Connections between charities and companies? When it works, it’s a true win-win. At Link UP London, we’ve seen first-hand the value of strong partnerships between small charities and companies. Through our Corporate Skilled Volunteering programme, Social Impact Solutions, we’ve learned that these connections can unlock skilled support, build long-term capacity, and create lasting impact for under-resourced organisations. Via programmes like our Flash Consulting engagements, we know that even short, high-impact volunteering events can spark meaningful change.

In this interview, Link UP London’s CEO Kim Perlow and Head of Corporate Partnerships Nicolle Brooks share their insights on what makes these Corporate Skilled Volunteering collaborations work well, and practical ways to build effective, mutually beneficial partnerships.
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How does Link UP London connect small charities with corporates through skills-based volunteering programmes?
At Link UP, we offer a range of Corporate Skilled Volunteering programmes that bring groups of employee volunteers together with small London charities for high impact volunteering events. These range from two-hour, quick hit Flash Consulting sessions, to full day events, to multi-month consultancy-style programmes. These engagements are an end-to-end solution to help corporates fulfill their ESG and CSR priorities and connect with communities whilst providing access to high-quality, skills-based volunteering opportunities for their employees.

What makes your approach to skilled volunteering different from traditional volunteering models?
With Link UP’s approach to volunteers, skills are at the forefront. As opposed to traditional frontline volunteering such as gardening or classroom reading, skills-based volunteering gets corporate volunteers working directly with charities to use their professional skills to help address business challenges the charity is currently facing. This helps small, under-resourced charities fill capacity gaps they may have in their organisations, and allows volunteers to use their professional skills in an exciting new way.

Why do you think so many corporate volunteering days go unused each year, despite strong appetite on both sides?
Recent research shows that fewer than ⅓ of volunteering days offered by employers are used across the UK. We know that many busy professionals - and the companies they work for - struggle to have the capacity and connections to source high-impact volunteering opportunities on their own. It can be particularly challenging to find something for the 8 to 16 hours that most employees are allocated a year. Plus, traditional, manual volunteering opportunities don’t appeal to everyone.

And at the same time, smaller charities struggle to access support from volunteers who have the skillsets they need. Link UP London helps to bring the two sides together via structured, facilitated, high-impact skills-based volunteering programmes.

How does your model ensure both charities and corporates see real value from their engagement?
At Link UP, everything begins with finding the perfect match between charity and volunteer. We understand the charity’s needs, and then find just the right corporate volunteers to address those needs. Building upon this effective matching, we then bring our extensive experience with skills-based volunteering to effectively facilitate engagements that are guaranteed to deliver impact to those both sides, even from just a couple of hours of volunteering.

How have you seen corporate volunteers themselves benefit from these engagements?
We continue to be amazed by how much our corporate volunteers tell us they gain. The benefits range from purpose and belonging, happiness and wellbeing, team-building, job satisfaction, and the transferability of skills. Last year, 82% of our corporate volunteers reported a renewed sense of value in their professional skills, 75% felt more purposeful, and 85% felt they’d made a real contribution to the community after one of our Flash Consulting events.

As one corporate volunteer commented, “There are skills that you have, that you might not think are valuable; but I was working with the CEO of the charity today, who doesn’t have those skills. So you realise they are valuable, and that makes you feel really great!”

What kind of long-term capacity can be built through short, high-impact events like Flash Consulting?
Small to medium sized charities that have interacted with corporate volunteers through our programmes have been able to progress a wide variety of organisational priorities ranging from general strategy, business planning, operations, marketing and communications, social media, data and technology, HR, and more. Even just a two hour event can present a charity with fresh new ideas, plus a tangible action plan to take the recommendations from volunteers forward.

For example, as a result of participating in a Flash Consulting event, the charity Community Tech Aid’s Partnerships Manager Stephanie explained the direct result of the session on her work, “Working with the skilled volunteers at Smart DCC was incredibly valuable. They helped me draft clear, engaging communications that I could send to businesses that addressed common misconceptions with a clear call to action. We also discussed ways to create maximum impact with minimal effort, which led to ideas like impact videos, something we are now working on.”

What’s the biggest lesson you’ve learned from running skills-based volunteering programmes, and how has it shaped the way Link UP works today?
Always keep people at the core of everything you do. The quality and high-impact results we see from our Corporate Skilled Volunteering programme are down to never losing our grounding in good, solid volunteer/charity matching based on truly understanding the needs of our charities and likewise learning about and appreciating what drives and motivates our skilled volunteers. That people-based discussion will always remain at the heart of our processes and fuels our programmes.

If you could give one piece of advice to a small charity that wants to build stronger corporate connections, what would it be?
Get yourself out there! There are a huge number of companies who are keen to connect their highly skilled employees to meaningful ways to give back to the community. Give opportunities like Corporate Skilled Volunteering a shot and see how much that skilled support can unlock.

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