Absolutely Cultured built on the foundations of the city-wide volunteering they established as the 2017 UK City of Culture, with a specific aim to test the mobilisation of communities to address social isolation and loneliness.

They engaged over 4000 citizens across a series of community engagement programmes to create connections and spark change.

Read their blog on Handing over the reins - Moving from formal to community focused volunteering.

Church Action on Poverty expanded their Self-Reliant Groups to new areas, supporting people in low-income communities to increase their skills, resilience and assets.

They started up 26 new SRGs reaching nearly 200 people directly and many more in their peer support and information gatherings.

Cities of Service UK Expanded the work of four local authorities: Barnsley Council, Bristol City Council, Plymouth City Council and City of York, in mobilising the talents and energy of volunteers to meet city wide challenges.

Between the innovations they have supported 3,756 people supported by over 100 volunteers.

Equal Arts’ ‘Henpower’ is an asset-based relational care model that aims to empower older people to build positive relationships through hen-keeping. and hen-related creative activities in their local communities ,

They scaled to reach 20 more care homes to implement Henpower, working with over 6,000 residents, relatives and members of the local community.

Grandparents Plus developed and expanded their Kinship Connected peer support programme to support many more kinship carers across the country

An estimated 600 kinship carers were supported through one-to-one relationships and Kinship Connected peer support groups in 17 locations in London, the North East, West Yorkshire and Milton Keynes.

You can read more about their impact in their evaluation report.

Read more about Kinship carers- the forgotten heroes.

In2ScienceUK Expanded their programme to three new regions, giving more students the opportunity to learn about the world of science from scientists, engineers, and innovators.

They supported over 1000 young people from disadvantaged backgrounds with STEM opportunities, supported by over 600 volunteers.

You can read more about their impact in their evaluation report.

Read more about exploding students to science.

Library of Things is a social enterprise that seeks to improve lives and the environment by affordably lending out useful items and helping neighbours share practical skills.

They have supported over 3,000 people through either borrowing of 'things' or attendance at a variety of repair parties, mending meetups and DIY classes.

You can read more about their impact in their evaluation report.

Neighbourhood Watch developed ‘Communities that Care’ a community-led approach that helped older people protect themselves from fraud.

The project has engaged and trained 115 new volunteers and supported 682 beneficiaries, and was even successful in preventing a doorstep fraud incident due to the quick help of volunteers.

You can read more about their impact in their evaluation report.

Read more about how they listened to older people to help communities tackle fraud.

The Restart Project

Scaling their 'Restart Parties' to new locations across England. At these free community repair events, a volunteer fixer will help attendees learn how to repair their broken or slow devices - and tackle the growing mountain of e-waste.

Restart aims to prevent electronic waste and change the way people consume electronics by buying less and repairing electronics.

Read about their work ‘Repair is Beautiful’.

The Southampton Collective’s Breathing Spaces project tested out combining citizen science and citizen action to raise awareness and change behaviours around air quality in Southampton.

Breathing Spaces mobilised 150 volunteers to collect data, raise awareness and educate the community about the challenges of air pollution in the city.

One Million Mentors works to ensure that every young person in the country has access to a trained mentor as they transition into adulthood.

They grew to develop partnerships in London, the West Midlands and Manchester. 1870 mentors were mobilised, supporting 1989 young people.

The British Red Cross has worked across three London local councils (Waltham Forest, Barking & Dagenham and Redbridge) to develop community-led emergency response strategies through co-production.

They have engaged 23 community groups to date and were able to respond to Covid 19 in the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham, by quickly integrating the local authority response with the voluntary sector.

North Yorkshire County Council’s ‘Ready for Anything’ supports people to come forward and be trained as volunteers to help communities respond and recover from emergencies in an integrated and coordinated way.

They have signed up 376 local people to be ‘Ready for Anything’ volunteers, who can assist in emergency situations. They have already been involved across the area to offer assistance to communities during flooding and in response to COVID-19.

Voluntary Action North East Lincolnshire (VANEL)

Expanded their ‘Blue Lights Brigade’ initiative which engages retired Blue Lights personnel in volunteering in their local communities and supporting the preparation, response and recovery from emergencies.

They engaged with over 300 volunteers, the majority of whom were aged 50 and over.

Volunteer Centre Camden in partnership with Hammersmith and Fulham Volunteer Centre developed their ‘CAMERA’ project, an emergency volunteer programme in London Boroughs of Camden and Hammersmith and Fulham. The programme develops volunteers to support and collaborate with the public service response in an emergency.

They have trained 147 new volunteers ready to respond to an emergency.