In addition to making direct donations, Archant supports charitable fund-raising by its staff through the Archant Gold scheme, a programme of matched funding, and by part-matching staff charitable donations through the payroll GAYE scheme.

Charitable donations by the company totalled £81,000 in 2009.

Archant Gold has also matched fundraising by company staff of £135,000 over the last five years.

In addition the group's publications raise large sums of money through local campaigns run in their pages. Recent campaigns include:

Eastern Daily Press: We Care Appeal, £960,000 for carers in Norfolk (target £1m)

The Comet: £50,000 for Macmillan Cancer Support

France Magazine: Medecins du Monde, £1300

Ilford Recorder: £5,000 to erect a memorial to campaigning Holocaust survivor Leon Greenman.

Ipswich Evening Star: raised over £60,000 for vulnerable women, trapped by hard drug addiction, on Ipswich streets in its Somebody's Daughter appeal

North Devon Gazette: Light Up a Life appeal once for the region's two hospices. More than £150,000 raised over nine years.