Corporates - Getting Involved

Free to Be Kids is an ambitious and fast growing charity. Established in 2016 by just a handful of volunteers, it has grown to help approaching 1000 vulnerable children, creating vital stability for many throughout their childhood. But so many more children need our help.  

We're calling on London's businesses to sponsor our work with the city's most disadvantaged children and hope that our summer celebration provides a catalyst for you to get involved and help.

Sponsor the event   

Could your company sponsor our Summer Fundraiser? Sign up to one of our standard sponsorship packages or contact us directly to discuss other amounts or ways you can help.

Email the team at [email protected].

What we could do with your support

In 2024 the cost of our vital work will be approximately £625,000. If we are to double the number of places and offer more services to those that most need them, our annual costs will rise to over £850,000 per year. We generate almost all of our income from grants and donations with minimal government funding.    

Residential project places

£2,500 - covers the cost of five places on our therapeutic residentials

£5,000 - pays for ten places          

£7,500 - pays for 15 places

£10,000 - pays for 20 places on our therapeutic residentials

 

Activities

£1,000 -  Covers the full cost of home cooked, nutritious meals for a 5-day residential for 20 of our most vulnerable children

£1,000 - Pays for a full year of mentoring for a particularly isolated child.             

£2,500 – Keeps our minibus on the road for a year - supporting 200 children each year to get to and from their residentials with us. All would have no other way of leaving London.

£2,500 - Supports one of our 14-15 year olds to return as a Young Leader and provide role modelling on our projects for younger children. This covers the full costs of their training, support and project expenses from age 15 to 18, when they'll make the transition to become an adult volunteer.

£5,000 - Pays for every single one of our children to try horse-riding this year.

£25,000 – Covers the cost of our entire Easter respite holiday programme. 

 

Staff

£10,000 - Funds the recruitment and training costs of the approximately 150 new volunteers we need to induct to join our volunteer team each year in order to run our projects.

£15,000 - Would allow our youth worker to provide targetted 1:1 support for 8 particularly high risk young people for a year.

£25,000 - Covers 6 months of salary, training and employment costs for a dedicated staff member, meaning they can work with social workers, teachers and mental health workers to identify the children in London most in need of our support.                                                                                                                  

Equipment  

£2,500 – Would buy a full set of new tents, allowing all of our children to experience a night camping out under the stars this summer.

£5,000 – Would help us to kit out the kitchen in our new project site with the appliances our volunteers need to cook delicious meals for all of the children who come to stay with us.  

£30,000 - Would allow us to puchase a second minibus, to transport our children to and from their activities. 

To find out more, see our Impact Report

                  

Pro Bono Work

Please get in touch if you have professional skills that you could use to support our work.  At the moment, we're particularly looking for help with:

  • Graphic design
  • Photography
  • Fundraising
  • IT support

Email the team at [email protected]

Gifts in Kind

Could you help to make our funds go further by donating the equipment or services that we regularly need on our projects?

Outdoor clothing for children and young people: Many come to our projects without sufficient clothing to take part in our activities. Could you donate bulk supplies of any of the following to help ensure we always have enough? Water shoes, waterproof jackets and overtrousers, swimming kit (swimming costumes/trunks, goggles and swim caps) and head torches.

Fresh food for residential projects

Travel: Fuel & minibus maintenance/servicing 

Auction Prizes for our Summer Fundraiser: Items that have recieved the highest bids in previous years have included:

  • Health & beauty treatments
  • Weekend breaks
  • Signed memorabilia
  • Event tickets
  • Restaurant meals

We'd love to hear from you via [email protected] if you think you can help.

Other ways you can support

If you are looking for meaningful ways to encourage team bonding amongst your staff, why not consider taking on a sponsored event or corporate volunteering day with us. Our team can run hands on  volunteering sessions focused on creating art work and fresh meals for our projects or helping us to develop our new project site. If time is limited, we are also able  to arrange for one of our team to deliver a lunch and learn session with your staff about the work that we do. Contact the team via [email protected].

Contact us to find out more