Yes, we’re that old already – Move On is turning 25 in September!
We’ve set a goal to celebrate. We’re trying to raise £25,000 to help us change lives for another 25 years!
We’ve got lots of ideas on how we’ll fundraise. Most importantly, we need your help!
We’re so grateful to you for supporting us – you really have made a difference. In order to help us make the absolute best of this occasion, we’d love to see you get involved. Celebrate 25 years with us, and help us smash this target!
We’re open to you getting in on the action in any way you can. We’ve got a few ideas to get you started…
First off, let’s refresh – who are Move On? What have we been doing for 25 years? And what are we asking you to help us keep on doing for the next 25?
25 Years Of Move On
Move On is a mentoring, employability and support charity, providing opportunities to transform lives. We work with vulnerable people of all ages, particularly young people aged 14-25. We help them take the next steps to lead an independent and fulfilling life.
The people we support are vulnerable, often as a result of many factors. These include poor mental health, substance misuse, care experience, homelessness, and debt. Many have experienced trauma, neglect and abuse. Lack of opportunity has often led to them achieving few qualifications and skills, experiencing low levels of confidence and motivation as a result. Our services offer people an equal chance to reach their full potential, and find their path.
We also run two social enterprises – Move On Wood Recycling (MOWR), and FareShare Glasgow & the West of Scotland (FSGWS). MOWR is a sustainable reclaimed wood collection service and retail business. FSGWS is a regional centre for surplus food redistribution charity FareShare. Both social enterprises are actively involved in our work supporting employability in our community.
We’re really proud of the fact that our support is person-led, and comes in many forms. Through employability training, literacy and numeracy services, and much more, we’re helping fight socio-economic inequality. Through our social enterprises, we’re also working to fight poverty and food insecurity amongst groups often left on the margins of our society. We’re also tackling climate change by reducing food and water waste, and the release of harmful greenhouse gases into our atmosphere.
Most importantly, we continue to believe in our people, even when they’ve never been given the chance to truly believe in themselves.
Ryan is a perfect example of what we do at Move On. Ryan was referred to us as a teenager through partners Includem. At the time, he’d struggled with a number of issues, including addiction, and experience with the criminal justice system.
After completing our award-winning Employability Fund course, Ryan was a changed person.
Ryan’s Story
“When I was a younger, I was in gangs. There was a lot of misbehaving, not engaging with authority and support. Once I started to take that support, it made me want to put a wee bit back into the community. Move On gave me a great foundation to do that. So that’s why I went on to become a Development Worker with them after doing the course.
It was a bit of a mad transformation, but it was so good, I loved it. Going into schools, finding a common ground with young people who’re misbehaving in school, and maybe don’t have a good support network at home or in the community, so they rebel and that’s why they’re misbehaving. Just going in and finding a common ground with them and giving them a bit of my lived experience. I don’t know it it ever did, but I hope it could have helped some of them. Because you can relate to them. I’d never have been able to get that opportunity if it wasn’t for Move On.
After Move On, I got a job as a support worker for service users that had severe mental health issues and disabilities. It was really challenging, but through working with Move On and then doing that job, I realised what I want to do with my life, and that’s help other people from disadvantaged backgrounds.
When you’ve lived a life like mine, you never fit in anywhere. You’re always looking for your belonging in the world, there’s just nowhere in the world that you fit in. When I came to Move On, after going through the programme and coming back as a worker, I finally fitted in somewhere. For the first time in my life, it felt like somebody was actually listening.
If I’d never found Move On that day – it changed my life, it really did change my life for the better. It gave me a future to look forward to.”
Why Get Involved?
It’s a big mission, and we’re so proud of what we’ve achieved over the last 25 years. That’s why we’re taking our 25th birthday as an opportunity to tell our story, raise awareness around our cause, and most importantly, raise funds.
