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The Giving Back Project

Our Office Furniture, IT and Equipment Donation Programme

Giving Back through furniture donation

At Crown Workspace, we help clients ‘give back’ as part of their sustainable clearances by helping them to donate furniture, IT and electrical equipment from office clearances to local charities, schools and social enterprises through our Giving Back Project.

Since 2011, we have facilitated the donation of over 45,000 items of furniture and equipment.  These items were redistributed to our network of partners, helping those organisations to focus their resources on frontline services.  In 2024, we aided the donation of over 6,000 items, saving over 131 tonnes of waste and saving 216 tonnes of CO2e in comparison to buying new.

Rethinking the value of your assets

At Crown Workspace, we follow six guiding principles to put the circular economy at the heart of the workplace through Crown Circulate.  This enables your assets to circulate throughout and beyond your workplace, creating maximum value for your organisation, the environment, and our wider society.  The Giving Back Project is a core part of the Circulate principle ‘redistribute’ where we make it simple for clients to redistribute their assets across their estates for reuse by colleagues or to those in need across local communities.

Find out more about Circulate.

What makes the Giving Back Project different?

Our network

Over the past four years, our charity network has expanded from around 100 to over 800 organisations, with new partners joining us every week.  This extensive network enables us to support clients and organisations all across the UK, and allow us to donate as local as possible to projects.  The continual growth of our network is now driven largely by word of mouth, but we remain committed to maintaining close relationships with our partners and providing meaningful, ongoing support

We support organisations that help in the following ways:

  • Improving the environment and natural areas
  • Supporting education projects
  • Helping vulnerable individuals such as those with disabilities or who are experiencing homelessness
  • Providing health or care support
  • Affordable furniture distribution projects

We are always happy to accept more non-profit organisations, of any nature, to the Giving Back Project.

If you are a charity, school or social enterprise and would like to sign up to the GBP, you can do so here: https://forms.office.com/r/3FQYU0Ee0Q

Reporting and Certification

Once a project is finished, we provide our clients with a full report, detailing the items which were reused, the weight and carbon saved as a result of donation (or other reuse avenues), and the charities supported.  This demonstrates to their stakeholders how they have been able to give back through their clearance, relocation or refurbishment project.

Please note that donating furniture through the Giving Back Project is a chargeable service as part of a sustainable clearance.  This is to ensure that our charity partners receive items at no cost to them.

We are unfortunately unable to provide our donation services for small amounts of furniture.  In this instance, we would recommend contacting the Furniture Reuse Network.

If you would like to apply to join the Giving Back Project, click here! 

Charities we have helped:

  • “The number of young people in London made homeless has doubled in just two years. That’s why City YMCA are on a mission to support more of London’s most at-risk young people by increasing the numbers of bed spaces available. This once-loved furniture, reused from clients that the team has moved will help give a hope and a future to homeless young people.”
    Chris East, Appeal Director, City YMCA London
  • “We are extremely grateful for the donation of PCs. We are committed to every individual’s sustainable recovery and this donation will support our clients to rebuild their lives after a period of homelessness. Vital tasks are conducted online, whether this is job searching, banking, GP appointments or even socialising. Ensuring our clients have access to computing, particularly when they move into independent accommodation, is key.”
    Simon Young, Project Manager, St Mungo’s
  • “I have worked with social enterprises supplying recycled office furniture previously, but never with an organisation offering such a comprehensive and personal service. Thank you so much for all you have done for us. Everything looks amazing, particularly the reception and waiting area furniture.”
    Jan Cunningham, Development Officer, Haven House
  • “I wanted to thank The Giving Back Project for the superb furniture that was delivered today. From receiving great storage and desks to little things like having plenty of flipcharts is brilliant. Visitors to the conference centre continue to be amazed at the generosity and quality of the furniture – it is making a significant difference to us.”
    Andy Samways, Director, Suffolk Borders Teaching Alliance
  • “A huge thanks to Crown Workspace ‘Giving Back Project’ for helping The Social Brokers workspace look cool and comfortable! The project donated equipment and furniture that helped us and the wider Merseyside community. We’ve managed to place all the donated items in areas of need and deprivation.”
    Paul Walmsley, Co-Founder, The Social Brokers
  • “Crown Workspace has transformed our space. As a charity, we take over empty commercial spaces and turn them into buzzing creative hubs. Last year, Crown's donations allowed us to turn our new venue in Hammersmith into three rehearsal studios, a playwriting hub, a script library, and a community zone. From pianos to sofas, and desk chairs to coffee machines, Crown has made all the difference in helping us provide excellent, accessible arts resources to the local community.”
    Lucie Dawkins, SCRUM Theatre
  • “YMCA Retail have been receiving furniture from Crown Workspace for a while now. Our most recent venture with Crown saw our Pontefract and Ripon charity shops receiving some fantastic high quality office furniture. We sell any donated items in our chain of charity shops, offering local communities great quality and value products and avoiding anything going to landfill. A win win in our books! Income raised from the sale of donations in our shops supports our work giving access to YMCA services and projects to more than 375,000 young people in England and Wales every year. I cannot thank the Crown team enough for their commitment and continued support”
    Tina Gibbs, Retail Stock & Logistics Manager, YMCA
  • “TCL Reuse have been absolutely delighted and grateful for the very generous donation of items from Crown Workspace. We have received a large number of items over recent months which have all sold very quickly which have raised funds for the Teen Challenge drug and alcohol rehabilitation centre which we support on our site in Ilford. Please pass on our huge thanks to all your team who are involved in organising and delivery of items to our charity.”
    Kathy Gomm, TCL Reuse
  • “We are very grateful for the office chairs; they have made a great difference in our office as the staff now have a suitable chair to sit on. The meeting room chairs have enabled us to increase capacity at our sessions, groups and events ensuring we are able to support as many families as possible. We are a small grassroots charity with a very small limited budget, so thank you very much for running this scheme.”
    Parents Opening Doors
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    “Thank you very much for the lovely office chairs delivered to Brent Carers Centre, they are a great hit and the armchairs have also been a nice addition to our Counselling room."
    Brent Carers Centre