Yaser Martini, director of PubAid and CEO of Team Margot Foundation, explains how pubs support and contribute to charities and good causes.
Pubs in the UK raise over £100 million every year for Charity. And a new survey recently revealed that in addition, pubs also contribute around £40 million to grassroots sport annually. Accordingly, over the last decade, pubs have contributed £1.4 Billion to charity and good causes, which is astonishing.
This research has been spearheaded by PubAid, which was formed in 2009 and aims to highlight the great work done by pubs. PubAid is a working party made up of volunteers, who seek to gain greater appreciation by the media, politicians and other stakeholders, for the positive contribution made by the Great British Pub in local communities across the country.
In spite of all the above, charities have historically tended to shy away from embracing the pub sector, owing to sensitivities around alcohol. However, attitudes are changing and continue to shift in favour of pubs, partly because of the way the mental health lobby has brought phrases like #ItsOkNotToBeOk and #TimeToTalk into our national consciousness, and also because of how pubs are such an integral part of local communities. In particular, pubs are increasingly being recognised by health and loneliness charities as being natural places for people to talk to one another.
PubAid’s “The World’s Biggest Pub Quiz” is being run by Action Against Hunger from 8-12 March 2020, in approximately 2,000 pubs. This is the fifth annual World’s Biggest Pub Quiz, an initiative which has helped raise around £750K for hundreds of charities since its first edition.
And from my own first-hand experience, I can tell you that the charity I run, Team Margot Foundation has enjoyed fantastic and sustained support for several years from the pub industry, which just needs to be approached and embraced in the right way.
There’s an appetite in the sector to do more, hence my reason for sharing this information with you.
PubAid wants to explore other charitable partnerships to fill out the calendar year, so I’d like to ask charity leaders to get in touch if they feel there are synergies to explore.
Please get in touch with Des O’Flanagan (PubAid’s chair) if you would like to discuss: desoflanagan@djof.myzen.co.uk
Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash
