Active Essex and community partners strengthen voluntary sector organisations, through place-based support
Active Essex, working alongside community partners through Essex County Council’s Your Essex Community programme is accelerating efforts to build the capability and resilience of voluntary and community organisations across the county.
The place-based support offer is ensuring that local groups have the tools, skills and resources they need to meet the diverse needs of residents. By bringing organisations together, the programme is creating the conditions for stronger collaboration, shared learning and greater collective impact.
Community aspirations are being reflected across the place-based module through local training opportunities, peer learning events, and bespoke development support. Recognising that no two places in Essex are the same, Active Essex has worked closely with partners to understand where unmet support needs exist and how we can work together to build resilience and capacity in local voluntary sector organisations. This approach is uncovering deeper insights into local challenges, while helping remove barriers that often limit organisational growth.
Louise Voyce, Active Essex Relationship Development Lead, said:
“We’re proud to support this work and we aim to help build a thriving, connected and resilient sector that meets the needs of local communities.
Based on initial research from 138 voluntary community sector organisations, plus a series of listening exercises, we found that the biggest unmet support needs for the sector were sustainable income generation, access to free and low-cost training, help creating new partnerships and building networks and volunteer recruitment and capacity.
By working with local community organisations and Active Essex partners, we have already been able to excel in providing support to the sector and the impact we’ve seen over the past 6 months, has been great.”
To date, 94% of delegates that have participated in a Your Essex Community place-based support offer, have rated their experience as very satisfied with 82% stating they gained key takeaways that they could apply directly into their work. Similarly, over 100 individuals attended fundraising and small grant workshops learning how to write stronger applications, maximise awarded funding and strengthening governance and organisational confidence.
One participant from North Essex shared:
“It made me realise the number of options to apply for. It gave me focus and clarity on our next steps for applying for funding.”
Active Essex’s commitment to strengthening the voluntary community sector continues. As the organisation moves into 2026, further opportunities will be developed as part of this programme. These include Meet the Funder events, large grant workshops and sessions on partnership building and long-term sustainability.
For more information on the place-based offer and the Your Essex Community initiative, visit: www.activeessex.org/your-essex-community/
