Leaders In Partnership: Supporting our community leaders through coaching

Written by Jonathan Tait, Programme Manager, BIG Alliance

September saw the launch of three new Leaders in Partnership programmes across ELBA and BIG Alliance. Leaders In Partnership pairs senior staff members from a range of local charitable organisations with a business volunteer for a 10-month long, 1-2-1 coaching relationship. The past 18 months have been a very trying time for community leaders with many having to restructure services to continue delivery through lockdown and future proof their organisations for the post COVID world. Support of this nature is perhaps needed now more than ever.

Whilst Leaders In Partnership programmes have been run at ELBA for a number of years, BIG Alliance were excited to offer Islington-based community leaders the opportunity to participate in a tailor made programme. The ELBA Team were also excited to launch their second Everyone’s Business cohort, supporting leaders of organisations working to tackle knife crime and serious youth violence.

Dan Gothard, a participant from one of our previous programmes said: “The Leaders In Partnership Programme has had a far-reaching impact, not just on my working life but in my confidence and happiness generally. I’ve also been really surprised by what I have been able to offer to my coach and that it has become a two-way exchange of support. It now feels as though we have a mutual coaching relationship, but I look up to him from the perspective of professional leadership abilities”.

Dan’s Coach, Dev Madhavan, said: “Our partnership helped Dan excel to greater inspiring heights, which made me realise that I can build on this and do more for others. I was also surprised by how much I learnt from Dan – and how much I learnt about myself – through the process”.

At ELBA and BIG Alliance, we love to hear about how volunteers have supported their partners but believe that the learning experience is a two-way process. That’s why we call it Leaders In Partnership!

Across the three programmes, over 40 community leaders have been matched with a coach. We can’t wait to find out how they get on!

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