The Silverburn Forum has been in place for over 15 years and comprises community stakeholders, as well as Silverburn team members who have helped shape the community groups and charities that they engage with. From this meaningful engagement, Silverburn Cares was established to tackle key issues, and its Community Fund has raised over £10,000 since 2020 alone.

 

 

Who is on the project team? 

 

Kat McGinness, Rachel Wolschke, David Pierotti and the Silverburn Team.

 

Describe the context of the community engagement. Why did the engagement take place?

 

Silverburn is located just outside of Glasgow, a city that faces enormous challenges in terms of poverty and health, but which thrives thanks to its rich diversity and culture. The launch of Silverburn had a transformational impact on our community and, as a key stakeholder in the community, we feel a sense of duty to give back to the people and to ensure we direct our efforts to the right places. Community engagement has been a core focus since we opened in 2007.

 

Our team is actively invested and seeks to grow awareness and representation for the people around us. We identified the hardships our community was facing by reviewing data from demographic analysis reports and from the engagement with the “Silverburn Forum”. This group has been in place for over 15 years and comprises community stakeholders, as well as Silverburn team members who have helped shape the community groups and charities that we engage with.

 

From this meaningful engagement, Silverburn Cares was established to begin to tackle the key issues that resonated with our team, guests, and retailers. It has evolved and now takes the form a multi-armed approach to all things linked to Corporate Social Responsibility. Not only do we raise and donate money to worthy causes, but we actively engage with the local community, encourage inclusion and strive to be more sustainable. We believe that to be a responsible and caring entity we need to maintain and continuously improve the environment in which we operate.

 

Tell us what you did, and how you did it. What was your approach in talking to the community?

 

We have taken a long-term approach to community engagement. We regularly interact with local schools and have provided work experience, entrepreneurial workshops, and sustainability education. The relationships that we have established over the last 15 years allow us to create a support program that best benefits young people.

 

We help address the mental health challenges faced in Scotland providing mall space, free advertising and donations to Men Matter Scotland, which focuses on the challenges faced by men and their mental health struggles. We work closely with the Samaritans to provide support to our guests as well as to our own teams.

 

We further support charities by providing “in kind” space throughout the year. The range of organisations we engage with range from Glasgow Children’s Hospital Charity, to Beatson Cancer Support and support disaster relief events in response to the devastating situations faced in Ukraine and Pakistan.

 

The Silverburn Cares Community Fund has raised over £10,000 since 2020 alone.

 

Providing inclusive and welcoming spaces is a priority. We have worked to create an autism sensory map which allows individuals with autism to plan their visit, we hire out free sensory toys and ear defenders. We introduced more inclusive toilet signage, stating “not every disability is visible”. We also invested in a LGBTQ+ history of Glasgow poster in a prime location, to highlight that all are welcome in our space.

 

Crucially, these initiatives are led by our customers’ needs and demonstrate how we have listened and responded to them.

 

How were the results of the community engagement incorporated into decision making? Have you continued the conversation? Will the community stay involved?

 

The Silverburn Forum, as well as regular Retailers Meetings and team meeting provide a continuous feedback loop for our community activity. We also regularly consult with the organisations themselves to feedback on the impact of our relationship. Our social media platforms and email interactions allow our guests to let us know their reaction and response to our activities. This wealth of feedback feeds into our overall CR strategy. We strive to continue to be accessible to our community and use the frequent interactions to inform best practice.

 

Maisi McCormick, Community Fundraising Manager at Beatson Cancer Charity said: “We are thrilled to the generous support by Silverburn. This shall provide delivery of our Specialist Health and Work Service (SHAWS) workshops to support patients and families through the incredibly stressful and difficult journeys they face at the time of a cancer diagnosis. We’d like to take this opportunity to thank everyone at Silverburn Shopping Centre – their continued support has been outstanding, and this will make a huge difference.”

 

Sarah Rees, Head of Partnerships at Social Bite said: “We are so grateful to receive this support. In response to Covid19, we re-purposed our social enterprise kitchen and cafes to start making free lunch bags and meals for people experiencing homelessness, food poverty and holiday hunger. The donation from the Silverburn Giving Back Project is enough to fund 1,000 food packs which will be distributed to individuals and families with children in Glasgow and communities of most need across Scotland. Thank you.”

 

Describe your environmental or social impacts and your sustainability approach. 

In 2022 we carried out the following:

 

1. Donated £43,960.00 of “In Kind” Space for awareness events and fundraising on the mall.

2. Raised £56,728.52 for over 15 different organisations including £5,578.45 for the Silverburn Cares Community Funds.

3. Donated over £2,800 in cash, vouchers and items to various local causes including £1,000 for the Glasgow Spirit of Christmas campaign.

4. We provided over £15,000 of free advertising and awareness for various community or charitable campaigns across our screens and lightboxes.

5. Over the year 55 of our team members spent 141 hours organising or participating in community and fundraising activities.

6. In 2022 we hosted work experience for 3 young people, which engaged

over 30 members of the Silverburn Team and 80 hours of education and engagement.

7. Over 100 people were hired from Silverburn’s 2022 Jobs Fair providing employment for local people.

8. Silverburn’s team engaged in Alzheimer’s Scotland’s Dementia Friends training to provide a better experience for those experiencing the impact of Alzheimer’s.

9. We held a free “Movie Memories” session monthly to provide a free activity for service users of Alzheimer’s Scotland and respite for their cares.

10. We engaged with local based gender equality groups to improve our inclusion approach, as well as providing them space for awareness activities.

11. We worked closely with invisible and visible disability groups to improve signage and experience within Silverburn.

12. We completed three litter picks in the local community to encourage a cleaner environment.