Through its long-standing corporate partnership, independent financial planner Attivo is helping Cheltenham Festivals give more children and families with special educational needs and disabilities access to arts and culture than ever before.
Attivo Chairman and Cheltenham Festivals patron, Stephen Harper, explains how their partnership helps the company give back to the local community.
Tell us a bit about Attivo's corporate partnership with Cheltenham Festivals.
What Cheltenham Festivals do for Gloucestershire is brilliant. The arts, music, literature, science, they're all things that bring so much to the community.
You've got the commercial side of it, in that it brings a lot of people to Cheltenham and Gloucestershire, which is fabulous. When you look at us as a town of only 100,000 people, the attendees we get coming — the musical acts, speakers, authors — it's quite an incredible thing.
So there's all the high-profile, fun experiences that everybody loves attending, but on the other side, what a lot of people don't realise is that as a charity, the work Cheltenham Festivals does goes far beyond just enriching lives of the people that attend.
I remember Ian George (Cheltenham Festivals co-CEO) telling me about how many children don't have books to read — almost a million in the UK — and I thought, my goodness, this in the 21st century. My youngest is three and we read at least one or two books to him every single night. Books are a really important part of life, education and learning.
Cheltenham Festivals is planning to reach 80,000 children this year and I think that's just incredible. What Cheltenham Festivals does for the community is enormous in Gloucestershire — and it just sits really well with Attivo. Music, arts, science are so important to living an enriched life. We talk about that as a business — our job is enriching lives. It's not about money. And if you talk to Ian and Ali the co-CEOs of Cheltenham Festivals they talk about the same thing, so we're really aligned in our priorities.
You recently became the SEND partner for Cheltenham Festivals 2025 — what was the motivation behind this?
Attivo has sponsored relaxed concerts at Cheltenham Jazz Festival for a few years now. For those children with specific special and educational development needs, it's probably the only time they ever get to go to something like that and be themselves. They can make as much noise and disruption as they like. Also it's amazing for parents, guardians and carers.
I think it's a section of society that needs us most and it's great having the opportunity to put some focus on that for the festivals. Whenever I've spoken about Cheltenham Festivals, the thing I applaud them for the most is the work they do with the community. So it's been a good way to put into action what I've been saying and we're just delighted to support that side of the work that Cheltenham Festivals does.
It sits very well with us as a business to be giving back to the community and helping those that need it.
Your partnership means Cheltenham Music Festival is hosting its first-ever relaxed family concert this year — what does this mean for Attivo?
We're supporting the event financially and we'll be looking to raise awareness of this special event, too. We have a lifestyle magazine that goes to all of our fee-paying clients as well as a wider distribution — and we will feature the festivals and this event in that.
We also allow and encourage members of our team to go and help with events and that's a really nice thing for people to do as well.
Our head office is in Cheltenham, Cheltenham Festivals is a key part of the community where our business was founded, so it all goes hand-in-hand.
Because yes, we are a financial services, financial planning, tax planning, investment management business — but actually it's not about the money, it's about the lifestyle.
Usually, the priorities are the people in your lives that matter most — and we really feel that Cheltenham Festivals is aligned with how we look at life.
How does being involved with Cheltenham Festivals benefit your team?
Our team love being involved with the festivals. So many people in the business, not just in head office, look to go — and we take a lot of our clients to events, too.
At Cheltenham Jazz Festival we do exclusive Attivo events as well as attending the concerts on the main programme. Last year we did an Attivo event at Cowley Manor, which was just for our guests, with Jack Savoretti. Cerys Matthews interviewed Jack and he sang a few songs — and our clients loved it! One of our new clients, who has attended a lot of corporate hospitality over his years, said it's the best event he's ever been to — and that's the best feedback you can ever have, isn't it?
We're not there talking about how we do pensions, investments or tax. We're there to enjoy what's going on in the day, who we've got there, how great it is to be associated with the festivals and share all this good work they do but rarely talk about.
How does your partnership with Cheltenham Festivals benefit your business?
As well as giving us a chance to attend and invite clients to lovely events, which are great to go to, we also invite people who aren't our clients along — and throughout 2024 we've managed to turn those people into actual clients of ours. The festivals have been a very good medium for us to meet new people and engage with them in a different way, where they've then realised that actually they would like to work with us.
At Cheltenham Literature Festival, we sponsor The Garden Theatre and specific events there — we did a special edition front cover of our Life Magazine just for the festivals and printed an extra 10,000 copies, which we distributed for free to anybody who went to an event at the Garden Theatre, too.
It's really good coverage for us, because advertising doesn't really work for a business like ours, but being associated with things like The Garden Theatre or sponsoring events and taking people actually works very well for us. It helps get our name more widely known and brings the services we offer to the attention of a much wider audience — and generally the people attending the festivals are absolutely in our demographic and would make ideal clients.
It gives us the opportunity to talk about what we do but in a much more natural way. Instead of talking about pensions, investments and tax, being able to talk to people about music, literature, science and how we can actually help people, that's a really nice thing to do.
The festivals also give us something very different to sport. Corporate partnerships often revolve around sporting events — and while they're nice to do, we like to diversify our client events and reach people that aren't just rugby, football or cricket fans. Not that I don't enjoy my rugby, of course!
But cultural events are very different and appeal to a different side of people. And I think there's nothing more human than the arts. Society has a right to be exposed to music, literature and art and I think that often gets overlooked.
Would you recommend becoming a corporate partner to other local businesses?
Cheltenham Festivals does such a great thing for the community and it is a charity I think we should support, not just because of the high profile people that attend, but for the great work they do in the community and for the people that need it most.
I don't think you can get better publicity than being associated with something that enriches lives like Cheltenham Festivals does — and I think that's a really positive thing. As a corporate partner, you'll get great PR, great coverage and great exposure to a demographic of potential clients.
And they're such good fun! You get to meet real people and engage with them in such a nice way. It's special.
What's your favourite Cheltenham Festivals event you've been to?
I've already mentioned Jack Savoretti and Gregory Porter, but I've been to a number of Jazz and Literature Festival events both with family and friends and it's just fantastic having these artists on your doorstep. Being able to walk to an event like that is just wonderful.
I even took my partner and my youngest to see an event about Bing — he absolutely loved it!
To celebrate its 80th year in 2025, Cheltenham Festivals is aiming to bring the joy of arts and culture to 80,000 children and is looking for funders, corporate partners, patrons and local businesses like Attivo to help.
To find out more about supporting Cheltenham Festivals in 2025, email partnerships@cheltenhamfestivals.org
