Community Update 2023

Community

At our Co-op, supporting local communities is a big part of our vision of ‘Co-operating to build more value for our member-owners every day’. The Board recognises the role of our Co-op in working with and supporting our members’ communities, and this has never been more relevant than during the last few years. Our community plan is a critical part of delivering our vision and the communities we serve need support more than ever due to the inequalities intensified by the cost-of-living crisis. By partnering with community organisations, local causes, charities and our Co-op Academies, our plan has helped to create social value for members and their communities. Support from our Co-op Member-Owners has provided access to food; supported mental wellbeing; created opportunities for young people; and empowered communities to take the initiative to tackle climate change and protect nature.

Our work in communities is powered by our Co-op Members and in 2023, when our members chose Co-op, they helped raise funds to support their local communities through:

  1. The Local Community Fund – helping thousands of local community causes across the UK.

  2. The Community Partnerships Fund – creating targeted partnerships and resources to support those local communities most in need.

Examples of how we have engaged with and supported our members’ communities in 2023 include:

  1. Our members raised £10m for 3,977 local causes. Over 1.2m members selected a local cause to support in 2023.

  2. The Community Partnerships Fund distributed £4.2m to support our community partnerships and committed a further £3.6m to support activity in 2024.

  3. Our partnership with Hubbub continues to grow, providing access to food as part of the world's largest community fridge network, with over 600 fridges across the UK. The additional fridges, supported by Co-op Members, have redistributed the equivalent of 7.7m meals. We also celebrated the launch of the 100th 'Your Local Pantry' in the UK. The network now supports over 35,000 people to save an average of £21 on every shop.

• Our partnership with Mind, SAMH and Inspire came to an end but its legacy lives on with more than 60 new mental wellbeing services being set up across the UK, supporting over 30,000 people. Over 81% of those supported feel their wellbeing improved and 77% feel more closely connected to community. We worked together on Time to Talk Day, the UK's biggest mental health conversation, for the second year. Over 3m conversations, including amongst young people and people from diverse backgrounds, took place in 2023 and continued into 2024.

• Over 15,000 people have accessed our new bereavement resources with Cruse Bereavement Support and our pilot activity engaged 2,800 people, with 86% reporting improved mental wellbeing.

• In March, we concluded the first cohort of the Peer Action Collective (PAC), helping young people make communities safer and fairer places to live, reaching 6,861 young people. We have extended our partnership with the Youth Endowment Fund to reach 11,000 more young people through PAC with a £2.5million Community Partnerships Fund investment matched by other funders to a total £7.5million.

• We launched our partnership with Barnardo’s to bring communities together to support young people. Together, we’ll raise £5m to help 750,000 young people access basic needs, improve their mental wellbeing and create opportunities for their future. In 2023, our colleagues, members and customers raised £2m.

• In November, we launched the Young Gamechangers' Fund with the Co-op Foundation and the #iwill Fund. The £4.5m fund will support young activists, campaigners, disrupters, co-operators, and social entrepreneurs to lead youth-led social action across the UK. The Foundation also awarded £1.4m from its Future Communities Fund to grassroot, youth-led organisations to help develop diverse leaders of the future.

• The Co-op Academies Trust (CAT) is one of the largest multi-academy trusts serving the North of England, with 33 primary, secondary, special, and post-16 academies. The Trust provides an education based on Co-operative Values and Principles for 19,500 young people. In 2023, our academy in Stoke developed the Co-op Young Leaders (CYL) Programme, which has now been rolled out across all 33 academies and can be adapted to meet their individual priorities and needs. 1,200 students and pupils have been trained on leadership, communication and confidence skills and have gone on to become community ambassadors, reading partners, playground leaders and event planners for open days.

• Our Member Pioneers are an important way of connecting all of our activities within and across our communities, and of engaging directly with our members and their communities. In 2023, our 900 Member Pioneers engaged with over 60,000 people every month. As well as encouraging member activity and engagement, they bring our Co-op Vision to life, investing 110,000 hours in our communities.