Introduction Our vision is to empower people to be able to talk about death and dying which will result in people making choices about how and where they die and to empower communities to take control of their deaths. There is a similarity between community engagement programmes, and how our retail company can help the hospice reach that vision. We cannot assume that all communities are confident, and have the skills or language, to talk about death and dying. We have an opportunity to support this. Our shops are our beacons in the community. They allow us to interact with the community that is not immediately outside, or inside, our hospice door. If we are able to harness our presence on the high street, inform, educate and empower it will benefit us twofold; increased support and increased individual choice about death.

Aim

• Embed ourselves within the communities that we work in

• Empower communities and build resilience through our retail company

• Encourage communities to harness this to talk openly about death and dying

• Build social capital, which supports the community and helps reach our organisational goal

Approach

• Use our shop windows to promote hospice work

• Engage with local communities - building skill and confidence through volunteering programmes, expand the volunteer demographic to encourage intergenerational conversations.

• Gather ‘real’ stories from people in our communities, who are dealing with death/dying, who have been impacted by our shops e.g., conversations with retail teams

• Align our work with that of the hospice; philanthropic shopping that directly benefits members of their community

Measuring success

• Apply concepts of asset based community development when reviewing our impact on resilience

• Use principles of social capital to guide/measure the activities of the retail company

• Develop retail company ‘outcomes’ in addition to monetary targets

• Gather community case studies to understand impact.