Charity Escapes is sourcing the recognition hoteliers deserve

Can you tell us a little bit about your career leading up to Charity Escapes? When I left university, I worked for a bespoke jewellery firm managing their branches across the Northeast. I then moved to a UK publishing house where I ran their Newcastle art gallery. I did that for a few years, building relationships with clients, getting to know the artists, and commissioning them to create work specific for my location. That was a really rewarding aspect of my role. My boyfriend eventually persuaded me to go backpacking for a year (which we did!) and it was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made; I had a fabulous time. When I came home, I joined Charity Escapes which was in its infancy at the time, and I've been here for nearly six years now, building it from the ground up. Can you explain to us more about the work Charity Escapes does and the history behind the group? Charity Escapes helps hoteliers make their charitable giving more effective. We are here to make the relationship between the hotel industry and third sector more mutually beneficial. Since our inception we have been lucky enough to work with hosts of hotels and charities. We find that the two sectors are somewhat inextricably linked, and that hoteliers are incredibly generous. So generous, in fact, that sometimes I don't think they're aware of how much they do and the difference that they make; the information that general managers deserve to know about their voucher donations doesn’t always get fed back to them. Primarily this is what we seek to change. We offer hoteliers a bespoke programme of support that delivers substantial marketing benefits whilst raising significantly more money for charity, and all at no cost. We really want to make sure that hoteliers are getting the most out of their giving, and that they experience some return on investment for the wonderful voucher donations that they make. Charity Escapes came into being after our founder attended a black-tie ball and successfully bid on a holiday. Several weeks later however, he found out that the charity sadly didn’t receive all of his winning bid. They had struggled to source donations for the event and due to this had to enlist the help of a private auction company. Such companies aren’t set up to ensure that the lion's share of funds raised actually make their way to the charity, so this then set him down the path of trying to better understand the nature of what prizes work best at fundraising events and if there was a way to make it easier for all parties involved. What kind of benefits do hoteliers that join your programme receive, and what would you say makes them join in the first place? When we started researching the hotel sector and reaching out to properties, I often found that when I met with the general manager and I asked them about the vouchers they gave away last year, the answer was always the same: “I don't know, but it feels like a lot.” What did your vouchers raise in total?: “I don't know, that information wasn't fed back”. How was your brand presented on the night?: “I don’t know I wasn’t there.” They would say that they sometimes received a generic ‘thank you’ letter, but truly didn’t know what impact they were making. I find it so frustrating that general managers (and hotels in general) don’t have access to this information. Their donation may have been the difference of a defibrillator, or specialist neonatal piece of equipment being purchased – or not. So when hoteliers do decide to work with us, it’s because they want to see and understand the difference that these vouchers actually make, because it’s really powerful stuff; they are so kindly giving away the experiences that more often than not, carry the whole fundraising part of the night. Hoteliers enjoy multiple benefits through our free service. We track the lifetime journey of every voucher, so when we matchmake a voucher to a suitable event, we ensure that the benefitting charity does a ‘thank you’ tweet, Facebook post and Instagram post. That information along with many other key metrics are then compiled in a social impact marketing report which we feed back to the hotel. When hoteliers come on board it's very much a bespoke service. We appreciate every property is different - different sizes, different clientele, different geography - but ultimately, we are here to help them to create, manage and distribute their vouchers – something which can take up an awful lot of time. In a way, we become an extension of their sales and marketing team. We have the time and expertise to drill down into every event and find out everything we can about it. We can reply to every inbound request a property receives, saving valuable time and energy which ensures some valued team member never has to write a ‘sorry we can’t help you’ email ever again. Some properties join so that processes they already have in place can be further streamlined. Some might not have begun their CSR journey and we set them up with their best foot forward. In your opinion, how much support is needed for the charities you work with as costs continue to rise? I think the reality is charities always need help, but yes now more than ever. Services that are integral parts of communities all around the UK need to be saved from shutting down or being forgotten. Hoteliers already do so much when it comes to helping charities host events at their venue, but specific to ad-hoc voucher giving, I believe that if the right voucher goes to the right event – more money can be raised. If hoteliers have that extra bit of support in thinking about what goes where, then more money for charity will be a direct result of that decision. How does Charity Escapes benefit the UK hotel industry overall? I believe we give the industry insight into what is an overlooked, yet extremely powerful and meaningful part of every hotel's existence. The social impact each hotel has on both their local and wider communities is knowledge that they deserve to know – as they really do make such a difference to the lives and fundraising efforts of so many individuals and charities. It's always so rewarding to give a GM their social impact report and see a big smile on their face. Once they know for sure the difference they have made, I believe it makes them more likely to give again – which in turn is an enormous help for the third sector. From an operations perspective, it's the fact that we are able to save really busy GM’s and sales and marketing teams' a lot of time and energy. We put so much care and thought into distributing vouchers and pride ourselves on knowing that our partners can rest assured knowing that the stuff they are giving away is working really hard for them. Are there any future plans or partnerships you can tell us about? We're always thinking of other ways that we can help hoteliers and something we're looking into at the moment is trying to bring them some business and acting as a venue finder. We support 300 fundraising events around the UK every year where we're in direct conversations with fundraisers for corporations and charities, who post-pandemic, want to shake things up a bit by looking for new venues. Being in a position of trust we find they are increasingly coming to us for guidance. So we want to join those dots a bit more, we currently help charities by providing them with vouchers for their fundraising event… why not also help them find the vouchers that will be used? That in turn means a great additional benefit to the hotels we work with by being able to bring them group bookings, black tie gala ball events, and even strategy away days.