We’re thrilled to share the news that Cartrefi Cymru Cooperative has been announced as one of the finalists in the Third Sector Business of the Year category at the 2025 Cardiff Business Awards. The annual awards, which have been promoting the best of Welsh business for over 11 years, will take place on Friday 14 November and see Cartrefi competing with some of Wales’ leading third sector organisations.
The Third Sector Business of the Year category recognises organisations that ‘bring about real social change’ and ‘raise awareness and campaign on key issues.’ The awards are a fantastic platform for us to showcase our work across Wales in supporting the aspirations and ambitions of people with autism and learning disabilities.
As one of Wales’ largest co-operatives, we are dedicated to our collaborative and co-productive approach to care and support. Our submission to the awards highlighted not only our size and scale as Wales’ largest provider of support to people with autism and learning disabilities, but also the massive strides our co-operative has taken in recent years. Becoming a Real Living Wage accredited employer, developing a new person-centric People strategy and implementing new digital systems to improve care quality are a sample of our key recent achievements. To be shortlisted for such a prestigious award is testament to the incredible work of all our colleagues who have made these achievements possible, and the proactive, passionate and creative contributions of the people we support.
We were also mindful to highlight in our submission that our sector faces some profound challenges. Funding for social care in Wales and beyond remains incredibly tight. Some of our fellow providers in Wales face the real prospect of being unable to continue to run their services in the near future. We hope that being shortlisted for this award will help us to highlight the challenges our sector is experiencing and help us with our work to advocate for the people we support.
Alison Woodward, Cartrefi’s Director of People, was pleased to learn that we had been named finalists. She said: “When we heard that we had been shortlisted for Third Sector Business of the Year, I was delighted.
“Cartrefi colleagues up and down the country work so hard on behalf of the people we support, and this award is recognition of that. Our cooperative structure means that the people we support have a real say in how we work and how we shape our services and it is fantastic that our shortlisting also recognises this.
“The Cartrefi Way, our values-led strategy, sets us apart as a truly unique provider of care and support. I’m thrilled to see the collaborative way we do things at Cartrefi being appreciated by the wider business community.”
You can learn more about the Cardiff Business Awards here.
We can’t wait for the awards night and thank you to everyone who helps us make the #EverdayRemarkable a reality in communities across Wales every single day.