Operation Smile UK PEST UK Donation for 2014

In Pests

Last year we decided to donate 1% of our profit (or £400.00, whichever was greater) to a Charity. We chose Operation SmileUK which helps fix cleft lips, cleft palates and other facial deformities for children (& adults) around the globe. Last year (December 2013) we gave Operation Smile UK a cheque for £400.00, this year PEST UK had a successful year (apart from the wasp season in July and August, although the wasp demand in the Autumn and early Winter was high) and the Operation Smile UK PEST UK Donation for 2014 was £732.24. We’ve just posted the cheque.

We decided to choose a charity to donate to that had a broad appeal to our customers, was not religious and didn’t offend anyone. Another reason is that as a company and as an individual you are constantly bombarded with requests to support different causes and for us the most worrying aspect of these requests is 1. Are they genuine. There is a lot of fraud and crime in charity appeals and 2. Is all the money going to the charity or is a percentage of it going to the salesperson or telesales person/company.

We are not denying that as a company we may benefit as some (not all) people will choose a company that does give to charity rather than a company that does not. This probably doesn’t make too much of a difference.

Operation Smile UK also was a charity that didn’t mind it’s logo being used by a ‘small’ company. Save The Children, Oxfam, Barnardos, UNICEF, Cancer Research UK would not allow their logo to be used (we use the Smile Uk logo on our website). One charity demanded we donate a minimum of £50 000.00 and another said ‘Boots would not like it if other companies used our logo’. I do feel that most of these ‘major; charities have got this wrong and they would make much more money and shame larger companies like Boots to donate a higher percentage of their profits to charity if they had the competition and donations from the many thousands of small companies in the UK.

Apart from the fact that Operation Smile were happy to receive our donations, they do some fantastic work around the world restoring confidence and giving children a second chance . Read more about their work here