This January, without fanfare, a six-figure sum was donated to our charity by the ‘Get Construction Talking’ international initiative – an amount that stands to make a monumental difference to our ability to support the construction community.
The generous donation came from Fred Mills, founder and leader of the B1M – the world’s largest and most subscribed to video channel for construction. Fuelled by his passion for construction and his own mental health struggles, Fred and his partners at Procore launched ‘Get Construction Talking’ in 2023, an initiative seeking to raise awareness of mental health in construction.
Before the initiative’s conception, we were approached by Fred as he had started to recover from a period of poor mental health, and having benefitted from our online services in his time of need, he wanted to give back.
“I know from experience how lonely and confusing it can be when you’re struggling with depression” said Fred, “especially when your life might appear to be fine on paper. Talking to those I know and trust really helps me find a path through that, and I find the resources offered by construction charities like Lighthouse really useful. Opening up about my journey so publicly was daunting, but the reception was positive. I realised that we can break the stigma, normalise conversations and help people understand that this can happen to anyone. I wanted to use the global power of what I had built with The B1M audience to drive action and move the dial.”
Leading the way, Fred started the initiative with a free to view video series that began with open, vulnerable conversations on his own mental health struggles and that of those in the industry. With his impressive following engaged, donations started to flood in.
Since then, Get Construction Talking has held events on three different continents, ran campaigns across the London Underground and New York’s Times Square, conducted a ‘Mental Health Summit’ and raised $830,388 for the construction community (and counting).
A staggering £124,882 of that sum came to Lighthouse this January.
We’d like to offer a sincere thank you and congratulations to Fred Mills, the team at B1M and their partners at Procore for their efforts. Your contribution to the construction community is making a very real and significant difference.
Learn more about ‘Get Construction Talking’ here.
