Get community engagement and volunteer support

Many Big Local areas want to strengthen their community engagement to support the delivery of their Big Local plan and strengthen their legacy as they get closer to spending their £1.15m. From learning how to recruit and retain volunteers, to commissioning local partners and creating new networks, we have support that can be tailored to your community engagement needs.

What support is on offer?

As a Big Local partnership, you can access bespoke support to get help with things like:

• community engagement and volunteer management best practice
• building effective partnerships with local organisations to engage more people and increase your impact and legacy beyond Big Local
• practical help with building capacity in your area using a commissioning approach, including writing creative briefs, promotion and evaluation and monitoring
• creating an equality, diversity and inclusion action plan and the use of creativity to increase diversity of those who engage.

The above are examples of how support could help your partnership, rather than an exhaustive list of options. The support will be tailored to your specific needs once you have met our partners.

Who delivers this support?

There are a range of ways we can support your partnership with community engagement. This includes:

• connecting you with one of our support partners like Take A Part who specialise in using creative commissions to increase capacity and deliver creative community engagement projects
• offering you membership of networks like the Community Practitioners Network, which brings together community practitioners from across the UK and provides an informal space where people can learn, reflect and take part in a wide range of issues-based discussions
• access to one-off training in working with and managing volunteers
• providing you with hands-on, specialist support to deliver against your Big Local Plan.

Areas will be matched with support depending on what their local needs are.

Interested in this offer?

If you’re interested in getting bespoke community engagement support, please fill in the form below and we will get back to you.

You can also speak to your area advisor or area coordinator if you’d like to chat through your options.

DISCLAIMER: Whilst in-area support with our partners is open to all, if certain support offers are oversubscribed, we will need to prioritize this depending on which areas need it most. This doesn’t mean your area will not get to take part in the offer – just that you may have to wait until support has been offered to priority areas first. For more details, read our Make it Happen FAQs.