Carers Trust is the Co-operative Charity of the Year!

An announcement from the Carers Trust (a national organistion we are a network member of):


We are thrilled to tell you that we have won the Co-operative Charity of the Year.

This has been announced in the press today, with several of us attending a reveal event at the global international year of the co-operatives conference in Manchester. We have been desperate to tell you since we were told a two weeks ago but it was embargoed until today!

Thank you to everyone who voted for us and encouraged others to do so too. Across all the Co-operative businesses, we achieved 60% of the vote. More votes were cast by the Co-operative staff and members than ever before, and the Co-operative was overwhelmed by the number of people who fed back that they were carers themselves, had been a carer or knew a carer, which just goes to show what a universal issue caring is. It is real feedback on the strength of the issue and the appeal of the new charity across the country.

Mencap and Enable Scotland were the last charity of the year and, through a lot of hard work across their network working with the Co-operative staff, they raised an amazing £7.2m which has helped them to provide new services for an additional 26,000 people. It is now up to us to ensure we make the most of this incredible opportunity.