Carer standing hugging older man with walking stick sitting down. Both are smiling at the camera warmly

Transforming lives through the power
of community since 1920

Isolation affects countless individuals in our society, from teenagers to older people. This often leads to a cycle of loneliness and hopelessness.

At Keychange, we work to break that cycle, through the transformative power of community. As a Christian charity, we are inspired by Christ’s example to love and serve others. 

Today, we have seven care homes for older people and two housing communities for young people and women facing homelessness.

Our mission is to create communities where each person is supported, valued and known.

Read the Keychange
Annual Report 2023-24

Find out how we impacted lives across our communities.

Community is at the heart

of everything Keychange does

Opening doors
We help people access communities and live life to the full.
Providing the ‘key’
We help people access communities and live life to the full.
People, not profit
We do it because we care about people, not profit.
Dignity and worth
Everyone deserves to feel safe, secure and valued.
Love of Christ
We’re inspired by the example of Christ to love and serve others.
Community
We believe in the power
of community to transform lives.

Keychange. Building caring communities.

Our trustees

Maddy Thomson

Chair of Trustees

Tim Cotterall

Vice Chair

Sarah Powley

 Honorary Treasurer

Ian Bird

 Trustee

Stefan Cantore

 Trustee

Brad Cook

Trustee

Nick Leggett

Trustee

Glenda Roberts

Trustee

Rebecca Stockman

Trustee

More information and photographs coming soon.

We’re a Christian organisation,
so what does that mean?

Sometimes, the fact we’re a Christian charity can prompt questions – like whether we only accept staff or residents who are Christians.

So, we thought it’d be helpful to share what being a Christian organisation actually means. We welcome people of all faiths and none to join our communities or staff team.

All our staff are committed to the Christian values of unconditional love and support for all. And the Keychange leadership team pray together weekly.

We hold Christian worship services in all our care homes, which anyone is welcome to join.

We support our residents to practise their faith, which includes helping them (wherever possible) get to nearby places of worship like churches, mosques and synagogues.

All our staff are committed to the Christian values of unconditional love and support for all.

And the Keychange leadership team pray together weekly.

We hold Christian worship services in all our care homes, which anyone is welcome to join.

We support our residents to practise their faith, which includes helping them (wherever possible) get to nearby places of worship
like churches, mosques and synagogues. 

How you can get involved

From befriending to gardening, find out how you can be a vital part of our work.
Find out how we’re impacting the lives of vulnerable people in our society.
Help transform lives through the power of community.

Why people love working at Keychange

“We really care about the individual and I can see that across all of Keychange’s homes”

That’s why I love working here.

Whilst it was really daunting becoming a manager, I’ve always felt supported by Keychange. There’s no such thing as a stupid question, and I don’t ever feel judged. It’s been a great place to develop my skills and knowledge – and it’s a wonderful, rewarding job. 

Meet the leadership team
at the heart of Keychange

Benjamin Downing

CEO

Benjamin joined on 1 December 2022. His previous role was with Open Doors International and, prior to that, he worked for five years with Kids Alive International as their Vice President of International Programmes. 

Kids Alive works with vulnerable children around the world and, during his time there, he helped the whole organisation focus on trauma-informed care, to bring greater healing and impact to the children affected. Benjamin and his wife, Charmari, and four boys – Daniel, Jonah, Elijah and Nathan – returned to the UK in 2020 after living overseas in Guatemala and the USA for 10 years.

Meet the leadership team
at the heart of Keychange

Sarah Hurst

Executive Assistant
Sarah joined Keychange as Executive Assistant to the CEO & Trustees in January 2024.Sarah has a background of providing administrative and strategic support in charitable and non-profit organisations, including the care and education sectors, as well as building community through previous voluntary and part-time projects. She enjoys providing directorate and board support to enable vision to become deliverable change.

Meet the leadership team
at the heart of Keychange

Graeme Gentry

Director of Operations
Graeme joined Keychange as Director of Operations on the 1st September 2023. He previously worked for the NHS and the private sector in a variety of leadership positions including Operational, Commercial and Clinical appointments. Graeme is married to Caroline and with their daughter Lilly enjoys serving in a local evangelical church in Chessington. Graeme is a trustee of two other charities and has a heart to serve the vulnerable in our society.

Meet the leadership team
at the heart of Keychange

Amy Kimbangi

Head of Strategic Partnerships
Amy joined in September 2024 to lead our work around external relations, which includes partnerships, communications and fundraising. Amy has a background working across the charity sector delivering services in the fields of homelessness, child poverty, unemployment and access to healthcare. She is passionate about growing and strengthening charities to ensure they make biggest impact for the people they serve.

Meet the leadership team
at the heart of Keychange

Peter Clark

Facilities Business Manager
Peter joined Keychange as Business Support Manager in September 2011. He commenced his current Facilities Business Manager role in April 2018 and is responsible for Health and Safety, buildings maintenance and improvements, IT, central contracts and other facilities functions.Peter is married, lives in North London and attends a local church in Edmonton.

Meet the leadership team
at the heart of Keychange

Jeremy Simpson

Director of Finance
Jeremy Simpson has over 20 years of experience in finance and management roles across various sectors. As the Director of Finance for Keychange, he oversees financial performance, strategic planning, and systems development. His core competencies include financial management, system integration, and digital strategic leadership. Jeremy is committed to leading organisations through evolving environments, fostering team development, and contributing to successful mission outcomes.

