Co-op Report: Support for communities at its highest

• Pandemic sees more than 1 million Co-op members choose to support a local cause in a single round of its Local Community Fund – the highest numbers since its launch in 2016

• £100 million marks legacy of Co-op investment into communities over the past 5 years, supporting major national community partnerships and over 25,000 local community projects

• Recent insight from the grass roots charities supported by the Co-op shows more is needed to help communities get back on their feet

We're celebrating raising £100 million for local communities, causes and charity partners over the past five years and, in our last funding round, we found that support for communities is bigger than ever.

The survey

This year, more 3,000 local causes from across the UK took part in our survey, sharing how the pandemic has affected their groups and communities, making it one of the largest of its kind.

Causes identified mental wellbeing (89% of causes), the impact of lockdown on young people’s education (66% of causes) and rising food insecurity (46% of causes) as some of the biggest challenges facing their communities.

This insight, along with data from our Community Wellbeing Index, and network of Member Pioneers has helped to inform our vision of 'co-operating for a fairer world', which focuses on these areas that matter: access to food, mental wellbeing, support and education and employment for young people.

How we support local communities

Our Co-op Membership programme sees 2p in every pound spent on Co-op branded products and services shared equally between two funds – the Local Community Fund and the Community Partnerships Fund.

The money raised has also supported national organisations and charities across the country, including Co-op’s partnership with Hubbub which has funded 100 new community fridges in local communities across the UK, providing 6.8 million meals a year. As well as signposting 500,000 people to activity information or services that support their mental wellbeing with Mind, SAMH (Scottish Association for Mental Health) and Inspire.

It’s also created over 6,000 opportunities for young people to make their communities safer places to live and enabled 7,000 Co-op Academy students to receive free Co-op food vouchers, the equivalent of 1.2 million meals.