When Janus Capital Group and Henderson Global Investors merged to become Janus Henderson Investors, they were left with a lot of branded merchandise that they could no longer use for their business activities. In a storage unit near London’s Heathrow Airport, there were over 12,000 items including pens, notebooks, teddy bears, carrier bags of all shapes and sizes, pop sockets, shoe bags, rucksacks, mouse mats, mini speakers, travel adapters, Post-It notes, chargers, pencils, wine stoppers, balls, mugs, umbrellas, and tiny toy taxis! Despite the items being branded, Janus Henderson didn’t want to see these very practical items go to waste, so they worked with us at Event Cycle to send them to 13 different charities, community groups, and social enterprises. Charities that received donations included:
1st Chertsey Scout Group and 1st South Battersea Brownies, who both help develop young people in their respective communities The Bassuah Legacy Foundation, which supports single parents and their dependents
Caxton House Community Centre, a large multi-purpose community centre in North London with services and activities for all ages
Driven Forward supports individuals who are socially excluded, isolated, lonely or vulnerable.
Islington Boat Club, an organisation that offers a range of water-based activities and courses
The Rainbow Trust supports children who have life-limiting or life-threatening conditions, pairing each child and their family with a dedicated Family Support Worker to offer practical, emotional, medical or transportation support, and more
Feed'Em Music Group, which delivers music industry training to local communities shared their donations with the young communities they support. The shoe bags and rucksacks went to their football team SW Lions and the pens to Harris Academy's PRU students. This has been a blessing and massive help for them and their local community!
And Sweissy Union, which supports the Sierra Leone diaspora via a range of practical initiatives received some much needed items too. They had a very special way of delivering their thanks for the donation...
Barnet Bereavement Service was particularly thrilled with its donation after a year of limited resources and next to no funding. Here’s what they had to say about our donation:
“At Barnet Bereavement Service we are a very small local charity providing free bereavement counselling to those living in the London Borough of Barnet. We are so fortunate to have connected with Event Cycle who have always been kind, helpful and provided us with much needed supplies. There were 6 boxes full of pens, folders, post-its, mugs and more. These items are being used by our volunteers and will keep us going for a long, long time. That saves us money so that that money can be redirected back into our service to help more people. We are truly grateful.”
Another charity, 4Sight Vision Support, put the laptop bags and stationery to good use within their own office with any leftover items being used for fundraising activities, raffles, and fundraising. Rosetta Art took the unbranded tote bags and moleskin notepads to use during their art classes for young people.
But what about those teddy bears? Happily, LimbPower is re-housing them as support packages for families and to help run events such as the Teddy Bears Picnic, which is a chance for children with limb differences and children of adults with limb differences to interact with each other and have some fun. On top of this, they also took some teddy bags and shoe bags to be used for their LimbPower Junior Games event.
With these donations, Janus Henderson has touched the lives of a wide range of individuals and causes. From supporting those struggling with grief to offering music industry training and community art classes, the donations helped to create a ripple effect of positive change, all of which wouldn’t have happened if the items had gone to waste.