Networking pays off for trio of companies

Preston-based Bird Design & Marketing has introduced Fulwood-based Blush Digital and Leyland-based Sun Dry Video to work on a major new fundraising campaign for national charity Barnardo’s.

Bird Design & Marketing, Blush Digital and Sun Dry are all members of business referral group BNI Invincible, which meets for breakfast every Thursday at the Invincibles Lounge, Preston North End.

Founded in London in 1866, Barnardo’s raises and spends around £200million each year running local services for the care of vulnerable children and young people throughout the UK.

The charity’s “150 and Always” campaign marks the 150th anniversary of Barnardo’s.

Bird and Preston’s Cotton Court have committed to encouraging 150 businesses from around Lancashire to pledge their own support to the charity by donation of time, skills, money or products.

The campaign to get new businesses involved will be launched on Friday October 21.

Bird will be orchestrating marketing of the campaign, bringing on-board Blush to design, build and market the campaign website, and Sun Dry to produce a corporate video ahead of the event.

Beccy Irving, of Bird Design & Marketing and BNI Invincible Chapter President, said: “BNI works because members get to know each other really well by meeting every week.

“Once you know, like and trust someone from another business, you feel happy introducing them to your own network.

“That’s why we had no hesitation in introducing Blush Digital and Sun Dry to Barnardo’s.”

Established over 30 years ago, BNI now has over 200,000 members in over 70 countries worldwide. It works by organising weekly meetings for groups of businesses, who use their combined network of contacts to find business opportunities and referrals for one another.

BNI Invincible recently announced its members have passed £1.9million of business referrals to one another in the last year.