Supporting our communities

The financial support Hyde Charitable Trust (HCT) provides enables our social investment team, Hyde Foundation, to bring about positive change for customers and neighbourhoods, whether it’s preventing homelessness, supporting people’s aspirations or connecting communities.

HCT celebrated its 40th birthday on 27 March 2024. Over the past 40 years HCT has transformed the lives of thousands of people and their communities.

Together with our supply chain partners, we contributed more than £12m in social value, specialist support and direct grants to our most vulnerable customers and community partners this year.

Highlights

32,503 people supported through grants from Hyde Charitable Trust (2022/23: 14,081)
£9.6m in social value impact delivered by our suppliers (2022/23: £1.8m)
£1.3m awarded through grants by Hyde Charitable Trust (2023/23: £1.1m)
£3.6m secured for customers towards rent payments (2022/23: £3.5m).

Delivering more social value through our suppliers

Our supply chain partners generated £9.6m in social value in 2023/24. This is a significant increase on the £1.8m delivered in 2022/23 and is the result of more suppliers, with larger contracts, delivering social value projects supporting about 62,000 people this year. This includes jobs, apprenticeships, volunteer hours, mentoring, work placements, financial donations and project sponsorship, as well as spend with local companies and social enterprises, boosting local economies.
Match My Project

Match-My-Project went from strength-to-strength this year, with community partners using our innovative online platform to match their projects to funding and support offered by 56 of our supply chain partners. In total, 120 projects were funded through the platform this year.
Working with our community partners

We worked with 35 community partners this year, delivering a range of projects, from community gardens, to supporting partners managing 10 of our community centres. Our Communities team helped partners in Brighton, Brent, Chichester, Islington, Lambeth and Rochester secure more than £1.36m to enhance existing services and opportunities for our communities.

We have 104 ongoing partnerships with community organisations and community groups, delivering events, projects and services; and work with 11 schools. We also awarded nearly £245,000 to 20 community partners this year, through the new Evolve fund.
Working with our local authority partners

Our strong relationship with Lambeth Council meant we could respond quickly and in a coordinated way in tackling a rise in incidents on our estates in summer 2023. This included supporting the police when it carried out safety sweeps, as well as organising workshops and training in schools and with our community partners to support young people.