Cwtch Mawr Multibank Delivers £27.7m Social Value For Swansea Families In First Year

Faith in Families’ Cwtch Mawr Multibank – Wales’s first multibank, co-founded with Amazon as part of the UK-wide Multibank initiative – has published its first year results (from April 2024 to March 2025), showing the service has distributed 471,622 essential items and created £27.7m in social value for families in need.

Led by Swansea-based charity Faith in Families, the service launched in March 2024 and has grown at pace, moving into a much larger warehouse in June 2025 to meet the scale of demand.

Amazon has played a central role in the Multibank model since its inception, contributing not only product donations but also logistics expertise, staffing, and long-term support as co-founder of the UK Multibank network alongside Gordon Brown and The National Family Centre. Amazon also helps to transport the donations to community organisations every week through its pro-bono logistics programme, Amazon Local Good.

Other key contributors include Pura, INEOS, Sofidel, Leekes, Giving World, Dr. Organic, Dove, Lynx, L’Oréal Paris, Nivea and Colgate with now more than 120 local partner organisations – from schools and housing providers to health services and grassroots charities – ensuring help reaches families with dignity and fairness.

The independent evaluation, carried out by Social Value Lab, found that from April 2024 to March 2025:

Mark Drakeford, former First Minister of Wales, said:

“Cwtch Mawr is that rare thing in social policy – a service in which everyone is a winner. This Report demonstrates how it has outperformed original expectations right across the range of relevant indicators. Poverty can erupt suddenly into the lives of people who never expected to be in that position – through illness, losing a job or the breakup of a relationship. For others poverty is an insidious process, built up over a long time of having to manage without enough to meet life’s needed. Cwtch Mawr can, and does, help in either circumstance, blending practical action with a never-absent respect for human dignity. As a member of the Welsh Government I am very pleased that we have been a supporter, from the earliest stages. Now on to even greater success in the future.”

“Cwtch Mawr proves what’s possible when businesses, government and communities pull together. We’ve shown that surplus goods can change lives – children going to school with confidence, families able to redirect their money to heating and food, people treated with dignity when times are tough. With nearly £28m in social value created in just one year, the impact far outweighs the investment. Thanks to our partners and funders, Swansea is leading the way in tackling poverty with innovation – and we’re only just getting started.”

Cwtch Mawr is led by Faith in Families, with Amazon’s long-term commitment as co-creator of the Multibank model, and supported by a wide coalition of partners including Welsh Government, Swansea Council, Beacon Cymru, Moondance Foundation, POBL, Caredig, FSG, Veeqo, Comic Relief, INEOS, Sofidel, Pura, Leekes, Our Place, Swansea Bay University Health Board, and many others who donate funds, goods or logistics to keep the shelves stocked.