Bridging barriers with Bridging Barriers

We hear from ELBA community partner Bridging Barriers, an award-winning social mobility charity supporting underrepresented young people to become work-ready, about how they go the extra mile to get the most out of the ELBA offer, offering their tips, advice and needs. Kevin Osei, CEO, shares his thoughts.

What does your charity do?

Bridging Barriers is an award-winning social mobility charity supporting underrepresented young people aged 16–25 to become work-ready. Established in 2020 and supporting over 2000 16-25 years old since it launched, the organisation provides mentoring, employer partnerships, employability programmes, networking events and career development opportunities.

Tell us about your work with ELBA

Recently, members of our team attended ELBA’s Pitching & Communicating workshop and AI Upskilling workshop. Both sessions have been incredibly valuable, but the biggest lesson for us has been that the value of a workshop isn’t the two hours spent in the room — it’s what happens afterwards.

Following each workshop, community attendees are expected to share what they’ve learnt with their wider team and identify practical actions that can improve the organisation.

For example, after the Pitching & Communicating workshop, our Fundraising team began discussing how we could strengthen the way we communicate our impact, present funding opportunities and build longer-term relationships with funders and corporate partners.

Following the AI Upskilling workshop, our volunteers went beyond simply sharing notes. One team member produced an implementation report showing how the learning could improve our Careers Compass platform, while another identified practical applications for our fundraising work. Those discussions are now feeding into plans for an organisation-wide AI Working Group, led by our AI Lead, to help embed AI consistently across every department.

For us, success isn’t measured by attendance — it’s measured by implementation.

What are your top tips to get the most out of a workshop working with a corporate volunteer?

I’d share five pieces of advice:

• Be clear about the challenge you’re trying to solve. Rather than attending hoping to learn something useful, identify two or three specific questions you’d like help answering.
• Prepare beforehand. A short briefing document can make a huge difference. Giving attendees context before the workshop allows conversations to start at a much deeper level.
• Treat the corporate volunteers like consultants. Be open about your challenges, ask questions and invite honest feedback. Their fresh perspective is often where the greatest value lies.
• Encourage discussion, not just note-taking. The best workshops are interactive. The more you explore ideas together, the more practical the outcomes become.
• Plan what happens afterwards. The workshop should be the beginning, not the end. Decide in advance how the learning will be shared, discussed and implemented across your organisation.

Any final advice to other community partners?

I’d encourage organisations to think beyond the individual attending the workshop.

At Bridging Barriers, we see every external learning opportunity as an opportunity to strengthen the organisation. We encourage attendees to bring the learning back, discuss it with their teams, identify practical actions and consider how it could benefit the wider charity.

That simple shift in mindset has transformed how we approach skills-based volunteering. Instead of one person learning something new, the whole organisation benefits.

To stay up to date with the latest news, opportunities and success stories, please sign up to receive our monthly newsletter, here.