London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Thursday, Oct 09, 2025

From chefs to cyclists: how inspiring charities make a change

From chefs to cyclists: how inspiring charities make a change

Many of us want to make our planet a better place – but where to start? We asked two charities what it takes to make change happen
The rhetoric of change is everywhere right now, from self-improvement posts on Instagram to the brand-purpose campaigns that remain adland’s biggest trend. While businesses are looking to create their own changemaker strategies, charities and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) are carrying on with their day jobs. For them, social innovation is an everyday business. So learning from NGOs is a great start for for-profit organisations looking to make a difference.

Consider the wide-reaching activities of Action Against Hunger, an NGO committed to saving children’s lives across almost 50 countries. “Critical to this mission is creating change,” says Matthew White, director of fundraising and communications. “Changing government policies, changing attitudes towards nutrition and, crucially, changing the prospects of the millions of children facing life-threatening hunger.”

If you think that sounds like a huge task, you’d be right – but the steps to get there don’t have to be. White explains: “It is easy to look at the scale of the challenge we face and think that it is insurmountable. We want to challenge that.” He cites its annual Love Food Give Food campaign, in which restaurants across the UK add an optional £1 donation to your bill during autumn. Although that’s a small amount for most of us, this sum can provide a malnourished child with a day’s worth of life-saving food. “A pound isn’t a massive amount of money, but they quickly add up,” he says.

Based in London, with a second site recently opened in Birmingham, the Bike Project also transforms lives through a seemingly small change: the chance to own a bike. The charity takes abandoned or donated bicycles, reconditions them and gives them to refugees and asylum seekers in the UK. “We believe no-one seeking asylum in the UK should be forced to choose between taking the bus and their next hot meal,” says national operations manager Nicola Hill.

Currently, most asylum seekers receive just £37.75 to live on each week. “When a weekly bus pass can cost £21, this leaves many people destitute and socially isolated, unable to access vital services or the many opportunities that the UK has to offer in order to start rebuilding their lives,” says Hill. That’s where the bikes come in. “We take an unwanted item, in the form of a bike, and use it to achieve social change. Over the past six years we’ve been pioneering in what we do, striving to deepen our impact with the refugees we support.” As well as giving recipients the confidence and skills they need to start cycling, the charity also sells good-as-new bikes to support its work.

Whether these organisations are donating their 5,000th bike or persuading more than 500,000 diners to part with that all-important pound, both are milestone-driven – and success wouldn’t be possible without their teams. So, how does everybody stay on track? “We have a clear purpose and strong brand values which all our staff rally behind,” says White at Action Against Hunger, while Hill says: “Our mission is very clear – there’s no ambiguity about what we’re all striving to achieve on a daily basis.”

A solid core means their influence can radiate out and inspire new changemakers, from Action Against Hunger’s Michelin-starred chefs to the Bike Project’s cyclists and upcyclers. “We harness support from the cycling community, people who want to show solidarity with refugees and those who don’t want to see a perfectly good item (in this case, a bike) go to waste,” says Hill. “We never stop learning and are conscious that we’re only just scratching the surface of what we and our supporters can collectively achieve.” Both charities nurture collaboration internally and externally, keeping ideas fresh and horizons broad.

“There are an estimated 160,000 refugees and asylum seekers in the UK, and so we are acutely aware that there is so much more to be done,” says Hill, whose sights are set on expansion across the UK. They’ve already upscaled considerably, which can cause practical problems for some charities, but the Bike Project benefits from provable results and a source of revenue from bike sales. To support their growth they also use Salesforce.org’s customer relationship management (CRM) system for non-profit organisations. It’s helpful for “kind of everything”, says Hill, from tracking the lifecycle of a bike as it passes through the mechanics, to automated SMS appointments when it’s ready to be given away.

The real driver of big change, however, is big passion. “Whatever our job title, we are all involved directly in our core work of bike donations,” says Hill, whose charity accepts unwanted bikes at 25 locations across London, Oxford and the west Midlands. “This means everyone has first-hand experience of how what we do has an impact on the lives of refugees,” she continues.

“We try to find and attract the people who want to make a difference,” says White of Action Against Hunger. “Once you show someone who wants to make a difference the impact we can have together, change is inevitable.”
Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
France: Less Than a Month After His Appointment, the New French Prime Minister Resigns
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán stated that Hungary will not adopt the euro because the European Union is falling apart.
Sarah Mullally Becomes First Woman Appointed Archbishop of Canterbury
Mayor in western Germany in intensive care after stabbing
Australian government pays Deloitte nearly half a million dollars for a report built on fabricated quotes, fake citations, and AI-generated nonsense.
US Prosecutors Gained Legal Approval to Hack Telegram Servers
Macron Faces Intensifying Pressure to Resign or Trigger New Elections Amid France’s Political Turmoil
Standard Chartered Names Roberto Hoornweg as Sole Head of Corporate & Investment Banking
UK Asylum Housing Firm Faces Backlash Over £187 Million Profits and Poor Living Conditions
UK Police Crack Major Gang in Smuggling of up to 40,000 Stolen Phones to China
BYD’s UK Sales Soar Nearly Nine-Fold, Making Britain Its Biggest Market Outside China
Trump Proposes Farm Bailout from Tariff Revenues Amid Backlash from Other Industries
FIFA Accuses Malaysia of Forging Citizenship Documents, Suspends Seven Footballers
Latvia to Bar Tourist and Occasional Buses to Russia and Belarus Until 2026
A Dollar Coin Featuring Trump’s Portrait Expected to Be Issued Next Year
Australia Orders X to Block Murder Videos, Citing Online Safety and Public Exposure
Three Scientists Awarded Nobel Prize in Medicine for Discovery of Immune Self-Tolerance Mechanism
OpenAI and AMD Forge Landmark AI-Chip Alliance with Equity Option
Munich Airport Reopens After Second Drone Shutdown
France Names New Government Amid Political Crisis
Trump Stands Firm in Shutdown Showdown and Declares War on Drug Cartels — Turning Crisis into Opportunity
Surge of U.S. Billionaires Transforms London’s Peninsula Apartments into Ultra-Luxury Stronghold
Pro Europe and Anti-War Babiš Poised to Return to Power After Czech Parliamentary Vote
Jeff Bezos Calls AI Surge a ‘Good’ Bubble, Urges Focus on Lasting Innovation
Japan’s Ruling Party Chooses Sanae Takaichi, Clearing Path to First Female Prime Minister
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Sentenced to Fifty Months in Prison Following Prostitution Conviction
Taylor Swift’s ‘Showgirl’ Launch Extends Billion-Dollar Empire
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
Trump Claims FBI Planted 274 Agents at Capitol Riot, Citing Unverified Reports
India: Internet Suspended in Bareilly Amid Communal Clashes Between Muslims and Hindus
Supreme Court Extends Freeze on Nearly $5 Billion in U.S. Foreign Aid at Trump’s Request
Archaeologists Recover Statues and Temples from 2,000-Year-Old Sunken City off Alexandria
China Deploys 2,000 Workers to Spain to Build Major EV Battery Factory, Raising European Dependence
Speed Takes Over: How Drive-Through Coffee Chains Are Rewriting U.S. Coffee Culture
U.S. Demands Brussels Scrutinize Digital Rules to Prevent Bias Against American Tech
Ringo Starr Champions Enduring Beatles Legacy While Debuting Las Vegas Art Show
Private Equity’s Fundraising Surge Triggers Concern of European Market Shake-Out
Colombian President Petro Vows to Mobilize Volunteers for Gaza and Joins List of Fighters
×