Octopus Giving is the charitable foundation of Octopus Group. We are Octopus’s way of giving back to the communities that we work in and supporting charities who make the world a better place. Our vision is to be a catalyst and enabler for increasing charitable impact and the main way we do this is through our charitable partnerships.
Following a phenomenal 3 years, our partnership with Thames21 has recently come to a close. We can’t thank the team at Thames21 enough for such a fantastic partnership! Thames21 has been brilliant to work with over these past 3 years. Together we aimed to build a true and equal partnership, and we have learnt so much from them, they have educated us, sparked our curiosity, pushed us to become a better corporate partner and helped in more ways than we could have imagined before the partnership.
Helping fight the climate emergency can often feel like too big a challenge for an individual, but we’ve found in this partnership that we can really feel as though we’re having a tangible impact. We have put our skills and knowledge together to achieve some incredible things including merging our connections and resources to successfully lobby the government resulting in the ban on the sale of plastic wet wipes that are a huge polluter in our rivers.
Alongside sharing our skills and resources with Thames21 our Octopus People have passionately got behind Thames21’s mission to clean up and restore London’s rivers; through volunteering their time, skills and knowledge. Across the 3 years together nearly every person at Octopus has rolled up their sleeves giving 5636 hours in volunteering for Thames21.
From volunteering to sharing of skills, the open collaboration between both organisations has resulted in creating a partnership that has driven growth and transformation on both sides. We asked Thames21’s CEO, Chris to look back on the partnership and share with us their experience:
“Our partnership with Octopus Group has been a phenomenal boost for Thames21. From the very beginning it was clear that both organisations shared a visionary approach to making impactful change. In just 3 years, Octopus Group’s support strengthened us in so many ways. We gained financial stability, operational resilience and are delivering better outcomes for rivers, communities and our team. This couldn’t have been done without the passion and dedication of all the volunteers from Octopus Group and the incredibly generous unrestricted funding. This partnership has been a true collaboration, enhancing climate and community resilience across London and the Thames Basin. We are immensely grateful and wish Octopus Group every success with their new charity partners.”
Thames21 is a charity and a cause that our people have truly taken to their heart, so on behalf of everyone at Octopus we want to say a heartfelt thank you and we are incredibly grateful for the opportunity to partner with Thames21.
