Four months on from the announcement of six local businesses joining the club’s commercial portfolio as Diamond Partners, Rotherham United are delighted to have received reports from the Rotherham Hospice detailing the positive change that the agreement has influenced since it’s inception.
In June 2023, we announced that six local businesses – AESSEAL, Equisolve, Hughie Construction, IPM Group, Mears and Steelphalt – had pledged their financial support to facilitate a club-first charity partnership which would pave the way for the Rotherham Hospice to have their branding proudly adorn all three of our Puma Teamwear strips throughout the 2023/24 campaign.
This allegiance of business associates have united in the name of charity and four months on, the benefits to the Rotherham Hospice – a charity dear to many of our supporters and people in the area – depict a tangible increase in engagement and awareness of the hospice and the amazing work they do within our community.
Our friends from the Broom-based charity have supplied us with a comprehensive document which details the increased attention that the Rotherham Hospice has received as a result of our Diamond Partners, with the headline takeaways coming in the form of vastly-improved visitors to their website and social media channels, the uptake in participants on the summer Midnight Memory Walk and the corporate support that the charity has received over the last few months.
Online impact
The initial response to the news had an obvious impact with huge numbers of visitors stopping by the Rotherham Hospice website and driving traffic to their social media channels with their tweets earning over 14,200 impressions over a seven-day period.
The momentum created in respect of visitors to the Rotherham Hospice’s official channels has not faded away despite the football season now being two months further down the line and the Hospice were even contacted by one of the social media companies to check whether they had been hacked, such was the volume of additional engagement that their pages were receiving!
It has made us incredibly proud as a football club to witness some of that user-generated content, no more so than when we see the many heart-warming messages posted by our supporters and members of the local community reaffirming just how important the Rotherham Hospice is to them.
Shared support between Rotherham United and the Rotherham Hospice
This year we have been thrilled to champion the efforts of our Honorary Life President and club legend John Breckin, who was the driving force behind fundraising for the charity cricket match between Rotherham United and Wickersley Old Village Cricket Club and the Midnight Memory Walk – which took its first steps right here at AESSEAL New York Stadium in the summer.
John’s hard work and effort, combined with the generosity of our supporters helped us to raise over £8,000 from the cricket match which saw Matt Taylor and his first team players and staff don the pads for charity and a colossal £61,000 after over 700 walkers joined us for the Midnight Memory Walk in 2023.
Increased levels of corporate support for the Rotherham Hospice
There has also been a notable increase in the level of corporate support that the hospice has received since the agreement with our Diamond Partners was announced.
The deal has opened the floodgates to other local businesses who have come forward to form an association with the Rotherham Hospice, with several companies pledging their support across a series of events recently – namely the Light Up A Life and Christmas Fair events.
Beyond that, there have been a number of businesses who have expressed their desire to name the Rotherham Hospice as their ‘Charity of the Year’ which will ensure even further fundraising as we move into 2024.
Local pride
Lastly – and possibly most importantly – the hospice has reported just how taken aback by the all-round positivity they have been met with at community events and online since we welcomed our Diamond Partners.
They seen a fantastic reaction among their community events with many people verbally commenting about the initiative and how proud they are to be from Rotherham and support a club that cares so much about its fans, with further comments about the Diamond Partners themselves, saying how incredibly selfless they have been.
Summary
We have always been – and always will be – extremely proud of our strong links with the Rotherham Hospice but by welcoming the Diamond Partners this summer, we have taken the relationship to another level which makes us burst with pride at what we have been able to collectively achieve.
Stephen King, Director of Income Generation and Communications at Rotherham Hospice said:
“The impact of the partnership has been huge.
“Rotherham Hospice has never had so much exposure in the local area. We are finding that conversations about the charity are a lot easier to have with businesses and supporters, as most are now aware of who we are and what we do.
“Everyone at the Hospice is grateful to the Diamond Partners for making this happen. The level of publicity we have received as a result has been something we could not possible have achieved by ourselves.”
