Partner Article

Keycare celebrates 40 years in business by funding Leeds University Year in Enterprise Scholarship

Shipley based insurance firm Keycare, has announced it is providing £10,000 of funding for the Leeds University Year in Enterprise Scholarship, to celebrate the company’s 40th anniversary this month.

The Year in Enterprise Scholarship provides financial support, training and mentoring, as well as professional business advice, to enterprising students looking to start a new business. Between the second and third year, students can take a year to set up and run their own business before returning to their studies at the University of Leeds. Keycare is funding two scholarships – the first for this academic year in September 2017 and the second in 2018.

This year’s Year in Enterprise Scholars have been shortlisted by the university and panel interviews will take place on 21st April. Rachel Taylor, Keycare’s Non-Executive Director, and daughter of the firm’s founder, will be sitting on the panel.

Keycare is a family owned firm and has a long heritage of local charitable works. The company’s founder, the late Geoffrey Parker, started Keycare 40 years ago, from a humble portacabin in Baildon, and so supporting local businesses is important to the company’s philanthropic ethos. Keycare gave a company record breaking £17,907 to charity in 2016, bringing the total amount given to charity by the firm since 2008 to over £63,000.

As a company, they have been a major success story – Keycare is now the UK’s leading expert in the market for the protection of lost and stolen keys. Leading insurers and distributors such as the AA, Endsleigh, Arnold Clarke and Budget Group choose Keycare as their preferred key insurer. They currently manage over 1.8 million insurance policies and have a 24 hour incident and locksmith call-out helpline from their headquarters in Shipley.

Rachel Taylor, Non-Executive Director of Keycare, comments: “We are thrilled to be turning 40! Keycare has been hugely successful from humble beginnings, and so it seems fitting that in honour of its late founder Geoffrey Parker and our 40th anniversary, we look to give something back to the local business community. We are delighted to be supporting local entrepreneurs through the Leeds University Year in Enterprise Scholarship. It recognises that there are serious challenges to getting a business up and running. The Year in Enterprise Scholarships have already successfully helped many of its students to get a foothold in business and we’re proud to be supporting the initiative.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by SJ Wrigley .