A look back at 2017 – Focusing on quality and partnerships has helped us grow

Thanks very much to everyone who has helped to make 2017 such an exciting, enjoyable and successful year for Dot Dot Dot.

We have grown geographically as well as in the variety and scale of our work, at the same time as pushing up quality, increasing our social impact and contributing to the debate on the housing situation.  All of this has been enabled by our strong partnerships with a large number of brilliant individuals and organisations.

Firstly, our partnerships with our guardians are central to our success.  We work hard to recruit friendly, reliable, resourceful people who are able to make the most of the homes they live in and to give time and energy to good causes. This year we crossed the landmark of 100,000 hours of volunteering since we were founded, meaning that we have supported our guardians to deliver more than 60 working years to charities across England.

Secondly, we’re delighted to be working with a range of new property owners this year, including Barnet Homes and the London Boroughs of Croydon and Lambeth, alongside our existing partners. We understand that all of our clients, large and small, are choosing to work with us on potentially complicated and sensitive projects – we are proud to have the opportunity to smooth these processes by managing properties that would otherwise be empty, to a high standard.

And thirdly, it has been great to partner with Cosmopolitan Magazine, property developers U+I and other property guardian companies to spread the word about the need for better homes for all and the positive impact that good housing can have on individuals and society. We had a lot of fun working with Cosmopolitan on their ‘Home, Made’ campaign – which has seen us house twelve of their readers, and contribute to discussion of the housing crisis on BBC1 and Radio 5Live. We co-hosted an event with U+I on the role of meanwhile projects in long-term regeneration schemes, and we worked with other leading property guardian companies to publish a definitive survey of the law on our sector, to make it more difficult for rogue operators to undercut basic standards.

We’re looking forward to continuing to strengthen and deepen all these partnerships in 2018 – and in the meantime, merry Christmas and a happy new year to all!