Why social responsibility should be everyone’s business

Last week, five colleagues from Cranswick Milton Keynes took part in Winter Night Shelter’s Big Sleep Out 2022, hosted in the grounds of our site. The event was designed to raise funds and awareness for this amazing charity, which helps around 200 people each week who are facing or experiencing homelessness in our city.

We’ve been working with Winter Night Shelter since 2020 because we wanted to make a bigger, more meaningful impact on our local community - and, sadly, homelessness is a key issue in the city. They really are an amazing organisation - first formed as an urgent response to the sheer number of homeless people sleeping rough during the severe winter of 2010. Over time, the charity has evolved its remit to more broadly help those in need - providing community clubs, advice and mental health services. Support from the charity can help ‘catch people before they fall’ – potentially bringing them back from the brink of homelessness. And right now, they face record caseloads.

We’re pleased to report that we’ve raised over ￡24,000 so far through our partnership, via donations and staff fundraising. We support site colleagues to volunteer with WNS – both within and outside of work hours - and we’ve been really pleased at the uptake of that opportunity.

Fundraising is of vital importance, and volunteering is brilliant - but we’re challenging ourselves on how we can do more – to make a deeper, more sustained impact. A stable job can be the missing puzzle piece to help someone really turn their life around. Working with Winter Night Shelter, we identified this as a real opportunity within our partnership. Over the last year, we’ve been able to offer several WNS clients the chance of employment at our site – to provide that regular income and supportive work environment to get back on their feet. It’s a virtuous circle - WNS clients need jobs, and we’ve got roles to fill – and that’s what makes an intervention that sticks.

We’ve also been looking to how best to leverage our core expertise – food. So, as well as funding the ongoing WNS programme, we’ve been able to direct monies to build the forthcoming Winter Night Shelter ‘Cranswick Kitchen’. This will give people a place to socialise, learn to cook, develop new skills and enjoy warm, nourishing meals.

Through these interventions and more, we aim to deepen the partnership still further over the coming year, engaging more people within our business to maximise our impacts. Why’s it so important to us? Because, in my view, these kind of community relationships are vital for a sustainable business. A company does not exist in a silo - the success of any organisation and the communities it operates in are totally interconnected.

I strongly believe businesses will not succeed (or survive) if only measured through a narrow shareholder lens – we need to deliver for people, planet AND profit - to turn our attention to a more inclusive kind of capitalism where social responsibility plays a central role in strategy and operations.

Big business has an amazing opportunity to do this. And if you need to bring it back to the P&L, it’s still a win - the morals and principles of a company are becoming increasingly important to employees and customers alike, so social responsibility can bring a commercial advantage in the process. But ultimately, if a business can ignore the critical issues and needs in its own local community, how can it be expected to contribute to a better future that works for everyone?

Last week’s Big Sleep Out event was a sobering reminder of the many challenges facing people throughout society. While colleagues sleeping out for the night were certainly cold and uncomfortable, ultimately, they were in a secure environment and had the reassurance of a caring community around them. The reality for those on the streets is severe - people face threat, hunger and isolation every day. It’s not OK and we won’t ignore what is happening on our doorstep.

The experience has given our team even more motivation to work with incredible community partners like WNS and to use our position as a business leader to help turn things around. Because a better future is all our business.

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Unfortunately, WNS are gearing up for what looks to be their busiest year yet. You can donate here to enable them to continue their vital support of those who have nowhere else to turn.