It may seem like summer is over already, but there will be plenty of sunny days ahead and it’s a good idea to think about workplace fundraising in the summer for three reasons:
1.    Staff who get the chance to take a break from work are generally more motivated on their return
2.    Investing in your local area and its community activities can bring increased awareness of your firm and ‘brand loyalty’ from local people
3.    The public relations that results from community work is positive and lasts longer than advertising for the same spend.

So why not try some of these?

Car Wash

It’s a classic American fundraiser and you can make it even more fun by having the company Chief Executive dress up in a silly costume (but it’s best not to pick a sexist girly outfit as that can backfire on you) and/or other sidelines such as apron-wearing volunteers cooking barbecue or offering soft drinks and home-made cakes for those queuing to have their cars washed. You get three chances to fundraise this way: once for the car wash, once for those who sponsored the CE to dress up and once on the sale of refreshments.

Travel-a-thon

These are catching on in city centres across the world. On a given day, everybody who takes part is sponsored to travel to work in a whacky, non-car-using fashion. Skateboards, inline skates, kayaks and skipping have all been used in the USA, and this can serve a second purpose of giving your less exhibitionistic employees a chance to try out public transport while still raising money for a good cause. Invest in printed T-shirts for participants so everybody knows they are raising money for their chosen charity and ensure they have good safety clothing such as gloves and knee-pads if they are using an extreme travel option.

Community Clean-up

This can be the simplest and most effective of all. Pick a local park or other public area, clear your activity with the council and the police and get gathering litter! People can be sponsored by the square metre cleared or the bin-bags filled. It raises money and improves the local area and if you wear printed T-shirts or overalls, gets you fantastic local publicity. Once again, ensure your teams are properly clothed and have good gloves and eye protectors.

In the USA, we’re constantly told, they are facing a workplace epidemic of obesity costing $168 billion every year – which is 17% of all medical bills in the States.

Dealing with this isn’t easy, especially for employers, and in the UK, large companies are looking to their US counterparts to see how they can best manage the issues surrounding workplace obesity and welfare.

It seems that Americans may be recognising that they need to lose weight and that many are focusing on ways to get slimmer and fitter at work. According to a survey of nearly 6000 workers, 18% claimed they had lost weight at work in 2011 compared to 16% in 2010. But 43% admitted that they had gained weight in their current job.

Reasons for this increase include comfort eating as a result of the increased stress of a recession; longer work hours leading to more time spent seated at work and a tendency to buy the cheaper (and therefore less healthy) options in work canteens and from fast foot restaurants.

28% of American employers say they provide gym classes or gym membership as an employment benefit and around half of those say that they provide places for people to change into sportswear or casual clothing so they can take part in classes or even go for a jog in their lunch break.

But around half of the companies also say that they are concerned about the additional costs of larger workers, ranging from extra time off sick through to having specially made clothing for those who exceed even the XXXL size in which many items of workplace clothing are now made.

There are some concerns in the USA about the role of uniform clothing in spreading disease in hospitals. The item of concern is scrubs, the overall style clothing worn by nurses and support workers in healthcare and the fear is that without proper guidelines, staff may spread dangerous bacteria like Clostridium difficile and MRSA.
The problem may arise when people wear their uniforms outside of hospital settings – such as on their way to and from work. This would permit outside infections to travel into a hospital setting on the clothing but also give these transmittable conditions the chance to leave the hospital and contaminate the outside world.

Many institutions insist that people do not travel to work in their uniform clothing and leave it behind when they depart so it can be specially laundered to destroy any bacteria, but some do not and this is what is worrying health specialists.

Prince William had a different concern when choosing the uniform to wear to his wedding: he didn’t want to be suffering from heat-stroke! The tailor who made his uniform says that William ‘knew all the cameras and lights would make it very hot in the Abbey’ and they worked together to ‘get the look he wanted while using material to absorb the heat and make sure he didn’t pass out in front of two billion people across the world.’

In designing the outfits, which were hand-made, a special pocket was included to hold the ring so that Prince Harry couldn’t lose it!

Maurice Harary, a 23 year-old New Yorker spent last Sunday night building a website on which he was ready to sell T-shirts commemorating the death of Osama bin Laden by 4am, New York time, on the Monday morning. In 48 hours he made more than £60,000 in sales. That was more than 10,000 teeshirts selling for around £6 each and featuring slogans such as ‘Obama killed Osama’ and ‘Osama’s back – not!’ Zazzle too has had thousands of orders for merchandise related to Osama Bin Laden’s death. A spokesman for Zazzle said that American feelings had been ‘… boiling up for 10 years and this is the moment where people can finally express this sentiment.’

But while Osama bin Laden T-shirts are popular, they are not universally so. Many religious and cultural leaders across the USA have suggested that the T-shirts may inflame racial hatred and cause reprisal attacks.

In the UK, campaigning Labour leader Ed Miliband walked into a controversy when he was photographed with a Nottingham Labour candidate sporting a T-shirt claiming ‘A generation of trade unionists will dance on Thatcher’s grave’.

The matter was raised in the House of Commons where it was described as being extraordinary and ‘in appallingly bad taste’. However Mr Milliband has said he didn’t read the T-shirt and deplored the message it contained and his apology for any offense has been accepted.

At present the internet is full of articles about reducing workplace stress by ‘adding fun’ but very few of these articles seem to think about multicultural workplaces or the risks of some approaches to fun.

The first thing on most of these ‘add fun’ lists is – Dress in a funny way – allow your staff to have a day where they dress weirdly with a prize for the funniest costume!

Nice idea, but it may offend people whose cultures do not include showing lots of flesh, or whose belief system is based around respect for elders and authority figures. As a worst case scenario, it can lead to people believing their own culture or beliefs are being deliberately mocked by others.

Another popular suggestion is to - Have a regular function where staff get to know each other, perhaps at a Friday after-work barbecue, or over a few drinks!

Another nice idea except for those who don’t eat meat; have dietary preferences that require fasting, special foods or other observances; those who don’t drink; those whose beliefs require them to eat in isolation from other genders; vegens and vegetarians who find barbecues offensive; those who attend Friday prayers … the list is rather endless!

So how do you bring fun into the workplace?

1.    Begin by asking staff what they do for fun – when you have some idea how your employees view the world, you can shape your ‘fun’ to their needs and preferences instead of forcing them to meet the company’s idea of pleasure.
2.    Schedule different events for different people. A Friday barbecue is great, as long as you have a Wednesday salad supper another month.
3.    Don’t make it mandatory – some people aren’t in a position to take part in ‘fun’ and forcing them to do so could be classed as workplace bullying. Try to encourage, not demand, that people enjoy themselves.

According to the Guardian, these are unhappy times for the voluntary and community sector owing to the economic recession, swingeing funding cuts, and an ever-increasing demand for the sector’s services. As a result, both the workload of employees and their stress levels have exponentially increased.

Unite union says 90% of voluntary and community sector workers felt their well-being was being undermined as a result of the financial crisis and the situation is expected to get worse.

All companies need to invest in happy work-places, because that cuts absence from sickness, increases productivity and encourages team-building. But the difficult balancing act of saving money and while making investments in employee well-being is complex.

Not all changes need to be expensive – simple acts like ensuring staff can, and do, take their daily breaks and use their holiday entitlement can reduce sickness leave by up to 30%. Recognising early signs of stress and ensuring staff have been educated about mental health issues may save large companies a fortune in employment tribunals and severance packages from employees taking early retirement or leaving through ill health.

One of the best investments a company can make is encouraging people to take time away from their desks to be creative. A ten minute walk, or twenty minutes spent sketching, gardening or just playing cards, can be all it takes to reduce stress levels and some companies have started to designate ‘play’ or ‘chill’ areas where staff move to a different part of the building, pull on a soft-coloured sweatshirt or apron, to encourage mood change, and get involved in a playful activity during their lunch break. In the USA, the ‘green gym’ approach has extended to workplace vegetable growing where staff both grow and harvest their lunches at work.

Managing workplace stress may be a defining factor in which businesses survive the recession, and thinking about cost-effective ways to ensure mental wellbeing is an investment in future prosperity.

The Get It Out for Cardiff campaign has linked university students, the city council, charities and local businesses to locate, sort and re-purpose tonnes of unwanted items

The campaign began with a series of ‘green zones’ established across the city and at each of the city’s 21 university halls of residence as donation points.

Food, clothing, electrical items and bric-a-brac were donated meaning that a tonne of food was given to the charity FareShare for redistribution to homeless people and poorer families, three tonnes of clothing was donated to the Salvation Army.

On 29 September, as part of the Freshers’ festival, new and returning students will be able to buy some of the donated electrical items and kitchen equipment to kit out their digs, and the proceeds raised by this will be used to keep the campaign running through the academic year so that students learn how to recycle, repurpose and revamp items and to use up leftover food so they live better within their budgets. It’s all part of the larger Keep Cardiff Tidy campaign which aims to link local businesses, the students and other parts of society to help maintain Cardiff’s infrastructure while teaching good habits on environmental management.

Local businesses donated goods such as damaged equipment, wholesale clothing or uncollected dry cleaned garments as well as giving space and support to the campaign. The Managing Director of Cardiff Self Storage said that, ‘… Cardiff Self Storage was enthusiastic to contribute towards such a worthwhile cause. The benefits of helping the student population of Cardiff whilst also supporting local communities and charities was key to our involvement. It is great to see that our storage units have provided the flexible short-term storage solution for the items that have been successfully collected and recycled.’

Some of the donated clothing has been given away, while other items will be auctioned or redesigned by fashion students and sold to raise funds for charity.

In a new approach to cancer prevention, the major British charity Cancer Research is working with Bauer Media and the Asos clothing retailer in its SunSmart campaign.

This is an annual campaign run by the charity, that focuses on teaching young people (between the ages of 16 and 24) the risks of sun cancer and how to protect themselves while still having a good time in the sunny weather.

The fashion input is an online ‘tool’ that Asos have developed – it provides fashion and clothing advice to the user, based on their skin type, the current weather forecast and the event for which they want to choose an outfit. To encourage fashion aware young people to use the tool regularly, they are also being included in a weekly draw – the winner of which receives £100 of vouchers to spend in Asos.

The tool is also being promoted in magazines and on the radio.

Workplaces could use a similar technique to promote safe sun use in their employees –because clothing such as a baseball cap is a great way to protect skin from too much UV exposure. One technique might be a simple chart in the reception area or cafeteria or near the water cooler that shows the weather forecast for 48 hours ahead and lists sensible work clothing to deal with the weather conditions.

Buying clothing online is a great way to save money, particularly if you can buy in bulk, for a sports group or children’s club, but it can also be a little daunting at first. Here’s how to make the best decision and buy the best bargain:

Buying for yourself

•    Before you begin to browse, get a good friend to help you take your own measurements – you need to know your chest, waist, hips, arm length and inside leg (which is the length from your crotch to the hem of your trousers) in both inches and centimetres. If you’re a bit shy about your inside leg – find a pair of trousers that are exactly the right length and comfortable in the fit, and measure them!

•    When you’ve got your measurements, browse the various styles and sizes offered online, because different manufacturers offer different cuts and styles and working out which suits you best can ensure your clothing looks great.

•    When you’ve found an item that suits you, why not order several different colours at the same time to avoid paying extra postage? If you get free shipping when you spend a certain amount this can essentially mean getting ‘free’ clothing instead of paying for postage.

Buying in bulk

•    Ensure you purchase from sites that give loads of pictures, and detailed information about size, fit and colour. The more you know about the clothing, the better informed your choice will be.

•    It’s a good idea, when placing a bulk order, to contact the retailer by email or phone explaining what you require and what your current first choice from their offering would be. Sometimes the retailer can offer you a better deal or simply point you to a garment that you had overlooked or disregarded – because they deal with so many people, online retailers have a vast experience of wholesale clothing purchases, how they are used and what works best for the buyer.

•    Make sure you know how the return policy of the retailer works – if you’re buying for a group you’re taking responsibility for ensuring that if you need to send stuff back, you aren’t going to incur a fortune’s worth of costs.

•    Check the privacy policy and online purchasing policy – a good online shop will have a secure system to keep your credit card details and personal information safe, and will also give you the chance to opt in, or out, of marketing information sent by them or by others.

There are thousands of businesses that aren’t on the high street and can’t afford the kind of publicity that’s necessary if you’re to compete for the attention that the big name stores and services get.

However, if you think laterally, you can find ways to boost your company profile without having to invest in costly advertising. By offering services – or fun – that just aren’t available in the big stores or through stuffier service providers, your business can build itself a niche location in the hearts and pockets of consumers.

Focus on the fact that money is tight for everybody, whether it’s an individual who’s experiencing the credit crunch or a company with a squeezed budget. Offer a service to those customers that makes them feel really valued – give each person who spends over a certain amount a free foot massage. Just hire a Beauty Therapy student from the local college to give the massages and put them in a T-shirt advertising your store. For service businesses, this is a great way to reinforce your brand, as it offers a chance for your therapist to go to the workplace of your clients, wearing your branded clothing.

Alternatively, have an in-store service that allows kids to decorate a simple white T-shirt using fabric pens, while their parents shop. Charge a nominal amount for this or offer it free on a single weekend in the year. Again, hire somebody with suitable training in childcare to supervise the kiddies – this builds brand recognition too, at very little cost. Given the ‘pester power’ that children can indulge in, getting them to like your company may be one of the best investments you can make.