The commitment to spend a third of Loft25 Group profits on charitable initiatives - Why?
The Covid pandemic has been a testing time for all the world. Our society was put under strain with many people being forced to use food banks and countless others finding the economic foundations of society shaken like never before. It has been a time where we were all compelled to question what truly matters in life and often the answers were truly revealing.
At Loft 25 we were privileged to have been able to help in our own way with the NHS PPE Campaign run by our staff with the help of over 900 volunteers. We were able to stand up and be counted in the time of greatest need by providing PPE clothing to numerous Hospitals, Surgeries, Care Homes as well as Ambulance and Funeral Services all across the West Midlands and beyond.
The challenges faced were numerous with most businesses shut raw materials were hard to source and sewing machinists could not operate from factories due to lockdown restrictions. However, where there is a will truly there is a way and we worked together with our huge team of selfless volunteers to run one of the biggest campaigns of its kind in the country.
“Funding the campaign had seemed daunting at first but was not something we felt should hold us back from helping and in the end we were blessed with an increase in business which more than covered the expenses”
The experience brought all the Loft 25 team together with a sense of higher purpose and value behind our work. At the time we were a small team of 50 staff but shared the values of giving and living for others. By benefitting others life really takes on a new depth of meaning and as the PPE campaign drew to a close it was an opportunity for all the Loft 25 family to reflect and plan for the future.
“The campaign also taught us that we can have much more impact working together as a company rather than through individual charitable giving which is a major tenet of our faith anyway”
It was the resources, contacts and collective skills and knowledge at Loft 25 which powered the PPE campaign, enabling it to act fast and at scale throughout the height of the pandemic. Hence, we wanted to find a way to continue to act collectively and embed true purpose into everything we do and into the fabric of the company.
As our Managing Director: Zhagum Arshad reflects “We just could not see our lives ever being the same again and together wanted to continue to benefit others and not just accumulate wealth for the remainder of our lives”
Since our motto at Loft 25 Group is ‘creative innovation to maximise our limited time on earth’, which is reflected in our constant innovation of new products and brands that add value to people’s lives we wanted to add purpose to our work.
This led us to the decision to establish our very own registered charity the ‘Loft 25 Foundation’.
The Foundation embodies our ethos of constant innovation and maximising available resources to benefit as many people as possible in a sustainable way and is being funded by the Loft 25 Group through its commitment to donate a third of all profits.
The announcement injected new life and motivation into all our team here and the pace of progress just really took off from there.
As Loft 25 Group grows its operations with a new factory being built in Pakistan as well as a new distribution centre in the Netherlands the team continues to grow, with more and more like-minded individuals becoming a part of this mission.
The Foundation will be looking to fund projects around the world as well as right here at home and all of Loft 25 Group is determined to work hard together in order to keep on funding as many projects as possible.
We hope to work with diverse communities and projects always learning from each other along the way and to leave this world a better place than we found it.
Finally, we hope that other companies will be inspired to take a more humanitarian and ethical approach to business and see the world in a new light of responsibility and duty for a truly happy existence.