American Express has held a fund with Sussex Community Foundation since 2006 and is one of the Foundation’s founder donors. The American Express Fund has given out grants to a total value of almost £474,000 to Sussex charities and community groups, working in the Brighton & Hove and Burgess Hill areas. The fund’s charitable objectives are to make grants to groups that support their community in the following ways:

• by developing new leaders for tomorrow by promoting leadership in the non-profit sector
• by promoting volunteering and community engagement, including by American Express employees
• by helping disadvantaged people into work
• by promoting diversity, social inclusion and equal rights.

Fareshare (below) is a project that redistributes surplus food from wholesalers and retailers to homeless people in Sussex. It also provides positive volunteering opportunities, targeted at the unemployed, homeless and other socially excluded groups. They received a grant from American Express to help support the costs of their operation.