The last two years have presented a challenge across the third sector, as we all work to raise increasingly hard to access resources. Add to that the cost-of-living crisis, which sees our services in greater demand than ever, and you have a great reason why we want to make the most of this special anniversary.
That’s why we’re asking for your help. As a Move on supporter, we know that you share our values, and know how important our services are. We’re constantly brimming with ideas for what we’d like to do in the next 25 minutes, never mind the next 25 years!
£25,000 will help us change so many lives – we want you to help us raise this. Here are just some of the ways you could get involved!
Individual Fundraisers
As we all know, in-person events have been hugely limited for the last two years. We’re so, so grateful to everyone who’s found innovative ways to continue to support us throughout this time.
However, with some return to normality upon us, it’s the perfect time to hold an event, and help us celebrate our landmark birthday!
Big or small, it doesn’t matter! Hold a bake sale in the office, undertake a personal challenge, throw a gala; whatever you can do! Don’t forget to take photos and send them to us. We’d love to share them with an official thank you on our social media!
The Kiltwalk
The Edinburgh Kiltwalk is taking place on 18th September this year – the same month as our birthday!
We think it’s the perfect opportunity to fundraise, and we’ll be sending a Move On team along to take part! With all funds raised matched at 50% by the Hunter Foundation, it’s an amazing chance to really maximise sponsorship.
We’d LOVE for you to join us! You can walk with us as part of the “25 Years Of Move On” team, or form your own group – just remember to select Move On as your charity! With distances between 5, 15 and 24 miles, there’s a route available for everyone!
FareShare Charity Cookbook
We also plan to produce a charity cookbook to help raise funds!
This is scheduled for release at the peak of the campaign, and will be available as a ‘gift with donation’ throughout the month of September. It’ll contain a selection of affordable, easy to make recipes using ingredients you’d commonly expect to find in a FareShare delivery – as well as some less common ones – from Food Partners, Move On staff members, and more! We’ll also be distributing the book to the frontline charities we support through FareShare, to help those in danger of going hungry navigate the cost-of-living crisis.
We also plan to have a celebrity guest appearance – keep your eyes peeled for it!
Donations
We’re really excited about this campaign, and we’ll be putting in lots of work at our end to make a success of it.
It’s really important that we achieve our total – £25,000. We know we can make a huge difference with these funds, and change even more lives.
We’re already running an online campaign to encourage an increase in individual giving, and will be keeping all of our followers updated with our progress as we go along!
If you can give any donation towards our total, we’d be so grateful. Watching the tally rise will only encourage others to give more. We’ll be releasing plenty of stories around our impact over the last 25 years to support this – as well as what we hope to do next!
You can donate now at https://www.justgiving.com/campaign/MoveOn25
Get In Touch
We hope this has got you thinking – we’d so love to have you involved!
If any of these ideas have caught your eye (or if you’d like to do something completely different!), please contact Rachel on rachel@moveon.org.uk with the details, and any help you need from us. We’re keen to support your fundraising efforts for us in any way we can. Let’s make this campaign as big a success as possible!
In exchange, we’ll of course share all of your efforts on our public platforms to show our thanks! Don’t forget to take photos, tag our Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn accounts and use our official campaign hashtag #25YearsOfMoveOn!
A Note From Our Founder
“Despite the many challenges we’ve seen over the past couple of years, we’re proud to have navigated the pandemic, and are so excited to be celebrating 25 Years Of Move On this September.
That said, we need your support to continue changing lives for the next 25 years. The input from our supporters is significant and impactful. We are so grateful for the continued committed and imaginative support we receive. The impact of this has been invaluable, contributing directly towards employment outcomes, growth in confidence and social networks, and a reduction in loneliness and isolation.
We’re asking you to support us now in our bid to raise £25,000 for 25 years, supporting our wide range of activities, at a time where it really is needed more than ever.
We look forward to celebrating this landmark together with you. We’re genuinely delighted to benefit from your continued support on our journey.”
~John Hinton, Executive Director