This month’s CSR profile feature shines a spotlight on Sharon Beaufond, Social Responsibility Project Manager at L&Q. Sharon and her colleagues at the L&Q Foundation deliver a broad range of community interventions with the aim of tackling increased levels of vulnerability amongst their residents, the challenge of creating a sense of place and overcoming a decrease in social mobility in local communities. Creating social and environmental benefits for local communities is central to L&Q’s values. We caught up with Sharon to find out more about the L&Q Foundation’s work.

1) Tell us about your current role and any other related experience that you have
In 15 years of working at L&Q I have held various roles, most of which have involved supporting residents and the wider community. In my current position as a Social Responsibility Project Manager I work with our supply chain partners on new developments, exploring how best to work together to achieve and maximise opportunities for the communities in which we operate.

I also manage our volunteering programme which entitles L&Q employees to 21 hours volunteering per year at a charity of their choice. This year I am working with ELBA to enable staff to make the best use of skills based volunteering and use their time and experience to support and develop smaller community organisations.

2) Why is CSR important to your organisation?
L&Q is one of the largest charitable housing associations in the country one of the largest developers, building 100,000 homes over the next 10 years, so is in a strong position to advance its CSR programme. Due to its charitable status L&Q is driven by its strong social purpose to create not just homes but long term, sustainable communities for its residents.  L&Q also recognises that growth provides even more opportunities to work with partners to achieve social benefits.

3) Which topics, themes or initiatives are your organisation currently focused on?
With our recent growth and future development over the next 10 years, a key focus for me is identifying new social benefits which will continue to be a large area of work. Within the L&Q Foundation we are also working with clients through our L&Q Employment Service to support people into work, as well as tackling barriers to employment and providing apprenticeship opportunities through our L&Q Academy. Our tenancy sustainment service helps vulnerable residents to manage their finances and maintain their tenancies. We have also launched our schools programme ‘Learning to Succeed’ which will support schools to ensure young people are better equipped to join the work force or access further education. Our communities work continues to support smaller organisations financially and we have now taken a step further to look for opportunities to invest in social enterprises and charities and support them to develop sustainable business models.

4) What is the best part of your job?
I enjoy seeing how real people have benefitted from the opportunities provided by the L&Q Foundation and am happy to work for an organisation with such a genuine strong social purpose. Through this work I also get to meet lots of positive and motivated people that really want to make a difference and through my role I can sometimes help them to do so.