Leadership for London community anchors

Strengthening leadership and governance

Between 2009 and 2012, bassac will work with London-based community organisations across the Community Alliance network to strengthen leadership and governance.

The programme will involve a minimum of 150 organisations and focus on:

• Strategic development
• Buildings development
• Strategic communications

It is being done in partnership with the Institute for Voluntary Action Research (IVAR).

Tailored support

The programme will include bespoke support and be delivered through a combination of peer learning, support networks, events and learning and communications resources.

Big challenges

A capacity-building pilot project and research by IVAR identified that community organisations face the following challenges:

• Over-reliance on key, dedicated individuals
• Under-developed and fragile governance
• Unstable finances
• High risk of 'mission drift'
• Issues relating to managing and developing assets and buildings
• Lack of skills in implementing a strategic approach to communications and work to promote voice and influence

Our response

We would like to achieve the following outcomes with our work: stronger leadership, governance and management within community anchors; staff with new skills and approaches to manage organisational problem solving; and greater capacity building support for community-based organisations.

We want community anchors to be more sustainable and for relationships between the Community Alliance and its members to become stronger. We aim to develop a sustainable model of capacity building for the future.

Has it worked?

Evaluation will be ongoing throughout the lifetime of the programme and two post-delivery reviews will be undertaken with all participants at intervals of six and then 12 months.

The London-based City Bridge Trust awarded a grant of £150,000 to fund this work.