A little bit of free work can take you a long way – we’ve learnt a lot from working with small businesses and charities (primarily because their challenges are very different to the norm). So we were more than interested to read about National Pro-bono Week.
Sponsored by the Law Society, Bar Council and Institute of Legal Executives and now in its seventh year, National Pro Bono Week celebrates the ever growing scale and impact of pro bono work by lawyers, law students and other professionals and provides opportunities for even more people to get involved.
Since we don’t really know our way around a courtroom, it would be foolish (to say the least) of us to offer free legal advice, but in the best way we know how, we’ve also been doing our bit.
Last Christmas we volunteered our brand expertise, time and money to help Julian House, a Bath based charity aimed at sheltering and rebuilding the lives of the homeless. Over the year we have continued to help Julian House with their communications to help them raise the public profile of the fantastic work they do.
The Julian House team works day and night to provide opportunity for men and women who want a future but can’t see one. Providing shelter is just a small part of what they do, but it is often the first step towards finding and building solutions to some very complex situations.
One of their newest projects is the Julian House gardening group, who tend an allotment space in central Bath, growing plants and vegetables. Perhaps a surprisingly ordinary task that many of us might take for granted, but which is a world away from life on the street.
To help Julian House to fund this project and others like it and ‘Cut Out Homelessness’, we produced a leaflet for them, pro bono of course. At a time of year when you’re using your scissors to wrap presents, put them to better use by cutting out the reply slip and returning it with a donation to Julian House. 35,000 of these leaflets will be sent out to local homes and businesses over the next few weeks. See the leaflet here.
This Christmas, to continue our support and demonstrate our commitment to such a great organisation, the money that would have been spent on Christmas gifts for all our clients, will go towards tools, bulbs and seeds for the Julian House gardening and allotment project.
We’ll leave you with the words of one of Julian House’s clients, words which sum up exactly why organisations like Julian House are so important, why we’re proud to have helped, and why National Pro Bono week should be a year-long event in any industry.
“Getting involved with the gardening group at Julian House gave my life some purpose and restored my self esteem. That’s quite a feeling after being at rock bottom. Now I’m self employed and life’s really looking good again.”
To find out more about Julian House, visit www.julianhouse.org.uk
