Corporate Partnerships
Working strategically with forward-thinking businesses to deliver lasting change
The ethos of collaboration that Cambridge House was founded on is still at the core of our work today.
Overcoming some of the greatest social challenges within our communities requires partners who share our values, our vision and can offer services, donations and actions that will enhance our impact and enable us to protect and improve more lives.
We spend 82p in every £1 on direct service delivery
Staff fundraising and donations
Fundraising is a great and often fun way to get your staff involved in activities that will raise money for a good cause. To support your efforts we can provide publicity as well as access to our exclusive fundraising materials and charity places at popular events.
Our Safer Renting and Youth and Disabled People’s Empowerment services are predominantly funded by grants so donations to these services are particularly invaluable as they can provide project security to staff and participants.
Gifts in kind
Help us to keep our costs low so that we can direct more of our resources to our frontline services. Examples of donations include:
- Technology to support our office staff
- IT advice to increase our efficiency
- Arts and crafts materials for our Disabled People’s Empowerment groups
Volunteering
Employee skills and expertise are a vital resource that can vastly improve other peoples’ lives. Our RISE Youth Empowerment service partners with various local organisations who impart life skills, health and employment advice to our 16 to 24 year olds.
We are always looking for new partners, so if your staff feel that they have something to contribute to the project please don’t hesitate to get in touch.
“10/10. A really amazing experience which I would recommend to everyone”
– Credit Suisse Volunteer
Corporate Partnerships – a Case Study
“I was really pleased to help advise on this sale, which should put the charity in a strong financial position going forward, and to be part of such a longstanding pro bono relationship of the firm”
– Margaret Rhodes,
Senior Counsel, Macfarlanes
“Thanks to the significant pro bono advice and guidance from Macfarlanes, the sale of this property has enabled Cambridge House to repay outstanding debt, with a very positive impact on our capital position and solvency. We are now able to embark on the long-awaited launch of the next exciting phase of our work.”
– Karin Woodley CBE,
Chief Executive, Cambridge House
Our longstanding and close relationship with Macfarlanes has involved members of the firm (partners and others) being on the Cambridge House’s Council of Management, and they have also provided ongoing and significant pro bono support for the charity in HR, contract matters, charity governance and, most recently, real estate advice.
During 2022 and 2023, Macfarlanes’ commercial real estate group provided us with many hours of pro bono advice. We were operating from a multi-purpose/community hub building and had decided that, to secure our financial sustainability and meet the needs of our services, we needed to sell the building and find alternative premises.
The sale was challenging given the bespoke nature of the listed building: we used parts of the premises itself, including areas open to the public, and had granted occupational licences to other charities and organisations tackling social exclusion. With Macfarlanes’ support, the sale process successfully balanced our financial interests, minimised disruption to these partner organisations, and allowed us ongoing use through a transitional period while we relocated.
Become a Corporate Partner
If your organisation is interested in enhancing the work that Cambridge House does by becoming one of our corporate partners, then please contact Callum from our Development Team by phone at 0207 358 7006 or email at cgoodall@ch1889.org.
Cambridge House News
Rent Repayment Orders: A Reality Check
Back in April 2019 the national press picked up on a success story of a group of students who won a Rent Repayment Order against their landlord, kick starting a wave of interest from tenants and advisers alike. One of the crucial items we tick off our list at Safer Renting when interviewing one of our referred clients these days is whether or not the possibility for an RRO exists. In fact, RROs have been around for quite a while, having been ushered in by the Housing Act 2004 but they weren’t flavour of the month until comparatively recently. Why?
Are we seeing a new type of housing need?
I was genuinely fascinated to read about a new concept in rental living reported in free London newspaper, City AM, where prospective tenants choose to pay through the nose for small living spaces that come without bills or the necessity for cleaning and offer a more communal experience, with plumbed in activities, such as yoga classes and mental wellness sessions. Is this where certain groups of younger, wage earning tenants are looking for their housing needs? If so I wonder if contemporary renting laws, kickstarted with the Law of Property Act 1925 fits with this trend, if trend it be.
Safer Renting for the Guardian: Renters must be able to hold private landlords to account
Evictions from a private tenancy are a major part of the 78% rise in homelessness since 2011. So-called allow private landlords to turf tenants out without any reason, and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation attributes 80% of the recent rise in evictions to this process. We must be able to hold landlords to account if we are to lower the numbers of people that end up at local authorities’ doors.
Safer Renting Director Roz Spencer shares insights into London’s broken private renter market and demands proper protections for renters in the Guardian.