our story

The inspiration:

In 2009 Hermione figured it was time she went on an adventure, so she and Sara decided to cycle from London to Morocco. Yes, that’s quite a long way, and quite a silly thing to do. Especially for Hermione who was an unfit amateur cyclist with a metal femur and an electronic pancreas. It was clearly going to be a challenge, but they both saw it as an opportunity to raise sponsorship for a cause they were passionate about: the environment.

But they didn’t like the idea of asking their friends for money, as would have been traditional, and felt that the environment needed people’s action more than it needed their money anyway. So they decided to ask their friends to sponsor them by doing simple green actions instead.

 

A good friend, Hayley Hunter, developed a simple website to collect sponsorship for their ride. At this stage it was called JustSaving and they offered their sponsors the choice of ten different actions (DoActions #1-10). It was a real hit, they raised sponsorship from 216 people and saved over 16 tonnes of CO2, the equivalent of 84 flights from London to Morocco!

The reaction they got was mind-blowing, from friends and strangers alike. And so on their return Hermione decided that the concept couldn’t just lie and gather dust and she would have to do something with it. Here was an incredible opportunity to create a nation of doers. And so The DoNation was born.

Since then The DoNation has evolved to include employee engagement programmes alongside our originial 'Donate by Doing' service. Head this way to find out more about Do Good for Business.

                         

Our mission:

Our mission is to make sustainable living mainstream, but helping people to form healthy and environmentally-friendly habits, and to inspire others to do the same.

Through Donate by Doing, we aim to motivate people to do fantastic and inspiring challenges, and to help them raise sponsorship without emptying their friend’s wallets.

Through Do Good for Business, we aim to help companies to engage their employees in sustainability, helping them to build more motivated workforces whilst reducing thier bottom line.

But most of all, we want to encourage everyone in the nation to do simple, meaningful things in their day-to-day lives to help protect our planet.

The need for change

A staggering 42% of the UK’s carbon emissions are a result of our individual daily actions. That means almost half our country’s footprint is in our control. So surely we should stop waiting for government and big business to change things, and start doing green stuff ourselves?

If only it were that easy…

We realise most people don't wake up in the morning and think “Hey, today I’m going to cycle to work to help fight climate change!”. We humans don’t work like that. We all have more pressing priorities to deal with than ‘saving the planet’.

And that’s exactly what The DoNation thrives on: friendship and competition.

For us doing green stuff is about supporting friends and colleagues; and having fun – it’s not about saving the planet single-handedly.

And who knows, maybe it will help people realise that doing green stuff isn’t about hugging trees and wearing hair shirts, it’s just a pretty fun, healthy way of living?

A Social Enterprise:

The DoNation is a social enterprise – that means we work like any normal business but with a an equal focus on our social, environmental and financial bottom lines.

There are two legal entities: The Do Nation Enterprise is a business that runs Do Good for Business, our revenue-generating arm. 10% of any profits made through this side are donated to The Do Nation Project, which runs Donate by Doing, our not-for-profit arm (and soon to be a charity, hopefully).