It is with great pleasure that we announce the Pennies from Heaven 2020 Award winners with a record 44 winners. Once again Pennies from Heaven proves itself to be a credible fundraising tool with 1 in 4 of our Award winners achieving take up rates over 40% and average participation has increased to 21%. Now in its eighth year the Pennies from Heaven Awards provide a perfect opportunity to propel your charitable fundraising into the spotlight and showcase the great contributions your employees have made. Even though individuals have only donated small amounts, collectively teams have made big differences to the charities that are important to them. Winning an Award allows you to thank your staff and pensioners and make everyone feel good about being part of the Pennies from Heaven scheme.

Trading up Awards
Many employers have upgraded their place on the podium proving that winning an Award does encourage more people to join in. One Savings Bank has traded its previous Gold Award for a Platinum Award, University of Essex has gone from a Silver to a Gold and East Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust will be replacing its Bronze Award with a Silver one. Over the next few month’s we will be sharing some best practice from these employers and other winners.

“Aldi UK is delighted to receive a Gold Award from Pennies from Heaven recognising the generous donations Aldi colleagues make to our charity partner, Teenage Cancer Trust. Since the scheme launched in June 2018, staff have donated over £93,000, proving pennies really do add up. We hope the scheme continues to grow in popularity and would recommend Pennies from Heaven to any organisation looking for a simple charitable giving scheme.”
Fritz Walleczek, Managing Director of Corporate Responsibility. Aldi UK

“We’re delighted to receive this additional award from Pennies from Heaven in recognition for our commitment to ‘giving something back’. We were able to raise over £2.5K for the Company’s nominated charity My Shining Star in 2019 and took our initial 20% sign-up to 40%.” Chris Pegler, Head of HR Operations. One Savings Bank

“LV= General Insurance is proud to run this scheme. It’s a huge success with charities selected by our employees benefiting from the pennies donations from payslips. The scheme is easy to run and for those who are always meaning to donate to charity, it provides an easy route to do this!” Clare Jackson. LV=

First Awards
Recent new joiners to the Pennies from Heaven scheme have also won Awards seeing high numbers of staff joining Pennies from Heaven following launch. Childs Farm have won a Platinum Award, Penningtons Manches Cooper LLP a Gold Award, TEC partnership a Bronze Award and NHS Resolution a Silver Award.

“I met Pennies From Heaven at a national conference and immediately saw the fundraising potential for our nominated charity of the year. Personally being able to regularly donate the odd pence from my monthly salary is easy to set up and I benefit from knowing I’m contributing to a good cause. It’s the gift that keeps giving for the benefit of both sides.” Lorraine Hutchings. Membership and Stakeholder Engagement Manager. NHS Resolution

NHS Winners
In addition to NHS Resolution, other NHS Trusts have earned Awards and we are delighted to see more Awards than ever going to the NHS Organisations. Liverpool Women’s Hospital earned a Platinum Award, Surrey and Borders Partnership NHS Trust and Shrewsbury & Telford Hospitals NHS have a Gold Award, East Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust and Dorset HealthCare University NHS Foundation Trust won a Silver Award and along with Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust, Norfolk & Norwich University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and NHS Blood and Transplant all won Bronze Awards.

“Even to me as an apprentice £1 or less makes little to no difference to my earnings so knowing that it can help other people makes me really proud to be a part of this scheme. The sign up process was very easy, the only thing I had to do is sign a form when I was first employed and that’s it. Very easy and quick but also very rewarding when you consider the bigger picture.” Wiktoria Wolff, Apprentice. One Savings Bank.

Chairman’s Award
Last year Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust received their first Bronze Award and since then the number of staff able to access Pennies from Heaven has almost doubled. The continued communications efforts by the Trust charity team has kept the participation rate at the same level which is not an easy task given that staff numbers are now 20,000. The Trust has also worked with Pennies from Heaven to develop a for BAC’s form sign up that has been used across many Pennies from Heaven employers, increasing charitable donations. For all these reasons Pennies from Heaven is Awarding Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust with a Chairman’s Award to say Thank you and well done for going the extra mile with Pennies from Heaven.

“I’m absolutely delighted that we have won a Gold award, to go along with the Bronze and two Silvers we have won since we launched in 2016. It’s been an incredible four years; when we launched with 30 donors in the first month I didn’t believe for a second we would average 30 new donors every month since! Now we have over 1,000 staff donating their pennies, which has so far raised £13,000 towards student bursaries. These bursaries in particular are aimed at first year students joining us from local colleges, and are an important part of helping them to settle in. It’s great to see the impact of the scheme, and these bursaries have on our fundraising at Essex.” Wendy Juby. University of Essex

Congratulations to all our 2020 winners who all have high levels of staff/pensioners participating in the scheme and show great commitment to CSR engagement. Pennies from Heaven is accessible and affordable to everyone and that’s why we keep our Award standards at the highest level to be accredited in the fundraising sector. With some of our members exceeding 60% participation we may have to consider raising the bar again next year!

A full list of the 2020 Award Winners is listed below.

2020 Platinum Award Winners (in alphabetical order)
• B Braun Medical Group
• Bank of England (staff)
• Childs Farm Limited
• Gattaca PLC
• HSS Hire Group
• Lifetime Training Group
• Liverpool Victoria Friendly Society Limited
• Liverpool Victoria General Insurance Limited
• Liverpool Women’s NHS Foundation Trust
• Motor Insurers’ Bureau
• One Savings Bank PLC

2020 Gold Award Winners (in alphabetical order)
• ALDI UK
• Barclays Bank PLC
• Capital One Bank (Europe) plc
• Mpac Group plc
• Penningtons Manches Cooper LLP
• Royal Mencap Society
• Shoosmiths LLP
• Shorefield Holidays
• Shrewsbury & Telford Hospitals NHS Trust
• Surrey and Borders Partnership NHS Foundation Trust
• The Phoenix Group
• University of Essex

2020 Silver Award Winners (in alphabetical order)
• Ageas UK
• Dorset HealthCare University NHS Foundation Trust
• East Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust
• Financial Ombudsman Service
• National Oilwell Varco
• NHS Resolution
• The Royal College of Nursing
• West Bromwich Building Society

2020 Bronze Award Winners (in alphabetical order)
• Amcor Flexibles UK Limited
• Bank of England
• Cardiff Metropolitan University
• Clifford Chance LLP
• HSBC UK
• Huntingdonshire District Council
• Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust Charity
• National Grid
• NFU Mutual
• NHS Blood and Transplant
• Norfolk & Norwich University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
• Sheffield City Council
• TEC Partnership

2020 Chairman’s Award
• Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust Charity

Platinum Awards are given to employers with more than 40% of staff/pensioners in the scheme, Gold to those with over 20%, Silver to those with over 15% and Bronze to those with more than 10%. Participation calculated using three-month average of last three donations paid to charities in 2018. If less than three payments received than average calculated from those. It is assumed a 50p average donation per month per employee. Entry into Awards only where employers provided Pennies from Heaven with up to date staff numbers.