Leeds Building Society Responsible Business Team

Client: Various

Leeds Building Society’s Responsible Business team is a small team of four who have all been in role for under two years but have made a big impact in a short period of time. Since joining the Society, the team has transformed the communities strategy. As a result, the original five-year target for donations has doubled from £1.5m to £3m by 2025.

The team have brought their collective experience from the charity and financial services sector to develop longer-term strategic relationships with charities, boost colleague engagement, launch a digital fundraising and volunteering platform and publish the Society's first ever Purpose Impact Report. Key highlights in 2023 include distributing over £1.1m to over 240 charities and community organisations, launching free dementia advice clinics in branches across the UK, helping six Ukrainian families with young children to move into newly refurbished accommodation above the Peterborough branch and increasing colleague engagement from 2,200 volunteering hours in 2022 to just under 6,000 hours in 2023. All initiatives are now aligned to the Society’s purpose and support marginalised groups of people who experience barriers to home ownership, where we can have measurable impact and help them to transform their lives.