Community Souls was the leading social enterprise cleaning solution in London.
A community-conscious cleaning service for commercial and community spaces across our city.
Community Souls (2013 - 2023) was a community interest company that traded as a cleaning company, employing adults (18+) dependent on benefits, low income and furthest from the job market. It existed as a springboard for both their personal & professional development; providing secure employment and personal development support to break down barriers that prevent them from entering long-term employment.
Community Souls began in 2011 while I was working with children and young people in and around the Grange and Dollis Valley estates in North London.
Week after week, parents, siblings and local residents asked for help finding work. Some were navigating temporary accommodation, single parenthood, benefit rules or low income. Others were rebuilding their lives after prison or facing barriers that kept them furthest from the employment market.
I supported people with CVs, job searches, applications and interview preparation. It became clear that support alone was not enough. People needed accessible, flexible and fairly paid work that could fit around their lives rather than work against them.
Community Souls Cleaning Company was created to respond to that need. We started with no start-up funding, no investors and no established client base—just a £500 donation, a willing first employee and a determination to create something practical.
The goal was simple: to build a professional cleaning company that created meaningful employment and opportunity for people who had been excluded from it.
The Grange and Dollis Valley estates remained central to the company’s identity. Community Souls was built to carry the spirit, resilience and “soul” of those communities into the way we recruited, employed people and delivered our work.
10 years in social impact.
Community Souls was never designed to operate like a conventional cleaning company.
We did not use zero-hours contracts. We offered fixed-term employment, fair sick and holiday pay, and greater job security. We understood that employment alone does not remove the barriers people face, so we built personal development and practical support into the model.
An in-house Personal Development Coach worked alongside staff to build trusted relationships and support their individual goals. This included help with housing, legal issues, finances, physical and mental wellbeing, training and qualifications.
The work was challenging and complex, but the aim was clear: to help people gain stability, confidence, skills and routes into longer-term employment.
Over its ten-year journey, Community Souls grew from a local initiative into a London-wide social enterprise working across the charity, education, voluntary and community, statutory and private sectors.
30 people employed + supported.
Built a client portfolio of 22 companies.
Credible flexible, fairly paid routes into work.
Supported people to progress into further employment, training and qualifications.
Developed a theory of change to articulate and measure our model of impact.
One idea.
Our clients included the London Community Foundation, Conduit Capital, Barnet Council, YMCA and organisations across London’s charity, education, voluntary, community, statutory and private sectors.
Community Souls became a certified member of Social Enterprise UK, a trusted supplier through Supply Change, and an accredited London Living Wage employer. These milestones reflected our commitment to professional standards, fair work and social value.
Community Souls developed my entrepreneurial and leadership practice in real time. I learned how to turn an idea into a viable organisation: winning work, managing clients, recruiting and supporting staff, meeting quality standards, keeping the operation running and creating income to pay salaries and sustain delivery.
Behind every clean was a business that needed to work: contracts, payroll, equipment, compliance, customer relationships, staff management and financial discipline. Alongside this sat the social mission: ensuring the people we employed were treated with dignity, supported through challenges and given real opportunities to progress.
It was not a traditional cleaning company, so we did not operate or think like one.
The most important part of Community Souls was always the people.
The lives, backgrounds and experiences of the people who worked with us were personal and meaningful. Their hard work, contribution and belief in the organisation made Community Souls possible. Rather than reduce their journeys to simple case studies, I hold them with respect and gratitude.
“We were giving people an old-school, two hands, one foot, get your friend over the wall bunk-up.” A colleague and dear friend once said.
That spirit captures Community Souls: practical solidarity, determination and people creating opportunity for one another.
When I reflect on its decade of work, I think about the estates where the idea began, the people who took a chance, the barriers we worked through and the opportunities we helped create.
With the support of many people—and in loving memory of Sean and Jo—Community Souls was proof that a simple idea, built with commitment and care, can create lasting change.
Bill Drayton