Hollywood Monster partners with Better Pathways
A Birmingham mental health charity whose signage social enterprise delivers real commercial projects while helping people facing significant challenges find their way back to work
A partnership with purpose on both sides
Better Pathways has been based in Digbeth, Birmingham since the mid 70’s.
Through their social enterprise, Better Signage, they produce real commercial signage for housing associations, construction companies and corporate clients, while running vocational pathways programmes that help around 130 people a week rebuild confidence, develop skills, and move towards employment.
Hollywood Monster has been delivering large-format print and signage across construction, property, retail and live events from their Tyseley facility for over 35 years.
They have the equipment, the contractor relationships, and the production capability to take on some of the most complex signage briefs in the UK.
The two organisations found each other through LoveBrum, the Birmingham charity that champions the people, places and projects that make the city worth caring about. It didn’t take long to see what they could build together.
“We chose Better Pathways because of who they are and what they’ve built over sixty years,” says Tim Andrews MBE, Chairman of Hollywood Monster. “The signage connection matters. But it’s the depth of their community impact, and the fact that they’ve been doing this work in Birmingham long before it was fashionable to care about it, that made this the right partnership.”
The scale of the two operations is different, and that’s precisely what makes the partnership work. Hollywood Monster takes on the large, complex, high-volume briefs. Better Signage handles work that fits continues to expand as its capacity, capability and growth journey continue. But every project that comes through Better Signage’s door is also an opportunity for the people working on it.
The people behind it
Around 130 people come through Better Pathways every week. Some are on a structured Employment Preparation Pathway, working towards a return to the jobs market. Some are supported volunteers rebuilding routine and confidence after a long time out of work. Some simply need to feel that what they are doing matters.
One apprentice in Better Signage came through Better Pathways’ employment programme at a point when getting there before lunchtime was a genuine challenge. The team worked with him, brought him on as an apprentice in the signage division, and he flourished. He recently emailed Sue Roberts, Better Pathways’ CEO, to tell her what the experience had meant to his life. He is now on the payroll.
As Naseem Taswar, Service Delivery Manager at Better Pathways, puts it: “We transform people’s lives. That’s what we do here. It might be “just signage” to many but behind the project is real purpose, we’re incredibly proud of the impact that we’re able to make through our continued progress – with Hollywood Monster at our side we’re going to be able to do so much more for people across the region.”
Every commercial project that flows through this partnership sustains and grows the programmes that make stories like that one possible.
Shared values, real impact
Community Champion is one of the five pillars of Hollywood Monster’s #MonsterImpact promise. The Better Pathways partnership is what that pillar looks like when it’s doing real work in the world.
For clients with ESG commitments, the social pillar is often the hardest to evidence in a way that feels genuine rather than peripheral. Choosing a supply chain partner whose work directly supports people back into employment, week in, week out, is one of the clearest ways to demonstrate that your business is making decisions that go beyond the bottom line.
Working with Hollywood Monster means your projects are contributing to Better Pathways’ vocational programmes in a direct and evidence-based way. We can tell you clearly what that contribution looks like, in employment pathways supported, volunteer hours generated, and outcomes achieved, in a form that’s useful for your own ESG reporting.
If that matters to how your business operates and how you choose who you work with, we’d like to talk.
Find out more
This is a long-term commitment from both sides. No end date, no point at which either organisation considers the job done.
If you’d like to understand what the partnership means for your projects, or you’d like to meet the Better Pathways team alongside us, we’d love to talk.
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