Charity stakeholders and collaborative partners

Successful companies are no longer the ones that just make the most money, but are those that create the greatest social value for their communities and society as a whole.

Great partnerships, great results

Inclusive capitalism is built on great partnerships delivering great results. The below examples show the power of cooperation. If we can all set aside old divides between public and private, we could unlock and release a burst of transformative energy in our society and economy.

We’re working with Royal Voluntary Service as it supports the most vulnerable during the coronavirus crisis.

Royal Voluntary Service plays an important role in supporting older and vulnerable people in hospital and in the community, and our six-year partnership with them has seen hundreds of our colleagues give up their time to volunteer. But the coronavirus outbreak has made that face-to-face support for hospital patients impossible, so we’re backing the charity’s efforts to help vulnerable people in new ways during the period of social distancing.

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We’ve worked in partnership with Charities Aid Foundation’s social investment team, funding the pioneering social investment fund SE Assist since its creation in 2012.

Thriving communities don’t just happen, they’re built by the people who care about them. SE Assist provides some of the essential building blocks, offering affordable financing, business mentoring, and valuable network connections to help start-up social enterprises and entrepreneurial non-profits develop and grow.

We’ve supported 31 organisations to date, organisations like Elite Paper Solutions in Wales. Elite Paper provides paper recycling, disposal, shredding, and scanning services while also helping people who are disabled, long-term unemployed, or homeless obtain stable jobs. Elite Paper used SE Assist financing to help pay salaries and fund capital improvements in the business, enabling them to win larger contracts and create 34 new jobs. This is what inclusive capitalism looks like.

Cancer poses a huge and growing challenge to society. 17 million people were diagnosed in 2018 and this is expected to grow to 27.5m by 2040. Many of us will be directly or indirectly affected by cancer.

Cancer Research UK is the world's leading research non-profit dedicated to saving lives through research, influence, and information. Fewer than one in four people with cancer in the UK survived in the 1970s. Today that figure has doubled, thanks to research, and Cancer Research UK's goal is to see it rise to three in four by 2034.

We're supporting Cancer Research UK's Cancer Chat forum and nurse helpline—vital sources of information, support, and individualised responses to questions that aren’t available anywhere else. We can help more people live healthier for longer by providing the right support.

Our charity stakeholders and collaborative partners

We believe our support can and should go even further in these challenging times, which is why we’ve been supporting delivery of Wales’ Social Enterprise Academy’s leadership and enterprise programmes to our SE Assist portfolio of businesses in Wales as well as the wider Wales social enterprise network.

This series of programmes that support local entrepreneurs plays an important role supporting post-pandemic business growth and, in doing so, supporting the regeneration of the communities at the heart of society.

As part of our commitment to help build an inclusive society, Legal & General has become a founding partner of LetsLocalise, a digital social innovation that aims to tap into the unused reservoir of community goodwill to empower educators across the country.

Founded in November 2018 in Berkshire, LetsLocalise helps people come together to support schools, giving every student the best chance of success, by combining the best of community action with the organisational power of an online platform. ​​​​​​​

We recognise the many challenges that teachers face, to continue educating their students. Working with Angela Gould, and Higher Horizons+, a Uni Connect Programme led by Keele University, we’ve funded Virtual Maths Club, a programme full of interesting, challenging maths resources for secondary school teachers and students. Over 150 teachers have registered to join Virtual Maths Club, a new online community offering sets of free maths resources to encourage and engage students whilst studying at home.

It began in 2015 with a dozen of people gathered around a table to talk about ending the stigma of mental illness at work. Today they are a community of 2,000 workers across every industry, who come together to learn and share new ways of enhancing mental wellbeing in the workplace, with a purpose to inspire and equip individuals to eradicate the stigma of mental illness and create workplaces that are life-enhancing.

We made the decision to become a partner of Minds@work and are now working closely with them and this year have sponsored their HIVR Platform.

Like a lot of organisations Legacy had to close its doors to thousands of young people due to the pandemic. In order to meet the needs of their members, they shifted their delivery to an emergency response: at home, online and in the community.

In the first few months alone they distributed a total of 3800 free meals into the community via carefully curated food packages, and made over 250 calls to young members, to check how they’re doing and see if they require any further support. These also include calls to their most vulnerable members and the parents of young people with additional needs.

Over 100 activity packs have been sent to young people giving them fun and engaging things to do at home, which include: Craft activities, colouring pens, bouncy balls, playing cards, sensory fidget toys, skipping ropes and books. Half of the packs were sent to those with additional needs and were carefully designed around each individual’s interests.

Legal & General are proud to support Legacy Youth Zone, who have helped give the young people in Croydon a sense of hope, happiness and fun during this very difficult time.

This year our support has helped Empower with the realities in the communities in which their partners work. Social distancing is challenging, if not impossible, in overcrowded communities. Schools are closed in all 15 countries they work in; for many young people, their school provides the only guaranteed meal of the day. The lack of access to clean, running water and soap makes frequent hand washing difficult. Economic shocks cause food scarcity and lack of basic household necessities.

Girls and Young Women are particularly affected:

  • As family members get sick, caregiving and chores burden responsibilities dramatically increase. Sexual violence, domestic violence, intimate partner violence and child sexual exploitation increase, as schools and youth programs are closed.
  • With pressure to provide financially for their families, girls are unlikely to have any savings and the most vulnerable can be forced to survive through transactional sex or “survival sex”.
  • Without access to sexual and reproductive health services, unwanted / unplanned pregnancies and STIs will rise.