmas garden furniture donation to Daelzicht
To coincide with opening our new European distribution hub in the Netherlands last year, we made our first Dutch-based charity donation in partnership with our logistics team at Jan Krediet.
We around £3000 worth of garden furniture to the charity organisation Daelzicht, which provides care, support and guidance to children, young people and adults with Intellectual Disabilities (ID).
Our donation included a selection of our best-selling garden tables, chairs and a host of accessories such as parasols, garden benches and outdoor cushions.
The team at Daelzicht planned to keep a number of the sets for the gardens of their care homes and sell some of the others to raise much-needed funds.
You can find out more about the great work they do and our donation in our Lazy Susan makes Christmas garden furniture donation to Daelzicht post.
£10,000 donation to St Wilfrid's Double The Difference campaign
Here at Lazy Susan, we were also among the sponsors that agreed to double donations made during St Wilfrid's 35-hour fundraiser on the 3rd and 4th of July of last year.
To mark the charity’s 35th year, the St Wilfrid’s team held an exciting fundraiser and asked their local community to be a part of it.
2022 marked 35 years of expert care and compassion from the St Wilfrid’s Hospice team, and Michael Scott, a long-time supporter and the founder of Lazy Susan, generously pledged £10,000 to the funding pot.
At the time of the donation, Michael said:
“We were delighted to take the pledge for St Wilfrid’s as even one hour in their care can make the world of difference to a family experiencing the challenges of a terminal illness. We’re looking forward to seeing the final tally in July to see just how much of a difference a local business and our community can make when they come together.”
You’ll find full details of the campaign in our Lazy Susan donate £10,000 to St Wilfrid's Double The Difference campaign article.
Helping the British Heart Foundation fund life-saving research
The British Heart Foundation has been one of our primary charity partners for a number of years now, and our Do Some Good campaign has helped to raise over £70K, primarily through large garden furniture donations that they can then sell in their home stores.
For the Lazy Susan team, giving back to those who need it most is now a core part of who we are, and we are always looking for new ways we can help charities close to our hearts.
The money and furniture we have donated to BHF have helped to fund vital research across all heart and circulatory diseases and the causes behind them. This includes heart disease, stroke, vascular dementia and diabetes.
You’ll find more on info our Lazy Susan helps the British Heart Foundation to fund life-saving research article.
Our Do Some Good staff charity initiative
At the end of 2021, we launched our staff charity initiative, and in May 2022 we made a £29K donation to a host of new charities of their choosing
The aim of our staff charity initiative was simply to get the entire Lazy Susan team more involved in our philanthropic endeavour.
Michael is always trying to do more for good causes and, as a big thank you for the team's hard work and dedication, he wanted to give them the opportunity to support a charity close to their hearts.
Each member of the Lazy Susan team was invited to donate to a charity of their choice.
It could be an organisation that's helped them personally or supported a close friend or family member. It could be a charity campaign they spotted on Go Fund Me or Just Giving that struck a chord.
They picked the charity and we made the donation. Alex Clarke, Head of Marketing had the following to say about it at the time:
“The staff initiative is a great way for us to continue the good work we've done and reach some new charities that maybe aren't on the radar of Michael and I. Since the inception of our Do Some Good campaign in 2015, we've raised over £260k thanks to the photographs our customers send us of their new Lazy Susan Garden Furniture in situ. We wanted to do more though. Our target for 2022 is to raise over £150K. We were very close last year. The staff donations are a great way to get the whole Lazy Susan team involved, help them support a charity close to their heart, and push us towards our ambitious fundraising target for the year.”
Supporting Ukraine
Like all of us, the team here at Lazy Susan HQ are extremely concerned by the conflict in Ukraine which is threatening the lives of millions of innocent people.
The images of civilians fleeing their homes with only what they could carry continue to be heartbreaking but the people of Ukraine have shown incredible courage and determination.
When the war started it was clear to the team here that help was urgently needed to deliver aid. As part of the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) the British Red Cross is helping to provide clean water, emergency shelter, food, health assistance, sanitation, protection and trauma counselling to those in need.
Financial contributions were the most effective way we could help deliver essential support, and when we launched our Supporting Ukraine campaign back in March 2022, Michael Scott said the following:
"We wanted to do something to support the humanitarian crisis in Ukraine, so The Lazy Susan Group of companies have donated a total of £35,000 (41,800 Euros) to Unicef, the German, British and French Red Cross. We are only a small family-run business of around 35 people but are proud to Do Some Good and support others. The donation was made on behalf of the Lazy Susan team and represents £1,000 (1,194 €) from each of us.”
Help Us Build a School in Ghana
Back at the start of last year, we were working closely with Arms Around The Child, a charity that aims to build a better environment for children living in extreme adversity.
Around Christmastime 2021 we made a £10K donation that they utilised to deliver clean drinking water to Becky’s Home for Children in Senya Beraku, Ghana. However, we were extremely keen to do more.
Throughout our discussions with Ellie Milner, Global Director of Arms Around The Child, we discovered that we could support the charity further with an even more ambitious donation, and we agreed to match every donation made towards the building of the school until Arms Around The Child reaches the fundraising target of £25,000.
You can find out more about the great work AATC do and the project at Becky’s in our help us build a school in Ghana post. We will look to publish an update on how things are progressing in the coming months.
How you can help us Do Some (more) Good in 2023
Summer is still a good few months and the weather is pretty awful at the moment, however, you can still send us some snaps of your Lazy Susan Garden Furniture in situ and help us Do Some Good.
We love a snowy Winter photo, especially a snow-covered garden, so please get creative as there’s a chance you’ll feature in our Winter Photo Gallery.
Here’s how you can get involved with our Do Some Good campaign:
1. Snap
Find your garden's best side and snap a photo to show us your Lazy Susan garden furniture.
2. Share
Send your photo to photos@lazysusanfurniture.co.uk or tag @lazysusanfurniture on Facebook or Instagram.
3. Review
Leave a product review on Trustpilot.
For every photo we receive, we will make a donation to a charity that we care about, and if you're in need of a little inspiration, please take a look at our Customer Photo Gallery or Instagram page - you may even get featured!
Help us Do Some (more) Good in 2023,
