Virgin
Unite

Website
Virgin
Unite
Virgin
Unite is the working name of The Virgin Foundation,
the independent charitable arm of the Virgin Group.
Created by Richard Branson and Virgin employees in
September 2004, Virgin Unite pools volunteering efforts
from across the Virgin Group and its hundreds of subsidiaries
and associated companies to grow the efforts of smaller
grassroots charitable organizations. Partnered with
more than a dozen charities worldwide the company
also provides a resource through the Internet by serving
as an online donation centre for those wanting to
contribute.
The
primary aims of the foundation are to make sustainable
change through economic development towards tough
social and environmental issues. These include addressing
the issue of delivering healthcare to rural parts
of Africa. Branson and Virgin
underwrite all the operating costs of the organization,
so 100% of contributions can be applied towards causes.
History
Parent
charitable organizations - 1987
AIDS was first recognized on June 5, 1981. In 1986,
it was reported that three to five million Americans
would be HIV positive and one million would be dead
of AIDS by 1996. In response to such reports, Virgin
incorporated a charitable group called The Healthcare
Foundation on August 3, 1987 to provide research in
and education about AIDS. In July 1988, the foundation's
charitable objectives expanded to include the relief
of poverty and the relief of disabled persons from
their disabilities.
Virgin
Unite - 2004
In 2003, the foundation sought to determine what others
thought it should focus on. After spending six months
speaking with social issues groups, Virgin Group suppliers
and partners, and numerous Virgin staff members in
South Africa, Australia, the United States and the
United Kingdom, the organization concluded that many
people and companies were deterred from participating
in philanthropic activities by the complexities of
the charity sector. The foundation sought then to
use the Virgin Group's corporate and organizational
experience to identify the best practices in this
sector and to facilitate the entry of new participants.
Between
1987 and 2004, Virgin Unite operated first as The
Healthcare Foundation and then the The Virgin Healthcare
Foundation. In mid-September 2004, Virgin established
the subsidiary The Virgin Foundation doing business
as Virgin Unite in the United Kingdom to coordinate
all Virgin's worldwide charitable ventures. Citing
the spread of HIV in Africa and the twin problems
of malaria and malnutrition as the first priority
issues, Branson explained his reasoning behind Virgin
Unite:
I've
reached the age [54] where I've made a lot of money,
the companies are going really well and we've got
a lot of talented people working for us. Now we are
going to turn our business skills into tackling issues
around the world where we can help. ... In the next
30 years or so I can make an enormous difference to
a lot of people's lives just by using the strength
of my own brand name and being able to pick up the
phone and get through to the President of Nigeria
or Thabo Mbeki. We have the financial resources and
the business know-how. If the Virgin foundation works
as I hope it will, it could be that Virgin becomes
better known for that than for the businesses we are
in.
Branding
Virgin Unite has created a branding scheme based around
the idea of redemption to encourage Virgin company
employees to donate their time, rather than their
money, to one of twelve partner charities. The launch
scheme included the strapline 'Spend time with your
better side', a brochure, posters and promotional
items that juxtapose the seven deadly sins with seven
good deeds: lust is contrasted with love, for instance,
and gluttony with generosity. According to Virgin
Unite, this approach was largely driven by the principles
of having fun and celebrating the reality of how people
live their lives, while encouraging them to donate
time.
Your
Finest Hour
Also in 2004, Virgin Unite helped launch "Your
Finest Hour," a campaign that distributed more
than one million copies of educational materials across
the United Kingdom. The campaign also raised more
than GB£50,000 for South Africa's "Women
on the Move Project," a project that unites three
South African charities and targets vulnerable young
women between ages 15 and 24, who comprise four of
every five new HIV infections among South Africans
in this demographic. For these actions, Virgin Unite
received the Business Excellence Leadership award
from the Global Business Coalition on HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis
and Malaria (GBC) in September 2005.
Outside
the UK
In 2006, Virgin Unite established itself in the United
States and Canada and presently is operational in
the South Africa and Australia. In addition, Virgin
Unite was cited in 2006 as an example of organizations
founded by philanthropic entrepreneurs, young billionaires
putting the benefits of capitalism to charitable use.
Activities
The foundation is involved in several activities,
including to end obstetric fistula. It has also been
involved in youth AIDS awareness campaign, and helped
organize a clothing drive for homeless and at-risk
youth at Virgin Megastores in cooperation with the
charity StandUp for Kids. A main activity of Virgin
Unite is to raise money and awareness to help defeat
on a global scale what the foundation refers to as
The Big 3: AIDS, HIV, and malaria/tuberculosis. In
the United States, Virgin Unite is focusing on global
warming and rehabilitating homeless children. (Credit:
Wikipedia).
