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2025-06-30-accounts

Meadows Food bank

INSPIRING & GROWING COMMUNITIES OF HOPE

Founded in 2010 with a desire to make a difference,

we now operate 2 community hubs, 14 food banks and

inspire and grow communities across Nottingham, enabled by 350 volunteers across the city.

We focus on lifting people from crisis to hope.

A beacon in local neighbourhoods.

We don't just provide emergency food.

We open our doors to provide safe and warm spaces, kind voices on the end of a telephone or email.

We welcome. We listen. We care.

We signpost. We support. We advise.

We build confidence. We empower.

We make that difference.

And for all this - we thank you.

To our volunteers, staff, trustees, donors, partners, host churches and supporters: We cannot do it without you.

Most importantly, we thank our guests,

who are not just service users or beneficiaries.

Th ~~ey are our daily inspiration to do more and reach mor~~ e.

WE ARE HOPE NOTTINGHAM

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Hope House: Our flagship
Community Hub in Beeston
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CONTENTS

Annual Report of the Trustees

CONTENTS

Part One - Introduction

Part Two - Our G.R.A.C.E Impact

Part Three

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WELCOME

A WELCOME FROM OUR BOARD OF TRUSTEES

‘Hope’s vision and mission continues to impact’

It is my pleasure to introduce the latest Annual Report. I hope reading it brings you joy as it does for me, demonstrating what ‘Communities of Hope’ actually look like on the ground.

As I read through case studies and personal testimonies, I give thanks to God for the way people are bringing help, support and blessing to others. We are a diverse bunch of people from all walks of life, some with faith and some with no faith, but through community our lives are enriched. This can bring us all hope.

grateful to them for their financial support, funding advisers across the foodbanks. This year we have delivered a phenomenal average £2,000 per new client, whether through financial gain or assistance with debt. We have also built up our referral partners, ensuring that those in crisis are identified and supported.

A huge thank you to Dominique, our CEO, for pulling this report together. It is a mammoth task because we are determined to tell the Hope story and there is so much going on!

I should start by saying that the financial situation is very satisfactory. God has blessed us through the generosity of many individuals, groups, churches and grant providers. Thank you all and please don’t stop! We have a fantastic group of volunteers working across community hubs and foodbanks, and I know how passionately the team value and care for you all. It is encouraging too that our volunteers feel valued and supported. Page after page of the report highlights the many ways in which Hope Nottingham is making a difference in people’s lives across Nottingham.

We should expect ‘bumps in the road’, and Hope Nottingham certainly experiences plenty of these! Buildings leak, vans breakdown and things go wrong or stop working, but we find solutions and ways to keep going. This is true of course with our lives not just our resources. We all face difficulties in life and sometimes they can feel overwhelming. It is good to remember we are not alone. The Hope community offers tangible support to many people going through life’s storms. It might be a kind word or deed, a cup of tea, a listening ear, practical support, signposting - the list goes on.

Romans 5:3-5 (NIV): "Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.”

Jez Barnard

Hope Nottingham Chair of Trustees until April 2025 and current Trustee

Our partnership with Trussell remains strong and we are

With sincere thanks to

Interim Chair, Martin Buckle

HR Expert Trustee, Charlotte McCourt

After supporting Hope Nottingham with a project, Charlotte was encouraged to join our Board in early 2022. She brought with her amazing level 7 CIPD HR and mediation experience.

Having joined Hope Nottingham in March 24, Martin brought a wealth of experience from a 30+ year career in commerce, also having been trustee of a social enterprise in Nottingham. He has also served as a borough councillor, with an interest in housing provision.

During her two years on the Board with us, Charlotte added great value, especially in the development of various HR policies and procedures and supporting us through a full job evaluation and salary benchmarking process.

We were very appreciative of Martin’s willingness to step up as Interim Chair in May 2025 at short notice, and to see us through the development of our next 3 year strategic plan July 2025 -June 2028.

A self-employed consultant, travelling nationally, we understood when she stepped down from the Trustee role to limit time away from her young family. ‘It’s been a pleasure working with you all. I’d be delighted to stay on as a volunteer to support with any HR advice’.

At the end of October 2025, Martin shared that his outside training and business commitments had increased and he would need to step down from his trustee role: ‘I wish you all well and trust that Hope Nottingham goes from strength to strength’.

to strength’. We have stayed in regular contact We thank with Charlotte Martin most since and are sincerely for grateful for her his tenure and continued insights. expertise.

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INTRODUCTION FROM OUR CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER

WELCOME

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‘Each of our volunteers has a
quiet power that touches hearts’
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This annual report is dedicated to two special Hope Nottingham volunteers - Heather and Josie - who were lost from this life far too soon, but who touched the lives of many, both directly and indirectly. We take comfort together as a community in them resting in peace with our Lord and pray for their families.

Dear Friends,

Though food donations continue to decline - over 50 tonnes in the last two years - and fundraising remains a constant challenge, we have continued to receive great support. Highlights such as the Everyone Can Sing choir fundraising for the whole year, raised over £10,000 but also brought music to many in our name.

I have also been incredibly touched by the generosity of another volunteer, who came to our financial aid with a significant donation when our food bank van was unexpectedly condemned. We have seen many of our volunteer friends suffer illness and bereavement this year too, and it always astounds how their genuine commitment to ‘giving back’ helps to keep them (and us) going.

July 2024 - June 2025 was another amazing year for Hope Nottingham, fuelled by the dedication, compassion, and skills of our extensive volunteer team. Still counting around 350 across our network, as every year, we have said farewell to key players, but welcomed many more new faces, like the new team at the re-opened Arboretum food bank. I will never cease to be amazed at the gift of volunteering. Thank you to each and every volunteer. Without you we cannot deliver our vision to bring hope.

To each and every food or financial donor, we thank you and appeal for your continued support. As you read on, you will find page after page of impact. I will never apologise for such a big report! The need is great, as is the effort, and it is important to highlight each aspect of our volunteers’ work and to pray for the resources to sustain it. We are privileged to serve the many ‘as faithful stewards of God’s grace’ (Peter 4:10).

During this period we looked more outwardly and strategically, following a couple of years of building internal strength and relationships. We have benefited from lots of networking - in both the county and city - including sitting on various steering groups, utilising our experience to help inform and support others, such as through our set up of the Broxtowe Food Support Network, which we were honoured to be asked by Broxtowe Council to lead on.

Over the year I have got to know more of our volunteer team personally such as Janet who overcomes many financial and physical challenges to still come to volunteer. She has opened up ‘to the boss’ and greets me with a big smile. We were so proud of her commitment to achieve her Food Hygiene Level 2, meaning she can volunteer with the cooking for our community meal. She has also stepped up to ‘lead’ many of our Friendship Group sessions, planning interesting talks to keep the group members entertained. She is a real blessing to us.

Dominique Scott

All this work, as well as many hours of conducting individual volunteer reviews has also helped inform our next 3 year strategy, ready for 2025-2028.

Chief Executive Officer

Welcome to our new Operations Manager

After a staffing review in May 2024, we recognised the need for a senior role to support and free up the CEO, and bring a strategic oversight of our food bank network. In August 2024, we were delighted to appoint Helen Voce, a highly experienced senior leader, working 30 hours per week.

Having worked in local charity sector management for 30 years, including both community, voluntary and advice based services, Helen brings a wealth of valuable experience to help us achieve our vision and mission. Believing in the power of both volunteering and communities coming together, she has fitted in perfectly at Hope Nottingham!

“ It’s been a whirlwind year getting to know our huge number of volunteers and the many activities they help deliver. My focus has been on getting out and about supporting our Food Banks Leaders and bringing local food projects together, through the newly formed Broxtowe Food Support Network.”

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H o p e N o t t i n g h a m ‘ s m i s s i o n is embodied in our GRACE model

Our Vision and Mission were refreshed in 2021 with feedback from our volunteers and guests, and meet our commitment to Equality, Diversity and Inclusion, whilst staying true to our Christian roots and culture.

Our Inspiring & growing communities of HOPE in Nottingham Vision

Our To develop and support communities of HOPE where Mission poverty of resources, relationships and spirit are met by local people

Our mission today still fulfils the purposes as set out in the objects contained in the charity's constitution, which are:

the relief of poverty, sickness and distress advancement of the Christian faith

We explain our mission using our founder’s G.R.A.C.E. model

G R

A

C

E

GIVING - Enabling communities to share time and resources for the benefit of others GROWING - Multiplying our work in our own and in other communities

RELIEF - Management and distribution of essential provision to help people out of crisis

ADVICE - Bringing a wide range of guidance to provide accessible, integrated direction in a supportive environment

COMMUNITY - Enabling all to be helped and to help, to give and to receive

EMPOWERMENT - Enabling people to live more stable, fulfilled lives and to find worthwhile occupation

ENABLING - Developing a robust organisation with effective governance, policies and procedures

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H o p e N o t t i n g h a m ' s v a l u e s a r e r o o t e d i n o u r C h r i s t i a n e t h o s

Our Christian faith is at the heart of all we do. We want to share God’s love by showing welcome, care and compassion to all. Our values are central to Hope Nottingham. We respect that each individual will also have their own personal values. However it is also essential that each and every team member believes in, demonstrates and promotes the following core values through their work and everyday behaviours.

Compassion

We are genuinely concerned about others and offer our time, kindness and friendship in safe spaces.

Working Together

We are team driven to identify and nurture partnerships with organisations of all denominations across Nottingham.

Trust

We build relationships and earn trust through our integrity and are committed to keeping it.

Belonging

Faith-focused, we welcome all and provide opportunities for comfort, connection and contribution.

Positive Change

We create new possibilities and embrace ideas, led from and by the community, to lift local people from crisis, restoring hope and transforming lives.

8 Hope House Community Café: Our stained glass windows

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- reviewed & updated July 2025 as part of our new strategy

Our Vision

Long term impact

Medium term change

Short term change

What we do

GRACE Mission Model Our Christian values

Our Theory of Change

Our Vision is to inspire & grow communities of HOPE in Nottingham, where local people are enabled to support those in need, providing resources, spiritual support & reducing loneliness.

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||||||||||||| |---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| |VOLUNTEERING|REDUCED POVERTY|IMPROVED SPIRITUAL|REDUCED POVERTY|CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY| |IS ENABLED|OF RESOURCES|SUPPORT|OF RELATIONSHIPS|DEVELOPMENT| |Local people are|Local people have|Local people use and|Local people|Hope Nottingham| |helped by local|increased life skills|begin to flourish with|have improved|is an ambassador| |people with each|leading to financial|increased knowledge of|well-being and|for Christian| |benefitting from|independence and|the Christian faith,|overcome loneliness|Community| |being part of acommunity|sustainable lifestyles|spiritual resilience andsense of connection|by connections intheir community|the GRACE modelDevelopment and| |talent of localThe diverse|financial support isCrisis food &|and explore ChristianLocal people access|Local people|Hope has a networkof like-minded| |individuals and|reduced & local|faith together via|participate with and|Christian| |communities is|people are|deeper conversation|positively promote|community projects| |engaged andcelebrated|equipped with life &work skills|and/or planned shortterm faith activities|their community|supported/enabled| |Local people|Crisis food &|Local people|Local people access|Local people are| |volunteer to|financial support|experience prayer,|and receive|welcomed into &| |support their local|provided in|see our Christian|befriending and|participate in| |communities|welcoming,safe|values in action and|pastoral support|communities that| |(time, food,|spaces & people get|have introductory|safely overcoming|demonstrate & share| |funds)|the right advice to|conversations|crisis and loneliness|Christian values| |address future crisis| |Asset-based| |Material relief via|Community and|Social relief provision|Volunteer led &| |Volunteering| |& Community|Food banks; Food|individual prayer;|via Community-driven|managed initiatives| |Support,|Club; Guest Help,|Chaplaincy; Short-|activities including|that bring local| |Fundraising and|Skills development.|term faith based|Befriending,|people together in| |Donating|Professional advice|activities; Church|Well-being, Aspiration|their neighbourhoods| |Opportunities|via partnerships|partnerships.|for support| |building| |GIVING|RELIEF & ADVICE|C|O|M|M|U|N|I|T|Y|EMPOWERMENT| |Working|Positive| |Compassion|Trust|Belonging| |together|Change|

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THEORY IN PRACTICEThe Theory in Practice

Our Theory of Change reflects our G.R.A.C.E model and what we believe a ‘Community of Hope’ is. It is our reference guide of how it can be achieved and tool for easily communicating this internally and externally. It identifies the five key area where we aim to make real and lasting change in the lives of local people. This ‘theory’ forms our everyday activities.

VOLUNTEERING

Through Hope Nottingham, over 350 individuals offer their time, compassion and skills to help others in safe and meaningful roles. Empowering and supporting volunteer led activities is one of our key impacts. Shown here are volunteers from Carlton and Sneinton at an annual event.

REDUCED POVERTY OF RESOURCES

Our volunteer food bank teams across the city offer emergency food provision and signposting to other available support. In the busiest locations professional welfare and benefits advice is also available. (Mount Zion team shown above)

IMPROVED SPIRITUAL SUPPORT

We have volunteers from all, any, or no faith, but also many who align with our charitable objective to advance the Christian faith. With a part-time Chaplain at Hope House, there are ongoing faithbased activities, but also many volunteers across our food bank network who are comfortable to offer and provide prayer.

REDUCED POVERTY OF RELATIONSHIPS

Our two community hubs offer a variety of activities to reduce loneliness and act as community meeting spaces. Our food banks also offer hospitality and many host churches provide their own opportunities for community connection (Carlton meal shown)

CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT

Our ‘strapline’ may have changed in recent years but our mission remains the same. We are proud to work in partnership with a variety of Christian denominations. We demonstrate our faith through our daily actions and decisions.

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WHERE WE WORK

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Carlton
Aspley Radford Arboretum
Broxtowe
Netherfield
Bilborough
Sneinton
Stapleford
Chilwell Wollaton Beeston Meadows
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OUR STAFF TEAM

With paid staffing being our biggest financial investment, we continued to make considered decisions about our employed team, particularly in light of the increased National Insurance costs from April 2025.

At the start of July 2024, our staff headcount was 12 - reduced from the previous 13. A year later it remained at 12 (including 1 vacant post) with full-time equivalent of 8.1 ever mindful of only replacing essential or strategic roles to keep costs down. Within the year we saw some staff changes and were sorry to see our long-serving Development Manager step down in Oct 2024 and his decade of work for us was acknowledged in last year’s report. This post was not replaced. Our Friendship Coordinator left in April 2025 to pursue a PhD, and we paused recruitment to review activities.

Key strategic staffing decisions for the period included:

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volunteer team.
‘I love my job! I cannot believe I have the
‘
Hope Staff Team
Our team as at October 2025
Our small employed team continues to mean many of our staff roles have multiple
focuses, which does bring its own challenges. However, we are mindful of not
over-committing on expenditure and ensuring our long- term financial
sustainability. We also know that this also offers even more opportunities for local
people to support us through meaningful volunteering roles - an essential part of
the Hope Nottingham vision and mission.
You will hear more of our team’s work and reflections throughout the report. Details of the
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Lauren Bailey has been with Hope Nottingham since 2020, firstly on a Volunteer Chaplaincy placement and in the staff team from 2022.

Her primary role is to support our Christian Faith focus, ensuring our rhythm of prayer and acting as chaplaincy support to our staff and volunteer team.

‘I love my job! I cannot believe I have the opportunity to see people flourish and walk with them, watching them overcome obstacles, be inspired and overflow with blessings and God's amazing Grace. I watch answered prayer after answered prayer and it's often in the middle of such incredible suffering and joy; all mixed together but with God there in it all.’

Andy Thomas is another crucial member of our team. He joined in Jan 2022 and wears a variety of Hope ‘hats’, a staff role summarised by Chat GPT as

‘ delightfully quirky: taming receipts like wild creatures, wielding spreadsheets like magic wands, and celebrating perfectly balanced accounts with triumphant fist pumps ’! But in his own words, Andy shares:

‘As Hope’s Bookkeeper also assisting with data protection, I really enjoy supporting Hope behind the scenes, helping balance the books to keep track of our donations and spending. Being at the heart of the office is also rewarding. It is often me that answers the phone or replies to emails and I get a tremendous sense of satisfaction when I feel I have pointed a guest in the right direction or supported one of our referrers to make a difference. I also help with Bid Writing which, when successful gives us the vital financial resources we need to run our many projects.’

You will hear more of our team’s work and reflections throughout the report. Details of the experience and skills of our current team is available on our website here.

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WHAT WE DO

We enable individuals, churches and other organisations to work together to give time and resources to deliver the services that local, isolated and disadvantaged people need. This includes money and gifts in kind - food, time and expertise. Support is provided to all, regardless of faith or beliefs, and we do not charge for any service, although some guests do choose to make entirely optional contribution to help support our work.

We ‘inspire and grow communities of hope’ through provision of safe welcoming environments that build trust and encouragement. In this context people are enabled to accept advice and progress, are encouraged to contribute time and skills to help others and grow in self esteem as part of a holistic community. Our current core activities are:

EAST & WEST NOTTINGHAM food bank

Emergency food provision through 14 food banks via our Trussell franchise, utilising many of their systems and working in partnership with The Arches at Trent Vineyard (a Nottingham church ) for bulk food storage and advice partners to support the busiest food banks.

HOPE HOUSE, BEESTON

Weekly Art, Craft and Chat group

CARLTON COMMUNITY HUB

At all sites we also offer advocacy for Acts 435 (an online giving charity) and ad hoc financial support via a small discretionary fund.

You can view the main Hope Nottingham website here and our Trussell seeded East and West Nottingham food bank dedicated website here

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REAL LIVES

We consciously choose to use the term ‘guests’ instead of ’service users’ or ’clients’. We see each one as individuals and/or families with their own stories and we invite and welcome them into our communities, offering compassion and hospitality as we would guests in our own homes.

FREDA, PROUDLY IN HER 90's

Regular guest at Carlton Café and community meal . “A huge thank you to each and every volunteer for EVERYTHING - all the hard work, love and effort that you have ALL put in. Marvellous atmosphere, wonderful, delicious and tasty food - all I can say is that you are ALL incredible. Love Freda”.

COMMUNITY MEAL GUEST

“Wonderful, colourful menu...had seconds to take home. Music in the background was correct volume so we could talk over it....appreciate every volunteer that put love into every dish that was made.”

ATTENDEE AT ‘RESTORE JOURNALLING’ SERIES

“I’ve really enjoyed this, I felt that each week it’s been a message that’s been needed and that truly resonated with me and where I was at in my life. Thankyou, x.”

GUEST AT BEESTON FOOD BANK

Attending for a food parcel, this guest was struggling with difficulties at home and feeling isolated without support. “I didn’t have hope before I came here and I do now because of you guys.”

FRIENDSHIP GROUP GUEST

This guest originally came following referral by a social prescriber: "This is the most important day in my week at the moment.....You guys see me.”

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KEY EVENTS IN OUR YEAR

QTR 1 - JULY - SEPT 2024

July 24

Extensive floor repairs finally completed in our Carlton Hub. We are invited to take part in a Nottm Trent Uni Food bank Dependency Research project. Our CEO joins the Steering Group for a new Gedling Voluntary Action Collaborative.

August 24

Welcome to a new Operations Manager. farewell to our hardworked van. Sandicliffe came to our rescue with a loan electric van to tide us over. Jigsaw Homes residents helped nominate us for a £15k grant over 3 years to support Carlton.

September 24

Broxtowe Borough Council asks us to assist and our ‘Broxtowe Food Support Network’ was born. We offered ‘The Chosen’ Series 4 over 8 weeks.

