Zurich Community Trust’s new five‑year strategy puts collaboration, sustainability and lived experience at its core. Head of ZCT Laura Deans explains how the trust selected its new charity partners, how employee passion shapes funding priorities, and why Partnership+ will offer more than grants alone.
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What stood out about the 31 local charity partners and the two key partners and pilot partner that led to their selection?
Choosing from so many inspiring charities is never easy. We’re proud to support three key partners - Young Lives vs Cancer and Shout (Mental Health Innovations) over the next for three years, and GoodGym for a one-year pilot, alongside 31 local charities near our Zurich offices. We also continue to champion long-term partners such as The Recovery Tree, Big Breakfast Plus and Headway Swindon, whom we’ve worked with for over 20 years.

The charities we partner with each tackle social issues that truly matter to Zurich employees, particularly in the areas of physical and mental health. By inviting charities to apply, we ensure their work aligns with the priorities and passions of our colleagues. When selecting our partners we lead with our guiding question: “Will this improve lives?” and for the charities we’ve selected, the answer was a resounding yes.

Our new five-year strategy, ‘Enriching Communities Together’ is shaped by the ongoing funding pressures caused by the cost-of-living crisis. With more families turning to food banks, rising youth mental health needs, and charities facing greater demand with limited resources, we've committed to supporting organisations that create clear and measurable impact.

The Trust operates across 17 UK regions. How does ZCT balance national priorities with local needs?
Our approach is guided by what matters to our colleagues. Their passions shape our partnerships, and their ability to volunteer and fundraise amplifies our impact far beyond grant-making. National priorities such as wellbeing, mental health, and the financial pressures of cancer align with what we are seeing and hearing about in the community. We also bring partners together to collaborate and share learning across regions.

We maintain separate funding pots for our different partners, tailoring our support accordingly. Local partners receive flexible, unrestricted multiyear funding, while key partners collaborate with us on defined multiyear projects. This ensures we can target support where it’s most needed and allows partners to respond to local realities.

How does ZCT work with partners beyond funding?
This year, we’ve relaunching and rebranding our enhanced support as the Partnership+ programme, which will provide even greater value alongside our traditional funding. Partnership+ was created in direct response to partner feedback, with dedicated funding focused on staff wellbeing and training, areas that can be difficult to prioritise but are essential for a resilient workforce.

ZCT continues to provide practical opportunities too. In the past, we’ve supported apprenticeships that have helped individuals secure permanent roles and progress to leadership positions. We’re also pleased to offer local partners the opportunity to apply for sustainability grants, supporting their environmental or DEIB (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging) initiatives over multiple years.

Spending time with partners to understand where hands on support can help is so important. Zurich colleagues volunteer their time and skills - from skill sharing to challenge activities like transforming charity spaces. One standout example was our actuarial team’s work with Magic Breakfast, modelling national breakfast provision costs, an insight that helped influence government commitment to free breakfasts in primary schools.

Everyday giving options, such as our till donation and round pound scheme, make it easy for colleagues to support causes like Big Breakfast Plus when they’re buying their lunch in the canteen. By encouraging colleagues to use their three annual volunteer days, we ensure our support is personal as well as financial.

Some recent highlights of our charity challenges including, decorating a Winter Wonderland space for Step by Step, building a new BBQ for Headway Swindon’s summer celebration, distributing food in London for the Soup Kitchen and supporting the Portsmouth Down Syndrome Association’s Christmas party.

The charity sector is increasingly focused on collaboration. What insights has ZCT gained from working with diverse partners across the UK?
Collaboration is core to ZCT’s approach. Working with a diverse range of partners has shown us how combining different strengths, perspectives, and lived experiences leads to more inclusive and effective solutions.

Supporting partners with their DEIB strategies, through tailored training and access to our DEIB & Sustainability Network, has demonstrated the power of shared learning. Listening to varied voices helps us better understand community needs, spark innovation, and create environments where people feel valued and included.

We’re also excited to explore collaboration opportunities among our new key partners. With overlapping challenges and missions, there is huge potential for shared insight, joint initiatives, and collective impact and early conversations are already underway.

Many of our charity partners are facing a tough mix of high demand and rising costs with more people are turning to them for support. Things like staffing, energy costs and day-to-day operating costs keep climbing, so they’re having to do more with less. At the same time, donations and other income streams aren’t keeping pace, meaning many charities are dipping into reserves or struggling to plan ahead.

On top of that, wider pressures like reduced government funding, tougher competition for grants and ongoing workforce challenges are making it even harder for charities to

keep services running smoothly. Some partners are having to cut back, rethink programmes or delay investment in things like digital and staff development, just as their communities need them most.

What have charities told you they need extra support with?
Sustainability continues to be a top priority for many charities, but often they lack the resources, time, or specialist knowledge needed to take meaningful steps. To help address this, we’ve ringfenced funds specifically so our local charity partners can apply for annual grants to support their sustainability projects.

It gives our local charity partners the chance to apply for grants dedicated solely to sustainability projects whether that’s cutting greenhouse gas emissions, boosting recycling, reducing food waste, or advancing best practices in culture, diversity, equity, and inclusion.

All these efforts help our charity partners achieve more sustainable outcomes and strengthen their long-term success. We’re incredibly proud of this initiative and are committed to growing it, offering our partners meaningful support above and beyond our annual grants, which help with their day-to-day operations.

Another key area is long-term leadership and stability. Many charities are seeing their founders step down after years of service, highlighting the importance of building resilience and planning for the future. We're committed to helping charities grow sustainably and prepare for leadership transitions, ensuring they continue to make a lasting impact in their communities.

How does ZCT incorporate the voices and experiences of local communities in shaping its funding decisions?
It’s imperative we build partner and community insight directly into how we design and improve our funding approach. Our charity partners are invited to quarterly partnership meetings, where they help shape the agenda and use the time to share what they’re seeing locally, raise issues on their minds, and learn from each other. We also bring in external experts, for example on climate and safeguarding, to make sure the conversations are informed by the wider context charities are working in.

We actively gather feedback on the support we provide. Last June, as we approached the end of the last funding cycle, we ran a feedback survey for all local partners. We had a 46% response rate, and the insights were incredibly valuable. Partners highlighted the impact of our volunteering challenges, the transformational effect of Apprenticeship Levy-funded training, and the usefulness of development opportunities like National Council for Voluntary Organisations or Directory of Social Change courses, skill sharing and our DEI and sustainability network.

Our charity partners expressed an interest in learning more about engaging with emerging technologies, in particular AI, in a safe and practical way. ZCT encourages innovation and

following insights shared at the Directory of Social Change AI Conference, we have focused on supporting partners to strengthen their foundations - for example, by developing clear policies, identifying safe tools, and understanding the importance of bias checks and human oversight - while giving them space to consider how AI might be useful in their own organisational context.

All this feedback, from partnership forums to structured surveys, fed directly into the development of our Partnership+ offer for 2026 and beyond. It means our future support is shaped by real lived experience, real operational challenges, and the voices of the communities our partners serve.

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