Our Communities
Giving back and helping others
Our Communities is the name for corporate social responsibility at NHBC and it is how we support the communities in which we operate and where our colleagues live, working with charity partners who are aligned with our values.
What we do
We deliver the aims of our Communities through a combination of activities and events, working with and fundraising for our charity partners, matched funding for money raised by our people for their own local causes and volunteering.
Our aims
Sharing our skills and knowledge
Inclusivity and support for minority groups
A local and nationwide reach
Our charity partners
Our head office is in Milton Keynes and we are pleased to work with some great local organisations including Action4Youth and Worktree who both support young people. The Milton Keynes Food Bank, has our continued support, which is needed more than ever during these challenging economic times, and we also work with the Milton Keynes Community Foundation, which provides small grants on our behalf to local projects related to education, young people, and issues of deprivation.
Crisis is our national charity partner and we have been supporting their important work to end homelessness since 2018 through fundraising, education, sponsorship and volunteering.
National charity
Crisis
Crisis is a UK national charity formed in 1967 as an urgent response to the growing homelessness crisis. Since then they have helped tens of thousands of people out of homelessness and campaigned for change. Working directly with thousands of people experiencing homelessness every year, Crisis provides vital help so that people can rebuild their lives and are supported out of homelessness for good.
Find out more
Local charity
Worktree
Worktree is an employability education charity with roots deep in MK. As a community of 3,000 volunteers, they are like the trunk of a tree, the solid foundation that enables young people to experience, dream and blossom. They facilitate conversations with working people so that students can talk openly to them about what they do, find out how they got there, understand and potentially imagine themselves in that role.
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Local charity
Action 4 Youth
Action 4 Youth has been encouraging, motivating and supporting clubs, groups and organisations for young people throughout Buckinghamshire for over 70 years. They run the highly successful Caldecotte Xperience providing adventure and outdoor education for the region.
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Local charity
MK Community Foundation
MK Community Foundation is a leading grant-making charity sending funding where it's needed most in Milton Keynes. With so many vulnerable, isolated, and disadvantaged people in Milton Keynes they’re proud to be leading the way in supporting community projects and charitable activities to help create a fairer more connected community.
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Local charity
MK Food Bank
MK Food Bank has supported the local community with emergency food parcels since 2004. Relying solely on donations of food and money from the local community, schools, churches and corporate sponsors. The cost-of-living crisis is affecting more and more people on our doorstep right now. In 2022 so far MK Food Bank has given out 15,000 emergency food parcels. This is 30% more than this time last year and rising all the time.
Find out moreMatched funding
As well as fundraising for our charity partners, we support colleagues fundraising for the charities that matter most to them, through our matched funding scheme. We match fund individuals and teams of 4 or more NHBC people.
Volunteering
Volunteering is an important part of how we give back and help our communities. Everyone at NHBC can take up to two days’ paid volunteering leave every year.
Our support in action
London Technical Operations team volunteer at Loughton School, Milton Keynes
Lee Bidaudville, Dave Cummins, Mark Howson and Jason Richardson, all colleagues from Valentino Rivolta’s (London) Technical Operations team, volunteered at Loughton School in Milton Keynes.They got stuck in with clearing weeds from an old planting bed, saving the flowers for replanting by a pergola which was to be installed over Easter.
Complex Claims colleagues redecorate sensory room
Over the course of a week, 15 colleagues from Complex Claims redecorated a sensory room at Furze House, a venue supporting the needs of children with special needs and their families living within the Milton Keynes area. The team split into groups of four or five spending a day each to complete the task.
The Cambridgeshire BI team ‘can’
Following the launch of our MK Food Bank Logo Challenge ‘from cans to creativity’, the Cambridgeshire BI team held a collection for the Milton Keynes Food Bank.
Santa Dash
Supporting our charity partner Crisis, we took part in the annual Santa Dash. The funds we raised will go towards providing support to those in need this Christmas.
Volunteering at Age UK MK
Our Risk and Compliance team volunteered at Age UK MK helping set up their Winter Wonderland and deliver leaflets to advertise it to the local community.
Bake sale for Harry's Rainbows
Personal Claims Consultant, Clare Cambridge, organised a bake sale to raise money for Harry's Rainbows, an MK charity offering bereavement support to children.
Christmas cheer at the Ward 15 garden, MK Hospital
The Marketing and Communications Design & Copywriting team and Customer Services gave the Ward 15 garden its winter tidy and put up the Christmas tree. The NHS team came out to thank everyone for their hard work and commented on how it does not go unnoticed each time NHBC volunteers come in to tend to the garden.
HR volunteer for Willen Hospice
25 members of the HR team volunteered at the Willen Hospice store at The Point in Milton Keynes. They were split into teams to organise the storeroom and to price and replenish stock on the shop floor which included Christmas items, books, puzzles, board games, cuddly toys, clothes and haberdashery.
Volunteering for DIY SOS
Richard Foweraker, Claims Repair and Supplier Manager, spent his two days of volunteering leave for the BBC's DIY SOS. Richard worked on a project to turn a rundown caretaker's bungalow into a wellbeing centre for the Butterfly Effect - an initiative to support people's mental, physical and spiritual wellbeing on a holistic level in a friendly environment.
Curly Tails Pig Sanctuary
Lisa Ferraby, Quality Assurance Assessor, organised a volunteering day at Curly Tails Pig Sanctuary for her colleagues. They got involved with feeding and mucking out the pigs, raking and removing leaves to clear walkways and built 1.5 new pig pens.