Community Manager, Sascha Chennell talks about what Kingfisher is doing to help fight to fix bad housing, hitting the one million target and doubling the ambition to help two million people.
Can you start by explaining what Kingfisher’s community programme aims to do?
Absolutely. We have a clear objective to provide support for projects that improve housing and community spaces for those who need it most.
We know too many people across Europe are living in unfit housing and the pandemic made this worse. Our community focus is about helping to change that. It fits with the broader Kingfisher purpose – to make better homes accessible to everyone.
How do you deliver on this objective?
We have charity partnerships and a network of in-country charitable foundations set up, as well as organising colleague fundraising and volunteering. Through these we donate our products, skills, funding, and time to supporting a range of projects from helping families with home repairs to renovations for rehousing projects and teaching essential DIY skills.
Why have we set up foundations, and how long have they been running?
Establishing charitable foundations in our retail banners has been a crucial part in developing our community programme. It’s enabled us to step up our progress so we can help more people live in better homes because it means we can better manage the process for selecting projects to make sure they fit closely with our purpose. Because we’re operating on quite a large scale - for example, the B&Q Foundation has awarded over £1.6 million in grants, helping hundreds of local charities - having foundations in place helps our grant giving to be much more focused.
Our network of foundations now covers all our banners. Starting with The Screwfix Foundation, which was set up in 2013. It's been hugely successful and has funded over 2,000 projects since it began. In 2020, Castorama Foundation was established focusing on projects in France to enable the poorest access to better housing, and in the same year we set up Foundations in B&Q, Romania and Poland. Last year our final foundations were set up for Brico Dépôt in France and Brico Depôt in Iberia.
We also have several charity partnerships across Europe. For example, B&Q’s partnership with housing charity, Shelter, which provides DIY Skills Adviser Service to people who are struggling with bad housing or settling into a new home after a period of homelessness.
Can you tell me about the target Kingfisher set to help over one million people and achieving that?
Yes. In 2016 we set the target to help more than one million people with housing needs by 2025. Over the past couple of years, we’ve been able to accelerate the number of projects we supported so we could see, last year, that we were on the way to reaching that target. It’s brilliant that we’ve hit a million a few years earlier than anticipated. It’s a significant milestone that demonstrates the hard work and commitment of all those involved.
What do you think is unique about your community programme?
One of the things that feels unique is that for a lot of the community projects we are involved in our colleagues can play an active role. For example, in Poland, colleagues helped transform empty buildings into safe and secure homes as part of a “Repurposing Empty Spaces” project and in France, ‘DIY advisors’ travelled to rural communities as part of the Bricobus project to teach socially isolated people essential DIY skills. And there are more. That’s just a couple of examples. Also, as a home improvement retailer we are obviously well placed to support here, not just through financial support but by playing a part in communities by providing our products, time and expertise.
What are you most proud of?
I’ve been in the role for six months now and I’m proud of all the projects we support and obviously reaching a million is a brilliant milestone. But also, it’s wonderful to see how many of the projects we support give people a social connection and the fact that they are all about helping people live in better homes, which are so important to happiness.
A great example is the Bricobus in France, which travels around rural areas providing DIY advice. It’s about empowering people with skills but also provides a great way for people to connect.
What next for Kingfisher’s community work?
Well, we’ve got our two million target to reach. That’s a big goal to be working towards and I’m excited to be a part of the team working hard to make a difference and play our part.
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