The Charity Retail Association has celebrated its 25th anniversary with its biggest Charity Retail Conference to date, with more than 390 representatives from charities across the UK attending the flagship annual event.
This year’s Charity Retail Conference and exhibition took place on Wednesday 26th and Thursday 27th June at Harrogate Convention Centre.
2024 Charity Retail Award winners
The Charity Retail Conference was an opportunity for delegates from across the charity retail sector to come together to find out more about the latest industry updates, innovations and successes, with more than 25 different workshops and sessions led by industry experts on offer to those attending, covering topics from textile recycling and upcycling in charity retail, to recruitment and inclusion guidance.
The CRA’s 25th Anniversary was celebrated with a speech by Robin Osterley, Chief Executive of the Charity Retail Association, and the presentation of a custom-made ‘charity shop’ cake, created by Adams Cakes.
The Conference was also an opportunity to celebrate the popular Charity Retail Awards, sponsored by 1st Waste Management, which recognise the successes of charity shops, staff and volunteers throughout the past year.
This year, a new Social Value award was introduced to celebrate the social value generated by charity shops in their local communities. This follows the 2023 publication of a ground-breaking Social Return on Investment (SROI) report commissioned by the CRA, which found that charity shops have positive impact on wellbeing valued at £75.3 Billion.
The Hospice of St Francis won this new award with their range of initiatives designed to benefit people in their local communities, including the introduction of designated ‘safe spaces’ to support community-wide initiatives, such as a hosting a dementia café in one of their shops, as well as a regular programme of free events, including children’s story time, craft classes, a chess club, book signings, a diversity book club and a poetry club. Their community bookshop was also a key initiator of a local literary festival.
Using the Charity Retail Association’s SROI toolkit, the charity calculated that its shops had generated £13.34 of social value for every £1 invested; 81% higher than the national average.
Other 2024 Charity Retail Award winners include Lottie O’Connor, a volunteer at Cancer Research UK, winner of the Young Volunteer of the Year award. 23-year-old Lottie was nominated by the team at Cancer Research UK’s shop in Ilkley, West Yorkshire, for her work in styling outfits and displays in the shop, using her flair for fashion and design to help others, whilst also building her own confidence and skills since she started volunteering for the charity in 2019.
Myrna Philpott was named Volunteer of the Year for her two decades of dedication to Tenovus Cancer Care’s shop in Cardigan, Wales. During her time volunteering at the Cardigan shop, 89-year-old Myrna has given more than 15,000 voluntary hours to the charity, as well as participating in a Zipwire challenge in 2022 which raised over £900 for Tenovus Cancer Care. Myrna also runs her own donation centre in her local community, encouraging friends, neighbours and family to donate their unwanted items. Tenovus Cancer Care estimates that Myra’s donation centre has helped the shop raise more than £28,000 through the sale of these goods over the years to support their charity’s frontline work.
This year’s prestigious Outstanding Charity Retailer of the Year award was presented to Salvation Army Trading Company, whose charity shops achieved their highest trading results in the past year, contributing £11.5m to their parent charity.
British Heart Foundation won Campaign of the Year for their successful volunteering campaign, which saw a 10% uplift in volunteering hours, particularly increased by 16-24-year-old volunteers.
Shelter once again scooped the Equity, Diversity and Inclusion award for their extensive introduction of new policies; including realigning pay in their operational service and retail areas to improve the position of staff on the lowest incomes, providing in-depth, tailored, retail-specific EDI training to their retail teams and the use of blind recruitment with the view to removing unconscious bias, eliminating discrimination, and increasing diversity.
The Most Supportive Chief Executive was named as Mark Russell of The Children’s Society. Mark was nominated by his team for his hands-on approach to the role, frequently visiting as many of the charity’s shops as he can and described as ‘flying the flag for retail at every opportunity’. He was also praised for his unwavering dedication to promoting and engaging with the retail arm of the charity, particularly during the Covid-19 lockdowns when staff were faced with huge amounts of uncertainty.
Pilgrims Hospices, Kent and Devon Air Ambulance, Barnstaple, were named winners of the WOW! Factor Awards, sponsored by ELT Global, for Best Shop Window and Best Shop Interior respectively.
Robin Osterley, Chief Executive of the Charity Retail Association, said:
“This year’s Charity Retail Conference has been a great opportunity to celebrate both the numerous successes of charity retailers, their staff and volunteers over the past year, and to look back on the way charity shops have progressed and diversified over the past 25 years, whilst maintaining the strong community and people-focused ethos that makes our sector so unique and popular. This is an incredibly exciting year for the charity retail sector, including the recent incredibly successful launch of our new UK’s Favourite Charity Shop Award, and it’s been fantastic to see so many people attending Conference this year to show their support for charity shops and to help facilitate continued growth in the sector.”
The full list of Charity Retail Award winners is available on the Charity Retail Association’s website, here: https://www.charityretail.org.
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