OUR CHARITY INITIATIVES

Find out how we’re making the world brighter with our charity partnerships and team volunteering opportunities.

OUR CHARITY INITIATIVES

Find out how we’re making the world brighter with our charity partnerships and team volunteering opportunities.

Through Project Earth, we’re committed to changing the way we shop to create a sustainable future for people and planet. We’re always finding ways to make the world brighter, and we believe one of the best ways to achieve this is by collaborating with national and local organisations that share our values, using our platform to create positive change. Together with our charity partners, our team members and customers in London, Birmingham, Manchester, and Leicester are making a meaningful difference to their communities.

From fundraising initiatives to volunteering days, find out how we’re focussing our community-giving practices across three key pillars: Social Mobility, Environment and Wellbeing.

Team Selfridges at the annual Centrepoint Sleep Out in Novemeber 2022

SOCIAL MOBILITY

Selfridges is known for empowering and supporting groups and individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds, and we’re dedicated to helping people access the tools that can really make a difference to them, from housing support for the homeless to career development programmes.

Our national social mobility charity partner

CENTREPOINT

We’re proud to be partnered with Centrepoint, the UK’s leading youth homelessness charity. Working together, we’re helping to fund housing and provide much-needed support for thousands of vulnerable young people. Last year, we reached our largest fundraising total to date, through our team- member fundraising at the annual Centrepoint Sleep Out (which we’ve been joining since 2016), local volunteering activities and Christmas donation drives.

Throughout Christmas 2022, we expanded our support, donating all proceeds from the sale of a giant 8kg Selfridges Selection Panettone to Centrepoint, and running a ‘donate as you dine’ scheme in many of our restaurants, where customers could add a £1 donation to their bill.

We also met a spirited young individual called Cameron who, through Centrepoint’s support, has pursued his passion for cooking and found work as a sous chef. We invited Cameron to cook his favourite festive dish in the Selfridges kitchen and meet some of our chefs. Discover his recipe below:

Watch now

Working with Centrepoint, we’re able to make a huge impact on the lives of many vulnerable young people. £5 raised pays for someone’s vital basics (a toothbrush, fresh towel or clean bedsheets), £10 funds the team to answer a young person’s call to the Centrepoint Helpline, and £15 provides someone with a supermarket food voucher. In 2022, our donations funded new psychotherapist roles to support vulnerable young people.

Selfridges has helped Centrepoint to support thousands of homeless young people in the UK since our partnership began in 2015. This year, by donating to our Digital Inclusion project, Selfridges is helping us to ensure that all young people have the access to the devices and Wi-Fi that they need to stay connected and access important health, learning and employment opportunities.

– Jenny Bradley, Senior Corporate Development Officer at Centrepoint

How we’re supporting our local social mobility charities

London: We’re exploring new ways to positively impact the lives of the women at the Marylebone Project (a social landlord supporting homeless women and offering essential facilities and support via its drop-in centre) by sending beauty product donations and providing suit hire for interviews.

Manchester: We work with Mustard Tree and the Booth Centre, which help homeless residents across Manchester to access essential facilities and offer support programmes; FareShare, which co-ordinates donations to food banks across the city; and the Wood Street Mission, offering essential services to families across Manchester for over 150 years.

Birmingham: We’ve supported St Basil’s homeless charity since 2018, with fundraising events including a ‘Donate as you Dine’ scheme with Fumo, as well as Easter egg collections and donation drives.

Leicester: We work with The Bridge Homelessness to Hope, a charity dedicated to creating long-lasting change through housing, support and community projects.

ENVIRONMENT

Our teams work hard to keep sustainability at the heart of everything we do, taking care of the planet through beach cleans, tree-planting days and litter picks within our communities. We work with Oxfam to donate surplus clothing and give surplus waste from our London Foodhall to local charities such as The Little Things UK, Care-4-Calais and the Alexandra Wylie Tower Foundation food bank.

We also have more than 300 dedicated Green Warriors in our team who champion environmental issues and bring key sustainability issues to the forefront.

How we’re supporting our local wellbeing charities

London: Every year since 2015 we have completed beach cleans along the Thames foreshore as part of our Project Ocean partnership and in conjunction with Thames21.

Manchester: We work with We Love Manchester, which was set up in the wake of the Manchester Arena bombing to raise money for the victims and their families. Since then, the charity has evolved to help make Manchester a cleaner, safer and friendlier city, and we regularly use volunteering days to work with them on organised litter picks and street cleans around the city. This year, we will be working with the Canal & River Trust to support the regeneration of waterways across the city.

Birmingham: We have recently started partnering with BABMAG on its ‘Don’t be a Wasteman’ community clean-up campaign, enabling our team members to look after their local area with Digbeth-based community litter picks and clean-ups.

Oxfam is enormously proud of our partnership with Selfridges during Second Hand September and throughout the year as part of Project Earth. We hope that this collaboration helps to raise awareness about the huge impact fast fashion has on our planet and the people who are being pushed deeper into poverty by climate change.

– Danny Sriskandarajah, Chief Executive of Oxfam Great Britain

WELLBEING

Mental health and wellbeing are concerns close to a lot of people’s hearts, and although support and awareness are increasing, there’s still a long way to go in reducing stigma and providing support to those in need. At Selfridges, one of our focusses is driving a healthy business and healthy teams, working together to deliver a sense of collective wellbeing for our customers, team members and communities.

One way we do this is through our ongoing partnership with mental health charity Shout, organising fundraising through events such as our sponsored LOL-ATHON.

How we’re supporting our local environment charities

London: We have team member volunteer text responders for Shout who have also provided mental health awareness training for our line managers and Head Office teams.

Manchester: We work with 42nd Street, which provides free and confidential support to young people who are experiencing difficulties and empowers them to campaign for social justice.

Birmingham: We work with the local branch of Mind to support them in creating mindful spaces for those who use its services. The team also works with suicide prevention charity PAPYRUS, raising awareness and being visible in city-centre-based ‘hopewalks’.

We are very grateful for the incredible support we have received from Selfridges and the multitude of fundraising and awareness-raising activities in which staff have participated.

– Victoria Hornby, Chief Executive of charity Mental Health Innovations, which powers Shout 85258

OUR TEAM MEMBER VOLUNTEERING OPPORTUNITIES

As well as partnering with charity groups, we also offer up to five days a year for team members to volunteer with specific partner organisations, with activities ranging from beach cleans to sorting donated clothes for charity shops. Discover more about how our teams are getting involved in volunteering activities below.

Find out more

WORKING WITH US

To get in touch to apply for support from Selfridges community volunteering and charitable giving programme in London, Birmingham, Manchester and Leicester, please email us to [email protected].