Profiles
Virgin
Sir
Richard Branson
Natalie
Imbruglia
Virgin
Blue Hanger Ball
The
Elders
Social
and Community Entrepreneurs
Charity

Richard
Branson and Greg
Tingle (Mediaman director) - Virgin
Blue Hanger Ball 2008 - Red Jet Foundation and
Virgin Unite
Articles
Call
him the $2-million man, by Tenille Bonoguore - 16th
Feb 2008
(Credit:
Globe and Mail)
South
end of Bay Street. Late Wednesday afternoon. Sir Richard
Branson has just leaped from his chair, dropped to
the floor and is groping around under the long, long
boardroom desk.
The
dozen or so people in the room look to each other,
confused giggles escaping through frozen smiles. A
couple of heads awkwardly bend down, trying to see
what's going on.
With
a flash of burnished hair and a manic grin, Mr. Branson
suddenly reappears. He holds aloft the foot of Toronto
businessman Eric Sprott and starts polishing the shoe
with his coat sleeve.
The
room erupts with laughter as Mr. Branson, looking
less rock star than sun-weathered African adventurer,
gives exuberant thanks for the $2-million donation
the Sprott Foundation has just given to Virgin Unite
Canada. "That is really unbelievably generous,"
he says.
The
donation matches the amount raised in November when
Virgin Unite Canada had its grand, star-studded launch
in Toronto.
Virgin
Unite is the non-profit "entrepreneurial foundation"
of the Virgin Group. Its overheads are paid by Mr.
Branson and all donations funnelled directly to projects.
The charity works with partners around the world on
social and environmental issues. Its most heavily
publicized project of late is Heaven's Angels, which
sends health-care workers on motorbikes into remote
sub-Saharan areas to deliver essential services.
Virgin
Unite managing director Jean Oelwang says partner
projects in Toronto dealing with youth and the environment
are also being investigated, something Mr. Branson
says helps maintain a philanthropic balance.
"There
are places overseas that desperately need help, there
are Canadians that also need help. It's a balance
thing [between] charity at home and also charity overseas,"
he says. "Of course, we're very happy helping
them spend their money."
The
donation also earned Juliana Sprott, Mr. Sprott's
daughter and the manager of the family's foundation,
an impromptu invitation to Mr. Branson's game reserve,
Ulusaba, while she is in
Africa later this year to see Virgin Unite's work
on the ground. (Lodge rooms at Ulusaba start at $550
per person per night.)
"We
just built a little hospital just outside the game
reserve, so you don't have to feel guilty," Mr.
Branson grinned to her in an aside. "You can
go and visit the hospital as well."
This
is the fourth-largest donation made by the Sprott
Foundation, which is also a substantial supporter
of Carleton University, the Canadian Hunger Foundation
and stem-cell research.
Mr.
Sprott - whose stunning private art collection fills
the Bay Street office and includes Inuit sculptures,
works by the Group of Seven, Jean-Paul Riopelle and
even van Gogh - said it was important that philanthropy
had both front men like Mr. Branson and donors like
himself.
"In
this day and age, there's lots of people who've made
a fair amount of money," Mr. Sprott said. "It's
a matter of convincing those people they can make
a difference today, instead of when someone is reading
their will."
Branson's
nonprofit Virgin Unite aims high
Charitable arm of Virgin companies flexes its muscle
around the world -
19th March 2008
(Credit:
NBC News)
Each
month, Cause Celeb highlights a celebrity’s
work on behalf of a specific cause. This month, we
profile British entrepreneur and adventurer Sir Richard
Branson and his involvement with Virgin Unite, the
charitable arm of his Virgin companies.
Question:
What makes Virgin Unite unique among other not-for-profits?
Branson:
It’s not necessarily unique, but what we try
to do is use our entrepreneurial skills to look at
social problems in the world and see whether we can
set about attacking the problems, perhaps slightly
differently than they’ve been tackled in the
past. So for instance, in Africa we’ve seen
lots of different organizations doing lots of good
works, but there’s no coordination. So we’re
using our entrepreneurial skills to set up a War Room
which can coordinate all these efforts and look for
best practices and try to alert people to new diseases
and alert people to the best ways of tackling the
problems that are out there at the moment. …
We’ve also used our entrepreneurial skills to
set up an organization called The Elders, headed up
by Nelson Mandela. He’s appointed 12 global
Elders who can look at conflicts and see whether there’s
a better way of addressing them and use their moral
authority to either try to prevent conflicts or stop
conflicts. … And rather than just maybe handing
out big checks we’re setting up things like
the Branson School of Entrepreneurship in Jo-berg
(Johannesburg) to try to teach young people from the
townships how to become entrepreneurs and how they
can build their own companies. And we’re investing
we’re investing in Africa quite a lot of the
profits from our other companies to try and create
jobs … that can help get the continent back
on its feet.
