TURNING CHARITABLE GIVING INTO A SUSTAINABLE BUSINESS

By Nicky

Landmark research published earlier this year by Gloucester-based insurer Benefact Group revealed that charitable giving adds £23 billion to the UK economy – more than the sports and gambling sectors combined.

British corporates have not been slow to recognise this and many now have dedicated departments to oversee their company’s charitable programme.

But giving to good causes has always been an inexact science. How does a corporate such as Sainsbury’s or M&S decide which good local causes to support? And how do you measure (as all businesses must do with everything these days), the value of that giving?

Bristol-based Neighbourly has been helping them do this since 2013.

The business was founded in 2013 by marketeer Nick Davies, who had worked with big brands to help them build effective local community support strategies and understand their value. He knew that engaging with local communities builds trust, which is good for the businesses, as well as the causes they support

But back in the mid 2000s, finding and working with local good causes could be complex and time-consuming for larger organisations, made even more challenging by a lack of a digital or social presence amongst smaller charitable organisations.

Connecting businesses with local good causes

From here came the idea of building something online, connecting businesses with local good causes, to make investment in local communities easier, measureable and more transparent.

Neighbourly was set up as a technology platform matching charities and good causes to large companies with resources to donate, which could be volunteer time, financial support or surplus products.

By 2017, after the business had successfully raised a total of £3 million through angel investment, the company began to look for an experienced full-time chief executive to help the business grow further and faster.

Steve Butterworth joined the company in early 2018, after a few years doing consultancy work. He had the right credentials – in the mid 2000s, he had successfully co-led a management buy-out of a legal technology company, backed by Lloyds Development Capital. He moved to the US and took the company global.

A few years later, he and his business partners were in turn bought out by their management team and he looked to return home, but where would home be? “My wife had grown up in south Somerset and I had gone to university in Bristol. I never thought I’d return because I didn’t want to trample on my amazing memories of being a student here but I have experienced a very different and equally exciting side to Bristol since coming back.”

After a few years of consultancy work, Steve met the team from Neighbourly, and took on the role as the company’s CEO.

Leaving the world a better place

“I felt that we could build a sustainable, profitable, high-growth company that could leave the world a better place. Neighbourly is here to help any businesses in any sector be better and we have a real chance to create something that’s properly meaningful. Because if you can build happy, healthy and resilient communities, that’s good for business.”

One example of where Neighbourly is helping big businesses make a difference is Sainsbury’s.

With 1,400 locations across the UK, the grocer wanted to connect with local good causes for its community programme. Partnering with Neighbourly, every day Sainsbury’s can support causes local to every one of its stores with surplus food and community grants which employees can nominate to receive support.

“Every day each store puts aside products close to their use-by date. A local good cause will collect it and put it to good use in the community. Our platform manages the relationship and logs the data, all year round.”

“We help Sainsbury’s and other supermarkets like M&S, Aldi and Lidl do this at scale, while still making it personal to each store and measuring the value of that support.”

“Our tech systems have to be seamless to work with retail operations teams and the thousands of community groups and charities that redistribute the food.

“Our retail clients like the fact that we are a commercially-minded organisation.”

Sainsbury’s, like all Neighbourly’s corporate clients, benefits from real-time reporting dashboards that tell them what’s going on by store and region at the click of a button, whether that’s fundraising, volunteering or food redistribution, and the positive impact that’s been created.

Steve said: “They need this information because they want to know that they really are helping their local communities.”

Neighbourly has more than 26,000 vetted charities and local good causes profiled on its platform and it’s free for them to register.

“Neighbourly doesn’t take a cut of the donated money and charities don’t get charged anything to use the platform,” explains Steve.

“We are the matchmaker, the communicator and the data aggregator.”

Steve had two objectives when he joined the business. “One was to break even and become profitable, the other was to raise institutional money.”

Working alongside Steve is Zoe Colosimo, Neighbourly’s chief operating offer who has been there from the beginning. “This is really important to me,” says Steve. “She’s got the history and together we have the forward story.”

The company broke even in 18 months and secured investment from Guinness Asset Management 18 months later. It has since invested a further £1.5 million. Neighbourly has, in total, raised £7.5 million, employs around 100 people and has a multi-millionpound turnover.

Neighbourly has traditionally worked with big businesses, and partners with around 50 large companies and global brands, who generally employ thousands of staff across multiple locations.

Widening the Neighbourly offer to mid-sized businesses

It’s now launched new features to help medium-sized enterprises (upwards of around 200 employees) increase their local social and environmental impact, with a call to these smaller businesses to be part of Neighbourly’s mission to create £1 billion of impact by 2025.

“A mid-sized company can now use our platform to find local good causes and offer their employees a volunteer programme throughout the year. And they can measure the impact,” said Steve.

Neighbourly is now working with an organisation close to its Bristol roots, offering its services through Redcliffe and Temple Business Improvement District to help members engage with their communities.

Steve hopes this will encourage other such organisations to come on board. “We hope our work with Redcliffe and Temple BID will show other BIDs around the country how we can help them.”

Ambitious growth plans

Neighbourly has ambitions for international growth.

“The USA is known for its philanthropy but no business goes into North America half hearted. It would be a long-term play and you need to be well-funded,” added Steve.

Europe has different challenges, with varying attitudes towards charitable giving. “For instance, the Nordic countries are well known for the level of welfare support provided by the state,” says Steve.

Meanwhile there’s plenty to do here. There are more than 160,000 registered charities in the UK and more than 90 per cent of all corporate giving goes to the bigger ones. But Neighbourly knows, through its annual YouGov trust survey, that there’s higher levels of public trust for local charities compared with national or international ones. And people are also more likely to support businesses which are taking an active role in helping their local communities.

“There are thousands of businesses wanting to do the right thing but finding it difficult. We remove the friction for them, help them support grassroots causes in their communities and deliver a discoverable legacy of giving.”