Our CEO joins the Notts City Sustainable Food Partnership Steering group

QTR 2: OCT - DEC 2024

October 24

We finally purchased a new van with the help of a very generous individual donation. We hosted the Carlton Art Show at Carlton Community Hub and attended the Food Summit at Nottm Uni. ‘Oxjam’ fundraised for us in Beeston.

November 24

Our annual Trussell Tesco collections were held, with MP Michael Payne visiting our volunteers in Carlton. Benefact Trust awarded us £1000 thanks to community nominations and our allotment team packed 86 bags of manure!

December 24

Annual Volunteer Christmas Parties for our Volunteers in our two hubs. John Deere donated and packed 180 parcels in record time for their Day of Caring. We offered a 3 week series of Advent reflections ‘Joy to the World’

QTR 3: JAN - MARCH 2025

Jan 25

Our CEO was invited to attend an event with Liz Kendall MP Secretary of State. We are asked by Gedling Borough Council and agree to support upkeep the local sensory garden. We ran an urgent appeal for youth volunteers

February 25

We launched a new weekly Art, Craft and Chat group at Hope House. We continue reflecting on our Meadows Food bank and supporting their team as they explore setting up as an independent CIO.

March 25

We offered ‘Closer’ - an Easter series of prayer and reflection, We hosted a Gedling Voluntary Action Collaborative event at Carlton for local community and voluntary groups. We agree to continue leading the Broxtowe Food Support Network.

QTR 4 - APR - JUNE 2025

April 25

Our Arboretum food bank reopened and we hold our first in person Referrers Event. We parted on good terms from Bethesda food bank who wished to focus on their faith ministries. Our Friendship Coordinator left for a PhD, leading to a review.

May 25

Our Chair of Trustees stepped down and a new Interim Chair was appointed to be reviewed in 6 months. We begin working on our next 3 year strategy, The Everyone Can Sing choir, Phoenix Signers and Jelly held a wonderful concert for us.

June 25

We celebrated Volunteer’s Week, and ran our ‘Restore’ spiritual journaling course. We began discussions with St Ann with Emmanuel Church to host a new food bank for us to meet local demand. The Star Inn held a weekend festival for us.

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STRATEGIC REVIEW

YEAR 3 OF OUR STRATEGIC PLAN What we achieved

Proactively engaging our people to ensure we are living our vision & values

We continued to hold bi-annual volunteer celebration events at Christmas and in June, now ensuring we hold events both sides of city in our two hubs- Carlton and Beeston. Volunteers received our monthly external newsletter alongside a regular newsletter from our CEO. Following on from our previous year’s Volunteer Survey, we took on the challenge to conduct individual volunteering review meetings with each of our volunteers - no mean feat, which took quite a few months due to the 350+ army around the town!

In this period a new Chair settled in to role but sadly stepped down for personal reasons, remaining as a trustee and another member of the Board stepped up. Our Senior Leadership team worked with the board in quarter 4 to develop our next 3 year strategy. Our staff team benefited from ‘team’ focussed monthly meetings, bi-annual faith based retreat days and we worked with them on developing a competency framework as part of our ‘High Performing Team’ strategy development. Our CEO was supported with ACEVO membership which brought benefits of professional coaching opportunities.

Reviewing, nurturing and clearly defining our partnerships

We continued to work with our welfare and benefits advice provision partners with regular reviews, and embedded the expanded advice (funded by Trussell from April 24) in three more food banks - Meadows, Mount Zion and Sneinton. Relationships with our food bank host partners made steady progress - with many conversations about ways of working, including attending governance meetings in Meadows, which helped us determine that Meadows food bank will move towards independent status. We re-connected with Covenant Restoration Assembly to re-open a closed food bank and began searching for contacts in St Ann’s to address the evident need for a local referral-based food bank there. Following on with Referrers newsletters and refreshed handbook, we arranged our first Referrers event to great feedback, encouraging quality referrals and networking.

We worked to strengthen our partnerships with local councils via set up of the Broxtowe Food Support Network (see p30), and our CEO sitting on the steering groups of Nottingham City Sustainable Food Partnership and the Gedling Voluntary Action Collaborative.

Delivering quality community led and based services that meet local needsGenerating income to ensure a sustainable future 22,50 Our new Operations Manager spent time getting to know our food bank operations, meeting teams, reviewing our procedures in020,000 conjunction with our Area Food bank Coordinator and setting up quarterly satellite food bank leaders meetings, helping to build 17,50 connections and improve consistency across our network. This led to work on a detailed Operations Manual to be launched 2026. 015,00

We researched the needs of food bank guests to deliver a successful grant application to Trussell for a Development Coordinator – a012,50 key aim to be to develop digital literacy based projects and explore add-ons such as money coaching. 010,00

We continued meetings of our Christian Focus Group, exploring a chaplaincy volunteer role and offering ad-hoc faith-based activities.07,50 Having held our first Carlton Community Meal in June 25, we offered these most months, to great feedback0 0 (see p51) and based on success of a trial series of sessions from April 24, continued our Hope House Art group, ensuring it was volunteer led.

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STRATEGIC REVIEW

What we achieved YEAR 3 OF OUR STRATEGIC PLAN

Investing in our marketing and communications, to expand our reach

We consistently produced a monthly digital supporter newsletter to just over 2000 people, developing an alongside ‘blog’, written by staff and volunteers. We continued to manage our marketing and communications inhouse - often a challenge to keep as a focus with staff having ‘day jobs’, but made progress rebranding with the new Trussell logo. We continued to take advantage of opportunities to share our work via talks at community groups and events, developing various presentations and leaflets using Canva. Our-self managed website was kept up to date and used as an info store for newsletters, blogs and resources.

Our Referral Newsletters also reached 1164 individual food bank referrers and we ensured our 350 strong volunteer team were kept updated about our work and developments. We began planning and researching for a volunteer online ‘portal’ in anticipation of addressing need for self-serve training, to be launched in 2026, alongside various volunteering ‘handbooks’.

Understanding our impact to be informed and agile in our support

Our Annual Report July 2023 - June 2024 was again a celebratory and comprehensive account of our impact. We also spent time encouraging our staff team to reflect on their activities through SWOT analysis and to conduct more regular volunteer team meetings to ensure clear feedback from the front line. This further highlighted a need to focus on a more structured training and wellbeing support system for our volunteers.

In the second half of the year we began an individual volunteer review process - best practice in volunteering. This helped with our continued review of the impact of volunteering, ever mindful that this is an essential area of our individual and community impact.

In Quarter 4 we began work on our 2025 - 2028 strategy, which included a full review on the effectiveness of our staff team, leading to a new internal strategy to ensure a high-performing team - see page 72.

Generating income to ensure a sustainable future to meet growing local need 22,50 Generating income to ensure a sustainable future Our finance and bid-writing team continued to consist of the CEO and Bookkeeper, and close to £300k of grants were received and020,000 carefully managed. A Trustee finance sub-committee group was also set up consisting of Chair, Treasurer and Assistant Treasurer -17,50 a new role. We continued to use budget planning, and financial reports as well as work on developing better cash-flow forecasting 015,00 processes. Our Bookkeeper continued learning best practice for our new Supporter Database.

012,50

We benefited greatly from events fundraising, particularly Oxjam, and a year of support from the Everyone Can Sing choir – find out 010,00 more on page 24. We also continued working to develop our corporate partnerships, to benefit financially from providing volunteering opportunities or gifts in kind. Loan of an electric van by Sandicliffe in a crisis situation demonstrated the power of ‘if07,50 you don’t ask, you don’t get....’ and we also received laptop donations from Ideagen, saved money on gardening and maintenance0 0 work, as well as ensuring we cared for our individual supporters - our digital newsletter assisting with highlighting specific needs.

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OUR IMPACT - GIVING

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Inspired by kindness: (left to right) Teresa (befriender), Charlotte
(Friendship group) and Janet (food bank) all volunteering at Hope House
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Sneinton Salvation Army Team
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GIVING

Enabling individuals andEnabling individuals and communities to share time andcommunities to share time and resources for the benefit of othersresources for the benefit of others

More than just giving time

A 350-strong Hope Nottingham army of registered, regular volunteers were enabled and supported in a variety of volunteer roles - food bank, our free-drop-in café, befriending, admin, foodclub, community meal, allotment, parent and toddler, youth services, driving and skills sharing. This was a slight drop on last year’s 370 across the network.

Without these generous individuals (just some of our wonderful volunteers shown), we simply could not carry out the work that we do. If a cash value of the hours were calculated, it would amount to hundreds of thousands of pounds.

Inspired by talent, passion and kindness

A TRULY ASTOUNDING XXX 31,500 30+ 350 VOLUNTEER HOURS*VOLUNTEER GIVEN IN KIND ACTIVITIES HOPE VOLUNTEERS OVER 14 DIFFERENT LOCATIONS HOURSACROSS THE YEAR

We are immensely proud of the role that Hope Nottingham plays in providing local people the opportunity to give back to their communities in safe, structured, meaningful and supported ways. Read more about our volunteers’ motivations, feedback and experiences at Hope through our 2023 Volunteer Survey results on pages 69-70.

‘In my volunteering I most enjoy having a common goal with our team, and meeting different people from all walks of life .’ Cherith, food bank volunteer

*Volunteer hours calculated on the average volunteer hours per session, per activity, across our network

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OUR IMPACT - GIVING

STORY OF HOPE

‘Giving something back to the community...’

Hear from Penny and her son Graham who volunteer together at our Beeston food bank.

How long have you been volunteering?

Penny : I think we've both been volunteering at the food bank for about five and a half years now.

Graham : And I've been helping on the allotment a bit less. About 3 years.

What role do you volunteer in?

Penny : We both volunteer sorting food in the food bank on a Thursday morning, We date and sort food donations, restock the food bank's shelves and make up emergency food parcels ready for guests. Graham also helps on the community allotment on Tuesday mornings.

What do you enjoy about volunteering?

Graham : I love being helpful. On the allotment, I like being outside in the fresh air, getting exercise and meeting people. On Thursdays in the food bank, I enjoy dating the food and I love being able to have a bacon cob from the Café!

Penny : Soon after we started volunteering, lock down happened. It felt really good to be useful and actually doing something worthwhile - not just being stuck sat at home or going on your one daily walk! It's gone so fast - it's hard to believe that was five years ago! I really enjoy meeting new people and making new friends through volunteering here. We both feel like volunteering means we're helping people who need support. It's giving something back to the local community.

Our sincere thanks go to Graham and Penny for sharing their experiences and to all our volunteers across all our activities, for everything they do with the time they gift to us.

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HOPE COMMUNITY ALLOTMENT
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“We both feel volunteering means we are helping people who need support. It’s giving something back to the community” Penny & Graham | Food bank Volunteers

19

OUR IMPACT - GIVING

Food bank volunteer teams across city and county

We operated our food banks in 14 local communities, including our base at Hope House in Beeston and Community Hub in Carlton, with others facilitated by partnerships with 11 local churches and one council-run library. From these we supported individuals living all across Nottingham. In some locations we improved our signposting and referral practices, thus reducing the numbers of emergency food parcels issued. In others, particularly Meadows, local need and high referrals for those of no fixed abode, or facing addiction issues, saw an increase. This is shown below in the comparison of figures to last year (L/yr).

----- Start of picture text -----
‘To each and every
volunteer that has
supported the work of
our food banks, a
heartfelt
thank you.
Special appreciation
Aspley St Margaret’s Beeston Hope House Bilborough Library Broxtowe St Martha's Carlton Hub goes to our
Mondays & Thursdays Mon, Wed, Thurs, Sat Wednesday & Fridays Wednesdays Tuesday, Wed & Fridays Food bank
c836 parcels (931 Lyr) c1086 parcels (1268 Lyr) c378 parcels (364 Lyr) c282 parcels (305 Lyr) c1221 parcels (1384 Lyr)
Leaders
also volunteers, and
Host Churches
who go
above and beyond
for our
volunteer teams
and their
local communities.
Chilwell St Barnabas Meadows Bridgeway Hall Bethesda Netherfield Radford Mount Zion - temporary re- location
Tuesday Tuesday, Friday, Saturday c 388 parcels (533 Lyr) at the Evangelical Free Church due to building works We appreciate their
c132 parcels (158 Lyr) c1838 parcels (1681 Lyr) Left our network April 2025 Tuesdays & Thursdays c985 parcels (1083 Lyr) hard work and patience
whilst we juggle so
many locations,
activities and priorities
and encourage them to
always be forthcoming
in telling us what they
need as they are our
vital link to local
people.’
CRA Radford Arboretum Sneinton Salvation Army The Haven, Stapleford Montrose Court, Stapleford Grangewood Methodist,
Dominique,
Wednesdays from April Thursdays Tuesdays & Fridays Mondays & Wednesdays Wollaton, Fridays
Hope CEO
c126 (closed Lyr) c987 parcels (1140 Lyr) c490 parcels (847 Lyr) c85 parcels (186 Lyr) c86 parcels (89Lyr)
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20

OUR IMPACT - GIVING

Corporate Volunteering

As well as our core volunteer team, we also provided numerous opportunities for ad hoc volunteers from local businesses to give back to their communities.

We have benefited from allotment days, fence painting, lifting and carrying, manning stalls at our Tesco National Collection days and general help, saving us lots of time and funds, whilst also helping local businesses and their employed teams to fulfil their Corporate Social Responsibility in a meaningful, community-focused and fun way!

E-days, Capital One, Boots No 7 Global Inventory and People Services, Cooper Parry, Spectrum Brands, Specsavers, Turner and Townsend, and LDC were just some of our partners. Many companies went the extra mile and brought food or financial donations along with them.

Our friends at John Deere repeated their Annual 'Day of Caring', purchasing bulk food and packing 180 emergency food parcels for us to supplement our food banks (see page 28).

Left: Spectrum Brands who unloaded food and cleared outside areas Right: A large team from Capital One completed a day of gardening

Left: Volunteers from Evershed Sutherland repainted our Carlton Community Cafe Right: The Cooper Parry team moved HMS Hope from our old playground to be recycled at our allotment into growing beds - nothing wasted at Hope Nottingham!

“It’s really great to get out and do something hands-on,” Nicola from Capital One

“Thank you so much for today. We loved it. Looking forward to coming back next year!”

“We absolutely loved helping out such a great cause” Renata from Boots no7

Danielle from LDC whose team of 6 spent a morning on our allotment

Excludes John Deere see page 28

£5,500 & 448 kg of food

256

33

1101 VOLUNTEER HOURS* GIVEN IN KIND ACROSS THE YEAR

VOLUNTEERS EVENTS FROM 22 COMPANIES

21

OUR IMPACT - GIVING

Corporate Giving

As well as hosting corporate volunteer events, and financial support, a number of companies have supported Hope Nottingham with ‘in kind’ donations. Ideagen, in addition to a corporate day packing £1000 of purchased food, also donated some of their no longer needed laptops, which will be used to update equipment for our staff, volunteers or digital projects.

Gratefully received: Eric, one of our founding job club volunteers, alongside Hilary and Sue, longserving Hope House Café befrienders, were happy to accept the donation!

Hope Nottingham as ‘Charity of the Year’ We were delighted to be selected to be Michael Pavis’ ‘Charity of the Year’; and their various fundraising efforts including Bake Sales and refreshments at the trade counter. In March 25 we received an amazing cheque and we are excited for our next financial year as they are heading to the Peak District National Park to £4,232 take on the Edale Skyline 20 Mile FUNDRAISED Walk! Amazing effort!

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Grateful for corporate support: Malcolm,
Volunteer Van Driver with the loan electric van
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Vital support in an unexpected crisis keeps our van team on the road and our food banks stocked! We had expected our transit van to last at least another year, but unfortunately it broke down in August and was condemned! Using it most week days to collect and deliver essential food, without funds to purchase, we were worried! However, we contacted Sandicliffe and they kindly loaned us a brand new electric van whilst we planned how to fundraise and search for a new van.

A developing partnership

In 2023-24 Trust Alliance supported us with £3,200 donation. As well as volunteering days, collecting food, since Feb ‘25 they have been making a regular monthly donation of £200 per month!

22

OUR IMPACT - GIVING

Financial Support

Running for Hope - Hope House to Dundee!

Hope Nottingham would not exist without the generosity of financial support from so many individuals, churches, organisations, and grant funders. We cannot possibly name everyone and more details on funders can be found of the breakdown of funds on pages 88 and 89.

We are grateful to all our grant funders which makes up a significant proportion of our finances. A list of our key funders can be found on page 96 - all helping us to fulfil our vision.

However, as the grant funding climate continues to become more challenging, we are supported more and more by local individuals, groups, and organisations, coming up with creative ways to not only raise money for us, but have some fun in the process, such as running clubs and choirs. We can only show a few examples here but want everyone who has supported us to know how grateful we are, and that every £ donated really helps us bring hope to local people.

Amazing generous gifts will bring years of support to our food banks!

In May 2025, the amazing AMB Running Club gave up their Sunday to run an incredible 415 km! This was the equivalent of running from Hope House in Beeston, all the way to Dundee in Scotland! Our CEO and Support Manager loved showing some of the team around Hope House in the planning phase and learned one member of the team regularly ran past our Carlton Hub which had given him the idea! Also in May was another charity marathon - keeping fit and bringing Hope!

AMB RUNNING AN AMAZING 415 16 KILOMETRES RUNNERS[£2600] FUNDRAISED

When our van was condemned, we launched an appeal and were absolutely stunned when one of our long-term friends and individual supporters, approached us to explain that they wanted to anonymously make a real difference with some inheritance they had received. This amounted to £10,000 to our van fund, enabling us to buy a much newer van! We also then received a wonderful £4055 from Cornerstone Church meaning we didn’t have to dip in to our reserves to make the purchase. Our most sincere thanks to both parties for coming to the rescue - showing both the powers of prayer and community spirit!

£14k OF GENEROUS GIFTS

OUR NEW TRANSIT VAN PURCHASED OCTOBER 2024

23

OUR IMPACT - GIVING

A year of music for Hope

RAISED BY THE ECS ‘EVERYONE CAN SING’ CHOIR £10,000+

Giving alongside entertainment: We had a year blessed with musical events - not only raising money but raising much needed awareness of Hope Nottingham across the city. In keeping with our vision for ‘communities of hope’, these events (and others like them) acted as public examples of our communities coming together, sharing their God-given talents for the greater good. Every gathering £3,992 enables important opportunity for RAISED BY THE making new connections, and enjoying OXJAM TEAM, precious time together in a joyful way! MUSICIANS &

RAISED BY THE OXJAM TEAM, MUSICIANS & ATTENDEES

Throughout our financial year, Everyone Can Sing fundraised through events, culminating in an amazing tear-jerking concert at Hope House.

Special thanks to Simon Thompson who led the choir through the year, organised and collected funds, and to each and every choir member, supporter and attendee of the events. This is an amazing gift to Hope!

You can watch their story and hear their amazing sound right here!

Jelly performed at a concert for Hope with ECS and also at Oxjam, with lead singer our very own Chair/Trustee Jez Barnard!

24

OUR IMPACT - GIVING

Mapperley & District Innerwheel

Food bank donations

Our food banks rely heavily on the generosity of local communities to keep them well stocked with a wide variety of ambient food and toiletries.

Donations come from many sources. Our food banks are visited almost every day by local people bringing food. Schools, universities, churches, businesses and other community groups collect huge amounts of food, especially at Harvest and Christmas.

This year there was a return to pre-pandemic donation levels and you can read more about the statistical trend of our food bank donations on page 26.

Simon Thornton, Senior Leader for Legitimacy at Trust Alliance Group: “TAG is dedicated to supporting the local community throughout the year, particularly with many families feeling the effect of the ongoing cost-of-living crisis. Whether it’s volunteering with local charities or working with local schools, it’s our way of giving something back as an organisation. No one should go hungry, and food banks do incredible work supporting people.”

