Astriid has won a £1,000 Movement for Good award from Ecclesiastical Insurance Group thanks to nominations from the public.
Astriid is one of 500 winners in specialist insurer Ecclesiastical’s Movement for Good awards, which is giving £1million to charities this summer. This money will have a huge impact on Astriid, and will be used to help expand awareness of our role in connecting people who have long-term health conditions with meaningful work. Having just completed our major fund raising project at the end of July, the ‘Astriid challenge’ we are now looking to use the new corporate relationships that have been formed to help increase the number of opportunities of remote and flexible working that can be offered to our candidates. Specifically, our next objective is to source the best training service provision that can help our candidates to build on their transferable skills as we seek to establish new career options for them.
Members of the public were invited to nominate causes close to their hearts, with 500 gifts of £1,000 available for donation. Over 13,000 charities were nominated by more than 210,000 members of the public.
Steve Shutts, CEO at the Astriid charity commented:
“We are enormously thankful for the support being provided through the Ecclesiastical’s Movement for Good award scheme, and for those who nominated us as recipients. The pandemic has proven to be an extremely challenging time for small charities like ours who do not receive any official funding or grant provision; all of our income comes from donations and events and of course, these have been extremely challenging to organise during the COVID-19 era. Whilst we all look to return to some form of normality we know that a large number of our candidates will continue to experience lockdown due to their ongoing chronic health conditions, and the fact that the world may be getting back to normal will exacerbate their feeling of loneliness and isolation. Our role is to create meaningful opportunities for them, paid and voluntary, to return to work and restore a degree of normality to their world.”
Mark Hews, Group Chief Executive of Ecclesiastical Insurance Group, says:
“We would like to thank every single person who took the time to nominate a good cause as part of our Movement for Good awards. Ecclesiastical, the fourth-largest corporate donor in the UK, is a unique financial services group. We are owned by a charity which means all available profits can be given to the good causes that are so important to our customers. As a company whose purpose is to contribute to the greater good of society, charitable giving is at the heart of our business. We know that £1,000 can make a huge difference to the incredible work that charities do and we’re looking forward to seeing how this financial boost will change lives for the better.”
