What Should My Business Be Doing To Respond to the Cost Of Living Crisis?

Walk around Camden and the wealth screams at you, nice houses, nice shops, nice office blocks. Surely no one here is experiencing poverty? Wrong! 76,000 people in Camden and currently living in poverty. It could happen to anyone except that it absolutely isn’t happening to anyone. It’s happening to people who don’t speak English as a first language, black and brown people at a far high rate than the general population. If your company tweeted that #BlackLivesMatter after the murder of George Floyd, then now is the time to show you meant that. Here’s how…

Pay

75% of people experiencing poverty in Camden are in work, above the national average (68%). Let’s not beat around the bush, food banks in Camden are subsiding the wages of companies that are failing to pay people a real living wage. Companies need to get really confident that their supply chains and contractors are paying a real living wage. Lower paid work is more likely be done by people from black and brown communities, whilst higher paid work is done by white people. Employment laws that allow (mostly) white people to profit from the underpaid labour of black and brown people are simply insufficient and companies need to opt to go well beyond what's legal.

Support charities to do more than just food parcels

Charities are part of a well functioning society. Great "innovations" that we now see as anything but innovative came from charities; dropped pavements, children wearing seatbelts, a heightened national conversation about mental health all began with charities having the power to say loud and clear "hang on, we've found a solution".But charities like businesses need time to think and innovate, think about what your business does to make money, do 100% of the people that work for you do that work 100% of the time? charity staff also need to step back from frontline delivery to innovate, campaign and from time to time take a holiday.

Fund Communities

In London, the more money you earn, the more likely you are to be aware of poverty services like food banks, law centres and citizen advice. Participatory Grantmaking (where the people you want to help decide which charities revive funding), draws on the extensive knowledge communities have, but also grows awareness of the charities that receive funding.Camden Giving are a participatory funder, meaning if you award funding through us, we recruit, pay and support local people with experience of inequality to decide how that money is spent.

You can fund our appeal, but clicking here, or by getting in touch with me at natasha@camdengiving.org.uk.