(39,680 IN 2022) An amazing 115,685[kg donated]

25

OUR IMPACT - GIVING

Our biggest food supporters of the year

Via United Way, we have been working in partnership with John Deere annually for their staff team’s ‘Day of Caring’. Nov 2024 was their 4th event and having paid for a £5,000 order of food, they proceeded to pack an amazing 180 food parcels in record time. We are keen to continue this partnership for the future.

Annual ‘Day of Caring’

Permanent Collection Points

‘Permanent Collection Points’ are a crucial part of our stock generation planning and our biggest source of donations. It is important we recognise they are ultimately donations from individuals and we are constantly amazed to see many supermarket points being refilled daily.

Our biggest partnership is with Tesco, and annually Trussell help us encourage national collection days, where volunteers are on site Thurs - Sun where possible, encouraging shoppers to donate much needed items.

----- Start of picture text -----
25,252 kg
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----- Start of picture text -----
16,039 kg
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Many schools support us but top spot goes to Toot Hill School community in Bingham who donated an amazing collection of 759 kg. We would also like to highlight Fernwood who have supported with 4 collections a year for over a decade!

26

OUR IMPACT - GIVING

----- Start of picture text -----
STORY OF HOPE
----- End of picture text -----

The ‘Cost of GIVING’ crisis continues

‘Whilst we remain amazed at the generosity of local people in donating food, we are growing increasingly concerned about what we call the ‘cost of giving’ crisis, where charitable giving has been impacted by the ‘cost of living’ crisis, limiting what people can contribute.

Our donation levels peaked in the pandemic, despite us purchasing significantly more food from increased donations and grants. With food prices continuing to rise, food banks remain longterm, essential pillars of support. Until guaranteed incomes, affordable access to healthy diets and essentials are in place, vulnerability remains and we will need to continue working to protect and encourage food donations.

Going the extra mile: Mark and Jenny - volunteers from Meadows Food bank

Concerned about declining donations at their local Sainsbury’s permanent collection point, the team at Meadows food bank organised a donation event. The volunteer team, with the support of Sainsbury's staff and the fantastic 26th Nottingham (Meadows) Scout Troop, collected donations from customers, handed out leaflets and spoke to the public about the appeal and their wider work.

Many food banks are seeing increased need from working households that can no longer afford staples. Users also report cutting back on fruit and vegetables or cleaning and hygiene products, due to rising costs, impacting nutrition and wellbeing. Data from Trussell below demonstrates the statistical and financial realities.

We have only been able to sustain services through the approach of Nottingham City Council with their Household Support Fund which has provided us with significant funds over the last 3 years, albeit this year this too has declined, but still provided an amazing £140k to enable bulk food purchase, ensuring that no one referred to us has had to go hungry. For this, we are very thankful, and we pray this continues.

John Roskalns, Chair of the Meadows Leadership Team said “We're delighted to announce that we collected 1300 kgs from the Sainsbury's appeal. This equates to about 15 weeks of regular Sainsbury's collections! Thankyou to all Sainsbury's customers who donated; the Sainsbury's staff, the 26th Nottingham (Meadows ) scout troop and very importantly, to our volunteers who not only attend our food bank sessions but did extra hours meeting the public in Sainsbury's to encourage donations”.

AVERAGE WEEKLY BASKET PRICES HAVE RISEN 4.5% DRAMATICALLY 3.3% BY UP TO FOOD FOOD INFLATION AT INFLATION AT JAN 2025 JUNE 2025 28%

27

OUR IMPACT - GROWING

The Re-opening of our Arboretum Food bank

We have partnered with Covenant Restoration Assembly (CRA) to host a food bank since 2014 but in late 2023 our relationship paused as we considered how to manage a clash with one of the church’s food projects on the same day as our project. It took time to arrange discussions with the church and agree a way forward, but finally in April 2025 we re-opened a new session on Wednesdays with an entirely new team of volunteers being recruited. The location proves to be a busy one, but the small facilities have not been without challenge, so we will continue to keep this under review as we look to review support needs generally in the Radford area over the next year.

Covenant Restoration Assembly Church

GROWING

Multiplying our work in our own community and others

Being blessed with use of Trussell’s electronic food bank referral system, we are constantly analysing our food bank data, including where our food bank guests are travelling from. Our ideal is of course to serve those in need in their local community, particularly for food bank - thus limiting travelling time and costs, as well as the inconvenience of carrying heavy food parcels. By the end of this review period, we had begun looking for an additional venue and partner in St Ann’s, to address lack of a referral based food bank there.

Café style welcome

Above: CRA volunteers (left to right) Cathy, Ovi and Matt. Matt also shown in the new storeroom

28

OUR IMPACT - GROWING

Continued Carlton Hub Development

Keen to further expand activities at our Carlton Hub we had launched our first Community Meal there in June 24, following a 5 star Food Standards Agency rating. This was well received so in 2024-25 we aimed to continue and held 10 meal events over the period. Considering the tiny kitchen and tired cooking facilities, it is astounding how efficiently the team get meal after meal served! The atmosphere on these evenings is really lovely and we have been delighted to see both regular hub guests, but also lots of new faces too.

Plans for developing a Digital Support offer for 2024-25

We did not hesitate to take advantage of a digital inclusion equipment grant early in 2025 from Gedling Borough Council’s Strength in the Community Initiative, funded by the UK Shared Prosperity Fund (UKSPF). We have been repeatedly hearing from various sources, including our welfare and benefits advice partners, that digital literacy is a significant problem for many in local communities, negatively impacting those facing poverty and loneliness. With a grant of £1000 we purchased 10 tablets for the Carlton Hub, ready to begin developing our work in this area. We also joined the Good Things Foundation - the UK’s leading digital inclusion charity - who are on a mission to help everyone become digitally equal, able and safe, so that they can be happier, healthier and better off. Watch this space!

In March 2025, we were approached by Carlton’s Town Centre Manager to see if we could source volunteers to support the upkeep of the recently revamped Sensory Garden on Carlton Hill (up the hill from our Carlton hub). As our hub has hardly any outdoor space we saw this as opportunity to try and develop something.... to start with though we engaged corporate volunteers, while we recruit a team. Watch this space..... as we really hope to develop this project further for the benefit of local people.

‘Above left to right: Jacqui, John, Sharon, Peter, Michael and Ann - part of the core team each month.

“Lovely community spirit and homemade food. It is a highlight of the month. A good group of people and a big thank you to all the volunteers who do the wonderful food every month.”

“Felt a sense of belonging as soon as entered door, lovely smell of cooking, delicious food, wonderful people, stomach full!”

Community Meal Guests

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OUR IMPACT - GROWING

Hope Nottingham supporting local food projects

Multiplying our work in our own community and others

From Oct 24, thanks to funding from the UK Shared Prosperity Fund (UKSPF), we were proud to be commissioned by Broxtowe Council to lead on the set up and coordination of a local food projects support network. This work has included visits, chairing meetings, promoting ‘best practice’ - in particular having robust referral schemes and embedding advice to avoid food bank dependency, but was also intended to strengthen the relationships between the projects.

The initial membership of the Broxtowe Food Support Network included 14 food projects, 3 church cafes and Alex McLeish (Communities Officer for Health) at Broxtowe Borough Council.

Broxtowe Borough Food Projects Involved

Brinsley Food Bank, Broxtowe Community Projects, Broxtowe Youth Homeless, Chayah Project, Eastwood Food Club, Eastwood People’s Initiative, Eastwood Volunteer Bureau, Harvest Community Haven, Haven Church Food Bank, Hope Nottingham, Montrose Court Food Bank, Phoenix Community Project, St Barnabas Church Food Club, Stapleford Community Group.

Key achievements:

Helen Voce, our Operations Manager, was tasked with establishing the network and leading on its continued work. A great networker, this was also a chance for Helen to get stuck straight in to her new role!

Helen shared “It has been a great opportunity for Hope Nottingham to get out into the local community to connect with and support other local food projects, acting as their ‘strategic voice’ in discussions with the local council. The network has recognised that all Network members do not want there to be a need for their service. They would like to see a world where people had enough money to pay for the essentials, including food. Even with advice provision, this will not fix the overall issue of poverty and individuals not having enough income to guarantee the essentials, so there is more work to be done. We are delighted that as a result of the benefits gained and the challenges to be addressed, a small amount of further funding will be provided to carry on the Network for another year.”

One local independent project manager said: “I have really benefitted from these meetings…we are all small charities/initiatives, you can often feel like you are on your own. Talking through and listening to other organisations challenges and working out ways we can support each other has been refreshing.”

30

OUR IMPACT - GROWING

Influencing and raising awareness of our work

In addition to the Broxtowe Food Support Network (p30), 2024-25 saw Hope Nottingham take up many opportunities to raise awareness of our work, building on our reputation as a leading provider of food and community support in the city and county. Working across both City and County means we have even more networks to keep on top of and at times we have to prioritise. Here we showcase what have been our

main priorities over the review period.

Our CEO Dominique Scott meeting Liz Kendall in Ollerton

In Jan 25, our CEO was invited to attend a select event of Notts Charity Leaders to discuss child poverty with Liz Kendall the then Secretary of State for Work & Pensions. As well as flagging the ‘cliff edge’ we potentially faced with funding for food and advice, we supported the request to remove the twochild benefit cap, impacting many of our food bank users.

Attending events or providing talks

Over course of this period we attended events at various churches and organisations to explain about our work, even attending our first Royal Air Force Association meeting!

Gedling Community Action Network Our CEO also sat on the steering group for a partnership between NCVS and GBC to address the lack of a Community Voluntary Service dedicated to Gedling. The approach will be ‘clicks and bricks’ with a website and community hubs like ours being utilised to promote volunteering and support the local community and voluntary sector by sharing our best practice.

As reducing loneliness is such a key part of our mission we also attended the TLC network meetings, as well as local networks such as Gedling Community Hubs, Broxtowe Community Engagement and TNT meetings.

Nottingham City Sustainable Food Partnership

Our CEO joined the Steering Group of Notts City Sustainable Food Partnership, supporting the plan to achieve Bronze Sustainable Food places Award for the city (already achieved by the County). Related was the Nottingham Financial Resilience Partnership Food bank meetings and the County Sustainable Food network meetings.

Our first in-person referral event attracted 40 different referrers and provided a great way to educate on good referrals, but also showcase that Hope Nottingham is ‘more than food bank’ and enable wider connections between referrers - in line with our focus for those in need to have access to holistic support.

31

OUR IMPACT - RELIEF

Powered by kindness: Celia, one of our dedicated food bank volunteers at The Haven, in Stapleford.

RELIEF

Management and distribution of essential provision to help people out of crisis

Emergency Food

A huge part of our work is the provision of emergency food via our East & West Nottingham franchise with Trussell. We believe strongly in their referral system, whereby individuals are referred to us, rather than self-referred. This ensures we are acting as good stewards of the food donated to us, and provides the information necessary to enable us to support those in need out of crisis.

Each parcel contained at least 3 days of nutritiously balanced food so we provided a staggering

HELPING INDIVIDUALS WITH 3 DAY FOOD 180,315 PARCELS XXX EMERGENCY MEALS 8,921 VOLUNTEER

REFERRALS 20,035 OVER 14 LOCATIONS TIMES

HOURS

All our food bank teams together help make a real difference in people's lives. Whether one or many people arrive at a food bank session, the most important thing is that our volunteers are there, ready and willing to support, with a warm welcome.

“I love helping people. The feeling of making lives better. I've never been in that situation so I'm grateful for that but no one knows the future.” Celia | Haven Food bank Volunteer

Some of our food banks operate for a single session each week, others two, three or four sessions per week. What is most vital and common amongst all, is the continual commitment of the volunteer teams, to keep the doors open, come rain, snow or shine, never quite knowing who or how many people will arrive.

32

OUR IMPACT - RELIEF

Food bank referral

Our food bank referral system only works thanks to the relationships we build with local agencies and organisations, ensuring food gets to the right people, at the right time. Our food bank referral relationships also help us to build our local knowledge of the services on offer, enhancing our teams’ ability to signpost guests to additional help. Some of our key referral partners are shown below:

Schools

346 active referral organisations using electronic referral

“Hope Nottingham run a valuable service, I don’t know where some of my clients would be without it.”

with 1,202 individual referral agents

Sophie | Framework Targeted Support worker

STORY OF HOPE

‘”The family I referred to the food bank were so grateful. As a mum of two hungry boys, she was in debt and was really panicking that she wouldn’t be able to buy any food. You saved her from worrying.” Referral Agency

The above graph highlights a forced move to accepting self referrals during the pandemic and demonstrates our commitment to third party referral and continuing demand on our services from a variety of organisations. In recent years, we have: cleaned our database; linked previously individually set up referrers to their organisations; ensured our only referrers are those best placed to identify those in crisis; accepted only those with professional email systems to ensure referrer identity and our guests’ data security.

To note, Trussell supplied graphs show April 23 - March 24

33

OUR IMPACT - RELIEF

What the data is telling us

General trend in food bank referral

We are delighted to be seeing an apparent slight decline in overall food bank use, however we are still significantly above pre-pandemic levels. We believe robust referral, embedding advice and better signposting have all contributed. However, we must always bear in mind that in recent years around 29% have been first time users, and average use is only 2.26x (see next page)

Ratio of adults to children

Data (left) shows proportion of children being fed each year via our distributed food parcels. As shown this remaining consistent year on year at around 40%.

Vouchers issued by household structure

Vouchers issued by geographical ward

Data above shows where our food bank users live rather than data by food bank location. Whilst there can be valid reasons for using food banks out of your home area, our vision is that people are supported in their own communities, limiting travelling with heavy food bags and transport costs. We will continue to monitor our current locations, opening days and times to ensure those in crisis can easily access emergency food and other support.

Vouchers issued by source of income

Data shows that 73% of our vouchers in this period were issued to people receiving benefits and not working, with 16% having no income at all.

34

OUR IMPACT - RELIEF

Frequency of food bank use

Whilst the media can sometimes present a picture of largescale food bank dependency, our data tells a different story - the highest percentage of users having only accessed one voucher in the twelve month period and a very small percentage of guests with much higher use. This higher use can often include individuals with very complex mental health needs, and the homeless. We are also seeing increasing numbers of people in temporary accommodation.

We never put a limit on vouchers received, however we do ask referral agencies to talk to us when issuing more than 4 in a 6 month period, so we can ensure individuals are getting the financial advice they need to help them out of poverty. Our referral system is not intended to make accessing food a challenge, we strongly believe it is essential to lift people from crisis to hope, and without such a monitoring system, the reality of food insecurity could be hidden or misreported.

Percentage of guests by numbers of food bank vouchers issued in the reporting year

----- Start of picture text -----
59%
WITH ONLY 1
VOUCHER
6%
WITH 7+
VOUCHERS
ONLY A
29% 2.26x
2,600
WERE FIRST AVERAGE
FIRST TIME
TIME VOUCHER VISIT
REFERRALS
+4 on Last Year REFERRALS FREQUENCY
----- End of picture text -----

Help through Hardship

Trussell’s ‘Help through Hardship’ (HTH) helpline, in partnership with Citizen’s Advice, provides guests with a free and confidential telephone option for welfare and benefits checks.

867 HTH REFERRALS

OUR TOP REFERRAL AGENCY

CASE STUDIES

There are real people and stories behind each and every number

”Unfortunately I’ve had to use the food bank on and off in the past. They are always kind and welcoming. They are also patient with me when I’ve had to change some items because of my diet.” (Guest at Bilborough)

’'I was a guest at Wollaton. They were so warm and lovely that I felt like a 'family connection', I went away feeling like I wanted to be a part of that. I signed up with Hope and have been volunteering at the Chilwell food bank, where I feel that same family-like atmosphere, its clear that, that feeling runs through Hope Nottingham’s ethos.” George (Food bank Volunteer)

35

OUR IMPACT - GIVING

STORY OF HOPE

‘Compassion comes full circle...’

Many times at Hope Nottingham we hear potential volunteers express their reason for wanting to volunteer is because they have been helped themselves, either by Hope Nottingham or another charitable organisation.

This reflects the transformative cycle of our G.R.A.C.E model of mission (Giving, Relief, Advice, Community, Empowering) where being a recipient of giving can lead people to give back themselves.

Kurosh’s journey is one such story of hope and transformation. As an Iranian refugee he first visited Hope Nottingham as a user of the food bank. There he experienced first hand the compassion and care of the Hope Nottingham community who supported him through a difficult season.

Grateful for the help he received, Kurosh chose to give back and now volunteers at Hope House in the food bank, kitchen (both at the community café and the community meal) and also as a van assistant! Wherever there has been a need, Kurosh has offered to help! He has become an exceptional volunteer whose kindness, humility, and gracious heart have blessed everyone who works with him and who he serves. His dedication and hard-working ethic have inspired both volunteers and guests alike.

Kurosh continues to serve others in an even greater capacity through his recent employment with a local church, where he works with refugees, offering not only practical help but also dignity, friendship, and hope. His story reminds us that compassion can come full circle, turning personal hardship into a source of strength for others.

We are so grateful to have Kurosh as part of our Hope Nottingham community and pray for his people in Iran.

Kurosh’s kindness, humility and gracious heart has blessed everyone who works with him’ Jade | Hope House Community Worker

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OUR IMPACT - RELIEF

OUR IMPACT

Food bank as the first step to caring and holistic community support

Being referred for an emergency food parcel can often be the first time someone steps through the door of a food bank. The vision of Hope Nottingham, our volunteer teams and the host churches and organisations we partner with, is not a ‘transactional’ handing over of food. Each location is developing their own activities, in our hubs led by us and in partner churches led by the missional team or local volunteers and community members themselves. Where requested to, we will always aim to help this development, but in many cases, the volunteers are more than capable to lead.

dedicated c239 food bank volunteers

3,945

Support in Stapleford

STORY OF HOPE

The Haven Centre at Stapleford has been part of our network of food banks since 2013 and hosts our food bank twice a week. In addition to church services, The Haven Centre also offers a community café, cinema and ‘Supertots’ session. Also in

HOUSEHOLDS SUPPORTED ACROSS THE NETWORK

Stapleford since 2013, is our food bank at Montrose Court (shown right). This is a small church established in the centre of the Melbourne Road estate in the area of North Stapleford. Previously a post office and then a hairdressers, the unit is now well established as a church. What is amazing there, is how the traditional idea of ‘church’ is being shown as ‘community’ first and foremost. It doesnt matter the size nor style of bulding, it is the people that make the difference!

ADULTS WERE FED

12,654 TIMES CHILDREN WERE FED

7,381 TIMES

1352 food bank sessions

STORY OF HOPE Low literacy leaves family in unaffordable debt

“The day C came to see us her partner had walked out on her and was so grateful that we were there for her. She had been mis-sold an IVA by a company and was struggling to make payments, C struggles to read and write and unfortunately the company had taken advantage of this. We were able to help her to contact them to terminate the arrangements. We have also been able to help her manage the other debts she has with a view to applying for all her debts to be written off once the IVA has been formally terminated. C was grateful for budgeting advice and has now started teaching her children how to save as she sees how important that is. C is so grateful for the food bank as she has been borrowing money from her family in order to afford food. We are hopeful that once her debts are written off she will no longer need the food bank and will have enough money to live off.”

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Heather Morris | Step Forward Centre Manager
Inspired by community: The Church at Montrose Court
of
based in a former shop offers food bank twice a week
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OUR IMPACT - RELIEF

Food stocks on the move

184 food bank deliveries 8% up on L/yr

£142,398 of purchased stock 5% increase on L/yr

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Jenny Farrell-Bird
Trussell Area Manager
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Malcolm |
Hope Van Team Volunteer
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We are indebted to our amazing volunteer van team who tour every part of the city collecting and distributing food. No task is too much trouble for them and as well as food, they have collected items for our allotment, even moving and banking bulk coin donations, as well as delivering equipment and regular recycling trips.

The team is managed and supported by our full time staff Coordinator, Claire Fenwick. Malcolm (left) has volunteered as a driver for almost 7 years since he retired from a supermarket, bringing great skills with him.

“During the pandemic, we were delivering up to 60 parcels a day. Now, I deliver to the different food banks as well as collecting donations from schools, businesses and supermarkets. I have noticed there's been a drop in donations at supermarkets with the cost of living increasing. I used to be collecting 6 or 7 crates of food a day from the big stores. Now it's only 2 or 3. It's good to feel part of the difference food parcels make. On a personal level it's kept me healthy. Being active has really helped me.” Malcolm | Volunteer Van Driver

Storage Challenges

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The Arches
Trent Compassion
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We continue to be grateful for the support from teams at Trent Compassion and The Arches who have provided food storage at Trent Vineyard Lenton since the pandemic.

Unfortunately over this period their building has had subsidence issues and storage space has had to be reduced significantly by 70%. This has presented great challenges and in 2025/26 we will need to seek to find alternative solutions.

“I love my job because every day brings new challenges and real impact — no routine, just purpose and problemsolving that actually matters. I’m so blessed to have such a fabulous van and stock team...they do a difficult job but are always so willing.”

Claire Fenwick | food bank Area Support Coordinator

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OUR IMPACT - RELIEF

STORY OF HOPE “Food Club isn’t just about the food that we receive...... brilliant service, brilliant community”

Community Food clubs

Our two Community Foodclubs - Beeston since Nov 2021 and Carlton since April 2023 - are weekly initiatives that save food wastage and support local people with low-cost fresh food.

A guest who has been a regular member of the Hope House food club said “Food club just isn’t about the food that we receive at such a reasonable price it is also about the people and the building. Each week you get really good value for your money especially in our current climate. You can always make a meal and helps me to budget my money better.

In partnership with Fare Share and growing fresh produce from our allotment for the Beeston club, we provide food boxes to local community members. Food provided is varied and nutritious for a very small fee. We have a mixture of completely new guests who attend, and have had guests who originally came in for a food parcel, sign up as members. The attendees are now a little community where they share meal ideas and even check in on each other.

Brilliant service, brilliant community of staff, volunteers and guests. I love attending every week and belonging to the hope community.”

It’s so good to see food not being wasted. It’s really high quality, good value food that is reaching local people who it makes a difference to.” Jan | Food club volunteer

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Food sorting and friendship:
Jan, Sam and Tilly - key
members of the Hope House
Food club volunteer team
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“Brilliant service, absolutely friendly place with friendly ladies. I feel so welcomed here and also get a very good deal of food that sets me up for the week.” Ian – food club and friendship club guest

102 sessions & 110 members over our 2 clubs

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KG
22.4
2802
TONNES OF
FRESH FOOD
SURPLUS FOOD
BOXES SUPPLIED
SHARED LOCALLY
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OUR IMPACT - RELIEF

Guest Help

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Receipt of hygiene products from
The Hygiene Bank Nottingham to help
support our ‘More than Food’ offer.
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With many of our guests experiencing poverty, we always endeavour to offer our services without any required charge, although many choose to make small optional contributions. For many in our food banks, a warm space, cup of tea and biscuit can make all the difference and in our two hubs we are blessed to be able to provide free breakfasts in Beeston four mornings a week and lunches in Carlton twice a week. Each hub also offers a monthly evening meal.

We are also keen to offer ‘More than Food’ by adding hygiene, cleaning and laundry items to our food parcels. We also signpost to The Arches - a furniture project, and used our own small discretionary fund (set up in memory of a deceased well loved guest - our dear friend Karl Rowland) to provide top up funds for Acts, emergency dental treatment and a new tent for a homeless individual

“I had nowhere to go and I found hope, not just hope in the word, PATROL HOURS I mean hope - this place. It really inspired me.” (206,304 IN 2022) Karl, much loved guest, RIP

Our ACTS 435 Advocacy

‘giving to anyone who has need’ in line with Acts 4:35

We continued our role as an Acts 435 advocate - a crowdfunding giving website. Donations can be made for urgent needs such as benefit delays/sanctions, bills, clothes, food, heating, fresh starts, goods and furniture and white goods.

Find out more about Acts 435 here

STORIES OF HOPE

Our advocacy helped a single parent with a young daughter who experienced a fire in her flat which damaged her cooker beyond repair. She had lost her job so couldn't afford to replace the cooker from her benefits payments. Funding via Acts435 purchased a cooker so she and her daughter could cook hot meals.

Another guest had been living without a washing machine for 2 years as he was out of work and surviving on UC. He was relying on asking friends to wash his clothes which was causing him real embarrassment. Acts allowed us to purchase him a new machine, helping his wellbeing in many ways.

8 WASHING MACHINES 4 FRIDGES / FREEZERS 3 COOKERS 19 £3,340 1 BEDS / MATTRESSES INDIVIDUALS GOODS PURCHASED 1 CARPET FITTED 1 AIR FRIER SUPPORTED WITH FOR ACTS 435 4 CHAIRS ESSENTIAL ITEMS

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OUR IMPACT - ADVICE

Development of resources:

ADVICE

A large but worthwhile project in this period was development of Signposting booklets by our Support Manager, Iain Anderson. Their aim is to support both guests and volunteers alike. Example pages shown from Carlton but each location’s booklets reflect local context and services. They have been so well received they keep getting pinched!!

Bringing wide range guidance to provide accessible, integrated direction in a supportive environment.

Signposting

Signposting our guests to other local organisations is a key aspect of our work, particularly for financial and welfare advice. Our mission is to provide specialist advice to reduce debt, maximise incomes and prevent future reliance on food banks,. We have integrated this into many of our food banks, and the huge impact is shown in the next few pages. But we also want to encourage local people to seek support from their local communities and this ‘signposting’ is essential. Considered a safe haven, we believe our hubs and the smiling faces and welcome from our volunteers (alongside a cuppa and free hot meal) have a key role to play in introducing supportive organisations in an easily accessible and friendly way.

A variety of regular and ad hoc agencies visiting our hubs have enhanced accessibility of help for our guests offering ‘pop-up’ style sessions. At Hope House this has included local PCSO’s, Framework Street Outreach, Broxtowe Housing team, PA Housing, SEA, Elevate, Better Homes Better Housing, Notts Victim Care, Transforming Notts, and Midlands Women’s Aid. As a Christian Charity we have also welcomed visits from various churches. At the Carlton Community Hub we have hosted Gedling Borough Council outreach, Independent Age - benefits advice for over 65s, Fire & Rescue Service - safe and warm housing advice , Nottinghamshire NHS Talking Therapies advocate , Better Housing Better Health - Home Energy Advisor, and Futures For You (Careers Development Advisor).

‘Hope offers those in crisis so much more than just food bank’

Iain Anderson, our Support Manager of 5 years service and 5 before that volunteering: “Hope Nottingham is a place where there’s always something going on! One of the real positives of my role is that I get to see the wide range of activities taking place – especially in our community hubs.

Whether it is our regular community café sessions, our community meals, our art & craft groups, faith based activities, job clubs, community allotment or our food banks, one constant is the dedication and willingness of local people giving up their time and offering their skills to help, support and care for others. For me, this is where real Hope resides - the quiet determination to make a positive difference to people in need. We can’t and don’t ‘solve’ all of the issues that our guests experience, but we can and do offer people a place they feel welcomed, supported, cared for and loved – and that for me is what Hope Nottingham is all about.”

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OUR IMPACT - ADVICE

Financial inclusion Connecting to maximise incomes and reduce debt

We know hunger cannot simply be addressed by an emergency food parcel. While it provides support for the immediate situation someone is facing, it doesn’t address the lack of income to afford the essentials. At the same time, we do not claim to be able to offer professional welfare, benefits or financial advice. However, through Trussell’s Financial Inclusion, we can ensure many people on low incomes have ready access to support, to reduce their food bank need in the future.

These services, are delivered by working with local expert advice providers, which unlock benefits, grants and money that people are eligible for, and connect people to other community services to help with issues like mental health and housing. Around 64% of the food banks in Trussell’s network were offering access to money advice and support and we are delighted to be part of this.

Now in year 3 of our Trussell funded Financial Inclusion project, we continued two sessions a week Citizens Advice Broxtowe outreach and one Step Forward Debt Advice session in Beeston, two advice sessions provided by Nottingham & District Citizens Advice, one each in our Broxtowe and Aspley food banks. The Ark attended our Carlton Community Hub’s two food bank & café sessions. From April 24 we contracted Bestwood Advice for three additional sessions - Meadows, Radford and Sneinton - all busy food banks. The total results over the period have been amazing, as shown on page 45.

Sustainability of this important work

Our experience alongside raw data shows that co-location of advice within the food bank setting helps reduce the difficulties of finding solutions without support, helps mental and physical health. We know for sure that it is far more difficult (or less likely) for food bank users to access welfare and benefits advice if not located at the food bank. In this review period the advice provision in the 7 food banks has cost £76,158 . Our funding ends April 2026, so our next period we will be focussed on looking at options for future sustainability of this essential service for those in crisis.

OUR ADVICE PARTNERS

Phoenix Farm Open Door Project operating The Ark, Gedling

FEEDBACK FROM GUESTS USING OUR ADVICE PROVIDERS

Average £1000 gain per person

“Excellent service. Caroline was amazing with me. I felt like a human with her.”

“Caroline who I spoke with was absolutely amazing. Very helpful and considerate.”

“The advisor was an amazing help and made asking for help easier.”

“So far everything I need help with and don’t understand has been improved and it’s so stressfree after being given all the help I needed.”

“I am very happy with the service, it is very nice to see people in the café and enjoy breakfast if need it.”

Through income gains, debts managed, and debts written off it was estimated an average financial impact of around £1,000 was achieved per person accessing a Trussell advice service. Finney, et al, (2024), Evaluating the advice and support services provided through food banks

https://www.trussell.org.uk/newsand research/publications/evaluat ion/evaluating-our-money-mattersadvice-and-support-services

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OUR IMPACT - ADVICE

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Heather Morris |
Step Forward Centre Manager
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CASE STUDIES

Struggling with learning and technology

12 months. We have been working We spoke to the housing provider who with a food bank user who is a advised how to get the grandad moved. gentleman with disabilities. He lives Owing to their learning disabilities and with his grandson who is his carer. lack of technology experience, we His grandson has some learning helped complete the housing forms and disabilities, and they lived together in a 2 weeks ago the grandad was given his one-bedroom flat. One of them slept own flat, allowing the grandson and his on the sofa in the living room, and the partner, and their new baby, to enjoy other had use of the bedroom. The their own home without such severe grandson’s partner became pregnant. overcrowding. The granddad was then Naturally, the grandson wanted his supported to apply for Universal Credit girlfriend to move in so they could care and arranged for the rent to be paid for the baby at home, but that would direct to landlord to prevent any housing cause serious overcrowding in the flat. arrears and minimising any future It would also impact both their income. chance of eviction.’

The Ark is a community meeting place and advice centre in Gedling, close to our Carlton Hub. They provide advice on a wide range of issues including welfare benefits, housing, eviction, employment, general life skills and community issues. Through the Trussell Financial Inclusion grant, Hope Nottingham has been able to fund an advice worker to be based in our Carlton Hub’s food bank twice a week.

‘The welfare rights provision at Carlton Community Hub has been a source of support for many people over the last

Relationship building is a key part of the service

ended up in debt. Things that she used to find easy to manage, now cause her a lot of stress and she has really appreciated the support to add clarity to what she needs to do. The relationship part of the service and the care and support shown at Hope House have enabled her to reach out, even on the days when she is really struggling.

Step Forward Money Advice is part of Trent Compassion and offers free, friendly and confidential debt and budgeting advice. Heather Morris Centre Manager shares her thoughts, on partnering with Hope Nottingham.

For us at Step Forward Money Advice, the relationship part of our work is so important and the setting at Hope House, really adds to the feeling of family and support that we pray our clients feel. We have seen 43 clients through the year, helping some of them have their debts written off which have totalled almost £84,236 and managing other debts of over £176,134.

‘Working at Hope House is such a blessing for us and our clients. The warmth of the place is almost tangible and one of our clients quoted on their survey they completed that- ‘I like it when they (food bank team) pray with me. Very friendly and down to earth, helpful and puts worries at ease.”

The process will be long and slow for Ms K but having the ability to work at her own speed has been such a blessing for her, it has and continues to be a privilege to walk with her on her journey.”

“Ms K came to us at Hope House having been referred by the food bank. She has been struggling with her mental health for a few years now and as a result had

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OUR IMPACT - ADVICE

Lisa | Citizens Advice Central Notts Outreach worker at Hope House

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Simon Mee |
Head of Service Delivery
Citizens Advice Nottm & District
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STORIES OF HOPE

Providing advice amidst challenges

Hope has had a long term relationship Rehabilitation. At the time he was living Over a year, John made significant with Citizens Advice Broxtowe who have in supported accommodation and progress in stabilising both his living and now merged with other local Citizens struggling financially due to alcohol financial position. Support from Citizens Advice to form Citizens Advice Central dependency, limited income, and Advice resulted in tangible gains, Notts. uncertainty around benefit entitlements. including Household Support Fund A full benefit check identified eligibility for awards, emergency food, referrals for Lisa, their Outreach Worker is at Hope Universal Credit and Housing Benefit, and specialist debt advice and assistance House twice a week, working with our he was supported to apply for the with disability benefit applications. food bank guests and volunteers. They Household Support Fund. Over the have seen many different people but following months, John returned regularly John’s potential financial uplift from one case study here illustrates the with housing concerns, emergency food various benefits is worth more than difference that can be made: support and advice on benefits and debt. £10,800 annually. He continues to work on his recovery, maintains regular contact John first came to the service after being Changed circumstances led to housing with support services, and remains signposted to the food bank by his instability, ongoing health challenges and hopeful about returning to work in the support worker at New Hope an incident involving another tenant. future, once his health has stabilised.

Lisa, their Outreach Worker is at Hope House twice a week, working with our food bank guests and volunteers. They have seen many different people but one case study here illustrates the difference that can be made:

‘WaterSure scheme’ enables monthly savings

The guest was a widow and owner of a large property. She attended for advice as a user of the food bank and and asked how to maximise her income, which consisted of just the state pension. A benefit check was completed to ensure the correct benefits were in place, which were. This included state pension, pension credit and Council Tax single person discount and Council Tax reduction.

on her expenditure. It was discovered she was paying a large water bill (estimated by the water company at £49 a month).The advisor highlighted the WaterSure scheme and as she was digitally excluded - that is - didn’t feel confident using technology, was supported by the advisor making the application on her behalf.

of £463.08 per year. The £37 saving per month is a similar amount to the cost of a single food parcel. The guest was really pleased with the outcome as it enabled her to stretch her money further when paying for food and bills.

The WaterSure scheme is specifically for high water users, however the Seven Trent Big Difference scheme for any consumption has helped many of our guests. Both are perfect examples of a simple application that can be out of reach for those who are digitally excluded, or just not aware of them.

The guest was successful in the application and awarded the scheme by the water company, and received a reduction in her bill from £49 a month to £11.90. This equates to an annual saving

However, she was still struggling to make ends meet so Caroline the advisor looked at how the lady could save money

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OUR IMPACT - ADVICE

LIFE CHANGING FINANCIAL IMPACTS

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£852,429 585 GUESTSSUPPORTED £118,345 TOTALDEBT MANAGED
TOTAL FINANCIAL
GAINS ACROSS GAINING £176,477 OF DEBT
372 FINANCIALLY WRITTEN OFF
ALL PROVIDERS
THIS IS AN INCREASE OF THOUGH THE NUMBERS HERE AN INCREASE OF £33,874
ON DEBT MANAGED AND
AN AMAZING £294,270 HAVE REDUCED FROM LAST YEAR,
ON THE PREVIOUS YEAR ACTUAL GAINS HAVE INCREASED £32,528 DEBT WRITTEN OFF
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We are incredibly grateful for the support of Trussell and their dedicated Financial Inclusion Manager

‘As the Financial Inclusion Manager for the Trussell Trust in the East Midlands, I support Hope Nottingham with their food bank-based advice service provision. This provision began in February 2022 in 4 of their food bank centres and, due to its success, further Trussell Trust funding was awarded to expand the service to 3 more food bank centres. The services have evidenced significant impact for food bank guests in tackling the issues that led to their need for emergency food and achieving greater financial resilience. They have ended the ongoing need for food bank for many.

Mary Collier | Trussell Financial Inclusion Manager

Hope Nottingham’s unwavering focus on supporting their local communities in a compassionate, holistic and personcentred way is very impressive. Their strong partnership-working with local advice agencies exemplifies their commitment to social justice and proactive, determined approach. It’s a privilege to support their invaluable work.’

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OUR IMPACT - COMMUNITY

Each helping the community for over a decade: Left: Rob - Café chef twice a week. Right: Lynne - food bank and food club volunteer

A warm welcome: The Community cafe at our Hope House Hub in Beeston

COMMUNITY

Enabling all to be helped and to help, to give and to receive, enjoying both support and belonging

Community Cafes

Our free drop-in cafes ensure guests are welcomed by true hospitality, food and friendship, all enabled by our amazing volunteers.

Our cafes offer support as part of a holistic approach which can include emergency food provision, benefits and debt advice, signposting plus practical help which includes referrals to The Arches and Acts 435. Most importantly, they give opportunity for connection and we have seen many friendships between guests formed and heard many stories of improved wellbeing as a result.

Hope House Cafe Beeston

Open 4 days a week, the café has seen an average of 125 breakfasts per week, thousands of cups of tea being consumed and hours of talking with our guests. The space was also used for celebrations including our Volunteers’ week and Christmas celebrations.

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CAFÉ SESSIONS IN BEESTON AND CARLTON

6395

6395 5566 BREAKFASTS LUNCHES IN HOPE HOUSE, BEESTON IN CARLTON COMMUNITY HUB

Hope Cafe at Carlton Community Hub

Carlton’s twice weekly lunchtime café runs alongside the food bank and has a wonderful team of volunteers cooking light lunches including soup, toasties, chip cobs, and freshly baked goods such as cakes and scones - real comfort food!

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OUR IMPACT - COMMUNITY

Reducing loneliness

Whilst all our activities are centred around building community connections, we continue a dedicated focus on projects aiming to reduce social isolation.

Hope House Friendship group

Originally only hosted at Hope House, the Beeston Friendship group has now been part of the Hope Nottingham run family of activities since May 2021.

The group aims to provide a space for local community members who may be socially isolated, to meet new people and have a safe constructive space to explore new hobbies and learn about new interests.

Our guests participate in a variety of activities from quizzes, bingo, specialist talks, arts and crafts and board games.

Planned development for this group currently involves creating new links and networks with the local community to boost engagement.

Hope House Tuesday Friendship group enjoying some craft activities

VIEW FROM A VOLUNTEER

Meryl (right presenting cake to Jane a long attending guest at the group) has been volunteering over 5 years, originally as a telephone befriender and delivering food parcels during the pandemic. She enjoys helping people in different ways, using some of her professional therapist skills in listening and supporting people whoever they are.

PATROL HOURS (206,304 IN 2022)

Carlton Hub Friendship group

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Making Saturdays a special time for connection:
Carlton Community Hub Friendship Group Team, left to right:
Tony, Karen, Kay and Glenys
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The Carlton Hub’s Friendship group was set up in November 2022, in response to local people in Carlton enjoying the activities during the week, but feeling particularly isolated at the weekends.

It has grown from strength to strength often with average of up to 38 regular attendees on a Saturday. It provides a warm welcoming space for members of the community to socialise alongside a toastie, with Peter and Karen’s revered homemade cakes! The team even find time to play bingo and quizmaster Tony gets everyone thinking with his clever questions every week. There are prizes for the winners, alongside occasional sing-a-long music!

HELPING REDUCE LONELINESS FOR 1906 100 FRIENDSHIP GROUP TOASTIES AND/OR 50+ SESSIONS HELD HOME MADE CAKE SLICES INDIVIDUALS IN BEESTON & CARLTON SERVED IN CARLTON! EACH WEEK

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OUR IMPACT - COMMUNITY

Arts & Crafts at Hope Nottingham

The Carlton Arts and Crafts group was initially instigated and supported by Jigsaw and is a session run by dedicated arts and craft experienced volunteers. A range of crafts is provided, week in and week out, such as painting, drawing, stencils, sewing, rug making and much more. The group has predominantly used recycled materials and aims to instil confidence and the session breaks in the middle to ensure a focus on connecting with others. Guests often bake and bring treats in to share with each other.

Thanks to the skills, experience and wonderfully warm welcome of the volunteer team it has attracted many local people with additional needs such as autism, brain injuries, mental health struggles.

At Hope House, in Beeston we have had small ad hoc card-making and knitting groups within our community café setting, but following Carlton’s success in February 2025 we launched a trial 8 week dedicated art group. This was very well received and though still in early stages of growing, has encouraged existing guests and new ones to attend, as well as some new volunteer recruits to help organise the sessions. More blocked sessions are planned for next year.

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XXXX
Early art work from the new group
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Fiona | Carlton Arts Regular Guest and one
of the founding members
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Cath, Lead Volunteer at Carlton was led by her faith to set up this group, knowing many local people with additional needs don’t have safe places to go in the wider community where they are not bullied. She describes it as sometimes ‘tough’ and not the ‘Disney’ end of volunteering’, but is proud that the group makes a real difference in the attendees lives.

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HELPING REDUCE
47 LONELINESS FOR 16
ARTS & CRAFT GROUP 20+ ARTS & CRAFT GROUP
SESSIONS HELD SESSIONS HELD
INDIVIDUALS
IN CARLTON IN BEESTON
EACH WEEK
Jayne, Cath and Christine - volunteers
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48

Art as a tool for therapy, connection and wellbeing Examples of art and craft. Above is the collective submission of the Carlton group to Carlton Art Show (see page 52)

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OUR IMPACT - COMMUNITY

STORY OF HOPE

‘I have started to draw again....’

Lauren, our Chaplain and Wellbeing Coordinator who has helped facilitate our Beeston Art group shared the difference that attending the group has made:

“With so much joy the guest shared that ‘I have started to draw again’. She said how she had wanted to attend for a while but wasn’t able to come through the doors on her own. When a neighbour moved who was already a regular guest at Hope House invited her along as she was coming already to the Arts and Craft group, she jumped at the chance.

When she started coming she spoke about the challenges and barriers to drawing she had faced, but how she was determined not to give up. It was about the process, not the end result, so in spite of setbacks she carried on drawing. Soon she was sharing not only some of the beautiful pictures she had drawn of animals, but also how determined she was to carry on now that the group had helped her creativity to come back.

The group was helping her have something for herself amidst her life of having a challenging caring role for her husband. He was also enjoying the lovely art work she had created, which he was beginning to encourage her in. This in itself was something very valuable, as he hadn’t done this so much previously.

Her son also started to show an interest and when he came for a visit to the UK to see her, she offered to run one of the craft sessions, gifting us with the materials and demonstrating the mask making with the volunteers who give so much of their time and effort, so she blessed them too.

When it came to her turn to lead on the craft, her son was visiting and came along to be a part of it. We all marvelled at his painting techniques and it was so lovely to see mother and son together. Since then they have been talking all things art and it has had such a positive impact on their relationship and sense of connection.”

Rediscovering art: Our regular guest’s son, who visited and shared one of our sessions, enjoying the ‘doing’ and ‘chatting’ with his mum and the group

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OUR IMPACT - COMMUNITY

Hope Community Meals

Left: Some of the Hope House Community Meal team; Right: Praise for our cooking! Far right: Hope House Community Meal and more of the team

On the second Tuesday of every month at Hope House, Beeston and the fourth Monday in Carlton, we offer a two-course cooked meal for anyone in the local community, on a 'pay what you can afford' basis. Our aim is to provide community connection as well as a hot meal in a warm, safe, and friendly space, also providing cooking and volunteering opportunities. We take into account dietary requirements, always including vegan and gluten-free options. Where possible for key months, entertainment has also been provided such as quizzes. Christmas saw the busiest meals with 57 guests attending Carlton and 62 at Hope House! A lot of people to cater for and whilst Hope House has a commercial kitchen, Carlton has a tiny one!

“Some people who have come tonight may not have spoken to someone all day.” 385 22 385 2 COURSE MEALS COMMUNITY MEAL 2 COURSE MEALS PROVIDED IN BEESTON EVENTS ORGANISED PROVIDED IN CARLTON

STORY OF HOPE

In spring of 2022, Heather Sarno (shown right), a local community member approached our then Director to talk about the benefits of social eating and home grown food. A member of Incredible Edible Beeston, she had also been involved in our Community Allotment. Our meal was born by May 2022 and two years later inspired our Carlton meal to begin too. This would not have happened without Heather. Heather tragically passed away in Sept 2025, just over a year after Josie, another meal volunteer who passed away June 2024. Both will be forever in our hearts and we are so grateful to the difference they have made. Each and every community meal we share reminds us of them both and the importance of ‘community’.

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OUR IMPACT - COMMUNITY

“Fun in the Sun!”

Hope Community Events

The Star pub n Beeston hosted an event for us 27-29 June 2025. We raised a whopping £1190 from the generous people that attended and The Star matched that making a massive total of £2390 over the weekend.

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Carlton Art Week
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Big shout out to The Star who organised the bouncy castle, the Lilo and Stitch characters who entertained the children on Saturday and the bands and singers who all provided their services for free.

The Hope Nottingham staff team volunteered their time to go along and chat to everyone about our work. We met families who used to come along to our toddler group and reconnected with the children who are now at school, we heard from Food Club member Lynda who said:

Above and below: Exhibits at the Carlton Art Show held at our Carlton Community Hub.

“I have cut my food bill in half by joining the Club and we’ve started to eat more healthily as the weekly boxes contain so many vegetables and I couldn’t afford to buy them before”.

The first Carlton Art Week was launched in Oct 2024 as a festival that empowers Carlton residents to come together and share their passion for art, crafts and heritage. It featured a series of exhibitions by local professional and aspiring artists, presented in the cafes, shops and library on Carlton Hill. Carlton Art Show was the culmination of the week - a celebration of local creativity. We were so proud to host the show at our Community Hub, and it showcased an array of art and crafts created by local groups and citizen artists, including guests at our very own art group!

As notes were being pushed into buckets people told us how they had used the food bank in previous years and how great it felt being able to help fund parcels for others now their own situation had improved. Helen Voce, Operations Manager said:

“It was uplifting to hear what a difference our work makes to local people’s lives. Thank you to all who came along and donated. The money raised will go towards the costs of running our 14 food banks. It’s going to be an annual event so look out for the dates for next year!”

£2390 RAISED THROUGH MEETING THE COMMUNITY

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OUR IMPACT - COMMUNITY

Connecting local families with young children

Hope House Little Angels Toddler Group

‘ It has been a personal blessing supporting the parents more by signposting, guidance and wisdom, and parenting skills. Eleanor | Little The extra mile: Eleanor, dressed for the toddler Angels Volunteer Christmas party;

We provided 36 sessions of our Hope House Little Angels Toddler Group , at Hope House led by our Youth & Community worker Jade, alongside our dedicated volunteers. A consistent group of around 8 families attended on a weekly basis which has helped create a wonderful little community where parents who met each other at this group, now go out to the park or other activities together. Support was received from The Arches, Tesco Beeston and Toton in giving clothing, baby items and other items to our parents.

Carlton Hub ‘Stay & Play’ in partnership with Netherfield Family Hub

We are grateful to be able to partner with other local organisations, drawing on local experts to provide additional services without incurring significant running costs. Our Carlton Hub continues to offer our facilities free of charge for an afternoon a week for Netherfield Family Hub for a ‘stay and play’ service for pre-school aged children and their parents and carers.

STORIES OF HOPE

‘Carlton Hub benefits me and my child. It helps my child to socialise in groups with peers, helps develop my child’s fine motor skills, speech and skills such as turn taking, and provides fresh emotional and psychological stimuli midweek. I enjoy socialising with the other parents and sharing parenting ideas, swapping

positive and negative tales, the social aspect benefits my mental health and keeps me motivated. The staff facilitating the group are knowledgeable and helpful and provide helpful child raising tips, above all the group is fun for myself and my child!’

Both the Beeston and Carlton activities provide families with an important

access point to other services, such as drop-in cafes, food bank and food ‘I have brought both my children here over the past two years and I have club, helping local people build wider community connections. always found it to be a friendly and welcoming environment, with staff taking a genuine interest in each of my children. They are always happy to assist with any issues you may be experiencing, offering advice or direction to helpful advice or direction with helpful resources.’

‘Activities are always varied and safe for all ages and children are consistently engaged, I have with my

CLOSELY SUPPORTING LOCAL 36 UP TO FAMILIES SESSIONS 8 WEEKLY

children made many happy memories FAMILIES UP TO here and will continue to attend as the SUPPORTED afternoon is a winner.’ EACH WEEK 15

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OUR IMPACT - EMPOWERING

EMPOWERING

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Empowered by their supportive volunteer
team: Aspley St Margaret’s food bank
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arrived on station in May
2023
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Enabling people to live more stable and fulfilled lives and find worthwhile occupation

We continued to provide multiple opportunities for local people to volunteer, reducing isolation, helping individuals gain confidence and make connections in their local communities, as well as providing safe and meaningful opportunities to support others.

50 40 VOLUNTEER VOLUNTEER LEADERS LED SESSIONS EACH WEEK

In line with our Theory of Change, we believe in volunteer led activities, facilitating the power of communities serving their own communities.

Our staff roles provide wraparound support for both the volunteer leaders and their volunteer teams, assisting with recruitment, training, coordination of activities and supporting with any challenges for example food stocks, advising on additional support for guests and of course incidents and safeguarding.

Local churches in partnership: Our Mount Zion food bank in Radford had to relocate quickly in our previous reporting year, with the Evangelical Free Church coming to the rescue to offer them a new home. While the huge building works continue, so does this beautiful partnership of ministries! From left to right: Leah, Jacqui Anderson, Trevor Anderson (MZ Pastor) and Karen (from Evangelical Free Church). Sincere thanks to the Evangelical Free Church for all the support.

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OUR IMPACT - EMPOWERING

STORY OF HOPE

VOLUNTEERING TO BUILD SELF-ESTEEM

Claire is one of our team of 'Office Angel' volunteers, working behind the scenes to help keep Hope Nottingham running.

How long have you been volunteering?

I’ve been volunteering for just over a year. I’ve been a stay-at-home mum for fourteen years, raising my son and running my own handmade craft business. Volunteering at Hope was my first step back into a working environment.

“I’d lost sight of what I was capable of... It’s given me a massive boost of self confidence.”

Claire | Volunteer Office Angel

What roles do you volunteer in?

I’m one of a team of “Office Angels” – a title which I love! I’m in the Beeston Office on Mondays and I help with office admin such as answering phone enquiries & replying to emails. I also process volunteer applications – taking references over the phone. The team recently completed a large project of creating electronic versions of all of our volunteer records – something that was very satisfying to work on! I also help our Bookkeeper with some of the financial records – I love a spreadsheet!

What do you enjoy about volunteering?

Volunteering gives me a huge sense of satisfaction that I’m really helping the local community. Although my role isn’t directly guestfacing, I take great pride in knowing I’m helping the office team with their tasks – meaning they have more time to get on with their jobs!

I started volunteering at a time when I had very low self esteem. I’d been out of a working office environment since having my son and I’d lost sight of what I was capable of. I’ve learnt so much since I started volunteering and it’s given me a massive boost of self confidence in my own abilities.

I very much see my volunteering role as a two way thing – Hope get my help one day a week and I get the satisfaction of helping and re-learning skills I’ve not used in a long time!

Our sincere thanks go to Claire, the rest of our 'Office Angel' team and to all our volunteers across all our activities, for everything they give to help serve people in their local communities.

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OUR IMPACT - EMPOWERING

STORY OF HOPE

“Everyone has been been truly welcoming!”

Beth was originally a Community Café guest at our Carlton Community Hub. As part of our G.R.A.C.E model of mission (Giving, Relief, Advice, Community, Empower) we often see those who benefit from our service become volunteers. From April 2025, Beth was encouraged to apply and became a volunteer in June. As you can see from her own words she has really benefitted from this.

“This place does remind me that there is still some good going on and help available.”

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Beth | Former guest, now volunteer
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“I was made to feel comfortable straight away. I prefer changing roles and keeping busy. It’s been a pleasure getting to know different volunteers – there’s plenty of characters! After feeling isolated myself and slightly detached from the ‘real world’ after being in hospital for a long time it has been nice to get back out there.

I also like to see the small changes to people who attend and the positive impact the food bank has. With everything going on in the news and the world at the minute it feels a bit bleak but this place does remind me that there is still some good going on and help available.

I don’t enjoy the quieter times but David - the employed Community Hub Worker who oversees us - understands I like to keep busy and will move me around. He is always available if needed.

There’s a true mix of characters, both staff and guests - it’s nice to see people mixing who wouldn't have necessarily met in every day life. There are always people more than willing to offer cover in the food bank. And if anyone is having a bit of an off day people are more than willing to help out.

“ I feel like I see the impact. You have people sharing their stories with staff as to why they come - it isn’t always homelessness or struggle that brings people to the Church.... it’s people coming looking for a sense of community which is nice to see as it seems to be a rarity nowadays.“

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DAVID | HUB WORKER
HOME-MADE TREATS
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OUR IMPACT - EMPOWERING

Literacy Group

“Doing literacy here at Hope - it's great. Lovely super bunch of people bringing different personalities.” Judith / Volunteer lead

SESSIONS 37 VOLUNTEERS 4

Our Literacy group volunteers provided around 37 group sessions on Monday afternoons at Hope House, during term time. Offering kind and tailored support to local people wishing to expand their literacy skills in a safe environment, a core group of around 15 guests attend.

GUESTS 15 SUPPORTED Focus has been on creative writing, poetry, and improving their literacy skills, as well as building a AND COUNTLESS sense of community and enjoyment around CREATIVE IDEAS! learning by exploring language together.

Over the year, guests have worked on a wide range of activities, covering everything from spelling, grammar and letter-writing through to poetry and creative writing. Catering for a range of levels of literacy and interests, the group continues to offer both support and encouragement to people of all abilities. They have also enjoyed social meet-ups in the holidays.

STORY OF HOPE

“ Volunteering is very enjoyable. Whoever I work with, I enjoy. Particularly with David, his motivation is astonishing. It motivates me. He's benefiting as we take an interest in him. He's so kind and thoughtful. Showing him his achievements - gives us all satisfaction and encouragement. The team is made up of kind, caring and loving people - providing support through difficulties is an important part of role. But you get more back than you give.” Rose | Literacy and food bank volunteer

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PATROL HOURS
Rose and Judith: (206,304 IN 2022)
Literacy Volunteers
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English for Speakers of Other Languages ESOL Group “In his grace, God has given us different gifts for doing certain things well..... If your gift is Claire | Volunteer Office Angel serving others, serve them well. If you are a teacher, teach them well.” Romans 12:6-7

Hope’s ESOL classes have continued to provide support for local people learning English as a second language since 2022. Guests attending the sessions over the year have included refugees and asylum seekers from a range of nationalities and backgrounds including Ukraine, Syria, Pakistan, Turkey and Hong Kong.

Teaching takes place in small groups depending on their level of English to tailor to individual need, and allows guests to develop their written, and spoken English in a friendly and informal atmosphere. Most guests are regular attenders of the sessions.

We have also accepted new referrals from both within Hope and from external agencies (e.g. Belong, local councils and churches) and recruited and trained additional volunteers to enable this work to continue.

14 GUESTS PER WEEK ON AVERAGE WITH

To Hope House, I study English lesson. I learn a lot of English UNIQUE GUESTS ASSISTED OVER 29 from the class. I always enjoy THE YEAR each lesson. And thank you for your help. You give us SESSIONS all the time! 35 HOPE VOLUNTEERS ESOL group guest 6

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Back: Vince, Volunteer since 2018
Front: Bernard, regular guest
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Tony (front left) has been volunteering in the Job Club since 2020 and previously retired from secondary education. He shared:

“I find this role a good fit for my skill set. I enjoy meeting new people and the interaction with people from different backgrounds and places.”

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WORKING IN PARTNERSHIP WITH
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HOPE JOB & COMPUTER CLUBS

“They are a great team at the job club...helping with application forms, CV’s and interview techniques. I enjoy going because it is quite a relaxed atmosphere and we always have a good chat.” Bernard | Regular guest at job club and community café

Hope Nottingham’s job clubs based at Hope House, and Beeston and Stapleford libraries have continued to support local people who are looking to get back into work. The dedicated one-toone support provided by our volunteers include job searching, CV writing, job applications and interview coaching as required, tailored to the specific needs of each individual guest.

Our Hope House based sessions run alongside our community café and food bank. They offer support with getting back into work as part of a holistic approach which can include emergency food provision, benefits and debt advice. Our sessions at Beeston and Stapleford libraries, run in partnership with Inspire, provide a drop in service in easily accessible locations, and regularly receive guests referred from local Job Centres.

We look forward to continuing to assist those looking to get back into work and are currently working on recruiting a more diverse volunteer team to help support as wide a range of guests as we can.

In 2025-26 we aim to build on this work, focussing on Digital Literacy and Inclusion - an area of challenge for many in poverty. This work will be funded by a strategic grant from Trussell for a Development Co-ordinator. Beth joined us at the very end of this period, previously working as a Debt Advisor.

'”I'm really looking forward to start looking at projects and pieces of work to support the brilliant work that already goes on across Hope Nottingham.”

129 UNIQUE INDIVIDUALS SUPPORTED WITH JOB SEARCH, CV WRITING & INTERVIEW SKILLS

A STAGGERING 196 SESSIONS PROVIDED AT HOPE HOUSE & BEESTON & STAPLEFORD LIBRARIES

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OUR IMPACT - EMPOWERING

Partnerships for proactive support

Jigsaw work club in Carlton

We have worked closely with Jigsaw Midlands including them providing some funding for our Community Hub Worker. In addition to our hub being well-used by Jigsaw residents, we work with Martin Curtis their Neighbourhood Engagement Coordinator to provide a fortnightly job club in the hub: Martin says ‘As well as assisting customers at the Carlton Hub with Employment & Skills support, my fortnightly sessions there have enabled Hub volunteers both here and at the Beeston base to access our Level 2 Food Safety training. It is also an opportunity for me to signpost some of the numerous Jigsaw tenants that attend to other local services and work with partners on wider initiatives such as the Carlton Art Week.’

Chair based classes for older people

BEESTON 37 SESSIONS GUESTS 10 SUPPORTED WEEKLY

Sometimes it is better for us to partner with experienced organisations to deliver some services. At Hope House we support Liberty Leisure to provide a weekly ‘Wise Moves’ class. This is a fun and social class that will help prevent/reduce falls and increase strength and balance.

It incorporates Strength, Balance, Flexibility, Cardio, Tai Chi and Backward Chaining. This gives individuals the tools to comfortably complete everyday activities, e.g. getting down and up from the floor, having the stability to comfortably stand on a bus, reaching for something in a high cupboard or opening that heavy door and improve confidence day to day.

The Wise Moves classes are a falls prevention scheme which can last for a duration of up to 9 months. The duration of stay on these classes is on a case by case basis which is monitored through ongoing discussions and assessments between the instructor and participant. When both parties are confident that balance has improved, fear of falling has reduced and the participant feels able to exercise independently, the participant will have completed ‘Wise Moves’. They will then be offered a discounted membership at Liberty Leisure to continue this journey with the same instructor.

Supporting the development of Community and Voluntary Services in Gedling

In March 2025 we were honoured to host one of a series of workshops in our Carlton Hub - particularly as the topic was ‘Volunteering’ - a topic we think we know quite a bit about!

In a similar way, at the Carlton Community Hub we have partnered with CC Health & Fitness to offer a weekly Strength & Balance class.

Sarah | L Leisure

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CARLTON
SESSIONS 40+
GUESTS
UP TO SUPPORTED
12
WEEKLY
PATROL HOURS
(206,304 IN 2022)
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“Hope House is a great community space which is friendly and easily accessible to local people. Bringing Wise Moves to a community space like this definitely makes it more inviting – as people can often be a bit afraid to attend sessions at places like leisure centres.” Sarah | Liberty Leisure Wise Moves Instructor

This event was part of our support of work to develop the Gedling Voluntary Action Collaborative (see page 31) for more details of the initiative.

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OUR IMPACT - EMPOWERING

“I really enjoy the allotment volunteering with my wife. It comes first when looking at our commitments! We really enjoy being able to take barrow-fulls of produce up to Hope House. Great to see it being used, especially on the same day for the food club. ”

James volunteers alongside his wife Margaret

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Margaret (left) and Rose (right)
Rose is also a lead volunteer at
our monthly community meal,
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Hope Community Allotment

We have been blessed with permission to operate a large allotment on unused council land just down the road from Hope House in Beeston for a number of years. Throughout the last 12 months, our allotment team have worked through all weathers to ensure a continuous supply of fresh produce, at times benefitting from a boost of labour from corporate volunteer days.

Our Tuesday Hope House food club receives a fantastic harvest each week of vegetables, salad and fruit allowing food club members to enjoy a wide selection of freshly grown and picked items. The freshly grown produce has included strawberries, raspberries, potatoes, gooseberries, lettuce, spinach, cabbage, broccoli, apples, courgettes, tomatoes, squash, and chard! Our Beeston monthly community meal also benefits from this, with allotment produce being used each month.

This year has seen hard work in clearing and replanting sections of the allotment as well as use of lifeboat today last year’s project - a new watering system in our two polytunnels.

Next year we are looking forward to an additional polytunnel to increase our growing capacity, as well as a dedicated staff member to help explore how we can make better use of the allotment for the local community’s benefit and wellbeing.

“The allotment is a chance to socialise with others, as well as the useful physical exercise. We have a very nice group and are lucky to have the volunteers we have. The measure is what gets delivered - always pleasing to see what is provided. Lots achieved but still lots of scope to do more.” Graham, Allotment Lead Volunteer

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12
CORE 52
VOLUNTEERS SESSIONS
WITH THEIR COME RAIN
WELLIES ON OR SHINE
Graham - our Allotment Lead
Volunteer, who is never
afraid to muck in!
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OUR IMPACT - EMPOWERING

Hope Community Allotment: Amazing growing but it’s not all fruit and veg, annual manure shovelling shown above! Nothing goes to waste - HMS Hope from our old playground - no longer safe for kids but great for growing!

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OUR IMPACT - EMPOWERING

OUR ‘RENEW WELLBEING’ YOUTH CAFE

We continued our partnership with Renew Wellbeing to offer a Thursday early evening Youth Café, to young people aged 9 - 14 years. Our focus is on providing a safe, calm space where 'it's ok to not be ok' and the five areas of wellbeing: connection, being active, taking notice, learning and giving.

Our Youth & Community Worker - Jade, serves alongside a small team of volunteers to provide a safe and calm space, with shared food prepared together (supported by the local Tesco), craft and games, alongside optional reflection and prayer.

Shared meal and creative games with food!

Although spaces are limited, and attendance sits between 10 and 12 young people each week, we believe this has greater impact than a traditional high attendance youth group. Many of the young people face individual challenges such as ADHD, autism, eating disorders or general mental health concerns, and our approach enables sharing of concerns.

12

33

YOUNG PEOPLE SESSIONS

WITH FOCUSSED & SHARED SUPPORT MEALS

We have provided lots of activities such as baking, jewellery making, card making and even played a live action game of ‘Among us’ – these activities are all underpinned by the five ways to wellbeing which ensure each young person is looking after their health whilst attending the group. The group set up enables the leaders/volunteers to be present with each young person which is vital to build purposeful relationships. The young people have grown in confidence and are passionate about their life choices which is amazing to see. We look forward to continuing with this group, with plans to recruit a more diverse volunteer team to help support our young local people.

STORY OF HOPE

Summer told us she loves the group. In her words: “It’s fun. I love how everyone gets along. I love the helpers. I can be myself.”

“Many of the young people who attend Renew Youth face challenges in their wider lives that make consistency difficult.

Renew Youth offers a calm, welcoming space young people can return to without pressure or judgement.

Even when attendance can be sporadic, the group provides a reliable and supportive environment where relationships can grow over time. This flexible, trauma-informed approach helps young people build trust, confidence, and a sense of belonging, reminding them that there is always a safe place they can come back to when they are able.” Jade | Our Youth & Community Worker (shown top right)

Self-portraits created by the young guests

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OUR IMPACT - EMPOWERING

CHRISTIAN PRAYER AND FAITH BASED ACTIVITIES

We endeavour to support the spiritual wellbeing of those in our community (whether guests, volunteers or staff). To do so we recognise the role of chaplaincy, in being present with and alongside people, is one key way of doing this. At Hope House, our employed Chaplain - Lauren, leads on our rhythm of prayer, where we offer a short morning and lunchtime prayer Monday to Thursday, at the start and end of café sessions. Entirely optional and low key, it has benefited guests, staff, and volunteers, as a moment to pause and reflect, regardless of their faith. More and more other staff are also involved in leading this, freeing up the Chaplain for other work.

During the year guests and volunteers had opportunity to share in ‘Closer’ a 5 week Easter series, offering helpful ways to connect with God. Some of the feedback included: “I found this series to be inspirational, very interesting and encouraging.” “It took us on a journey together. Blessed us, encouraged us, filled us with life.”

Another three session series explored themes of ‘Advent - Joy to the world’ in a prayerful, reflective way including craft, planned uniquely for Hope. “This is such a nice thing to do before Christmas, what a lovely thing to do.”

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Carlton Community Hub
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Towards the end of the year we offered ‘Restore’ - a 3 week spiritual journaling series. With all our faith-based activities we actively encourage volunteers to support and you can read about Andrea’s experience on the next page. All the sessions truly felt the safe environment they were intended to be, with welcome to those of any faith or none.

From April 25, we trialled a new role of ‘Chaplaincy Volunteer’ at Carlton. An example of both ‘needs’ and ‘asset’ based development. Our Trustee Kevin Pallister, having trained in chaplaincy after retiring from legal practice, began volunteering at Carlton’s Community Café and food bank in this role, with the ongoing support of Lauren.

Throughout the year, our Chaplain also supported staff and volunteers’ wellbeing, offering ‘as needed’ and ‘second level’ support to guests referred by our volunteer befrienders, in single or up to six session blocks. We also offered our usual bi-annual staff retreats and our first volunteer retreat which included prayer stations, craft and worship.

‘Elizabeth - both a guest and volunteer shared the difference a prayer that our employed Community Worker Jade, had made to her :

“Jade, I haven’t been very well over Christmas, and I needed to pray over myself but I couldn’t find the right words and then I remembered your words and prayer you spoke at the last lunchtime prayer I attended. Suddenly I was able to find the right words. I now feel much better and wanted to share with you. Your words gave me peace.”

350 prayer sessions at Hope House

11 faith sessions and 2 retreat days

“Being ‘present’ with people at our wonderful Carlton community is a huge privilege. Through chaplaincy I endeavour to give something of myself but receive so much in return!”

Kevin | Trustee and our first ‘Chaplaincy Volunteer’

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OUR IMPACT - EMPOWERING

STORY OF HOPE

Learning through leading!

Andrea has been volunteering as a befriender in our Hope House Café since May 2022. Spending time with our Chaplain and attending other faith based activities run at Hope House she offered to help need our ‘Restore’ faith-based journaling short course.

“People definitely trusted, that there was no right or wrong.”

“First of all, thank you to Lauren for letting me run this in a safe place, together with you.

I learned so much about how to gently lead the group at HOPE, eg, saying, ‘you can come in and out,’ saying, ‘can I lead you through a stillness exercise.’ It was a highlight learning from you. I was very encouraged with 10-12 attending each session. About double what I expected in numbers and they came back, and we had a variety each week.

I loved hearing each guests thoughts, seeing how they took my ideas and made them their own. I felt they had a freedom to do their own thing. People definitely trusted there was no right or wrong outcome and I loved that they got that. I believe each person really did take the Psalm into their heart as they created and God spoke to them.

There is always in me a desire to keep moving, keep sticking to the plan in my mind, but there is the need to be flexible, to let people talk and ask ‘off-piste’ questions, talk longer than I expect, and go off on a tangent. This is a challenge to me, but doing it together I relaxed as I knew you would sense when to move on and when to let people keep sharing.

My highlight was when a guest shared how God found her and she was no longer lost.”

“What I really liked is that this was different to anything I have ever done before.“

“The worship music has been wonderful and really led us into what we have been doing.”

“I loved seeing how God has gifted each person and led each person differently each week.”

“Thankyou for giving me the time and space to share Psalm 23. The teachers were Amazing and Anointed, Be Blessed.”

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Supporting Communities and Volunteer teams to determine their own paths

We believe there are ‘seasons’ in community work. The very nature of our volunteer led G.R.A.C.E model of mission with ‘empowering’ being a fundamental part inevitably means partnerships and directions can develop as they are led by local people. This period has been such a ‘season’ and we have spent time listening to and valuing both the needs and assets within our network. If this means , at times, saying a ‘fond farewell’, we see this as a blessing to have learned from each other and an opportunity creating space to develop more partnerships!

Right to left: Pastor Ogle and his wife Sylvia, Vicky, Glendora (Val), Frances and Shermin

“We would like to take this opportunity to express heartfelt thanks to Hope and all of its staff that have been instrumental in assisting Bethesda Ministries to serve the community of Netherfield.” Pastor Ogle | Bethesda Ministries

Farewell to Bethesda Ministries

In April 2025, after a variety of discussions, Bethesda Ministries in Netherfield decided that they wished to further their own Christian mission, and for their food bank to become independent of our Trussell East and West Nottingham network. Whilst sad to part company with the Church team, we respected their decision and were pleased to attend a celebratory event, presenting token gifts to the key volunteers, many of whom had been long -serving and involved in the food bank since its opening in 2014. We continue to pray for the success of this lovely local ministry and would welcome future working together should our paths cross again.

We are entirely committed to referral-based food bank operations and therefore explored other local options. A number of the core team had decided they wished to remain volunteering within the Trussell and Hope Network, so as it was only a mile away, we relocated the Wednesday Netherfield session to our Carlton Community Hub, enabling us to offer a ‘later in day’ and after-school slot of 3-5pm for local people. The team have settled in wonderfully and the session plans to extend to also offer ‘Tea and Tech’ soon, as part of a new food bank development strategy.

Future developments in The Meadows after many years of empowered and dedicated volunteering

Following lots of discussions over the last couple of years with our Meadows food bank volunteer team and with Bridgeway Methodist Mission, their host church, a big decision was made for the team to register as an independent charity which they did successfully in May 2025.

Previously set up as a constituted community group, and the busiest food bank in our network, their ambitions to support The Meadows area had already seen them open their own pantry, whilst remaining under our Trussell franchise for food bank. Together we see the benefits of dedicated and independent governance for this ambitious and committed group. Although Trussell had decided not to set up any new franchises, Hope Nottingham appealed to Trussell to work with the group to agree an independent franchise, which we are pleased to support with. We plan to part company ‘officially’ around April 2026, however, we will always offer the team our support wherever possible and pray for their continued development. A celebratory ‘parting party’ is on the horizon! In the meantime, we are turning our attention to St Ann’s - another area of high need - to set up a new referral-based food bank there, in partnership with St Ann with Emmanuel Church!

Our relocated team settled in at the Carlton Hub

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OUR IMPACT - ENABLING
Wearing the ‘official’ Fire Risk Assessment Hat:
A gift from the allotment team to Louise which ENABLING
complements her skills in making Health &
Safety a respected and enjoyable task!
Developing a robust organisation
with effective governance,
policies and procedures
Policy Development
We continued reviewing and developing our suite of
policies and procedures. Our existing policies
include: Financial Control and Reserves; Equality,
Diversity & Inclusion; Whistleblowing; Safeguarding;
We made full use of our Trussell
funded membership of Croner-i and
CIPD HR Inform to support with
policy development and HR
advice and resources
Our CEO’s membership
of the Association of
Chief Executives of
Voluntary Organisations
provided valuable
resources and training,
as well as general
opportunities.support and networking
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We continued reviewing and developing our suite of policies and procedures. Our existing policies include: Financial Control and Reserves; Equality, Diversity & Inclusion; Whistleblowing; Safeguarding; Driving & Vehicle Safety; Staff review; Leaves of Absence; Lone working; Domestic Abuse; Personal Relationships; Health & Safety; Supporting & Maintaining Staff Attendance; Induction & Probation, Code of Conduct and ‘Dignity at Hope’; Financial Reserves; Incident Management & Reporting; Resolutions policy (Grievance and Mediation) Compliments, Concerns & Complaints, ‘Advancing the Christian Faith’ policy; Managing Performance (Conduct and Capability); Bullying & Harassment.

Governance

Our Board met in full 6 times over the course of the year and we operated the following sub committees:

‘” My job is really varied and I’m definitely never bored. Over the past 12 months I’ve been able to go out and visit more of our satellite food banks to talk about and promote good Health and Safety. This has been fantastic as it has also given me the chance to get to know more of our volunteers at different sites.”

Finance - Chair, Treasurer, Deputy Treasurer, & CEO

HR - HR Trustee and CEO

Christian Faith Focus Group - CEO, Support Manager, Chaplain, Trustees by open invite, rotating guest staff attendees

In this period we focussed on supporting our team with development of ‘Welcoming and Supporting Neurodiversity’ and ‘Reasonable Adjustments’ policies, and as part of our new 3 year strategy development for 2025-28, worked on developing a competency framework to help our staff team focus on the most important behaviours for ensuring their high performance.

Louise Lawrenson | Admin & Facilities Coordinator and Hope Nottingham Health & Safety Officer. Louise also line manages Tilly, our beloved p/t Housekeeper, who also volunteers in lots of activities.

Guest Service Focus Group -

“No day is the same at Hope Nottingham! I’ve had to learn to be adaptable. I’m blessed to be working with such a supportive staff team.”

Support Manager, CEO and relevant staff for the agenda. Trustees as required

We continued utilising Croner’s Job Evaluation and benchmarking tools.

Tilly | Housekeeper and bringer of Hope!

Safeguarding - CEO and Safeguarding Coordinators

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OUR IMPACT - ENABLING

Supporting our food bank Network

Our emergency food bank network remains a substantial part of our work, and our focuses have remained on:

Our office deals with general enquiries, setting up new referrers as required following a ‘suitability check’ namely, a registered organisation, no personal email addresses etc and we are now able to direct them to agree to adhere to our updated Referrer’s Handbook, which can be viewed here

Our Coordinator gets great feedback from our volunteer teams, travelling all around the city via bus and van, to support whichever of our 26 weekly food bank sessions needs it.

We have greatly benefited from our new Ops Manager taking a more strategic role, particularly in terms of building relations between our food bank volunteer leaders by holding regular meetings .

13 VOLUNTEERS TRAINED IN E-REFERRAL TO IMPROVE GUEST SERVICE & EFFICIENCY

172 AREA COORDINATOR & OPS MANAGER SUPPORT VISITS OVER THE YEAR

Sharing Hope Nottingham’s Good News

Marketing and communications impacts both internally and externally, and we are proud to share the great work of our staff, volunteers, and partners, and their impact on and support of our guests. Our activities remained ‘in-house’ including the management of our two websites -- one branded Hope Nottingham and the other being a Trussell seeded ‘East and West Nottingham’ Food bank website.

You can view both websites here: Hope Nottingham and East and West Nottingham Food bank.

With social media we have only had resource to focus on Facebook and your can follow our page here. We hope to develop other channels such as Instagram and LinkedIn

Our CEO produced our Annual Report - intended to celebrate ALL areas of our work, which we know from feedback has been a tool for funders and key new recruits - both staff and Trustees.

Monthly Supporter Newsletter

We continued creating and sharing our monthly digital newsletter with supporters and volunteers. You can read back issues here and sign up to receive your own copy direct to your mailbox each month here

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OUR IMPACT - ENABLING

HOW DID OUR VOLUNTEERS RATE US

“ Janet is a valued volunteer in STORY OF HOPE Hope House Food bank, Friendship group and at the monthly Community Meal. Over the year I have seen her confidence and relationships grow from strength to strength and I was really heartened that she worked to achieve her Food Hygiene Level 2 to help us even more!” Dominique | Hope Nottingham CEO

Since 2010, volunteers have been the life blood of Hope Nottingham. Indeed there would be no Hope Nottingham without them. Whilst we do have a core staff team, ultimately our volunteers ‘make it happen’ with our staff roles being designed to ‘enable’ them in safe and meaningful roles.

In November 2023, we launched our first ever Volunteer Survey. We know many of our volunteers are not really interested in things like surveys. By their very nature, they are the kind of people that want to get stuck in to practical tasks that make a difference, don’t want a fuss and often don’t want to be centre of attention! Despite this, we were pleased 88 of our volunteers took the time to complete a detailed survey about their experience. You can watch the full results herehere

often don’t want to be centre of attention! Despite OUR VOLUNTEERS BELIEVE believe their this, we were pleased 88 of our volunteers took the 88%

time to complete a detailed survey about their AFLOAT INJURIES PER 1,000 LAUNCHESvolunteering experience. You can watch the full results herehere IN 2022 h a s i m p a c t IN 2023 5.9 4.5 injuries per 1,000 injuries 93% launches per 1,000 would launches 88 r e c o m m e n d Despite a small increase during the summer COMPLETED period, we have seen a consistent reduction in volunteering with us to the number of injuries occurring while afloat,

compared to last year. Introduction of an someone else VOLUNTEER SURVEYS equivalent metric for lifeguarding is in progress.

----- Start of picture text -----
A special birthday: Always time for a cuppa:
Rob, 13+ yrs service Julie-Ann at Bilborough
----- End of picture text -----

HOW DID PEOPLE FIRST HEAR ABOUT VOLUNTEERING AT HOPE NOTTINGHAM?

----- Start of picture text -----
Personal
25% Through their
recommendation
34% church
11%
30%
Other -
such as local
adverts, NCVS or
as a result of a
Hope website
visit
or facebook
----- End of picture text -----

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OUR IMPACT - ENABLING

TOP 5 MOTIVATIONS TO VOLUNTEER

1 Helping my local community

Giving back to 2 society

Christian faith 3

Being active in 4 retirement

Personal 5 satisfaction or purpose

‘’Volunteering is one of the most rewarding gifts a person can have. I feel blessed.’ Hope Volunteer

Enjoying a volunteer lunch:: Hilary, Office Angel

of Hope Nottingham volunteers feel 96% ‘totally’ or ‘mostly’ trained for their role

No one feels out of their depth. Preferred training is on the job, in groups or training to watch/read in own time. We have learned we need to invest in more one-to-one time.

Nearly 40% give 3-4 hrs a week and 34% give 1-2 hours. 11% give over 4 hrs per week. 69% attend one session every week

of Hope Nottingham 98% volunteers feel valued

96% feel supportedin their role

69

OUR PLANS

Looking forward 2025 - 2028

Our Vision will continue to be that local neighbourhoods in Nottingham are inspired and supported in their growth to become Communities of HOPE, addressing poverty of resource, relationships and identity, via provision of our GRACE model of Christian Community Development, enabled by volunteering.

Having recruited three new trustees, and with a change of Chair, it remains essential to focus on our Governance, ensuring new members of our Board are embedded and get to know Hope Nottingham well and in time for work on our new 3 year strategy from July 2025. In order for us to pursue our vision for year three of the current strategy, we continue our strategic phase to reflect, review and strengthen our existing activities and ways of working, focusing on the following priorities:

70

OUR PLANS

Remaining Focused on our Christian Faith

It was important in developing our next three year strategy that we gave due care and attention to our Christian faith and our intentions are detailed below:

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OUR PLANS

Effectiveness at the core of Hope Nottingham

Hope Nottingham would not exist save for the hundreds of volunteers who have supported it and lead our services. Our model is to enable volunteers to achieve our mission, but we also recognise the need to have an effective employed team as their back bone. For this next 3 year strategy we have analysed the factors required for effectiveness and have committed to ensuring we operate with a high performing staff team. As our biggest cost each year, each role must be appropriate and add real value.

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OUR PLANS

Setting ambitious objectives each year

It was important in developing our next three year strategy that we gave due care and attention to our Christian faith and our intentions are detailed below:

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GOVERNANCE

OUR GOVERNANCE

Hope Nottingham (also informally known as Trussell’s East and West Nottingham Food bank’) is a registered charity. We are headed by an independent Trustee Board and rely on our dedicated volunteers and staff. This section provides information on how the charity is run, how we engage with our stakeholders, manage our risks and ensure that we are building a sustainable organisation that will be fit for the future.

LEGAL STATUS

Hope Nottingham is a Charitable Incorporated Organisation registered in England and Wales number 1161248. We were established in 2010 and incorporated in 2015. We are governed by our Articles of Association, last reviewed and adopted on 13 April 2015.

GOVERNANCE

The Trustee Board are the charity's governance and legal directors. They make all major decisions, and meet around 6 - 9 times a year to discuss and agree policy and the strategic direction of the charity.

Members of the Board serve a threeyear term, after which they are eligible for re-appointment for two further three year terms. They have the responsibility for governance and strategic direction of Hope Nottingham, ensuring we uphold our vision, mission and values and deliver on our key objectives. All Trustees give their time voluntarily and receive no benefits from the charity.

Hope Nottingham aims to have a range of skills on the Board and uses a skills audit to identify and address any skills deficits. Existing volunteer trustees can elect new trustees.

TRUSTEE RECRUITMENT

Trustees are recruited via

advertisements and by word of mouth. Applicants are asked to complete an application form and then shortlisted.

Applicants generally have an informal visit, tour and chat with the CEO and are then interviewed using a structured interview format by the Chair and at least one other Trustee.

TRUSTEE APPOINTMENT

Prospective appointees are then DBS checked and references sought. Required Charity Commission checks and declarations are completed. If successful, they are then invited to attend a Trustee meeting as a guest at which the other trustees can vote.

TRUSTEE INDUCTION

New Trustees receive an induction which includes a visit to, and tour of Hope House, to familiarise themselves with the charity and its operations. They are also invited to complete appropriate external training and cascade the learning as appropriate. New Trustees are required to read the Charity Commission document CC3 - 'The Essential Trustee: what you need to know, what you need to do', complete a Declarations of Interest and sign the charity's Code of Conduct.

Our Organisational Purpose is: ‘the relief of poverty, sickness and distress, and to advance the Christian faith.’

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GOVERNANCE

OUR BOARD OF TRUSTEES

Jez Barnard CHAIR OF TRUSTEES Stepped down as Chair May 2025, remains a Trustee

Jez joined in February 2023, bringing twenty-five years experience in leadership and management roles for multi-national engineering firms.

He previously led a local charitable social enterprise, spent 5 years as a Business Manager in a local school and still provides consultancy.

Jez volunteers at Citizens Advice, Bilborough food bank and maths tutors at a local school. He lives in Beeston and worships at St Barnabas in Lenton Abbey.

‘It is my privilege to help with hands on in the Bilborough food bank, contribute as a trustee to support this great work, and help discern Hope Nottingham’s way forward.’

Anne Willmot SECRETARY

Anne brings twenty years of charity experience, working

with business leaders, Government and voluntary sector organisations at the Prince of Wales Responsible Business Network, and Business in the Community. Anne lives in Nottingham, is a Church Warden of a local church and joined Hope as a Trustee in 2020 taking on the role of Secretary.

‘Food builds community and faith! I’ve made great friends being part of the Hope family, which brings life and hope across our city.’

Christiana Zowonu

TREASURER until April 2025 Stepped down Dec 2025 Christiana has thirty years experience in Accountancy and Finance, currently working as a Financial Controller. She has been involved with various charities for over 10 years as both Treasurer and Fundraiser, and is enthusiastic about passing on her knowledge of accountancy. Christiana lives and worships in Nottingham, and joined Hope as Assistant Treasurer in 2020 and overall Treasurer in Feb 2023.

‘What I admire about Hope is the inclusivity, coming to the community meals where there are different nationalities, religions, young, old, sharing meals and laughter together. ‘

Charlotte McCourt

HR SPECIALIST Stepped down May 2025 Charlotte joined Hope in February 2023 and is an

accredited member of the Civil Mediation Council, experienced workplace mediator and level 7 HR Management lecturer. She manages her own HR Consultancy supporting organisations with HR training and projects. Her passion is people engagement. Charlotte has previously worked for a Catholic Schools Trust and lives near our new Carlton Hub.

‘I’m proud to support the amazing work that the team at Hope do to make a difference to our local communities.‘

Martin Buckle

Stepped up as Chair from May 25. Stepped down Oct 2025 Martin has a thirty plus year career in commerce

and industry, managing change across financial services, aerospace, communications and oil & gas. He has been trustee of a city social enterprise offering café bar hospitality and a stage for the performing arts. He has served as a borough councillor, with an interest in housing provision. Martin lives in Rushcliffe and joined Hope in 2024.

‘In my role as trustee, I want to help the many wonderful volunteers to continue their essential work, as they offer a warm and practical support to all our guests.’

Kevin Pallister

Vice Chair from May 2025

Kevin was managing partner of a law practice before recently retiring.

Studying chaplaincy, he is called to related ministry in community settings. He joined Hope as a trustee after some years as a volunteer (now chaplaincy volunteer) at the food bank based at the Salvation Army Centre in Sneinton. He enjoys playing in the Salvation Army band, golf, football and being a first -time grandpa.

‘I’m convinced that the ministry of Hope in meeting practical need and serving the whole person is ‘of God’, which is vital in a community context.’

Helen Crandley

SAFEGUARDING LEAD

Helen is Regional Director of a national charity which supports isolated families to

find hope and belonging connecting them to local volunteers. Key to the role is working with local councils and churches. She brings wide ranging experience in senior level charity and change management, partnerships, HR and strategy. A former school teacher, Helen has had a heart for Hope Nottingham, since the early days, even helping with an early Christmas dinner!

‘I love seeing how the work of Hope Nottingham enables generous and inclusive communities; where simple acts of kindness show people the dignity and worth they have.’

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GOVERNANCE

OUR OPERATIONAL TEAM

SENIOR MANAGEMENT

STAFF TEAM

EQUALITY & DIVERSITY

Operational management is delegated by the Trustees to the Senior Management team, who are accountable to the Trustee Board for the stewardship of the charity. During this reporting period the Senior Management Team consisted of:

We are committed to our Equality, Diversity & Inclusion policy and procedures, ensuring Equality Impact Assessments are now included in the development of all policies.

In this period Hope Nottingham employed a total of 12 staff, ending the year with 11 posts after our Development Manager left Oct 24 (plus 1 other vacant post, as shown). With only 2 being full-time and the rest part-time, this totalled a full time equivalent of only 8.1 (302.5 hrs per week) to oversee the activities of the c350 registered volunteers, 14 food banks including two community hubs and numerous activities.

We also promote 'Dignity at Hope' with clear guidelines on expected standards and how to report concerns.

Dominique Scott - CEO Michael Singh - Development Manager until October 2024 Helen Voce - Operations Manager Iain Anderson - Support Manager

ORGANIGRAM FOR 24-25

REMUNERATION

Our pay rates are based on a full job evaluation review using CIPD Croner-i tools in March 2024 and completed salary benchmarking against other similar charity averages. We developed this into a new points based pay scale as part of our commitment to fair and equitable pay. If a post's levels of responsibility change significantly, we will review the salary to ensure it is appropriate and revise it if necessary.

We are committed to providing the Real Living Wage as stated by the Real Living Wage Foundation, and any spine points which fall below this are uplifted accordingly.

We reserve the right to re-evaluate our pay structures, but will do so in proper consultation with our team. The Trustee Board oversees the pay, pension and benefits of all staff. We endeavour to provide an annual cost of living increment, although this cannot be guaranteed. The increases are researched and determined by the Trustees bearing in mind affordability for the charity and economic factors. In April 2025 this was set at 3%.

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FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

TRUSTEES’ REPORT

PUBLIC BENEFIT

The trustees confirm that they have complied with the requirements of section 17 of the Charities Act 2011, to have due regard to the public benefit guidance published by the Charity Commission for England and Wales. Guests can come to any Hope Nottingham activity or event and receive various kinds of help and support without any charge.

We have considered the information contained in the Charity Commission's general guidance on public benefit when reviewing our aims and objectives, and in planning our future activities. In particular, the trustees consider how planned activities will contribute to the aims and objectives they have set. All our charitable activities further our charitable purposes for public benefit, focusing a wide range of activities that address both immediate needs and seek to move people towards personal growth and fulfilment.

RISK MANAGEMENT

We have a risk management policy and register to ensure identified risks are monitored and mitigated. The CEO and Trustees consider new risks at each Board meeting. Our key risks and their mitigation are:

Loss of or significant decline in fundraising in 2025-26. We will continue our Fundraising review focusing on all income streams; End of Trussell funding for Advice provision in April 26 - we are actively seeking alternatives; Large unforeseen building expenditure - we proactively upkeep and maintain; Significant financial investment in acquisition and running of the Carlton Community Hub - clear budgeting and proactive fundraising;

Key person (be they staff or volunteers) dependency - we ensure robust systems to understand roles and standard operating procedures, ensuring good management of our people, and are focused on supporting their well-being and contribution; Reliance on the Household Support Fund for food purchase - alternative food sourcing planned;

Staff and volunteer training - investment will continue to ensure our people are as engaged as possible to deliver quality guest service;

Disconnection with our remote locations - we continue to work to avoid this through operational support, communications and engagement.

As a smaller charity we historically only have a basic annual financial audit, and will therefore invest in a more detailed review of procedures.

SAFEGUARDING

We recognise our legal and moral responsibility to protect everyone involved in Hope Nottingham from harm. In this period we had appointed staff as Designated Safeguarding Lead and Safeguarding Coordinators.

We are members of Thirtyone:eight, an Independent Christian Charity, who provide advice, resources and training in Safeguarding, and facilitate our DBS checks.

We review our detailed Safeguarding Policy annually in March which is available to view on our website here

Iain Anderson

LEAD SAFEGUARDING COORDINATOR (ALL ACTIVITIES)

Claire Fenwick

SAFEGUARDING COORDINATOR (FOODBANKS)

Louise Lawrenson

SAFEGUARDING COORDINATOR (GENERAL SUPPORT)

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FINANCIAL REVIEW

FINANCIAL REVIEW

The financial position of the CIO is strong at the end of the year, being blessed with £236,575 in general unrestricted funds, following the various support detailed.

The trustees are very happy with this position, which will help with our increased running costs and achievement of our strategic objectives, particularly:

SATELLITE food bank FUNDS

The day to day finances of our remote food banks - eleven based in local churches and one in a council run library, are organised by location, reflecting their unique situations.

Bilborough library and Wollaton (alongside our owned hubs Beeston and Carlton) have been reported under Hope Nottingham since 2022-23, and from December 2023, we also began managing Aspley’s funds. From their re-opening in April 2025, we also include CRA Arboretum. The remainder of our food banks have finances handled by their respective host church. Meadows, the largest of the food banks in terms of income, runs its own constituted leadership, but with funds reported under Bridgeway Hall Methodist Mission.

Finances are under ongoing review and we will support with management and reporting as needed. Our food bank hosts do not charge us any rents and we are very grateful to be able to assist in these communities, providing food and distribution and staff support, in this reporting period predominantly via our Volunteering Manager, Area Food bank Coordinator and Operations Manager.

FOOD STOCKS

Our food banks could not operate without the generous volumes of food and essential items such as toiletries, laundry, hygiene products and nappies which are donated to all of our food banks.

We are truly blessed by the individuals, groups, schools, colleges, Universities, workplaces and businesses supporting us.

As required by the Charities SORP, we have included the equivalent cash value of donated food for the food banks whose finances we manage (detailed left), as an income and direct expenditure of £180,044 in our formal accounts.

We are keen to highlight this, alongside the Household Support fund that has also inflated our income by another £148,000 with £140,000 restricted for expenditure entirely on food and which is not a guaranteed income stream.

Far more than just a Trustee: Jez Barnard - our Chair for much of the year, Bilborough food bank volunteer and entertainer!

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FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

FINANCIAL REVIEW

FUNDRAISING

We are incredibly grateful to our financial supporters for their continued generosity. Without them, we couldn't continue our work. Our voluntary income comes through a wide range of sources. We have recognised our reliance on grants and, as part of our strategic priorities will continue to focus on raising awareness of our work and providing more opportunities to support our fundraising efforts.

Hope Nottingham does not engage professional fundraisers. We currently use a number of fundraising platforms, the most popular being Local Giving, Charities Aid Foundation (CAF) and Stewardship.

INDIVIDUAL GIVING

Individual giving accounted for £145,079 (compared to £128,042 last year). £24,235 of this was restricted, largely to the Carlton Hub, Food or Satellites. Individual giving was again boosted by all the

activities of our partnership with Michael Pavis whose efforts in encouraging donations from individuals, through various events, amounted to £4,232. We were also blessed by the Everyone Can Sing choir raising £10,000 through events.

GRANTS

The large unsolicited Household Support Fund enabled us to meet food bank demand, and our financial position would be very different without it. We also received significant funds from local councils, other charities and funders (full details shown page 89). £17,430 from Groundworks was entirely spent on insulating the lower hall at Hope House, £10k from B&Q is to replace the floor in 2025-26 and £2,300 from Benefact was for windows at Carlton.

Beeston Consolidated continued their funding of our Support Manager (year 2 of 3).

We continued with our Bookkeeper working one extra day per week on grant research and bid-writing to support our CEO.

CHURCH & COMMUNITY

Donations via local churches amounted to £18,733 (compared to £17,982 last year) with £6,032 restricted. We have many volunteers from different churches and are proud to help different denominations to serve local need, but note financial support appears to be generally declining.

Various community groups also supported us to value of £14,319 with some restricted for food banks or food.

CORPORATE SUPPORT

We were delighted to be supported with £6,196 from John Deere for their Annual Day of Caring (with £5,496 spent on food), £2,000 from LDC and we received £1,000 each from Wise Music, Ideagen and Trust Alliance Group. Amptron Electrical Services gave £1200, and many other small corporate gifts through the year, alongside food donations and volunteering.

Volunteers at our Grangewood Methodist Church food bank in Wollaton

TRADING INCOME

To assist in funding our running costs, and where it doesn’t interfere with services, we will take room bookings at both Carlton and Beeston, which generated £6,691 (compared to £6,423 last year). Our food clubs - where fresh food boxes were sold for £3.50 and £4.00 from April 25 (but with value of £15-£20) brought in £12, 189 a decrease on last year’s £14,259. This covered our FareShare food costs and consumables, with limited surplus towards overheads such as utilities and staff support.

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FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

FINANCIAL REVIEW cont’d

INCOME BREAKDOWN

In the year July 2024 - June 2025 our financial income amounted to £535,029, - a significant decrease of £193,314 on last year’s £728,343. This excludes the donated food value of £180,044 (compared to £186,928 in the previous year). Note in 2023-24 we received a £75k cost of living grant and anonymous donation of £25k. Previous year we also ended with £65k of Trussell advice grant income to carry forward into 24/25 Income was again impacted by the Household Support Fund total £148k, £140k of which was restricted to food purchase.

EXPENDITURE

Salaries and staff costs account for our biggest expenditure, and our full-time staff equivalent at the end of June 25 was 8.1 (8.3 in 2022-23 and 7.6 in 2023-24). Our aim was to mitigate increased NI and cost of living increases. We are pleased this figure remains low despite our management of two community hubs, 14 food banks, and oversight of a volunteer team of around 350 individuals. At the very end of June we had recruited a Food Bank Development Coordinator and had a vacant Friendship Project role, pending review of the position.

Our annual staff pay review was in April 2025 to align with Minimum Wage Changes.

We remained committed to our comprehensive job evaluation and salary benchmarking on all posts of April 2024.

In line with the sector generally, we added a 3% inflationary award to all points on our evaluated pay scale.

Premises costs and general running costs were the next biggest expenditures, and additional costs were incurred for the continued development of our buildings, including extra roof works at Hope House on top of a grant (to save money longer-term) At Carlton Hub we replaced 3 more windows in the church to improve heating efficiency and reduce maintenance costs.

Restricted funds were all spent as intended including for food, advice provision, and for specific staff roles and activities.

We remain incredibly grateful for the extensive volunteer commitment which enables us to deliver our services and support at overall minimal cost. At the same time this allows us to offer so many volunteering opportunities across our numerous activities, in line with our mission for inspiring and growing communities of hope.

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FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

FINANCIAL REVIEW cont’d

UNRESTRICTED FUNDS

Unrestricted funds are those unspent funds which have no restriction on how they are spent and can be allocated to Hope Nottingham's general operations.

As at 30th June 2025 these funds sat at £236,575 (£304,613 last year).

RESTRICTED FUNDS

Restricted funds are those unspent funds which have been allocated for specific activities as opposed to Hope Nottingham's general operations. At 30th June 2025, the value of those funds was £132,252 (£172,358 last year).

This included the following restricted funds:

CUSTODIAN FUNDS

Our partnership with the Acts 435 charity enables Hope Nottingham to assist individual guests. Acts 435 is

a national charity that provides small scale grants for specific items/costs for individuals in need. The Acts scheme works by posting the guests’ need (without identifying details) on their website, where members of the public can choose to donate to any specific need they wish. When the target amount is raised, Acts send the funds to Hope Nottingham who contact the guest to arrange the purchase and delivery of the item(s) requested.

The funds Hope Nottingham receives are therefore managed on behalf of Acts 435 and are shown in their accounts. The year began with an opening balance of £175, with £3,339 (compared to last year £5,005) paid in for guests during the year. Expenses of £3,509 were paid out therefore £5 was carried forward at 1st July 2025. The individual amount received for each application was on average £176.

On occasion guests contribute additional funds for purchase of items with opening balance of £0, £76 received and £76 spent in the period, with a closing balance of £0.

FINANCIAL CONTROLS

We have a detailed Financial Controls policy and accompanying Financial Controls manual. This is reviewed annually before our Charity Commission Return is made.

