Kodak backs new Kydd charity venture

Live Nation: Signed up as a partner
Live Nation: Signed up as a partner

Leap Anywhere, a charity fundraising start-up, launches this week (June 24), and hopes to attract advertising and sponsorship to its website from the increasing numbers of brands wanting to highlight their ethical credentials.

Leap Anywhere has already signed up Kodak and Live Nation as commercial partners. Its founders include former Virgin Media marketing chief James Kydd.

The company’s site is designed to provide an easy mechanism whereby people can raise funds or awareness for a cause via a favourite hobby or pastime, an activity the company defines as a “leap”.

This could range from eating a meal at a restaurant that donates a percentage to a cause, to organising a fundraising activity. Amnesty International, Oxfam and Peta are launch charity partners.

The new venture, which also has backing from Last FM original backer Peter Gardner, is aiming to attract 250,000 members by the end of the year, 80% of whom it hopes will go on to complete a charity activity.

The site is launching in London initially, with the potential to roll-out to a US city in the autumn.

The company is also working to provide a corporate social responsibility (CSR) outsource service to companies that don’t have the resources to run their own in-house charity fundraising events for staff. The service would provide end-of-year data for inclusion in annual reports on how staff have contributed to the company’s chosen “good cause”.