It’s not all banking and dealmaking, charity’s big business in the Square Mile too
Philanthropy is at the heart of the City, we shouldn’t play it down, writes Lord Mayor Michael Mainelli
Christmas is a time for family, friends, food, and fun – but also for giving. Indeed, as Marley’s ghost warns Scrooge in A Christmas Carol – “Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence were all my business.”
Fast forward 180 years and, thankfully, the uncompassionate practices of Victorian London that Dickens was commenting on have been replaced by organisations across our City who care about societal problems and invest enormous resource into finding ways to address them.
I had the privilege of seeing an example of that in action a fortnight ago with ICAP’s annual Charity Day, a fantastic initiative that harnesses the skills of financial professionals and the support of celebrity ambassadors to raise considerable sums of money for a range of good causes. In fact, it’s generated more than £165m for charity over the last 30 years, benefiting 2,900 projects worldwide.
This latest instalment saw celebrities from Sir Rod Stewart and Gillian Anderson to Gareth Southgate and Alex Scott team up with brokers, with 100 per cent of commissions and ICAP’s revenue for the day going directly to charities, raising an amazing £5.2m this year alone.
But there are, of course, plenty of examples of socially-minded organisations – large and small – doing excellent philanthropic work across the Square Mile all year round. Our City’s livery companies, for instance, give a remarkable £75m to charity every year, a sum comparable to the fourth biggest grant-making charitable foundation in the UK.
And to highlight some of the work we’re doing at the City Corporation, look at the Lord Mayor’s Big Curry Lunch, which with the help of its generous corporate sponsors raised £437,000 this year, or City Giving Day, which on 26th September saw a record 571 companies take part, raising an estimated £620,000 for the Lord Mayor’s Appeal and other charitable efforts.
One of those – MQ Mental Health Research – a partner charity of the Lord Mayor’s Appeal, is particularly close to my heart. Despite it being estimated that five per cent of us live with depression, there have been no new treatments to support those suffering from it in over 30 years – just one of the reasons why MQ’s groundbreaking research into anxiety, depression, and psychosis is so important.
Because there’s not only a terrible human toll to mental ill health, but a significant financial one too. That was reiterated by research conducted last year by the Mental Health Foundation and the London School of Economics and Political Science, which found that mental health problems cost the UK economy at least £117.9bn annually.
Strategies are therefore needed to tackle the status quo, and I am delighted to say that by working alongside Oxford University and the Wellcome Trust, MQ and the Lord Mayor’s Appeal launched over the summer GALENOS – a project pulling together the best early-phase science into a continuously updated and trustworthy catalogue that allows the professional mental health community to better identify the research questions that most urgently need to be answered, in turn speeding up solutions and effective new interventions. None of this would be possible, however, without having fundraised over £7m.
Philanthropy is at the heart of the Square Mile and our financial and professional services sector – be it through the money it raises or the voluntary hours it sets aside – can be a formidable force for good, contributing positively to the health and wellbeing of communities, something we should never play down.
Christmas is not only an opportunity to recognise and celebrate that achievement, but a prompt to redouble our efforts in the New Year.