Q:
What is your role with the organization?
A:
Well Jean Oelwang runs the organization magnificently
and I dive in there for tea (laughs). … I make
speeches around the world and 100 percent of any money
I make from my speeches goes to Virgin Unite. I fundraise
and obviously work quite hard on Virgin companies
to make more money so we can put more money into Virgin
Unite. I take entrepreneurs to Africa to show them
first hand of what’s going on there and then
with new organizations that we’ve set up, like
The Elders or the War Room, I’ll treat it like
setting up a company, finding the best people to run
them and then leaving them to get on and do the job.
Q:
Is there a particular experience you’ve had
while working with the organization that has been
memorable above the rest or had a significant impact
on you?
A:
Well there was a waiter named Donald who worked for
a game lodge we have in Africa and, unbeknown to myself,
he had AIDS and he ended up I’m afraid dying
of AIDS. He was 24 or 25 years old and he was a poet
and he left some words which were very moving. He
talked about AIDS not being a disease but a war. ..
As a result I decided that nobody who ever worked
at a Virgin company should die of AIDS…. So
we set something up called the Naught-Percent Challenge
and that was the naught percent of people that worked
for Virgin companies would contract HIV, naught percent
would ever get AIDS and naught percent of mothers
who had HIV would pass on their HIV to their children.
And then we set out to educate the 55,000 people that
work for Virgin to make sure that we don’t have
any more Donalds at Virgin, and we haven’t,
to my knowledge, lost anybody since Donald died and
we don’t plan to. We plan to use that as an
example to other companies to try to do the same.
Q:
Why should people support Virgin Unite?
A:
Virgin Unite is involved in a whole lot of different
areas. For instance, we have a program called Fistula,
where we’re trying to (assist) the million young
girls in Africa who often were forced to become pregnant
at a horribly young age -- 9,10,11,12,13 years old
– and then had a child and had their insides
ripped to pieces and became incontinent. They’re
often rejected by their family, living on the streets
and they stink to high heavens. For $200 we can give
them a small operation which means they can be back
in society again and live a normal life. Natalie Imbruglia,
who’s one of our Virgin Unite ambassadors, she’s
trying to make sure any anyone with fistula is sorted
out. We also have teams of people on motor bikes going
out into the depths of Africa and trying to make sure
that they cover the last mile and get medicine out
to places where they don’t normally get medicine
and medical help. But also back home in places like
America, … there’s a big homeless problem
amongst young people, so we’re trying to work
hard to try to get people off the streets. One of
our ambassadors is Jewel, the singer, who was once
homeless on the streets of America for a year. She
does a lot of work in that area.
Q:
What did winning the U.N. Correspondents Association’s
Citizen of the Year award mean to you and how does
that connect with your work with Virgin Unite?
A:
There’s always a figurehead in any organization
and I’m the figurehead for Virgin Unite and
for the Virgin companies. We’ve got fantastic
people out there working really hard and trying to
make a difference in the world, whether it’s
the environment or in Africa and I suppose this award
symbolizes all the work that they’ve been doing.
I think they can all feel extremely proud of what
they’ve managed to achieve in the last year,
particularly I think with setting up The Elders as
a global organization to try to prevent conflict.
Q:
What does the future hold for Sir Richard Branson
and Virgin Unite? What do you hope to accomplish?
A:
Well look, we’d love to see a where people do
not die of unnecessary causes and we’ll work
hard towards trying to make peoples lives a little
bit more bearable.
Interviewed
by Giacinta Pace, NBC News
Mediaman
does not represent Virgin Unite, however is a member
of Virgin Unite, and has assisted in collaboration
with ROC Presents
Mediaman
had the privilege and pleasure of meeting and speaking
with Richard Branson and Brett Godfrey at the 2008
Virgin Blue Hanger Ball. Richard Branson's Red Jet
Foundation, related to Virgin Unite, helped raise
approximately 1 million dollars.
Profiles
Virgin
Sir
Richard Branson
The
Elders
Social
and Community Entrepreneurs
Charity
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