Wrapping up Volunteers’ Week and the latest Compass Project

Written by Ruth Hislop-Gill, Community Development Project Manager – Evolve

As Volunteers’ Week 2023 wraps up, the Connect Team would like to celebrate and recognise the incredible impact our volunteers have on community organisations across east London.

The Connect Team works with business volunteers to offer much needed opportunities for community organisations to develop their resources in areas such as business planning, digital skills, financial planning and HR skills. Recently, the Connect team has been thinking about how community partners can utilise the expertise of business volunteers over a longer period of time. On the 12th of June, the Connect Team celebrated the end of the Compass Project, a programme in its second year of running intended to facilitate longer term, high impact support from volunteers.

Compass is a three-month programme where community organisations are partnered with a mixed group of volunteers from different businesses to work through a specific challenge they are facing. This year 11 volunteers took part, supporting three different charities across east London. The volunteers supported business planning, a set of policy reviews and IT database analysis across the three partnerships. Volunteers in this programme have contributed more than 200 hours of their time, an extraordinary commitment and testament to the dedication and hard-working nature of the volunteers on this programme. 

Volunteers’ Week is all about recognising this enthusiasm for supporting others, and in many ways Compass showcases this exactly. Volunteers frequently talk about the benefits of being part of a project that is so immersive and gives time for real change to take place. 

Have you got an interesting skill to share? If you would like to be involved in future Compass volunteer programmes contact community@elba-1.org.uk.

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