Co-operative in the Community
The Midcounties Co-operative is one of just nine organisations to attain the CommunityMark in 2009. Each are exemplars of best practice for the way they have invested in communities through corporate giving and fundraising, pro-bono and employee volunteering time, in-kind support and commercial initiatives.
The Midcounties Co-operative, which trades in Oxfordshire, Gloucestershire, Buckinghamshire, Shropshire, the West Midlands, Wiltshire and Worcestershire, is recognised in particular for work on social issues concerning the environment, education, social inclusion and health.
CSR is fundamental to The Midcounties Co-operative. It is what we are all about - which is being a community based retailer employing local people and doing what we can to support local communities.Ben Reid, Chief Executive Officer
Maxine Sharman said: "We are delighted and immensely proud to achieve the CommunityMark which recognises the commitment we have throughout our business to support our local communities. It is something we truly believe in. As a co-operative business, social responsibility is at the heart of what we do, giving something back and putting our co-operative values and principles into action. "We not only return a percentage of our profits to the communities we serve, we invest our time and skills too by encouraging our 7,800 colleagues to get involved in community fundraising and volunteering events and to engage with our campaigns."
In 2008 The Midcounties Co-operative provided £131,000 in community grants and supported over 260 individual organisations. Colleagues accessed a further £7,000 for projects they were personally involved with and branch managers allocated £20,000 for goods for community groups and raffle prizes.
The Midcounties Co-operative has actively engaged its stakeholders in identifying the following social issues, which have been deemed most relevant to the business and pressing to their communities. These include:
- Social exclusion - with a particular focus on rural exclusion
- Education - underachievement and low aspirations amongst young people
- Health - employability, literacy and life skills
- Environment
The Midcounties Co-operative addresses these key social issues through three core strands of activity: Community Funding, Community Volunteering and Community Projects.
Community Funding: This programme was set up to provide community groups, schools and organisations with quick and easy access to low level funding. In order to gain funding these organisations are assessed by our Membership Strategy Committee, a group made up of internal and external stakeholders. During 2008, £131,000 was provided in Co-operative Community Funding and over 260 individual organisations were supported.
Community Volunteering: The Midcounties Co-operative's Colleague Volunteer Programme encourages all colleagues to participate in volunteer activity. Such is their commitment to employee volunteering that this is a reportable measure on their Steering Wheel, a balanced scorecard used to measure commercial and social goals. The Midcounties Co-operative is able to demonstrate business return on the 29.3% of employees who engaged in activity and have given their time and skills to community projects. Total staff turnover for 2008 was 31.9% and in colleagues that have been engaged in volunteering, this figure dropped dramatically to 3.4%, showing a direct link between retention of colleagues and participation in community activity.
Community Projects: The Midcounties Co-operative aims to align its core partnerships under the four themes identified above. They work closely with local schools through providing funding and volunteer support and are looking to develop this by creating some longer lasting links with selected schools in the future.
The Midcounties Co-operative has integrated its approach to community investment throughout the business, and this is clearly demonstrated by their support for community owned village shops. The Midcounties Co-operative has developed the most comprehensive support programme of any UK retailer for communities to take control of their own store through the creation of community owned village shops and works with the Village Retail Services Association (ViRSA) to support ViRSA's aim of doubling the number of community owned shops. Of the current 150 stores in the UK, over 20% have received support from The Midcounties Co-operative or the business advice it funds.
