Charity ideas for your business: Hair & Beauty

Haircuts for the homeless

Videos where barbers or hairdressers spend time on the street providing haircuts for homeless people on social media have started going viral in recent years. This is part of a trend where people are considering how they can help people in need in more ways than just giving money. Haircuts, for instance, could help to improve the confidence of those living on the street.

Homeless charity Haircuts4Homeless was set up to provide a safe space for people to come in and have a haircut, but they found that the clients appreciated having someone to talk to and feeling noticed more than how the cut made them look.

Haircuts4Homeless have dedicated volunteers around the country, so if you are willing to give up some time to volunteer, they could be a great place to start. You could also visit homeless shelters to provide haircuts.

Charity hair cuts

Cutting hair for charity isn’t a new or unique concept, but there can be many reasons that you could use a haircut to raise money or awareness for charity.

A head shave is one of the more frequent fundraisers used when it comes to hair, and this can be for men, as well as women. The person having their hair cut will usually collect money from sponsors in exchange for shaving their head to raise money for a chosen charity. Support your friends, family and local community by offering to perform head shaves for anyone doing this for charity.

Charities can even take donations of hair and will use it to make real hair wigs, usually for people who have lost their hair due to cancer treatment. In the case of the Little Princess Trust, the wigs are made for young people up to the age of 24, they help males and females, despite the name suggesting it may only be for girls. Donations will most likely need to be of a certain length and must be a natural colour to be accepted.

Ideas for beauticians

As the majority of your clientele will be women, maybe choose a charity that uses their funds to support women, such as breast cancer research or women’s refuge shelters. Choosing a charity partner to support throughout the year can raise a huge amount of money for them.

You could choose a day throughout the year where you use a percentage of the cost of treatments to donate to charity. Again, you may want to choose a time of year that raises awareness for women’s charities, such as Breast Cancer Awareness Month in October.

Don’t forget to help men raise money too, who could have hair removal treatments as part of a fundraiser. Offer leg, chest or back waxes for men who are brave enough to have these treatments to raise money for charity.

Movember

During the month of November, men are encouraged to grow a moustache to raise awareness and money for men’s health. Focussing primarily on cancers that affect men and mental health, the idea is that men will grow a moustache as a fundraiser or to start a conversation about these issues.

Support men by offering free shaves for those growing a moustache, or even grow a moustache yourself.