Social Impact
The Partnership was founded with a powerful ethos: to be a force for good in society. Today, we're still passionate about using our skills and resources to have a positive social impact.
We appreciate that many of the issues we help tackle are complex, so we always strive for deeper understanding before offering support that we believe can make a real and lasting difference.
This may involve making donations or giving gifts in kind, building strategic relationships with charities, empowering Partners to volunteer their time or engaging with local communities. We’re proud that through the relationships our stores have built with local charities and community organisations, supported by our network of John Lewis Community Liaison Coordinators and Waitrose Community Leads, we’re able to connect people and make a difference in lives across the country.
Commitments
- Make a positive difference in communities where the Partnership operates giving time, money, space or goods to support people in the community through charities or other social impact activity;
- Enable our customers and Partners to donate food to their local communities and facilitating food donations nationally together with our distribution partners to support communities in need;
- Build happier futures for people with experience of the care system and support families to lead healthier, happier lives.
Highlights
Mission Statement: To connect and give back to communities and charitable causes.
Care
Connections
£2.4 million
raised for the Building Happier Futures fund since launch in October 2022.
We strive to be the employer of choice – and fundraise to build a positive community – for care-experienced people. In 2024, we launched a new Made by Care product range, raising vital funds that provide more assistance to families and give care-experienced people the support they deserve to learn, earn and thrive.
Community Connections
Over £1.7 million
donated to good causes through our Community Matters programme in 2024.
We champion the role the Partnership can play in advancing the happiness of the communities we work with and the wellbeing of society. Our Community Matters programme, through which Partners select local good causes for us to support, is just one way we achieve that.
Food
Connections
8,339,281
meals distributed by FareShare and Trussell.
In collaboration with charity partners FareShare and Trussell, we continue working to reduce food waste and fight food poverty. In 2024, we hosted two foodbank drives in Waitrose, with over 100 stores committing to support. We are grateful for the continued generosity of our customers as we tackle food insecurity together.
Awards
Outstanding Corporate Partnership, Action for Children Stephenson Awards 2024
Libby Hilling (on Golden Jubilee Trust secondment to Andover Mind), Pride of Andover Awards 2024 - Sue Sheppard Award and Spirit of Andover Award
King Charles III Charitable Fund
Every year, we make a donation to the Fund from sales of Duchy Original products. In 2024, we provided £3.7 million.
Royal British Legion
In 2024, thanks to the generosity of our customers and Partners, over 260 Waitrose stores combined to raise £598,276 for the Royal British Legion Poppy Appeal.
This valuable support helps the charity organise vital activities, such as recovery courses that help veterans regain their independence.
Progress
Defining connection
Throughout 2024, we began developing metrics to define the connections we make between people. As we seek to make certain that our approach consistently aligns with our Purpose of ‘working in Partnership for a happier world’, we’re evolving how we measure the impact of our work.
Developing unifying metrics for social impact takes time, but we’re seeking ways to quantify the connections we create within and between communities. We’re working closely with our partners to develop measurement frameworks that support our approach.
New Foundation launch
Our new and consolidated John Lewis Partnership Foundation launched in February 2024, bringing together separate UK registered charities and John Lewis Partnership community activities focused on supporting nature, employability and people with experience of the care system. For more information, watch a video about our work with WasteAid.
Challenges
There is an increasing number of extremely worthy causes deserving of support, and demand for such support through donations is at an all-time high, significantly outstripping our ability to assist. In this context, it’s important that we continue to invest maximum effort and finances into delivering our vision for a happier world through strategic, charitable giving. It’s also why we intend to keep considering Partners, customers and communities in the impact of our work.
Looking Forward
We intend to keep customers and Partners actively engaged with our community giving activities. We’ll do this through our Community Matters programme, where the Partnership makes financial donations to local charities, community groups and grass roots causes, creating key connections with the local community.
In 2025, the Golden Jubilee Trust turns 25. The scheme funds the donation of time and skills, rather than money, by giving our Partners the chance to be seconded to their chosen UK-registered charity for up to six months, either full or part time. Partners can get involved in any project they choose – from food banks to animal rescue centres – provided it has a clearly defined purpose and gives ongoing benefit. Since inception in 2000, the scheme has enabled over 1,100 Partners to undertake secondments throughout the country, helping charities achieve impactful ambitions they would normally struggle to resource.
Case Study
A Foundation for the future
February 2024 saw the launch of the new John Lewis Partnership Foundation, our bigger, bolder charity bringing more causes under a single umbrella. With three funds focused on helping nature, employability and people with care experience to flourish, our rebooted Foundation supports projects all over the world.
We’ve been operating charitable grant-giving to care for community wellbeing and the natural world since the 1960s. But in 2024, we stepped things up, uniting three key areas under the John Lewis Partnership Foundation.
Building Happier Futures aligns with the Partnership’s commitment to be the employer of choice for care-experienced people, while the Nature Fund provides grants to protect and restore the natural world in a socially just way.
Meanwhile, the Employability Fund supports the education and upskilling of vulnerable young people, building long-term relationships with 33 expert organisations, including WasteAid. Funded since 2023, the charity works to create sustainable livelihoods for youth in rural South Africa who work in the informal waste recycling sector. Funding from the John Lewis Partnership Foundation has enabled WasteAid to expand their First Step Recovery programme to two new communities in Mpumalanga, providing training, mentorship, resources and an enabling environment to transform waste into a valuable resource for income generation.
By providing training in waste and business management, we’re empowering people to boost their own incomes. Zanele, the leader of a newly registered business reflects, “I’ve increased my income from 2,000 rand to almost 10,000 rand per month. Now we’re officially registered, we can apply for funding from the municipality. My wish is to open a buyback centre to grow my business and create more jobs.”
Zanele’s business group has achieved a 460% increase in its income and has secured business agreements with a local guest house and taverns. Another group saw a 395% income boost and formally registered as a cooperative.
A total of 80 waste collectors have completed the ‘wastepreneur’ training, covering waste management, business and financial literacy, cooperatives and self-development themes.
“With nearly 45% of youth unemployed in Mpumalanga, many turn to informal waste collection from unsafe dump sites. With generous support from the John Lewis Partnership Foundation, since December 2023, we’ve empowered 100 young waste reclaimers and artisans, providing essential training, mentorship and resources to turn waste into a valuable source of income.” Ceris Turner-Bailes, Chief Executive, WasteAid
