When the team behind Imagination’s UEFA European Champions League sponsor programmes won a company cash award, they could have just pocketed their hard-won bonus. But they didn’t. They aimed for a higher goal – deciding instead to donate their prize money to industry charity Meetings Industry Meeting Needs to fund worthy causes.

The annual internal award programme at global communications agency Imagination recognises the team that has best expressed the company’s core values – ‘insightful, inspiring, committed and collaborative’. The latest recipients, however, decided against spending the £1,500 cash prize on themselves, electing instead to put the money towards something they all could be proud of.

“We don’t like to do anything that’s predictable,” said Natalie Eldridge, senior account manager. “We were happy to win as it’s quite a fiercely-contested prize amongst my colleagues. However, we decided pretty quickly that the best use of the prize was not a big blow-out for the team but something that could make a genuine difference.”

David Hackett, executive committee member of Meetings Industry Meeting Needs (MIMN), received the cheque on behalf of the charity at Imagination’s London offices.

He said: “It’s an extremely generous decision by the team. Such funding enables us to extend the work of MIMN and we’ll be looking for a specific programme to put this money towards. The charity partners we have underwrite some of our activities but we rely on special contributions like this to help us with the numerous requests we receive from community projects.”