My organisation encourages charitable activities
Cross Keys Homes whole purpose is to give something back. Every day staff are dedicated to improving the opportunities available to their tenants, improving their homes and neighbourhoods or working across the city to improve Peterborough.
Perhaps one of the most effective ways they give something back is by allowing just over 2% of their turnover to be directly by their customers.
Four area panels each have £100,000 that they determine how to spend. The panels are made up of customers living in the area so they know what will make a difference. Cross Keys give them access to their contractors and suppliers and support them to manage the process but they determine what and where the money is spent.
The panels represent the four areas of the city, north, south, east and west. They have worked on projects as diverse as installing new drying areas and underground bins, providing residents with defensible spaces, to landscaping communal areas and even installing an outside, all weather ‘green gym’ in the Westwood area.
The Area Panels look at the issues from the resident’s perspective, and the people who live in the area can propose their own solutions. They are provided with data from Cross Keys Homes own resident census to ensure they target resources where local people have identified a need.
The residents feel they are being listened to, and the issues that they see as problems are being addressed, rather than Cross Keys Homes telling them what it sees as problems.