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At HomeServe, we pride ourselves on being a caring and responsible company and in November 2009 we formed our first national charity partnership with Marie Curie Cancer Care.

Employing more than 2,700 nurses, doctors and other healthcare professionals, Marie Curie provides free care to those with terminal cancer and other illnesses in their own homes. In the last year alone, Marie Curie provided care to more than 31,000 patients in the community and in their nine hospices.

Marie Curie nurses enable patients to spend their final weeks at home, in familiar surroundings with family close by. Alternatively, patients can stay at one of their warm and friendly hospices - instead of in the clinical and often daunting surroundings of a hospital.

In addition to helping the charity by raising funds, we are in a unique position to enhance Marie Curie's home-based services by providing practical support to patients in their own homes through our network of tradesmen and engineers.

HomeServe has pledged to donate £1 million to Marie Curie over the three years to March 2013. This target comprises employee fundraising and volunteering, customer donations, sponsorship and gift-in-kind contributions. By the end of the first year £333,333 has been donated, exactly one third of our pledge (£138,000 cash, which will pay for 6,900 hours of Marie Curie nursing care and £195,000 gift-in-kind).

Key Achievements in 2010/2011:

  • The launch of a Marie Curie Complete Cover Patient Policy
    In July 2010 we launched a unique free policy exclusively for Marie Curie patients. The policy covers practically every home emergency and repair, with call-out, labour, parts and VAT all included in the cover. To support the policy, HomeServe call centre employees and engineers have been specially trained on the sensitive needs of Marie Curie patients. To date, 311 policies have been activated which equates to £195,000 worth of free home emergency cover and HomeServe has carried out 170 jobs in patient's homes. The policy will continue to be offered in 2011/12.
  • Marie Curie's Walk Ten, Supported by HomeServe
    HomeServe was delighted to be the headline sponsor of the first ever Walk Ten in 2010 and we have renewed our sponsorship deal for 2011. Our sponsorship money (which contributes towards our £1 million target) helped Marie Curie turn their plans into reality and contributed to their advertising budget. In 2010 there were 12 walks, and in 2011, there will be 20 walks held between July and September. Marie Curie supporters raised over £250,000 in sponsorship money from participating in the walks in 2010. HomeServe employees, family and friends also got involved in the walks either by putting their best foot forward or by volunteering on the event days.
  • Employee Fundraising Activities
    HomeServe employees have been busy raising funds with sponsored marathons, fun runs, sky dives, cycling trips, cake bakes and dress-down days. Many HomeServe employees have also signed up to the Pennies for Patients Scheme, which enables staff to donate the odd pennies from their monthly pay, (up to 99p a month) directly to Marie Curie.
  • Volunteering
    Volunteering is promoted and encouraged by HomeServe and this year's activities have included work to improve the grounds at Solihull Hospice, working in charity shops, marshalling at Walk Ten and collecting for the Great Daffodil Appeal.
  • Cause Related Marketing
    In addition to our employee fundraising and business donations, we recognise that our customers may also be interested in supporting Marie Curie. Therefore, we have now started to integrate 'cause related marketing' into our acquisition, cross sales and renewal marketing activity and we ran a number of tests and campaigns last year, generating awareness and funds for the charity.

    • We also keep our customers regularly updated with our fundraising progress and activities via our customer magazine, mailing inserts, social media and website. Our first full year with Marie Curie has proved very successful and we were honoured to be nominated by them for the prestigious Institute of Fundraising, Charity Partnership of the Year award.

    Other activities

    In addition to our partnership with Marie Curie, HomeServe supports the Comic Relief appeal each year by opening donation lines in our call centre. More than 200 volunteers answered 3,050 donation calls on Red Nose Day in March, raising over £100,000 to help vulnerable people in both the UK and Africa.

    We continue to run an annual Youth Team Sponsorship Scheme and during the year awarded 24 grants to local youth teams linked to HomeServe employees. We also provide ad-hoc support to other charities throughout the year (in 2010/11 this included the Pakistani Flood Appeal and the Royal British Legion Poppy Appeal).