Social impact

Investing in communities

We are more than a landlord and housing provider and our profit for a purpose ethos enables us to invest in our communities to make a positive difference to people's lives. Since 2013, we have invested £24.6 million (around £4 million per year) back into our communities.

Since July 2019 our employees have contributed over 2,000 hours’ worth of volunteering time. Our employees have painted, decorated, planted and litter-picked their way to supporting our local communities.

We continue to support a number of national and local charities with their work including MIND, Shelter, Macmillan Cancer Support and Prostate Cancer Awareness UK and have raised over £45,000 for these worthy causes. Our employee match-funding scheme also provides the opportunity to support charities that are close to the hearts of our employees.

Community impact

A key element of Orbit’s social impact, and central to its vision of building thriving communities, is delivered through its Better Days programme. Better Days offers support and advice to our customers through the delivery of a range services that aim to address barriers aid choice and independence. Working with customers and partners, we have developed programmes promoting employment and skills, digital support, wellbeing and financial advice.

In 2018 we co-founded the Community Impact Partnership (CIP) with three other registered providers (Clarion, L&Q and Peabody) to offer social investment funding. The CIP supports social enterprises by providing investment funding and creating growth opportunities for businesses with a social purpose at their heart and widens the social impact that we can create across our neighbourhoods.

Earlier this year, we announced a new business partnership with Supply Change, an online platform which acts as a digital marketplace to connect public sector organisations who need goods and services with social suppliers who can deliver quality and a positive impact.

The platform allows the tender of the contract to align their values with the way that they conduct their business and increase social value within their supply chain. We are supporting Supply Change with both investment and continued non-financial support in the form of access to our own procurement team to test its product and put forward social enterprises for contract opportunities.

National campaigns

Our work doesn’t stop there. We campaign on national issues affecting our customers, from accessing the housing market to challenging welfare reform. Our Happy Healthy Starts campaign has seen Orbit tackle child poverty, influence welfare policy and work with housing providers across the country to introduce practical changes to improve support for families.

We work with MPs, local authorities, think-tanks and national charities to ensure that the customer really is at the heart of everything we do.

You can find out more about our national campaigns here.