Providing charities with digital support
Earlier this year, we collaborated with one of our corporate partners, checkout.com, to offer a new programme for their graduates – Build Tomorrow Community Programme.
The programme’s objectives were twofold: to provide the local community organisations with much needed digital support while giving the graduate volunteers an opportunity to develop their soft skills and learn more about the charity sector and Islington’s community.
The 14 graduates were split into three teams and led by more senior checkout.com employees. They worked in tandem with a community partner they had been matched with, to overcome a digital challenge put forward by the community organisations.
Over a three month period, volunteers worked on helping the local charities to create, develop, integrate and organise their data management systems, websites and booking systems.
“It was a great experience, the volunteers were so enthusiastic and committed. What they achieved in a few weeks would have taken us months or years to do. The work they've done will completely change our daily working lives for the better.” – said Catherine Pymar, CEO of Hillside Clubhouse of her experience on the programme.
The outputs delivered by the volunteers will have a huge impact on the participating community organisations, including:
Saving admin time for the staff, so they can deliver their frontline services
Help the organisations to monitor, evaluate and demonstrate their impact more effectively
Help to better identify new and emerging needs for the service users
Better understanding of the training needs for staff
Better understanding of areas for growth and organisational development.
You can read the programme’s full Impact Report here.
If you are a community partner who could benefit from similar volunteer support, or a corporate partner who’d like to get involved in a similar programme, please get in touch with Marija Mikne at marija.mikne@thebigalliance.org.uk.
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