Colruyt Group Foundation: Colruyt Group’s corporate foundation significantly widens focus

Wednesday, September 25, 2024

Colruyt Group’s corporate foundation, formerly known as Collibri Foundation, is expanding both its content and activities. As part of the renamed Colruyt Group Foundation, educational and other projects with young people are remaining the main focus, while the positive contribution is now being widened to include charities working on healthy food and sustainable agriculture. In this way, it is even more closely aligned with Colruyt Group’s own sustainability themes. With a new name, a reinforced team, higher budgets, and a new innovative approach to further include customers using the existing savings programme in the Xtra app, Colruyt Group Foundation is now unfurling an even more ambitious and committed approach as one of Belgium’s largest corporate foundations.

Even better alignment with Colruyt Group’s strengths

Collibri Foundation was established some 20 years ago as a corporate foundation of Colruyt Group with a clear mission: to offer vulnerable young people more opportunities for a successful future, both in Belgium and in other countries in which Colruyt Group buys sustainably through its chain projects. To this day, Collibri Foundation is still supporting 21 projects. More than a million euros was invested in this by 2023, and more than 16,500 young people were given more opportunities for a successful future.

The decision has now been made to widen the scope. Lisa Colruyt, director of Colruyt Group Foundation, says: “Our society is facing growing challenges. The numbers of early school leavers are rising, but poverty combined with access to healthy food also remains a major theme across the country. Farmers are coming under increasing pressure. We are aiming to make a difference there every day with Colruyt Group, so we felt it was important to broaden the contribution of the corporate foundation. In this way, we are even better aligned with the group’s sustainability objectives and we can also draw on the knowledge, network, and infrastructure that already exist within Colruyt Group.” There followed a change of name, accompanied by a new logo and new website.

New dynamics: new themes and new projects in Belgium and abroad

As from October 2024, eight new Belgian projects will be added and a total of 29 initiatives will be supported through the foundation: from projects that are still in the start-up phase to those that are at a slightly more mature stage. Colruyt Group makes a commitment to allocate 5 million euros annually for this from now on – more than doubling the current budget – which immediately makes the corporate foundation one of the largest in Belgium. Highly specific work is carried out around three themes:

• Supporting young people to stand on their own two feet remains at the heart of Colruyt Group Foundation’s activities. To this end, training projects have been supported for more than 20 years, focusing on two key factors for future success: professional integration and the development of both national and global citizenship. Debateville and Odyssée fall within that category, and existing collaborations with organisations such as Sport2Be are being continued.
• Initiatives focusing on sustainable agriculture in Belgium and the countries in which Colruyt Group has chain projects can also increasingly count on the support of Colruyt Group Foundation. For example, Regenacterre is committed to supporting farmers who want to adopt more sustainable activities. Boerennatuur is another new name in this category.
• The focus is additionally extended to support projects that enable access to, and raise awareness about, healthy eating for vulnerable families. For example, Foodsavers and Enchanté are part of carrying out that important mission, with a push from Colruyt Group’s corporate foundation. ​

Empowering the various stakeholders for the long term

The cooperation with the various affiliated NPOs is for the long term: Colruyt Group Foundation is investing for at least three years, giving the project time to grow so that the evolution can be measured. It also goes far beyond mere financial support: mentoring is at least as important. There are Colruyt Group co-workers who actively engage in offering mentorship to young people within the projects, for example. Indeed, a crucial theme running through all the projects is empowering people.

Lisa Colruyt says: “We really want to empower people to make a meaningful contribution to a more sustainable future. The purpose is for them to develop their potential and create positive change in their environment. It is not only about the foundation’s NPOs and their stakeholders. For Colruyt Group, it is also about involving our own co-workers, suppliers, and even the customers of our stores.”

Actively engaging customers through the Xtra savings programme

Considerable thought was given to involving customers of the Colruyt Group formulas more closely in the foundation’s activities. The existing savings programme will be used for this purpose. Starting this autumn, customers will be able to use their Eco-score savings points through the Xtra app to support some of the Belgian projects within the foundation.

Lisa Colruyt adds: “This way, we’re increasing the involvement of our customers, and those non-profit organisations also get a boost through extra visibility. This, too, fits into our mission to help customers to consciously make sustainable choices.”