Making impact with Children's Heart Surgery Fund

Children's Heart Surgery Fund (CHSF) is a charity that supports children, adults and families in the Leeds region who are affected by congenital heart disease to live empowered lives.

CHSF became our Leeds office charity partner in April 2024. Since then, the relationship has blossomed and supporting the charity has become an important part of office life.

Since the start of our partnership, we have donated over £19,000 to CHSF together with Gifts in Kind support of over £580. Our donations have contributed towards the support CHSF provided to 337 families and young people in 2025 and has enabled CHSF to provide INR home testing kits, meaning families don't have to travel to specific sites for testing and children don't have to miss multiple days of school a year.

Highlights across the partnership include:

• CHSF joining our firmwide static cycle fundraising challenge and speaking to colleagues about their work throughout the day. During the cycle, Rory even dressed up as the charity's bear mascot!
• Sponsoring the charity's Easter and Christmas parties, which enable children to celebrate with their families.
• Donating gifts for children on the ward as part of the charities 'Wellbeing Wednesday' scheme.
• Supporting the CHSF golf fundraising day, including introducing some of our clients to the charity.
• Our Yorkshire 3 Peaks Challenge, where we joined forces with CHSF to raise £4,750.

Alongside our charitable donations, we have also supported CHSF with over 170 hours of volunteering. Colleagues have been giving their time to help lift the spirits of patients and their families by taking part in 'Wellbeing Wednesdays' as well as supporting the charity with activities such as decorating the ward, stock-taking, and baking for families. ‘Wellbeing Wednesdays’ were implemented in 2023 by the CHSF Family Support team to provide wellbeing support to patients and parents during their stay at Leeds Children’s Hospital.

Our partnership with CHSF has been a great success. It has driven increased collaboration across the office and has enabled us to connect with clients and increase the charity's support networks. A highlight was partnering with another Leeds-based business to decorate CHSF's outpatient ward in a Santa's Grotto theme for Christmas. This collaboration gave our Womble Bond Dickinson (WBD) volunteers valuable in-person time to connect with the client while crafting decorations together and then transforming the ward, as well as an opportunity to learn more from CHSF's Corporate Partnership Manager about the work the charity does and why corporate partnerships are so impactful to them.

We're excited to see what we can achieve with CHSF during financial year 2026/27!