Retail Superheroes Helping Kids with Cancer

From the judges: “Effective partnership elements, good alignment and use of respective strengths.”

Redkite is a national charity providing support to children and young people with cancer. By alleviating financial and emotional stress, Redkite assists the whole family. JB Hi-Fi is a leading retailer of consumer goods, and commenced payroll donations with Redkite in 2010. The company has 81% of its staff contributing to its Workplace Giving program ‘Helping Hands’ and matches their donations dollar-for-dollar.

Now in the seventh year of the Redkite partnership, the JB Hi-Fi team has raised over $1.4M through Workplace Giving donations and two incredible in-store fundraising campaigns held in 2016 and 2017. The inaugural 2016 ‘Be a Superhero’ card campaign was a sell-out success, and won Gold for Best Charity / Employer Partnership at that year’s Workplace Giving Excellence Awards. Recognising that they had hit on a winning formula, the partners set out to grow the funds raised in 2017. Over the five weeks, they sold 133,445 ‘Superhero’ themed cards, designed by JB Hi-Fi team members. An impressive $267,000 was raised for Redkite – more than double the previous year.

In addition to selling the cards, staff participated in ‘Superhero Saturday’, dressing up and decorating their stores to show their support for the Redkite campaign. This not only created a fun atmosphere in store for customers, it was also a great way to boost the JB Hi-Fi team’s engagement and community awareness of Redkite. The Superhero card campaign has successfully deepened JB Hi-Fi staff’s understanding of Redkite’s work and their commitment to the charity. Throughout the campaign, Redkite team members visited stores to personally thank JB Hi-Fi staff for their support and their ongoing commitment through payroll donations.

The relationship between JB Hi-Fi and Redkite continues to thrive because they bring shared values to all elements of the partnership, in particular innovation, strong leadership and a community-minded outlook. In the first year of the partnership Redkite received $56,000 in donations, but is forecast to receive over $500,000 this year. The partnership offers an outstanding example of how effective Workplace Giving is in delivering tangible support to the community.