AGM votes help take Yorkshire Building Society towards £1m charity milestone

For every vote cast at its Annual General Meeting (AGM), the mutual donated up to 35p to the UK’s leading food distribution charity. FareShare recently merged with The Felix Project to form a bigger and more ambitious organisation with greater national impact.

Around 1.3 million members were eligible to take part, with the meeting being just one of the ways members can have a say in the way the Society is run.

The AGM was held at the Queens Hotel in Leeds, live-streamed online and is available to watch on the Society’s website until the end of May.

Yorkshire Building Society has now raised more than £900,000 for FareShare and is on course to reach its £1m target by the autumn. The money being raised by the Society is supporting Building Skills for the Future, an employability programme, which has supported more than 2,100 people so far.

Annemarie Durbin, the Society’s Chair, said: “We’re a modern, dynamic, successful mutual. Our members are at the heart of every decision we make.

“And 2025 was a successful year for our Society. We delivered solid results, grew our savings and mortgage balances and helped even more first-time buyers.

“It’s important to us to reward our savers and go further for our members. In addition to rewarding members through rates, we reinvest our profits to improve our products and services.

“In 2025, we invested more than ever before – nearly £90m – in key strategic areas, including technology and data.

“We also continue to support communities across the UK, through programmes and partnerships that help people find work and improve financial wellbeing.

“When you look at our history, you can see that, for more than 160 years, Yorkshire Building Society has always supported its members and communities. It has always grown, adapted and improved. And it has always stayed true to its purpose.”

Chief Executive Susan Allen said the Society’s purpose – Real Help with Real Life – had been sharpened and meant members coming together to make good homes possible for more people.

She said this mattered more than ever as households continue to face financial pressure: “With 2.7 million members, we’re one of the UK’s biggest building societies, and we are proud of the impact we make.

“We’re absolutely committed to providing the best service we can to our members, and in 2025 we invested a record amount in making sure we’re ready not just for today, but for generations to come.

“We know that many of our customers are feeling stretched by a higher cost of living and worried about the financial challenges that may come. We will continue to support our members, with our skilled teams working hard to provide comprehensive support.

“In 2026, our mutuality, our togetherness and our sharpened Purpose matter more than ever.”

Members voted overwhelmingly in favour of all resolutions at the AGM, including the appointment of board members.