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Charities
The most favoured form of local shop community engagement (78%) is collecting money for charities in store through
collections at tills or campaigns in stores. Many retailers that choose to collect a levy voluntarily for the the carrier bag charge are giving the money to local charities.
You can find details of the local charities in your areas on the Local Giving website.
Schools
Local schools are an important partner for local shops and in the community. Whilst there are opportunities to engage with schools and sponsor events, a more in-depth and long term relationship is needed to deal with a range of issues. There may be issues about student’s safety and access to the store or you can support student to make healthy food choices in store. Many retailers also choose to sponsor school events or provide refreshments.
You can find the details of schools in your local area via the Gov.uk “Find a school” search tool with contact details for senior teachers.
Sports Teams
Sponsoring local sports teams is a great way to get publicity for your business and promote physical activity in the
community.
Local sports teams will have websites and will have a range of sponsorship opportunities available.
Local Media
Local communities are often defined by their local media in both old and new forms. Newspapers run local campaigns to save local services and community and social media groups are increasingly prominent in keeping local communities in contact.
Hyper local websites and local social media groups are a good way to keep up to date with your community and learn more about what they think about your role in the community.
Community Events
Supporting community events with sponsorship or provision of food is a positive way to enable community cohesions and 30% of local shops do this regularly. Local community events like village fetes, bank holiday weekend events or annual
calendar events like Guy Fawkes Night or Valentine’s Day. These events are driven locally and likely to be organised by local community groups or the local council.
