BGL Insurance Hackathon helps charities to fix real business challenges

Colleagues from major Sunderland employer, BGL Insurance (BGLi), participated in a skills-based volunteering day as part of its first Charity Hackathon. The purpose of the event was to provide BGLi’s Sunderland-based charity partner, The Special Lioness, which supports families with children who may have disabilities, special needs, or life-limiting conditions, with business skills and resources not currently available in their own organisation.

BGLi volunteers from technology, marketing and finance, collaborated on several challenges facing the charity, with the goal to provide solutions to help tackle current skills gap. During the day, the volunteers were able to complete a major task for The Special Lioness by helping to redesign its website and simplify its onsite booking system – a task which will potentially help to increase exposure for the charity.

Emily Taylor, CSR Manager at BGL Insurance, said: “The Hackathon provided the perfect setting for our colleagues to share the passion and expertise they use in their day-to-day roles to make a real impact to our charity partners and provide much needed support to real and current challenges. It is brilliant to see how a volunteering day can make a huge impact for our charity partners!”

Claire Stewart, Co-Founder & Trustee at The Special Lioness, shared: “Today was a huge confidence boost and a real insight into what our future progression can look like. With the support, knowledge and encouragement from the BGLi Hackathon team, we have gained invaluable information and priceless technical time and skills. As a small charity, we struggled to prioritise spending precious funds on technology that our end users; our special families, wouldn’t directly benefit from. We now have a strategy and development plan which looks very achievable, all thanks to the team and the generosity of skills.”

The Charity Hackathon forms part of BGL Insurance’s wider Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) agenda, with a key focus on using passion, scale, and expertise for the benefit of the community. As part of this programme, all BGLi colleagues are entitled to two days each year to volunteer for any charity or good cause of their choice.