Following their national appeal for a charity partner in July 2024, Dobbies announced the new partnership with Alzheimer’s Research UK. Starting in March 2025, the partnership involves a year-round programme to educate on the impact of dementia and encourage donations to help fund research.
Dobbies and Alzheimer’s Research UK will work together to highlighting the benefits of garden living to support brain health, and to raising funds for a cure for dementia. One of the biggest killers in the UK, and leading cause of death in Britain for the last 10 years – almost one million people in the UK suffer from dementia.
The partnership will help demonstrate the vast scale of dementia as one of the most urgent health and social care issue of our time. Overturning the continuing, widespread misconceptions that dementia is just a natural, inevitable part of ageing, rather than being a terminal disease.
Dobbies Garden Centres’ CEO, David Robinson said: “When we were looking for a new charity partner that would be the right fit for us, and resonate with our customers, Alzheimer’s Research UK stood out as an ideal choice. As well as fundraising to help research into a cure for dementia, our aim through this partnership is to inspire people to keep their brains healthy. Gardening can really help this through stimulating both body and mind, and staying connected with other people is also very important. In our stores of course we have everything needed to help people garden, and through our restaurants and events we also help bring people together.As we celebrate 160 years of helping British gardeners to grow, we’re really proud to be embarking on this important new partnership.”
Chief Executive Officer at Alzheimer’s Research UK, Hilary Evans-Newton, said: “Alzheimer’s Research UK is incredibly excited to join forces with Dobbies. Brains are like gardens, when well-tended and looked after, they can flourish. We’ll work together with Dobbies to inspire their community to protect their brain health through activities like gardening, while raising vital funds for a cure for dementia. If nothing changes, one in two of us will be directly affected by dementia – either by caring for someone with the condition, developing it ourselves, or both. Alzheimer’s Research UK exists to change this. With Dobbies standing with us, we will speed up our progress and end the heartbreak dementia causes sooner.”