Our Commitment to our Communities

Young child collecting onions from a produce stall

When Yorkshire Building Society was established way back in 1864, it had a clear purpose.

To do good in the community by helping people to keep their savings safe, and to own their own homes.

Today, we still stand for the same things, and our colleagues play a huge part in helping it happen.

Volunteering

We’re incredibly committed to volunteering our time, resources, skills and knowledge, and more than 50% of colleagues contribute to thousands of volunteer hours every year.

Money Minds

Our Money Minds initiative involves lots of colleagues volunteering to inspire young people aged 5-19 years old to learn about money and careers - all to help them develop their financial wellbeing and employability skills. It also includes a huge range of online resources too, designed to support student learning, as well as providing valuable help for teachers, parents and carers.

Digital Skills

We’re working with small groups of volunteers to support a pilot project that puts digital skills at the core for adult learners, career switchers, returners to work and entrepreneurs.

Colleague and customer fundraising

We’re supporting FareShare as our charity partner until June 2026.

FareShare is the UK's biggest charity fighting hunger and food waste. They take good-to-eat surplus food from across the food industry, sort it in regional warehouses across the UK and pass it onto a network of nearly 8,500 charities and community groups. Every week they provide enough food to create almost a million meals, which supports community centres, older people’s lunch clubs, school clubs and hospices to name just a few.

We’re aiming to raise £1million to maximise the social value of food and help people gain essential skills to enter employment. The money raised will fund the Building Skills for the Future programme, which includes seven employability programmes in regional centres across the UK, and community outreach programmes to support people with skills to overcome financial hardship.

Find more about our partnership with FareShare.
Two women boxing and laughing

The Yorkshire Building Society Charitable Foundation

Our Charitable Foundation has now donated more than £9 million to charities and good causes across the country, thanks to the ongoing support of our members and colleagues.

The Foundation made its first donation in 1999. Since then, we’ve been able to make more than 25,000 donations to many charities in local communities on our doorstep. 

Here are just a few examples of the help we’ve provided…

Small Change Big Difference® scheme

Much of this is only possible thanks to our colleagues and members supporting our Small Change Big Difference® scheme, where members donate the pennies of their annual interest on their accounts once a year to the Foundation. Our Branch colleagues play a huge role in promoting the scheme and encouraging customers to sign up. Without it, the Foundation simply wouldn’t be able to continue supporting so many wonderful charities.

A donation of £1000 to support Bradford Foodbank's Job Club

We recently donated £1000 to Bradford Foodbank to support their Job Club, and help foodbank users with CV writing, interview preparation, and searching and applying for jobs.

Josie Barlow, Manager at Bradford Foodbank, said: “This donation will help us support so many people in Bradford who need help making that next step in life. We are so grateful to the Yorkshire Building Society Charitable Foundation and all the colleagues at YBS for supporting Bradford Foodbank.”

A donation of £1800 to Moray Fresh Start

We also donated £1800 to Moray Fresh Start to fund starter packs for homeless people.

Chair of Fresh Start, James Workman said: “The Packs include the basic household items that everyone needs when they move into their new homes. The people we’ve helped range from new-born babies and teenage children, right up to people well into their seventies. The feedback from the people who get the packs is always favourable – but what strikes us most is that they appreciate that someone cares.”

Colleague with disability working at a computer

Our awards and accreditations: