Enhancing communities with The Mason Foundation and Partners

10th February 2022

Through a unique partnership with The Mason Foundation charity and social housing provider Peabody, Building Solutions is creating social value across the London boroughs in which it works, helping to create happier, healthier and more connected communities.

The Mason Foundation’s mission is centred around helping communities by empowering local people to help one another. The primary vehicle for this is The Mason Mile, which encourages individuals to do ‘Their Mile, Their Way’, regardless of ability or disability. By getting people moving, it directly address issues such as obesity, poor physical and mental health, and other social challenges. And by encouraging local volunteer Ambassadors to run the initiative, it also helps with community cohesion and awareness of where help is needed.

Building Solutions (the specialist building and refurbishment arm of VINCI Facilities) is committed to creating true social value and places this at the heart of all its operations. So, when the team discovered the work The Mason Foundation is doing, they wanted to help and saw a clear opportunity to do
so with the social housing provider Peabody. Having provided improvement works to Peabody’s properties for more than a decade, Building Solutions was in the perfect position to introduce Peabody to the charity and to help drive change across the communities in which it works.

 

The partnership has proven a resounding success, resulting in 14 Family Mile events having been delivered within Peabody’s Thamesmead and Islington communities, with c.280 attendees. Two Family Mile Summer Extravaganzas have also been held, with c.225 attendees taking part in a Family Mile along with fun activities such as face painting, competitions, and games. Building Solutions has invested £30k in The Mason Mile initiatives in Islington and Thamesmead, which has funded training activities and promotional items

The company has also provided hands-on support via:

    • Distributing 2,500 flyers to promote Mile events.

 

    • Testing a new app for The Mason Mile by reviewing its
      accessibility and features, and suggesting improvements.

 

  • Facilitating a strategy day for The Mason Foundation,
    which saw VINCI Facilities’ Social Sustainability Manager
    help the charity’s leadership team to embed the eight
    principles of social value and to accurately calculate the
    value they are creating. The support helped the charity
    to better understand its operations, evolve its language,
    increase its professionalism, and attract more supporters.

These efforts have created £3.7m+ of social value (calculated via Building Solutions’ award-winning social value calculator).

 

 

Additionally, Building Solutions has an ongoing commitment to The Business Mile, which sees its employees conduct weekly miles as part of the company’s wellbeing programme. In the first quarter alone the team collectively walked the distance from London to Africa, which will have had a profound effect on their mental and physical wellbeing.

Looking to the future, Building Solutions is working with other clients to enable The Mason Mile initiatives to be delivered in Southwark, Hackney, Sandwell, Birmingham, and Coventry.