Charity & Education
Making Lives Brighter
In addition to encouraging fellowship and networking across the full spectrum of our industry the other main activities of the Worshipful Company of Lightmongers focus on Charity and Lighting Education:
The main focus of the Lightmongers Charity is to support, through financial grants, charities that work with those who have sensory impairment of sight and/or hearing. We provide grants to a range of charities that work in this area, covering day-to-day living, education, research into prevention, and treatment. The rationale for this focus is the link between light, which our industry is passionate about, and the human senses of sight and/or hearing, where good lighting is so important. This is one way that our industry, and we as individuals, can give something back to society.
As part of this focus, the Lightmongers have affiliations with two specialist schools; New College Worcester for the blind and partially sighted and Mary Hare School for the deaf, where in addition to financial grants, we provide other support such as arranging events/experiences for the students.
In addition to the main focus on sight and/or hearing impairment, our Charity provides grants to selected City of London charities, some of which also provide support to those with sight and/or hearing impairment, and provides grants/awards to affiliate organisations e.g., our military affiliations.
The Lightmongers Charity also seeks to invest in the future generations of lighting and lighting design engineers by providing financial Awards to top achieving students across a range of lighting education courses.
On average the Lightmongers Charity makes grants/awards of between £35k and £40k p.a., split approximately between sight & hearing impairment 60%; supporting our affiliations 15%; supporting City of London charities 15% and Education/Merit Awards 10%.
With the continued generous support of Lightmonger members the aim is to continue to increase the value of grants/awards we make each year, as well as increase the capital base of the Trust, which generates investment income used to help pay the grants. Administration costs are kept to the minimum covering essential elements such as accounting, costs of fund-raising events etc., with volunteers, including the Trustees, providing their support on a pro-bono basis.
Please read these linked pages for fuller details of our activities in Charity and Education.
