WHY WORK WITH VALUES ALIGNED PARTNERS?
At The Social Change Nest, we pride ourselves on working with organisations, groups and individuals whose values align with our own. If our values don’t match, we bid them goodbye, farewell, auf weidersehen and adieu.
We operate in a space where the stakes are real: people are under pressure, money is tight, systems can be hostile, and crises keep stacking. In that context, how we work matters as much as what we deliver. We aim to build relationships based on trust, care, and mutual respect—and we expect the same in return.
In this article we look at:
- Why value alignment matters?
- Who keeps The Social Change Nest running behind the scenes?
- How to choose your values-aligned partners – Must ask questions!
Why does it matter?
We love a healthy debate. You don’t need identical politics, the same approach, or even the same focus area to collaborate well. However, if your core ethics and culture don’t overlap, things get harder.
You wouldn’t be friends with someone whose core fundamental values oppose yours, because you’d either spend all of your time arguing and being miserable, or you’d shrink yourself to make it work. So why would you work with individuals or companies if their values don’t match your own?
Our values
Curious
We are curious, asking difficult questions that enable us to explore and create new spaces. We are open and eager in the way we learn and thrive when we push the boundaries.
Courageous
We are courageous in our ways of working, pushing our network and ourselves to reach new ground and be bold in challenging the status quo as we go.
Creative
We have the energy, drive and commitment to create what is needed to drive social change. We continue to innovate in new areas, creating ideas, tools and products for people to use.
Collaborative
We seek collaboration as we believe relationships are better than transactions, and we value the transparency and accountability this builds. We actively work to provide as wide a participation in social change as possible.
We are also trauma-informed and understand how deep the trauma that affects our groups is and how their past interactions with the funding and financial systems inform their attitudes and behaviours. We know that where there’s trauma, there’s room for healing. This informs our service design, and all our team members have received training on trauma-informed practice.
Who keeps The Social Change Nest running behind the scenes?
Behind the scenes, we rely on partners to help us do our work safely and well. Here are a few of the partners who keep things running:
The Co-operative Bank
The Co-operative Bank is our primary bank account holder, and as a Fiscal Host that works with payments every day, who we bank with is very important to us. The Co-operative Bank provides top-level personalised customer service, and quickly became our trustworthy allies when we opened our accounts at the beginning of last year.
As many of our partners and groups will know, it is not easy to get a bank account in the social impact and civil society space we work in. We were thrilled when Co-operative Bank took a genuine interest in the work we were doing and didn’t just try to fit us into a neat and tidy tickbox to get the paperwork done.
“Their values and customer care resonate so much with how we approach those we work with, it made our relationship seamless.” – Esther Foreman, CEO of The Social Change Nest.
Lisa Galley, head of business banking products at The Co-operative Bank, added: “For more than three decades, our customers have helped shape how we operate – from who we finance to the impact their money has in the world.
Our ‘Bank like you do business’ campaign, which features Esther Foreman, the CEO of The Social Change Nest, and one of our business banking customers, reflects our belief that ethics and commercial success are not at odds, and that banking can support growth while staying true to the values customers expect.”
The Co-operative Bank holds itself accountable to a customer-led Ethical Policy, which currently focuses on what they can do for our planet, people, and the community, and their commitments within these spaces. Their core values are Self-help, Self-responsibility, Democracy, Equality and Equity, and Solidarity. They also believe in the ethical values of honesty, openness, social responsibility, and caring for others.
As you can see, there are clear links to what we value at The Social Change Nest, and that shines through in the work they do to tackle the climate crisis, create a fairer society and help individuals to live freely, equitably, and safely. That overlap is exactly what we mean by values alignment: when the ethics aren’t just marketing, they show up in service, decision-making, and accountability. We believe in their mission, and that’s why you might have seen our very own Esther Foreman star in their latest campaign.
Open Collective
Where would we be without Open Collective? Honestly, we might not have existed.
In 2019, the dream of starting up as a Fiscal Host in the UK left Esther’s head and became a goal to work towards. Once finding Open Collective, an open finance platform made for communities, we knew it would be possible, and a beautiful partnership was built. We both believed that the world could and should work better, and placed those we wanted to help at the heart of everything we wanted to build and do.
By 2020, The Social Change Nest had launched, and Open Collective’s platform made it possible to support unincorporated groups with secure, transparent money management at a moment when mutual aid and community responses were most needed. By 2023, we had moved over £10M to grassroots groups, and the momentum just kept growing.
