Employee Volunteering

Helping our employees make a difference through volunteering

At NFU Mutual we have an employee volunteering programme that enables all our employees to use their work time to support a good cause in their community. We provide an allowance of one day each year for employees to take part in the scheme as part of a team. We offer advice and support to help our employees find the right volunteering opportunity.

Employee volunteering supports our ambitions, as a responsible business, to protect rural lives and livelihoods and create healthy working communities for our people. Through the scheme, our employees can experience an enjoyable and rewarding teambuilding day with their colleagues, where they can learn something new, meet different people, and all whilst making a difference for a good cause.

During 2025, 1041 NFU Mutual employees (23% of all employees*) dedicated 7,102 of their work hours to support community causes through our employee volunteering programme. 

It’s another record year for our volunteering programme – the highest number of hours colleagues have volunteered through the programme in any year, since our volunteering programme started in 2014.

Volunteering took place close to office sites in the following regions: 

Stratford/ Midlands - 5632.5 hours
Glasgow/Scotland - 957 hours
York/Yorkshire - 164.5 hours
Bristol/Southwest - 147 hours
Belfast/Northern Ireland - 103 hours
Cardiff/Wales - 98 hours

Click here to see the causes our employees supported across the UK during 2025 through our employee volunteering programme.

When giving their feedback on volunteering, 99% of employees rated their experience as very good or good, 98% agreed the opportunity to volunteer during work time supports NFU Mutual’s objective to be a great place to work and 94% felt they had helped a good cause.

From supporting schools, community farms, hospices, foodbanks and community forests - to name but a few – our employees’ time has made a huge difference to a wide range of good causes throughout the country. We give huge thanks to our people for their fantastic efforts.

How our volunteering support is helping

As well as offering practical help to charities through activities such as enhancing community spaces with Forest of Hearts, we also look for opportunities where our people can volunteer their professional expertise, such as giving careers support to local young people.

Here’s another example of one of our employee volunteering events from 2025: 

As part of Volunteers’ Week in June, a team of colleagues from our our Claims Team at Belfast Regional Service Centre gave their time to help at Jubilee Farm, Northern Ireland’s first community-owned farm. 

The opportunity was organised thanks to the help of Rural Support, a farming help charity who we support through the NFU Mutual Charitable Trust.

Jubilee Farm's ethos is guided by ‘creation care’ that is environmental & agricultural stewardship which incorporates fairness and flourishing, welfare & wellbeing, from the soil to the animals, to biodiversity, to what they grow, to the people that visit. 

On the day, our employees helped the farm to prepare for Open Farm Weekend, undertaking a variety of tasks including crop management, livestock care and grounds maintenance. 

Alan Jackson, Health, Safety & Facilities Coordinator said: "Great to take part in what was my third Volunteer Day in my time with NFU Mutual, giving something back to the local community which we serve. Yet again the day was superbly organised and well run. It was really interesting to learn more from one of Jubilee Farm’s volunteers over lunch about their unique social farming and co-operative model and the challenges faced by them and the wider farming community”.

Mary Jo McGinn, Regional Department Manager added: “The Belfast Claims Volunteer Day was a celebration of NFU Mutual's community spirit and teamwork. Working alongside each other reminded us of the impact we can make when we come together with a shared purpose. Here's to the power of giving back and the joy of making a difference!”.

Looking ahead

During 2025 we undertook a comprehensive review of our volunteering offering, engaging both employees and the organisations we support to gather insights. While employee feedback was positive, the review highlighted opportunities to enhance accessibility by providing more flexible volunteering options. We have taken steps to implement these improvements for 2026. In addition, we carried out an assessment of how we measure the impact of employee volunteering, ensuring alignment with our newly adopted social impact measurement framework, Business for Societal Impact (B4SI). As a result, we refined our feedback surveys for 2026 to strengthen our ability to demonstrate the difference our employee volunteering activities are making.

Find out more

Supporting our communities is just one of the ways we deliver against our ambition of Protecting Rural Lives and Livelihoods. To learn more about our strategy and actions, explore our latest Responsible Business Report.

*based on NFU Mutual’s total employee head count figure for our 2025 Report and Accounts.