Established 45 years ago by HRH The Prince of Wales, the Prince’s Trust works closely with industry to provide disadvantaged young people with the opportunity to gain valuable skills that will, in turn, give them access to work placements and future employment. Last year alone it helped more than 70,000 young people get into employment, education, and training, and a total of 1,000,000 have been supported by the programme to date.

In the UK&I, Citrix has supported the charity and its dragons’ den-style Million Makers challenge for the past five years. The programme has become incredibly important to us, and to date, our Team Trix has raised almost £250,000 for young people, helping to give them a leg up within the industry, enabling some to even start up their own businesses.

The challenge has been a wonderful opportunity for collaboration at Citrix, boosting morale and encouraging something fun outside of the normal day-to-day. The programme has helped to pull employees together across all areas of the business, enabling new relationships to grow, while also allowing those at the beginning of their career to nurture and develop new skills and learn from those with more expertise. It has also shown itself to be a great team building experience.

Sadly, over the past year particularly, amid a global pandemic, the divide between rich and poor has widened, making this year’s fundraising efforts more important than ever. We want to be able to give young people, facing serious issues such as poverty and homelessness, some of the chances that we had, helping to build a fairer society.

This year, our Team Trix has set the ambitious target of raising £125,000, making it the largest fundraising year to date for us. I am hopeful that with the right support we can aim even higher, and I would personally like to see us break the £200,000 barrier. We are being particularly aggressive in our fundraising target not only because money is needed more than ever this year, but also, we think people will want to seize the opportunity to socialise and have fun now that we are able to do so again.

In 2021, our Million Makers fundraising activities are built around the theme of bringing people together, encouraging health, fitness and wellbeing. A cornerstone of our activities will be the Three Peaks Challenge.

In September, a group of 16 Citrix employees, including myself, will take part in the Three Peaks Challenge, for which we hope to raise £25,000. In this challenge, three teams of Citrites will climb the UK’s three tallest peaks, across three countries — England, Scotland, and Wales. This will be an excellent health and fitness challenge for participants, particularly after a year of lockdowns during which many of us found it harder to exercise. It takes physical and mental resilience to take part in a trial like this and I have no doubt it will push me to my limit. In preparation, we are breaking off into splinter groups to train and prepare, and I am certain strong relationships will be forged as a result.

Other planned activities include:

  • Charity Golf Day: We’ll host a charity golf day this month at the award-winning Walton Heath Golf Club, which will feature four-ball golf and a formal dinner. Sponsorship opportunities are available, as are tickets for customers or businesses wishing to take part.
  • Citrix Power Hour: This event will get as many employees as possible across the globe exercising at the same time, to see what distance we can travel as an entire organisation within a single hour. Individual territories compete against each other, and the winning geography will be able to win money for their nominated charity. In the UK&I, we will use this event to raise awareness of our Million Makers programme at a global level, and our goal will be to win the prize for the Prince’s Trust.
  • Halloween-themed black-tie event: Toward the end of October, we plan to host a Halloween-themed event at the iconic Globe Theatre in London. It will bring together Citrix staff, partners, sponsors, and customers for an evening of fun.
  • Citrix ‘Trix 45’ Gin: We will unveil our very own bottled gin — Trix 45 — as a nod to our Team Trix and the 45 years of the Prince’s Trust. We will accept donations for this gin, made by an award-winning distillery. It’ll make the perfect Christmas gift.

If you’re interested in getting involved in these activities, please contact us.

Sponsor the Three Peaks Challenge

Looking ahead, I am keen to extend and deepen our partnership with the Prince’s Trust. I believe we have a valuable and important role to play here, and I would like to encourage other organisations to also get involved in supporting such an important cause, or to take up the Million Makers challenge themselves. We will always be open to collaboration opportunities.

If you would like to support Team Trix in achieving its pledge for 2021, please consider sponsoring our Three Peaks Challenge.