Open Collective values ‘Impact’, and it exists to empower people to raise money, build communities, and make a positive impact on the world. We want to do exactly the same at The Social Change Nest, and are both clear that whilst we are building inclusive community movements, we won’t work with those whose aims don’t support ours.
Open Collective also values Honesty, Transparency, Privacy, Dignity, Sustainability and Resilience, things that we champion as The Social Change Nest and that many of our groups work within.
So, fast forward to 2025, and we now help to maintain and govern Open Collective as a member of the OFi Consortium, a nonprofit community-governed membership alliance of Fiscal Hosts and public-interest organisations. That’s right, we love Open Collective so much that we committed to helping advance open finance principles further.
Vouchsafe
Vouchsafe is the newest introduction into our fold, but we are so glad we found them!
If you aren’t familiar, Vouchsafe helps organisations to verify people securely, even if they don’t have a photo ID. The platform provides simple, inclusive ways to prove who users are while staying resilient against fraud and AI threats.
Working in the International grant space means we have to process due diligence and ID checks for people all over the world, and not everyone has the same access to devices, technology, documentation or even electricity. Vouchsafe lets people come as they are, using digital evidence, documents, or a vouch from someone they trust to ID them.
The platform was built for the real life scenarios we often see, and Vouchsafe really understands the people and organisations we work with.
“They’re all about supporting the marginalised and those that are less likely to have ID documents. They are great partners, as if we need something new or suggest changes to make an improvement, Vouchsafe is up for discussing it.” – Harkiran Bharij, Grant Distribution Program Assistant at The Social Change Nest, who works closely with Vouchsafe.
Xero
Xero is big on community and collaboration, wanting to create a positive impact and great experiences for its customers. They make their decisions based on their purpose, and sustainability is an important factor.
We are partnering with Xero on their Unlock Your Numbers programme that equips community groups, charities, and small businesses to build their organisational finance skills through free mentoring and self-guided training. It’s a great opportunity for our groups to learn new skills, get 1:1 time with a mentor and feel confident in their finances.
Mintago
Mintago is a financial wellbeing program that’s available to our internal colleagues and those using our payroll service. It empowers employees to improve their financial health while helping businesses save on their national insurance costs.
They are guided by five core values: Growth, Trust, Impact, Safety and Transparency. They want to make a change and improve the world around them, with a vision of transparency and trust being the foundations of every workplace. Mintago believes that pension wellbeing and financial literacy are crucial for a happy retirement, which will ultimately mean a more productive workforce, a positive workplace culture and increased savings for employers.
Mintago worked with us to really understand what we wanted as an employer and what we wanted for our team. They worked out how it could be implemented with our existing systems and made it simple to join them. They encourage not just their own employees but all members to take advantage of their mental wellbeing tools, and create a safe space for those around them to show up as their whole selves.
Some other shoutouts
You get the picture, but these folks deserved a mention too:
- Penelope provides IT support specifically to charities and social enterprises. They work within this sector so that they can support organisations that achieve positive social impact, and recommend the best options for their clients’ budget, rather than services that would increase their revenue. They are responsive, collaborative, and they build trusting relationships.
- XE provides excellent customer service when we need help with any international grant payments. They are helpful, supportive, and reliable.
How to choose values-aligned partners
- Name your non-negotiables. What behaviours and ethics are essential for safety and trust (e.g. respect, transparency, anti-racism, safeguarding, confidentiality, fair pay)?
- Look for proof, not promises. Do their policies, actions, and service match their values—especially when something goes wrong?
- Test the relationship early. How do they respond to questions, boundaries, or feedback?
- Agree on how you’ll handle conflict. Healthy partnerships plan for disagreement. Set expectations on tone, timelines, escalation routes, and repair.
The bottom line
In a time of multiple crises, it can feel easier to compromise your values to get a faster result, save money, or reduce short-term workload. Over time, these misaligned partnerships usually cost more through conflict, staff burnout, reputational risk, and mission drift.
Values alignment is not a luxury. It’s infrastructure.
If you’re a funder looking to partner with us as a curious, courageous, creative and collaborative Fiscal Host, or a group looking for support that won’t ask you to change yourself to fit a system, we’d love to talk. Contact us on hello@thesocialchangenest.org or book a call.
