BACKING

OUR

NEIGHBOURS

We’re supporting the pillars of our communities. Here’s how.

COMMUNITIES EVERYWHERE CONTINUE TO FACE NEW CHALLENGES

For small businesses, charities, voluntary and neighbourhood groups, through the pandemic and now the cost of living crisis, it’s been hard going. And it’s been no different for those in two of our key neighbourhoods – Fitzrovia and the ‘Tech Belt’ (between King’s Cross and Whitechapel).
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Through our Community Fund, set up in 2013, we’ve been able to build meaningful, long-lasting relationships with local organisations and people across the community, and follow up with volunteering and other kinds of support. Our corporate Sponsorship and Donations Committee continues to add another layer of valued support to local charitable causes working across focused areas such as homelessness, mental health and youth employment.

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13
Projects received funding from our Community Fund in 2022
£123,716
Amount committed by our Community Fund in 2022
£354,434
Amount committed by our Sponsorship and Donations Committee
168.25
Hours of employee volunteering by 44 employees
20
Work experience and interns during the summer

DISCOVER OUR

COMMUNITIES

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Reaching out:

Community Fund

Our Community Fund has provided annual rounds of funding to local groups and projects since 2013, with nearly £1m of funding awarded so far. It’s a vital way for us to connect with and support initiatives that are in need of help or just getting off the ground. But it doesn’t stop there. Our door remains open to the projects over the years: we’re able to continue our support for them through volunteering, for example, and keep an ear to the ground about what’s needed in the neighbourhoods around us.
01/02
Reaching out:

Community Fund

Over the past decade, dozens of organisations, from schools, soup kitchens and sports clubs to theatre groups, have benefited from Community Fund awards.
In 2022, we increased the fund’s annual budget from £100,000 to £120,000, and made awards to a total of 13 projects. These ranged from the Soup Kitchen at the American International Church in Fitzrovia to the Study Support Programme provided by Society Links in Tower Hamlets.

One of the local projects that received Community Fund support was Fitzrovia Arts Festival, which marked its sixth year in June 2022. The programme of free concerts, alongside the festival’s walks, talks, readings and performances, is confirmation of the area’s cultural continuity - welcomed by all parts of the local community from aficionados to young families.
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The restoration of the Soho Poly Theatre is a project at the forefront of the post-pandemic West End arts revival, and one we’re delighted to support through the Community Fund. It will bring back to life one of the most iconic and pioneering theatre venues on the London ‘fringe’. Our support for Soho Poly follows on from our creation of @sohoplace, the West End’s first new theatre in 50 years, at our new development above Tottenham Court Road station.
02/02
01/02
Reaching out:

Community Fund

Our Community Fund has provided annual rounds of funding to local groups and projects since 2013, with nearly £1m of funding awarded so far. It’s a vital way for us to connect with and support initiatives that are in need of help or just getting off the ground. But it doesn’t stop there. Our door remains open to the projects over the years: we’re able to continue our support for them through volunteering, for example, and keep an ear to the ground about what’s needed in the neighbourhoods around us.
01/04
Reaching out:

Community Fund

Over the past decade, dozens of organisations, from schools, soup kitchens and sports clubs to theatre groups, have benefited from Community Fund awards.
02/04
Reaching out:

Community Fund

In 2022, we increased the fund’s annual budget from £100,000 to £120,000, and made awards to a total of 13 projects. These ranged from the Soup Kitchen at the American International Church in Fitzrovia to the Study Support Programme provided by Society Links in Tower Hamlets.
‍
One of the local projects that received Community Fund support was Fitzrovia Arts Festival, which marked its sixth year in June 2022. The programme of free concerts, alongside the festival’s walks, talks, readings and performances, is confirmation of the area’s cultural continuity, welcomed by all parts of the local community from aficionados to young families.
03/04
Reaching out:

Community Fund

The restoration of the Soho Poly Theatre is a project at the forefront of the post-pandemic West End arts revival, and one we’re delighted to support through the Community Fund. It will bring back to life one of the most iconic and pioneering theatre venues on the London ‘fringe’. Our support for Soho Poly follows on from our creation of @sohoplace, the West End’s first new theatre in 50 years, at our new development above Tottenham Court Road station.
04/04
01/02
Causes and effects:

Corporate giving

While our Community Fund focuses on one-off awards and core funding for targeted projects, our corporate giving programme allows us to contribute to good causes that operate more widely than our fund areas. The giving can help organisations achieve a whole range of objectives, such as a small local charity’s immediate need to get a project off the ground or longer term support for a national organisation.
01/02
Causes and effects:

Corporate Giving

In addition to our community funds, our Sponsorship and Donation Committee focused the distribution of its £350,000 budget across a wide range of groups supporting the homeless, mental health, diversity and inclusivity, health and wellbeing, and arts and culture.
We also continue to support two students, at the Reading Real Estate Foundation and UCL’s Bartlett School of Architecture, on their bursary programmes, which are designed to help promote diversity and access in property-related higher education.
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One of our new commitments in 2022 is a three-year agreement to support the Fitzrovia Community Centre, which continues to rebuild and reconnect the local community in the wake of the pandemic.

We are providing support of £25,000 each year to the community hub, which brings together residents, businesses, public services and organisations from across the neighbourhood to share skills, talents and ideas.
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www.fitzroviacommunitycentre.org
02/02
01/02
Causes and effects:

Corporate giving

While our Community Fund focuses on one-off awards and core funding for targeted projects, our corporate giving programme allows us to contribute to good causes that operate more widely than our fund areas. The giving can help organisations achieve a whole range of objectives, such as a small local charity’s immediate need to get a project off the ground or longer term support for a national organisation.
01/03
Causes and effects:

Corporate giving

In addition to our community funds, our Sponsorship and Donation Committee focused the distribution of its £350,000 budget across a wide range of groups supporting the homeless, mental health, diversity and inclusivity, health and wellbeing, and arts and culture.
02/03
Causes and effects:

Corporate giving

We also continue to support two students, at the Reading Real Estate Foundation and UCL’s Bartlett School of Architecture, on their bursary programmes, which are designed to help promote diversity and access in property-related higher education.
‍
One of our new commitments in 2022 is a three-year agreement to support the Fitzrovia Community Centre, which continues to rebuild and reconnect the local community in the wake of the pandemic. We are providing support of £25,000 each year to the community hub, which brings together residents, businesses, public services and organisations from across the neighbourhood to share skills, talents and ideas.

www.fitzroviacommunitycentre.org
03/03
01/02

Stories, not spreadsheets:
Measuring our social value

It’s easy to quote the sums of financial support we give to social projects, charities and people each year. What’s less easy to capture is the value of what we do: the outcomes of projects and the impacts on stakeholders, as well as the effects of the more informal support we provide through the relationships we’ve built in the community.
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In 2022, we’ve been working with Envoy Partnership, a social value and impact management consultancy, to map out the material impacts we have across our business and across a wide array of stakeholders.
Read more
The collaboration that we helped to bring about between the Green Schools Project, Square Mile Farms and St Monica’s School in Hoxton gave around 60 students the knowledge and tools to understand and tackle climate change at school and in their lives.
Read more
Then there is the social impact of our work across our Scottish land – 5,500 acres of farmland and woodland with a wide range of residential and commercial lets on the northern outskirts of Glasgow.
Read more