This year, YHEC is celebrating its 40th anniversary. Our long-standing dedication to helping the community through our charity work is one of our proudest achievements. While our core work is in health economics, we believe that fundraising and volunteering are vital for giving back to the community, increasing awareness for important causes, and building a strong team culture.
To encourage this, staff at YHEC are allowed dedicated volunteering days and collectively we select one charity each year through a company-wide vote to support. By involving the whole team in this choice, we ensure that we support causes that are close to our colleagues’ hearts as well as the wider community. One member of staff said:
Having a say in who we support each year makes our fundraising feel incredibly personal. A few years ago, the charity I nominated was chosen, and because their work had supported my own family during a difficult time, it was an amazing feeling to be able to give back through my workplace. It’s especially rewarding when we shine a light on smaller, local charities that people might not have heard of. Because we all vote on the final choice, there’s a real sense of collective ownership; everyone is genuinely keen to get behind the cause and get stuck into our fundraising and volunteering efforts.
The early milestones:
Our formal fundraising journey began in 2012 when we supported The Guide Dogs for the Blind Association. Over two years, we raised more than £2,500 through a mix of bake sales, quizzes, the York 10km and even a leg-waxing event! We also had the pleasure of sponsoring a puppy and the staff voted to name him ‘Heston’. Following this success, we moved to an annual charity selection to share our support more widely. In 2014/15, we raised £2,750 for Martin House Hospice, which included a team of 28 tackling the gruelling Yorkshire Three Peaks, climbing over 1,500m of ascent.
The following years saw a wonderful variety of challenges and fundraising activities. We raised over £800 for the RNLI in 2015/16, which included a paper plane competition. We also ran a mega Olympics guessing games open to non-staff too, with daily and spot prizes. In 2016/17 we raised £1,500 for Child’s i Foundation, which included staff playing a 10-hour ‘badminton-a-thon’. In 2017/18 we raised over £1,750 for DEBRA including a car boot sale and movie quiz night. By 2018/19, our efforts for local youth homelessness charity SASH reached a then-record of £3,500. Regular charity fundraising events by this point included sports sweepstakes, the York 10k, the Great North Run, cake baking (and eating!) but also the YHEC staff-favourite game, “Sheep”.
Why our team loves to get involved
To the YHEC team, these activities are more than just fundraising; they are the heartbeat of our office culture. Whether it’s a competitive bake-off or a gruelling hike, these moments allow us to connect outside of our technical project work, and have some well-earned down time. One colleague stated that:
Group charity events are really fantastic for staff cohesion as a whole company but also one to one with colleagues too. Back in the work environment you have a shared connection from doing something great together. Debs, Hannah and I struggled together on the final stretch of the Knaresborough walk for York Foodbank; Alice and I watched 10 Disney films over Zoom together during Covid for Teenage Cancer Trust; Team Errol won the Football-thon for OCD UK. These events seed long-lasting bonds between one another whose benefits organically seep into the workplace by providing more effective interpersonal relationships, easier communication and, ultimately, a more fulfilling work environment.
A new era of impact
A major shift occurred in 2019/20 during our partnership with Mentally Fit York. This was the first year YHEC introduced matched funding, where the company matches the total raised by staff up to £5,000. This effectively doubled our impact, turning our Easter egg hunts, quizzes, and more into a total of almost £4,000 during an otherwise tricky fundraising year (due to the COVID-19 pandemic). One member of staff even took part in a 24-hour film marathon (featuring the infamous Sharknado 3). This commitment continued into 2020/21, when we raised over £5,000 for the Teenage Cancer Trust. The year’s fundraising events included a staff Mastermind competition.
In recent years, the scale of our fundraising has reached incredible new heights. In 2021/22, we raised over £10,000 for OSCAR’s Paediatric Brain Tumour Charity through a year of intense exercise challenges, including the York Marathon Relay, Endure 24 (a 24-hour relay race) and the Yorkshire Three Peaks (again!). We topped that the following year, raising almost £13,000 for OCD-UK. Staff pushed their limits with a “10K for 10 days” challenge, a Scarborough to Whitby walk, a 6 hour ‘football-a-thon’, the Royal Parks half marathon, the Manchester Marathon and even a Tough Mudder obstacle course.
Our Recent Work and Looking Ahead
Our momentum hasn’t slowed down. In 2023/24, we raised over £9,000 for the Children’s Heart Unit Fund, featuring “YHEC does Countdown”, our now-annual quiz and raffle night, the 20-mile Edale skyline walk and the Great North Run. These initiatives also provide a fantastic platform for staff to challenge themselves and achieve personal goals they might not have pursued otherwise. One team member shared their experience with the Great North Run:
I never thought I would run a half marathon and I didn’t really have the opportunity or push to do it. When the Great North Run was suggested as a fundraising idea, I thought ‘why not?’. It pushed me out of my comfort zone which made it all the more rewarding, especially doing it with my colleagues and raising money for an amazing charity like CHUF. Now, I’m a keen runner and training for my first marathon!
Most recently, in 2024/25, we focused our efforts locally for the York Foodbank, raising over £7,000 while also holding food drives and volunteering directly at supermarket events. 13 staff (plus Teal the dog) walked the 35km Knaresborough circular.
Now, in 2025/26, we are proud to be fundraising for Move Mates. Move Mates is a walking buddy project, which pairs people who struggle to get out on their own with a trained, friendly, local volunteer to meet regularly for a walk. They support a wide range of adults of all ages who may be lacking confidence, recovering from illness or injury, facing mental ill-health, or living with dementia. With quiz nights and another trek up the Yorkshire Three Peaks on the horizon, we invite you to be part of our journey. If you’d like to support our latest venture, you can donate to Move Mates.
Looking back, we are immensely proud to have raised over £61,000 and counting for 13 incredible charities. We owe a huge thank you to everyone who has donated and to our dedicated staff for their unwavering spirit.