Projects And Impact Reports

At Time & Talents we are proud of our record in the Westminster community. All of our projects are set up and managed by us from start to finish, and deliver consistently high standards of support to those in need. Here you can find more information about some of our recent work. Below we showcase the seven main benefits that organisations can gain from partnering with us.

1. Concentrated Impact

Whenever requested we support our partners to run concentrated volunteering activities over a prescribed period of time. The Pacific Investment Management Company (PIMCO) runs an annual global volunteer week and we support their London staff to support Westminster-based organisations. Over six days in June 2017 Time & Talents supported 93 PIMCO employees to volunteer over 290 hours on 16 projects. These projects included serving breakfast, painting, delivering skilled workshops on project management and providing employability support, jamming in a music session with people with learning disabilities, and playing with the children who attend the Portman Early Childhood Centre.

For many years Time & Talents has been a trusted advisor and partner as we've built up hands-on and skills-based volunteer opportunities, plus ongoing strategic corporate citizenship programmes."

Sarah Middleton, Senior Vice President, Global Corporate Citizenship and PIMCO Foundation 

2. Share Your Skills and Expertise

We love volunteers who want to share their skills, everyone can add value to the community through their skills or interests. Time & Talents has a long-established relationship with the Department for Transport and a number of their employees are currently supporting a local youth group for people with learning disabilities to increase their confidence in travelling round London. This is aimed at simply giving them a voice to hear their concerns and create an understanding, while also creating practical activities to utilise technology and signpost support that is already in place. Both the volunteers and the young people are continually learning from one another’s experiences.

3. Bring Your Staff Together

In July 2016 the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) was created when the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) merged with the Department for Business (BIS). This naturally brought about significant changes in the way staff worked. DECC already had a deep rooted volunteer culture and, as a result, BEIS decided to continue supporting staff volunteering as such activity would greatly help the two organisations work successfully together. Within the last year or so, 174 employee volunteers at BEIS gave 785 hours of their time benefit more than 600 community members in Westminster.

One of BEIS's strengths is the sheer number of volunteers that can be mobilised. Community organisations see this support as invaluable, particularly as their resources and funding dwindle. A large BEIS team, will take only a few hours to complete a task that would take a third sector organisation days to do, allowing staff to focus on the important work of supporting people rather than worrying about, say, their organisation’s outside space deteriorating.

The day was really well organised and it felt like we were doing a really valuable task. Seeing how happy the organisation was after our work was completed really brought home how much of a positive impact volunteering can have."

BEIS volunteer 2017

4. Collaboration Creates Impact

Volunteers from John Lewis, Westminster City Council and the department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy teamed up with Westminster City School to support their year 7 pupils (aged 11 to 12) as reading mentors. These students arrive at the school with vastly differing ability levels in literacy, so this reading mentoring scheme aims to help them get to the level of their peers. Such support at the earliest stage of a student's secondary school career has a proven impact on later academic development. Among developed nations, the UK shows the clearest link between poor literacy and unemployment. The help that volunteers have given them will directly influence and contribute to the students' future achievements for many years to come.

The reading mentoring programme was a great success. Our pupils enjoyed reading and discussing their books with the engaging and friendly mentors. I saw them improve their comprehension and grow in confidence reading aloud."

Chris Chapman, Library Manager, Westminster City School

5. Volunteering Aims That Allign Align With Your Business

Time & Talents can provide a service that directly correlates with your aims as a business. One excellent example is HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC). As it concentrated on its services being digitalised, HMRC's employee volunteering programme also focused on digital inclusion within the community. Within the last year, HMRC volunteers have supported Open Age, Penfold Community Hub, Migrants Resource Centre and Migrants Organise with IT workshops to up-skill the clients of these organisations. Of particular note, in March 2017 HMRC supported  Penfold Community Hub with an IT session for older members living in the Church Street area. As well as providing one-to-one support to older residents for their general IT queries, specialist staff delivered a session highlighting free software that people with mobility issues and/or impairments can utilise to make using IT equipment easier.

Our skills-based volunteering programme has required opportunities tailored to our key themes of youth employability, tax education and digital inclusion. We have been very impressed with the range of interesting and relevant volunteering opportunities that Time & Talents has made available to our staff to meet this agenda."

Lynda Moulding, HMRC partnership in Westminster 2013-2017

It definitely feels good to help others in the community. IT/smart phone usage is something we take for granted, but it can be very difficult for older people to understand."

HMRC volunteer 2017

6. meet the people that benefit from life-changing services

Social enterprise Turning Point (which helps people turn their lives around) had three consultation rooms and a training room that needed rejuvenating. It would have been easy to get a team in to redecorate and then leave – job done. Instead, we involved service users from Turning Point in the project, they chose the colours and helped on the day. Volunteers for leading marketing agency Proximity worked alongside Turning Point volunteers to transform the space, as well as sharing lunch and life experiences. Proximity volunteers were able to understand the service better and meet the people behind the statistics and impact reports. In turn, the Turning Point volunteers were able to participate in a positive project the helped build their confidence and met new people. It was more than just painting a room, it was empowering and eye opening.

This was my third Time & Talents participation. They have all been very positive experiences, well organised to help people in our local community."

Proximity volunteer, 2017

Impact Reports

Below please find reference copies of this year's and earlier impact reports.