Evolve 2026: Shaping the future of community support through partner insights

By Courtney Thorne, Corporate Community Partnership Manager, ELBA

In January 2026, Evolve asked its community partners for feedback on the capacity building support, training and skills development they would most like to receive through the programme. The findings inform ELBA’s and the programme’s work for the year ahead.

Evolve is part of our skills-building offer at ELBA that supports community organisations in Hackney, Haringey and Tower Hamlets with organisational capacity building. This is all possible with the brilliant support from our corporate partners and their employee volunteers at Linklaters, Societe Generale, Societe Generale Foundation and UBS.

Key highlights from the survey:

• There is high demand for workshops on how to navigate AI in the third sector.
• A key priority for organisations is identifying and implementing an effective and tailored CRM.
• Many community organisations are thinking in more detail about how to be income enterprising, in a landscape with fewer funding opportunities and increased demand.
• Organisations also have a keen interest in project design and innovation.

This learning has led to the design and implementation of a new way of working for Evolve in 2026, with a focused approach on key themes and workstreams. This can be accessed like a gym package, in which you can interact in a multitude of ways:

1. The complete package – Interact with all forms of support.
2. The tailored package – A drill down into one specific theme.
3. The Pick & Mix – Choose the support across all themes that is most relevant to you.

This is an easily accessible and tailored approach. If you’d like to get involved with any form of support, contact [email protected].

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