This award is open to all retail operations: it doesn’t matter how big or small your charity is. For example, we want to hear about retailers who have:
Hit record profit
Had success with new initiatives
Opened or refurbished shops
Demonstrated best practice.
Our 2024 winners were Salvation Army Trading Company (SATCoL). Here is an extract from their winning submission:
Over the past year, our charity shop division has achieved its highest trading results, helping the overall business to contribute £11.5m to our parent charity. But we don’t just measure by profit. In 2022 we launched our 5-Year Strategic Plan under the theme of ‘Dare to CARE’ – this included new performance measures for People, Planet and Profit. CARE represents our values of Compassion, Accountability, Respect and Equality – this theme has resonated strongly with our colleagues and further nurtured our culture to help others. Below are some retail highlights from the past year…
People:
Served 6 million customers in our stores (an increase of 13% YOY)
Provided 5,195 free clothing vouchers for those in need (an increase of 75% YOY)
Reached a significant milestone of surpassing 5,000 volunteers.
We now have 8 Wellbeing Champions in retail.
All our store managers have been offered certified Mental Health England training – 194 managers have completed this training.
Our paid retail colleagues completed a further 7,741 online courses in the past year. We have 608 volunteers who are active learners, they have completed 2,156 courses.
Building on our wellbeing support, the company introduced new benefits including: birthday or ‘Celebration Day’ day off, a paid Volunteer Day for a charity of choice, 24-hour Virtual GP Services, Cycle to Work scheme.
We were delighted to be awarded Outstanding Charity Retailer of the Year the Charity Retail Association. It gave a huge boost to our colleagues, including our volunteers, to receive this recognition of their commitment in delivering the best for their customers and their communities. Our shop teams work incredibly hard all year round and the CRA Awards are an annual highlight in our calendar as they shine a light on the positive work happening in charity shops across the UK.
If your charity has an amazing story to tell or feel like you’ve had a fantastic year, why not submit your nomination for this award or one of our others for our 2025 Charity Retail Awards.
View more details about this, and all of our other award’s categories.
