Helping Our Communities

People who know people that help people

When BITA was founded in 2012, it was to help fuel business growth and create genuine, lasting relationships in a friendly community for our members.

We styled ourselves as the ‘People who know people that help people’ and with that ethos, we have been incredibly lucky to attract some incredible businesses. Not content to pay lip service to this motto, many of our members were keen to help their communities, and so BITA started working with charities – both local and national.

Since 2012, through our members we have helped raise nearly £700,000 for charities across the UK and Ireland. From the Capuchin Day Centre in Dublin, through to Penny Dinners in Cork, Frea in Manchester, Veterans Launchpad in Liverpool and many more, our members and boards have worked hard to give back to their communities.

At the start of the year, each chapter of BITA selects a charity to work with, raising awareness and funds with their members. These are usually small charities that work actively in the area to support local people. You can find the charity supported by your local chapter on the chapter pages of the BITA website. If you would like to put forward a charity for consideration, please ask your local chairperson!

In addition to local charities, BITA also works to support two incredible charitable organisations; The Lighthouse Club, and the London Irish Centre.

The Lighthouse Club is the Construction Industries own charity, and they provide financial, wellbeing and mental health support to people from the construction industry. Their 24/7 Construction Helpline is manned by volunteers, and always there to help people from the industry that are struggling.

The London Irish Centre is based in Camden, and they work with disadvantaged people that need help and support with food, cultural enrichment, or general support. They are upgrading to a larger site to help more people, and you can read about them on page 44.

As part of our commitment to helping people, we donate £10 from membership fees to the Lighthouse Club, and £10 to the London Irish Centre, to help them help more people. We also help raise awareness of all our charities through social media, our magazine, and by talking about their good works at our lunches.

It is important for us, and our members, to be able to give back to our communities in this way and know that we are supporting others. All these charities need support, whether through raising awareness, attracting more volunteers or fundraising. If you would like to know more about this, you can find their contact details on the BITA website. In the coming issues of this magazine, we will be taking a closer look at the incredible work they do.

Séamus MacCormaic, CEO of the LIC, at the BITA Gala Ball 2022