~ Stone Junction to donate to LGBTQ+ charity ~
Technical PR agency, Stone Junction will be making a donation to LGBTQ+ rights charity, Stonewall, in honour of Pride this month, every time one of its team members generates a piece of media coverage.
The plan will use the company’s monthly ‘Getting Ink’ competition, which involves the team competing against each other to see who can proactively generate the best coverage, to calculate the amount of the donation. The firm will tally the number of media mentions for its clients at the end of the month, generated as part of the competition, and donate the figure, tripled, to the charity.
Stonewall is one of the largest LGBTQ+ rights charity in Europe, and campaigns for transformative change for the lives of LGBTQ+ people across communities in the UK. It regularly welcomes donations from people looking to make a difference.
The PR firm wants to take a proactive approach that encourages the whole team to get involved. It comes as a part of its mission to continue creating an inclusive workplace, where every employee can thrive, regardless of their background.
“I saw a tweet from Elon Musk the other day talking about how companies use Pride to rainbow-wash,” explained managing director, Richard Stone.
“He is right. Anyone can put a rainbow on their logo… And we aren’t under any illusion about what we are doing, we know we aren’t going to break down the barriers LGBTQ+ people face in the workplace by donating a few hundred pounds. But at least that’s a small step in the right direction.
“We wanted to do something positive and practical that involved the whole team, so that everybody could play a role. The idea emerged organically from the group, driven by LGBTQ+ team members as well as their non-LGBTQ+ colleagues, so it seems right that the team should determine the extent of the donation.”
“This is just a cool, fun thing to do to recognise the LGBTQ+ who have been part of Stone Junction as it has grown as well as those that continue to be a part of it today. We would be a much worse company without them.”
Stone Junction holds an impressive recent track record when it comes to workplace wellbeing after winning the CIPR Best Staff Wellbeing Initiative 2021 and the PRCA DARE Team Culture and Community award 2021. Earlier in 2022, it increased the salary of every team member by £1000 P/A to help counter the cost-of-living crisis.
The organisation also donated to LGBTQ+ charities last Christmas, alongside charities supporting a range of other causes, as part of its Christmas celebrations.
It’s history of supporting LGBTQ+ people in the workplace includes provision of additional fostering leave, for people not covered by the Foster to Adopt programme and operating a transparent and numerically measured system for promotion and salary increases, which eliminates the possibility of discrimination in performance reviews.
