Aston Villa’s partnership with Acorns has raised around £3 million in five years – and promoted the children’s hospice group to the ‘Premier League’ of charities.
The support of the football club has helped Acorns become the best-known charity in the region, according to grateful chief executive David Strudley.
And Villa say the link-up also has huge benefits for the club – helping boost staff morale at tough times of the season and keeping the players grounded.
The partnership was forged after the 2006 takeover when Villa owner Randy Lerner visited the Acorns hospice at Selly Oak and saw the vital work it does for life-limited youngsters. The club agreed initially to a two-year shirt sponsorship and the partnership has continued with special Acorns Days every season and other fund-raising activities.
Villa chief executive Paul Faulkner said: “Randy and his family were always big supporters of children’s charities and the work Acorns does leaves such a lasting impression.
“Randy and his sister Nancy visited the hospice and met David. We then spoke with David and asked how we could help with raising the profile.
“We think that directly we have raised £1 million through the fans and the staff and collections etc and we think that the overall figure is two or three times that through spin-offs.
“It has generated around £3 million worth of funds for Acorns.”
He said the club had benefited from favourable publicity through its partnership.
“We didn’t do it for that reason – it was a by-product of that. We have done it because it is the right thing to do.
“For us, it has loads of benefits. For the last two years, we have run Acorns Day, where we nominate one game a season. In the first year, against Fulham, we raised £95,000 and this year it was the QPR match, and we raised £194,000.
“The staff at Villa Park work so hard with sales, ticketing etc and when the results are not going so well, I have to go in on a Monday morning and pick everybody up. There is always that Monday morning feeling when you have lost and being able to focus on something like Acorns is a good tool.”
David Strudley said: “The whole basis of what we do is as much about awareness-raising as it is about fund-raising. The players come and visit us quite frequently – the kids go bananas.
“I think it keeps the players grounded – it reminds them that outside their lives, there is some pretty difficult stuff going on. It’s difficult to put it in commercial terms but there is that sort of feeling that we are really one big family.”
Acorns will have their Acorns 25 logo displayed across the front of shirts worn by the Villa youth team next season following support for the arrangement from the club’s official new sponsor, Dafabet.
