At this time of year our thoughts quite rightly go out to those who are a less fortunate than ourselves, with I hope most of us doing what we can to try and make a difference, no matter how small.
At Xmas time we’ve traditionally printed vast numbers of cards, passing on a portion of the proceeds to a select group of charities. This offering, shared by many of the UK’s printers, has, since 1983, raised in excess of £5m for good causes, an amount not to be sniffed at. These days the requests we receive for corporate cards has reduced considerably, with many of the larger forms choosing to donate the monies they would have spent directly to charities of their choosing. Whilst commercially this may hurt us,we at PHC do nothing but applaud such generosity!!
Yet our charitable work doesn’t start and end at Xmas, rather it’s a year long thing. As you can no doubt imagine we get at least a call or mail a week asking if we can ‘donate’ printing that’s either being sold to raise funds for, or being to used to promote the worth of, any one of a plethora of good causes. The desire to say yes is always there, but in real terms it’s simply not practical. As such we select at the start of the year those we feel we can and wish to support and stick reasonably stringently to these. Most are customers of ours either directly or indirectly, and working with people we know assures us that anything we donate is properly used.
Amongst those we’ve partnered this year are PriceWaterhouseCoopers (they put on a panto each year that is seen by thousands of disadvantaged children for which we produce the programme and a fundraising calendar at cost), Healthy Planet (all manner of items as their work ties in with our own strong pro-environmental actions), Rowley Recreational Trust (various leaflets, posters, invites, brochures for one of London’s primary community sports providers) as well as fundraising calendars offered with large discounts for both Macmillan Cancer Care and The Girlguiding UK. In addition we part sponsored the students at Central St Martins College of Art & Design (long standing clients of ours) for their end of year show, the first time it’s held at their stunning new Kings Cross site.
We couldn’t help in the way we do without the considerable generosity of our paper suppliers, so a big thank you on behalf of those we’ve been able to support to EBBS, Antalis and Paper Co.
As I’ve said, we would love to help everyone and would love to give everything away for free, but we can’t!! However, if you are a charity or other good cause do feel free to get in touch. Our standard rates make us competitive in the extreme, and if you notify us at the time of enquiry about the event/product you are try to promote we will, I promise, do what we can to at least offer the best discounted rates possible.
Until then here’s wishing you all a very merry Christmas and a happy, healthy 2012.