RESERVES

In past years, the aim of the CIO was to have a minimum of 3 months of free reserves in line with Charity Commission guidance. This is to mitigate against the risk of unexpected events that may put us in financial difficulty. For example, a serious decline in expected income levels, a premises issue requiring significant financial resource to rectify or that closes a premises for significant time, or an event affecting our reputation. However, being in a strong financial position has allowed an in depth review. With increased liabilities, including lease commitment through the Carlton Hub, and general staffing, our position on necessary reserves has changed considerably. For Hope Nottingham we have now considered how we would meet all our financial liabilities should the organisation cease

trading, including lease exit costs, staff notice and redundancy payments, and close down costs. These have been estimated at £108,000.

Therefore, the amount in our emergency fund, which can only be released with the agreement of the majority of trustees, has been increased accordingly.

At the end of the year we held an additional £128,575 in general unrestricted funds, which is a position the Trustees are confident will provide some stability in an increasingly competitive funding environment.

Conclusion

The Annual Report of Hope Nottingham was approved by the Board of Trustees on 6th February 2026 and signed on their behalf by

J eremy Barnard Hope Nottingham Chair of Trustees until May 2025

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FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

STATEMENT OF TRUSTEES RESPONSIBILITIES

The trustees are responsible for preparing the trustees' report and the financial statements in accordance with the United Kingdom Accounting Standards (United Kingdom Generally Accepted Accounting Practice) and applicable law and regulations.

The law applicable to charities requires the trustees to prepare financial statements for each financial year which give a true and fair view of the state of affairs of the charity and of the incoming resources and application of resources of the charity for that period. In preparing these financial statements, the trustees are required to:

select suitable accounting policies and apply them consistently;

observe the methods and principles in the Charities SORP;

make judgments and estimates that are reasonable and prudent;

state whether applicable accounting standards have been followed, subject to any material departures disclosed and explained in the financial statements; and

prepare the financial statements on the going concern basis unless it is inappropriate to presume that the charity will continue in business.

The trustees are responsible for keeping proper accounting records that disclose with reasonable accuracy at any time, the financial position of the charity and enable them to ensure that the financial statements comply with the Charities Act 2011, the applicable Charities (Accounts and Reports) Regulations 2008, and the provisions of the constitution. The trustees are also responsible for safeguarding the assets of the charity and hence for taking reasonable steps for the prevention and detection of fraud and other irregularities.

The trustees are responsible for the maintenance and integrity of the corporate and financial information included on the charitable company's website. Legislation governing the preparation and dissemination of financial statements may differ from legislation in other jurisdictions.

Approved by the Trustees of the charity on 6th February 2026 and signed on its behalf by:

Jeremy Barnard

Chair of Trustees for the majority of the reporting period

TRUSTEE APPOINTMENT AND RESIGNATIONS DURING THE REPORTING YEAR AND UP TO POINT OF SIGNATURE

Jez Barnard stepped down as Chair in May 2025 but remained as a trustee

Martin Buckle stepped up as Interim Chair in May 2025 with an agreed 6 month review and resigned in October 2025

Charlotte McCourt resigned in May 2025

Christiana Zowonu resigned in December 2025

Two new Trustees were appointed in January 26 - Carol Garle and Roy McCloughry

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FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

INDEPENDENT EXAMINER’S REPORT

I report to the trustees on my examination of the accounts of Hope Nottingham CIO (the Charity) for the year ended 30 June 2025.

Responsibilities and basis of report

As the trustees of the charity you are responsible for the preparation of the accounts in accordance with the requirements of the Charities Act 2011 ('the Act').

I report in respect of my examination of the Charity’s accounts carried out under section 145 of the 2011 Act and in carrying out my examination I have followed all the applicable directions given by the Charity Commission under section 145(5)(b) of the Act.

Independent examiner’s statement

Since the Charity's gross income exceeded £250,000 your examiner must be a member of a body listed in section 145 of the 2011 Act. I confirm that I am qualified to undertake the examination because I am a member of the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA), which is one of the listed bodies. I have completed my examination. I confirm that no matters have come to my attention in connection with the examination giving me cause to believe that in any material respect:

  1. accounting records were not kept in respect of the Charity as required by section 130 of the Act; or

  2. the accounts do not accord with those records; or

  3. the accounts do not comply with the accounting requirements concerning the form and content of accounts set out in the Charities (Accounts and Reports) Regulations 2008 other than any requirement that the accounts give a ‘true and fair' view which is not a matter considered as part of an independent examination.

I have no concerns and have come across no other matters in connection with the examination to which attention should be drawn in this report in order to enable a proper understanding of the accounts to be reached.

Eva Stevens, BSc, CPFA, employee of Community Accounting Plus member of the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA) Date: 09/02/26

Units 1 & 2 North West 41 Talbot Street Nottingham NG1 5GL

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FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

STATEMENT OF FINANCIAL ACTIVITIES

84

FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

STATEMENT OF FINANCIAL ACTIVITIES

BALANCE SHEET AS AT 30TH JUNE 2025

CASH FLOW STATEMENT FOR THE YEAR ENDED 30TH JUNE 2025

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NOTES TO THE FINANCIAL STATEMENT

NOTES TO THE ACCOUNTS

1. ACCOUNTING POLICIES

STATEMENT OF COMPLIANCE

The financial statements have been prepared in accordance with the second edition of the Charities Statement of Recommended Practice issued in October 2019, the Financial Reporting Standard applicable in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland (FRS 102) and the Charities Act 2011.

BASIS OF PREPARATION

Hope Nottingham CIO meets the definition of a public benefit entity under FRS 102. Assets and liabilities are initially recognised at historical cost or transaction values unless otherwise stated in the relevant accounting policy notes.

GOING CONCERN

The financial statements have been prepared on a going concern basis. The trustees assess whether the use of going concern is appropriate i.e. whether there are any material uncertainties related to events or conditions that may cast significant doubt on the

ability of the charity to continue as a going concern. The trustees make this assessment in respect of a period of one year from the date of approval of the financial statements.

INCOME & ENDOWMENTS

Voluntary income including donations, gifts, legacies and grants that provide core funding or are of a general nature is recognised when the charity has entitlement to the income, it is probable that the income will be received and the amount can be measured with sufficient reliability.

DONATIONS & LEGACIES

Donations and legacies are recognised on a receivable basis when receipt is probable and the amount can be reliably measured.

GRANTS RECEIVABLE

Grants are recognised when the charity has an entitlement to the funds and any conditions linked to the grants have been met. Where performance conditions are attached to the grant and are yet to be met, the income is recognised as a liability and included on the balance sheet as deferred income to be released.

DEFERRED INCOME

Deferred income represents amounts received for future periods and is released to incoming resources in the period for which, it has been received. Such income is only deferred when:

EXPENDITURE

All expenditure is recognised once there is a legal or constructive obligation to that expenditure, probable settlement is required and the amount can be measured reliably. All costs are allocated to the applicable expenditure heading that aggregates similar costs to that category. Where costs cannot be directly attributed to particular headings they have been allocated on a basis consistent with the use of resources, with central staff costs allocated on the basis of time spent, and depreciation charges allocated on the portion of the asset's use. Other support costs are allocated based on the spread of staff costs.

CHARITABLE ACTIVITIES

Charitable expenditure comprises those costs incurred by the charity in the delivery of its activities and services for

its beneficiaries. It includes both costs that can be allocated directly to such activities and those costs of an indirect nature necessary to support them.

GOVERNMENT GRANTS

Government grants are recognised based on the accrual model and are measured at the fair value of asset received or receivable. Grants are classified as relating either to revenue or to assets. Grants relating to revenue are recognised in income over the period in which the related costs are recognised. Grants relating to assets, are recognised over the expected useful life of the asset. Where part of a grant relating to an asset is deferred, it is recognised as deferred income.

TAXATION

The charity is considered to pass the tests set out at Paragraph 1 Schedule 6 of the Finance Act 2010 and therefore it meets the definition of a charitable company for UK corporation tax purposes. Accordingly, the charity is potentially exempt from taxation in respect of income or capital gains received within categories covered by Chapter 3 Part 11 of the Corporation Taz Act 2010 or Section 256 of the Taxation of Chargeable Gains Act 1992, to the extent that such income or gains are applied exclusively to charitable purposes. 86

NOTES TO THE FINANCIAL STATEMENT

TANGIBLE FIXED ASSETS

Individual fixed assets costing £500 or more are initially recorded at cost, less any subsequent accumulated depreciation and subsequent accumulated impairment losses.

DEPRECIATION AND AMORTISATION

Depreciation is provided on tangible fixed assets so as to write off the cost or valuation, less any estimated residual value, over their expected useful economic life as follows:

ASSET CLASS & DEPRECIATION METHOD AND RATE

Motor vehicles - 20% straight line

Computer equip - 33% straight line

Leasehold improvements up to June 2023 - straight line over remaining term of the lease.

Leasehold improvements from July 2023 - in compliance with Hope Nottingham’s updated Financial Control procedures, expenditure on leasehold improvements is no longer being capitalised.

TRADE DEBTORS

Trade debtors are amounts due from customers for merchandise sold or services sold or performed in the ordinary course of business.

Trade debtors are recognised initially at the transaction price. They are subsequently measured at amortised cost using the effective interest method, less provision for impairment. A provision for the impairment of debtors is established when there is objective evidence that the charity will not be able to collect all amounts due according to the original terms of the receivables.

CASH & CASH EQUIVALENTS

Cash and cash equivalents comprise cash on hand and call deposits, and other short-term highly liquid investments that are readily convertible to a known amount of cash and are subject to an insignificant risk of change in value.

TRADE CREDITORS

Trade creditors are obligations to pay for goods or services that have been acquired in the ordinary course of business from the suppliers. Accounts payable are classified as current liabilities if the charity does not have an unconditional right, at the end of the reporting period, to defer settlement of the creditor for at least

twelve months after the reporting date, they are presented as non-current liabilities.

Trade creditors are recognised initially at the transaction price and subsequently measured at amortised cost using the effective interest method.

FUND STRUCTURE

Unrestricted income funds are general funds that are available for use at the trustees’ discretion in furtherance of the objectives of the charity.

Designated funds are unrestricted funds and resources set aside for specific purposes, at the discretion of the trustees.

Restricted income funds are those donated for use in a particular area or for specific purposes, the use of which is restricted to that area or purpose..

PENSIONS & OTHER POSTRETIREMENT OBLIGATIONS

The charity operates a defined contribution pension scheme for employees. The assets of the scheme are held separately from those of the charity.

Pension costs charges in the Statement of Financial Activities represent the contributions payable by the charity during the year.

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NOTES TO THE FINANCIAL STATEMENT

2. INCOME FROM DONATIONS AND LEGACIES

3. INCOME FROM CHARITABLE ACTIVITIES

4. INCOME FROM OTHER TRADING ACTIVITIES

5. INVESTMENT INCOME

Value of Donated Food

A reliable value of donated food stock can now be calculated.

The reported figure equals the total weight donated to the 5 locations where Hope Nottingham manages the food bank funds (Beeston, Carlton, Wollaton, Bilborough, and Aspley) x £2.77 (a figure provided by Trussell as the current fair value of food per KG). The other 9 satellite food bank locations, where the host churches manage the food bank finances, have been advised of their own SORP obligations.

88

NOTES TO THE FINANCIAL STATEMENT

6. GRANTS AND DONATIONS

7. EXPENDITURE ON CHARITABLE ACTIVITIES

Value of Donated Food: given to beneficiaries

Food is distributed to beneficiaries in crisis, via a robust referral system. However, due to limitations of a volunteer led operation and volumes of food involved, plus the limited short life of donated food, we cannot currently rely on the accurate recording of weights distributed, held or disposed of. Therefore the ‘Value of donated goods’ figure has been used to provide an estimated ‘Value of Food given to beneficiaries'’ in accordance with 6.26 of the Charities SORP.

89

NOTES TO THE FINANCIAL STATEMENT

8. STAFF COSTS

9. INDEPENDENT EXAMINER’S FEES

10. TAXATION

11. TANGIBLE FIXED ASSETS

90

NOTES TO THE FINANCIAL STATEMENT

12. DEBTORS

14. CREDITORS: AMOUNTS FALLING DUE WITHIN ONE YEAR

13. CASH AND CASH EQUIVALENTS

15. OBLIGATIONS UNDER LEASES AND HIRE PURCHASE CONTRACTS

91

NOTES TO THE FINANCIAL STATEMENT

16. FUNDS

Previous year comparison

92

NOTES TO THE FINANCIAL STATEMENT

17. ANALYSIS OF NET ASSETS BETWEEN FUNDS

PREVIOUS YEAR FOR COMPARISON

19. 3RD PARTY FUNDS

20. TRUSTEES’ REMUNERATION AND EXPENSES

18. RELATED PARTY TRANSACTIONS

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OUR GRATITUDE

THANK YOU

Thank you to our amazing Supporters, Trustees, Volunteers & Staff

Hope Nottingham could not carry out its work without the support of individuals and organisations across Nottingham.

We are so grateful to everyone who has been involved in the period July 2024 - June 2025, be it volunteering, in a staff role, donating food, funds, resources or expertise, fundraising, partnering with us to provide better services or helping us raise awareness.

We also sincerely thank our Trustees for their commitment, guidance and direction.

Thank you all.

One of our most favourite (and let’s be honest most successful) Tesco National Collections is when local school children support them. A second shift at our Carlton Hub saw them date and sort lots of food too!

“In every community, there is work to be done. In every nation, there are wounds to heal. In ever heart there is the power to do it.” M Williamson

Forever Friends:

Our CEO Dominique Scott with former Chair of Trustees for nearly 9 years Paul Kirkwood and Chair for most of the 2024-25 year, Jez Barnard.

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OUR GRATITUDE

THANK YOU

Thank you to the many organisations we partnered with in 2024-2025

We are blessed to have worked in partnership with:

Acts 435 Active Health Coach Bags of Blessing Bestwood Advice Bethseda Ministeries, Netherfield Bilborough Library Bridgeway Methodist Mission Broxtowe Borough Council CC Health & Fitness Citizens Advice Broxtowe CRA, Arboretum Radford Evangelical Free Church Fareshare Gedling Borough Council Grangewood Methodist Church

Inspire Libraries Liberty Leisure (Wise Moves NHS) Jigsaw Homes Midlands Main Street Methodist Church Montrose Court Church, Stapleford Mount Zion Apostolic Church Netherfield Family Hub NCVS Nottingham & District Citizens Advice Nottingham City Council Nottingham Financial Resilience Partnership Nottingham Trent University Renew Wellbeing Salvation Army, Sneinton

St Barnabas, Inham Nook, Chilwell St Margaret's, Aspley St Martha’s, Broxtowe Step Forward Debt Advice Tackling Loneliness Collaborative Tesco The Ark, Gedling The Haven, Stapleford The Trussell Trust Thirty-one Eight Transforming Notts Together Trent Vineyard / Trent Compassion Wolvern IT

In addition are the many local schools, charities, churches and organisations who are registered as referral agencies for our food banks. We are grateful to them too.

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OUR GRATITUDE

THANK YOU

We are grateful for every gift we receive, big or small and sincerely thank the Funders who supported our work in 2024-2025

We are blessed to have received financial support from:

Eon Next

These are just some of our funders and donors and in addition are the many individuals, churches, businesses and small group organisations who have contributed to the running of Hope Nottingham. We also received laptops as Gifts in kind from Domestic & General We thank everyone most sincerely

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OUR GRATITUDE

THANK YOU

And thank you to our Guests, who are not just ‘service users’ or ‘beneficiaries’. They are our daily inspiration to do more and reach more.

‘It gives me encouragement to get out of my flat and while I am working it gives me an escape route from the reality.’ Literacy group guest

‘This is the most important day in my week at the moment - You guys see me.’ Friendship Group Guest

‘’I love that there was someone at the food bank who could speak Turkish and help us understand what was going on. We had a lot of troubles in Turkey and have had to claim asylum…its not easy and when you come here with nothing (especially in winter) the money doesn’t really cover clothing or electronic devices; which we have found are absolutely essential in the British way of life.

The food bank tide us over for when we needed to buy those extra items. We have got better at English and are looking forward to the English café.’

‘May I say how very lovely, kind, thoughtful and helpful the whole team at the food club have been since my family (2 daughters) and I have been coming to the club - since day one of its opening. It's lovely to see and talk to David and his team each week and it is always a delightful surprise to see what we are getting in the box. Always great value with a mix of fresh and frozen tasty food.’ Jackie | Food club member since April 2023

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Familiar faces and friendships made:
(Left to right) Bernard, regular café and job club guest,
Kathy - long-serving volunteer, David - café, community
meal and art group guest, Neil - regular café guest
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‘I’ve been finding life difficult after I lost my wife. I gave up my job to care for her. I am working with East Midlands Chambers to get back into work but just feel like I’m in catch 22. The food bank has literally been my life support.’

‘I’m really grateful for how Hope have supported me, they have helped me so much. Hope genuinely feels like my family. Hope has opened doors for me, to support my community elsewhere alongside Hope.’ Guest who now volunteers in multiple activities

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OUR GRATITUDE

THANK YOU

And thank you to our Guests, who are not just ‘service users’ or ‘beneficiaries’. They are our daily inspiration to do more and reach more.

‘ It is so nice to see how others care for people who are strangers.” Carlton Hub guest

“Thank you all for a lovely mal and a chance to make new friends. It was very enjoyable. Blessings to all.”

"It's fantastic. You can feel as soon as you come in that it's a community"

“Many thanks to the volunteers who help at these places. Where would we be without them? ”

'”I don't use the food bank but I come and have a coffee and chat and keep warm ... there's a nice atmosphere here' Bilborough (Food bank guest)”

“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace so that you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” (Romans 15:13)

“Such a lovely meal and a cheerful and happy evening.”

“Hope is like family... I don't know where we would be without all the help.”

“Everyone is so so lovely you all have such beautiful personalities and souls I love coming Gift of HOPE handmade for the Carlton Hub by a guest here.”

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CONTACTS

CONTACT INFORMATION

Independent Examiner

0303 040 1110

hope@hopenottingham.org.uk

Hope House, Boundary Rd, Beeston, NG9 2RF

www.hopenottingham.org.uk

Sharing our good news

Stay in touch with all our latest news and events by subscribing to our monthly digital newsletter here or follow us on Facebook

We always welcome visitors, and are proud to offer tours around our community hubs to show our work in action.

Eva Stevens , employee of Community Accounting Plus Units 1 & 2 North West 41 Talbot Street Nottingham NG1 5GL

Solicitors

Ellis-Fermor & Negus 2 Devonshire Avenue Beeston Nottingham NG9 1BS

Bankers

Barclays The Co-operative Bank 1 Churchill Place 2nd Floor, St Pauls House London 10 Warwick Lane E14 5HP London. EC4M 7BP

If you would like to arrange a visit or a short talk at your church, school or organisation about our work, please get in touch.

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14 FOOD BANKS, 2 COMMUNITY HUBS, 350+ VOLUNTEERS, 1200+ ACTIVE REFERRAL PARTNERS, THOUSANDS OF SUPPORTERS, COMMUNITY CAFES, JOB CLUBS, FOOD CLUBS, RENEW YOUTH WELLBEING CAFE, TODDLER GROUP, ESOL CLASSES, LITERACY CLASSES, COMMUNITY ALLOTMENT, FRIENDSHIP CLUBS, COMMUNITY MEALS, HOLISTIC SUPPORT, ADVICE PROVISION, PRAYER, GRACE. WE ARE:

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HOPE
NOTTINGHAM
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“ ‘For I know the plans I have for you’ says the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you HOPE and a future’ “ Jeremiah 29:11