Morgan Stanley today announced a new two-year charity partnership with The Felix Project, London’s largest food redistribution charity, fighting hunger and food waste in London. The new partnership was voted for by Morgan Stanley’s London employees following a week-long poll.

The partnership will see employees aiming to raise £500,000, which will be matched by the Morgan Stanley International Foundation, to raise a total of at least £1million.

The funds will help The Felix Project run their new East London operation for the next five years, covering rent, utilities, and rates – as well as recruitment, training, and retention of volunteers to work alongside the warehouse team. The support will enable The Felix Project to rescue and distribute 75 million meals to hundreds of charities, schools, and community groups in East London, where child poverty rates are over 50% – more than double the European average.

The funds raised will also support The Felix Project’s education work in local schools, helping kids to understand the power of good food and the environmental dangers of food waste. Together, they will launch a new employability scheme, to create employment and training opportunities that will address the growing youth unemployment issues in London and ensure people can train and gain employment – a route out of the risk of food poverty.

Clare Woodman, Head of Morgan Stanley EMEA said: “We are delighted to be collaborating with The Felix Project and are excited to help the charity scale and extend its reach into East London where we have a long history of supporting the local communities. With hunger relief needed now more than ever, we are proud to be supporting The Felix Project in their fight against hunger and to help reach as many people in need of food as possible”.

The collaboration between the two organisations started in 2019 when Morgan Stanley provided pro bono advice through their Skills Connector programme, in partnership with Pilotlight, which saw a team of six Morgan Stanley employees undertake an in-depth analysis of how The Felix Project recruited, onboarded, inducted, deployed and developed their huge volunteer workforce. Recommendations provided by the Morgan Stanley team enabled the charity to rapidly mobilize when the Covid-19 pandemic hit, to recruit and rally more volunteers to reach the most vulnerable communities in the darkest hour of need.

In 2020 and 2021, Morgan Stanley hosted a ‘Move for Meals’ campaign, which saw its employees in more than 533 cities around the world walk over 690 million steps to raise funds and awareness for global hunger. As a result, Morgan Stanley donated over £545,000 to The Felix Project to enable the charity to establish their new depot in East London and to rescue enough food to make 2,239,534 meals. This is in addition to a £370,000 sum raised by Morgan Stanley employees in London for The Felix Project as part of the Morgan Stanley COVID-19 Hunger Relief Campaign.

Seve Thomas, CEO of The Felix Project, said: “This partnership with Morgan Stanley is a game-changer for our work to feed some of the poorest people in East London. Together, we will redistribute 75 million meals into East London over the next 5 years.”