Meet the leadership team
at the heart of Keychange

Maddy Thompson

Chair of Trustees
Maddy is the Chair of Keychange’s board of trustees. Like all the trustees, she applies her Christian faith to the oversight of the charity’s activities and resources in support of its aim to provide Christian care to vulnerable people.With over 40 years’ experience in the Social Care and Voluntary Sector, Maddy’s previous roles include 14 years at Skills for Care, first as Regional Manager for London and then National Programme Head for Standards, Learning and Qualifications. She is currently a consultant and coach in the Social Care and Voluntary Sector. Maddy also has extensive governance experience to chair level.As a Christian, she welcomes the opportunity to serve a charity that has a strong Christian ethos and history and to lead its team of highly skilled and committed trustees. She sees the trustee role as ensuring the charity continues to fulfil its mission, delivers high quality services and uses its resources well to both maintain, grow and develop its services. Maddy believes passionately in establishing caring and inclusive communities where everyone can be supported to live life how they wish and be involved in contributing to their home environment as well as to the surrounding neighbourhood. Whatever our stage in life, or circumstances, everyone has a part to play.

Meet the leadership team
at the heart of Keychange

Tim Cotterall

Vice Chair
Tim became a trustee in February 2015. He has brought his business skills, developed over many years as a Senior Manager in medium-sized businesses across the North West of England.Most recently, Tim was a Director of a Library book supply business for over 15 years and prior to this spent over 10 years in the Travel industry in varying IT roles.Tim is married to Liz, and they have two grown up daughters: Becky and Hannah. The family live in Chorley in Lancashire and worship at St Andrew’s Leyland where Tim is on the Leadership team.Tim and Liz enjoy their time in the Lake District and get up there whenever they have the opportunity. Tim is also a very bad golfer!

Meet the leadership team
at the heart of Keychange

Ian Bird

Trustee
Ian became a trustee in the middle of 2021 and is director of an architectural practice that specialises in social and private housing in London and the Midlands.He has been involved in several charities as a Trustee including a housing trust and a Christian charity offering help to the homeless and marginalised. This also provided opportunities to volunteer which gave an understanding of the huge problems faced by so many people, especially the homeless and asylum seekers.Ian lives in West London and as a committed Christian is involved with St Paul’s Ealing and he keeps active by joining with the church cycling group.

Meet the leadership team
at the heart of Keychange

Stefan Cantore

Trustee
Stefan is a lecturer at Sheffield University Management School where he specialises in Organisation Development and Management Learning.Previously he worked in the NHS as a senior manager and also in public sector consulting. One of his interests is how to include everyone in developing and sustaining quality of care. Being a part of Keychange is a wonderful way of combining Christian faith with practical service.He has recently been appointed an elder of a local evangelical church in Sheffield. He is also learning to appreciate the benefits of walking in the Peak District and taking a break in its many cafés!

Meet the leadership team
at the heart of Keychange

Nicholas Leggett

Trustee
Nick has a wealth of experience as a board member across health, housing and student unions and has served on boards since 2005. His full-time role is as a Church of England rector in Northamptonshire, where he has six small village churches.His board work began when he was elected onto the Benenden Health care board and become chairman of both the Friends and the Hospital trust. He helped with the hospital redevelopment project which was a £45 million investment and supported development of new services across the hospital including a new fertility centre. He also serves on a day care centre board in Cheam pushing forward the centre pension policy. In the housing sector he is a board member for Co-op homes which has around 1400 properties mostly under management and he also serves as Vice-chairman of the student union of The University of East London as an external trustee.Nick has undertaken a full range of training for this role e.g. with the Institute of Directors including gaining a Diploma in Management from Bridgwater and Taunton College and has attended conferences in both health and housing sectors.He also supports community work – when he was working in Coventry he helped to set up a local foodbank, job club, and the city-wide winter night shelter for the homeless. He also works with young people where he is a chaplain with both the Air Cadets and Army Cadets.His interests include rugby and steam railways.

Meet the leadership team
at the heart of Keychange

Rebecca Stockman

Trustee
Rebecca has been involved in the provision of housing for many years having worked leading the YMCA in Wimbledon for 8 years, and since founding LivShare, a consultancy company focused on assisting the design and delivery of affordable shared housing for people on low income.Rebecca has also been part of the leadership of Merton Winter Night Shelter since its inception in 2011. In addition to her involvement with Keychange, Rebecca is a board trustee of Faith In Action, Merton Homeless Drop-In.In her free time, Rebecca often finds herself on unexpected adventures with her family like roller-skating in the park, camping with 5,000 others at Greenbelt festival and getting messy making cake.

Meet the leadership team
at the heart of Keychange

Sarah Powley

Honorary Treasurer
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Meet the leadership team
at the heart of Keychange

Brad Cook

Vice Chair
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It is a long established fact that a reader will be distracted by the readable content of a page when looking at its layout. The point of using Lorem Ipsum is that it has a more-or-less normal distribution of letters, as opposed to using ‘Content here, content here’, making it look like readable English. Many desktop publishing packages and web page editors now use Lorem Ipsum as their default model text, and a search for ‘lorem ipsum’ will uncover many web sites still in their infancy.

Meet the leadership team
at the heart of Keychange

Glenda Roberts

Honorary Treasurer
Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry.
It is a long established fact that a reader will be distracted by the readable content of a page when looking at its layout. The point of using Lorem Ipsum is that it has a more-or-less normal distribution of letters, as opposed to using ‘Content here, content here’, making it look like readable English. Many desktop publishing packages and web page editors now use Lorem Ipsum as their default model text, and a search for ‘lorem ipsum’ will uncover many web sites still in their infancy.