Islington’s partnership power
By Kerry Taylor, Director of Partnerships, BIG Alliance
Islington feels like an incredibly special borough. As we enter into our peak season of volunteering activity, we have found ourselves working with many community partners that return time and time again to the various offers of support from BIG and our wonderful corporate partners.
We have four returning community partners participating in the 2025 Community Resourcing Programme (CoRe), alongside our corporate partners Macquarie, Slaughter & May and Expedia. We also consistently see community partners re-engaging with our other programmes, including as Leaders in Partnership and Emerging Leaders. BIG Alliance is supported in our work across the borough with our close ties with networks such as the Food Partnership Network and Octopus Network, whom we have worked with for many years.
Additionally, we are supported by longstanding businesses who are equally committed to positive change. Many of the BIG partners have been working with us to support the Islington community for many years. This provides a strong partnership of companies and community organisations working together with ELBA. Our partnership meetings, held quarterly, allow us to share best practice, update on recent trends and activity, and recent meetings have focused on how the partnership can better align our skilled volunteering programmes with businesses HR needs, which will become its own working group. It also means newer partners, such as our most recent joiner Canva, are bought into the fold with support from all across the partnership to build the biggest impact.
Successful, purposeful partnership requires continuous engagement. The change we are collectively enabling is very much down to the longevity of our partnerships, alongside the depth of understanding and awareness this brings. We would like to offer a BIG thank you to all our committed and engaged community and business partners for all they do – we couldn’t do it without you!
Photo © Ian Capper (cc-by-sa/2.0).