ELBA is a charity established by the business sector in 1989 to support the communities of East London and beyond.
Our social goals are:
- To promote social mobility
- To eradicate poverty
- To fight inequality
We pursue our goals by harnessing the know-how, resources, goodwill and above all, the people-power of businesses to support communities, local charities and residents of the communities we serve. ELBA is a very practical organisation – finding and creating ways in which we can make a real difference. Each year well over 12,000 people from business give back to the community with ELBA. Our promise is that everything they do is needed in the community and will have an impact.
We organise our work in three themes:
ELBA has two trading subsidiaries – London Works and ELBA Works. London Works is a diversity recruitment agency and source of specialist expertise on issues of equality in the workplace. The plans for the coming year for London Works are included in this plan in the chapter on Employment. ELBA Works is used for those occasions where we are delivering services which attract VAT.
Our heartlands are the boroughs of east London and the City of London. We also have two teams which are geographically located and targeted. The BIG Alliance works in Islington in partnership with Islington Giving and the Macquarie Foundation. Canada Water Connect works in Southwark with British Land.
Eagles is ELBA’s graduate placement scheme – running for nearly 20 years, which gives exciting opportunities for bright graduates from east London and beyond the chance to get experience with major corporate businesses that they would otherwise not get.
The websites of the ELBA family of organisations and teams are:
Current Situation
We have now fully returned to pre-COVID levels of activity – and indeed are likely to significantly exceed those levels in 2023/24. Practical volunteering in teams and groups remains the most popular activity with potential volunteers. We will ensure that group volunteering can be undertaken in all our areas of activity, not just the Environment Programme. We will continue to maintain an on-line offer and individual volunteering opportunities for those who want to give back to the community in that way.
The challenges and changes we anticipate for the coming year include:
- ELBA will have a new CEO in this year following the departure of Ian Parkes after 8 years.
- The COVID shift in working patterns are starting to roll back somewhat, with more firms asking for increased presence in the office, but there will continue to be far more working from home than in pre-2020. Volunteering will remain a popular method for teams to keep in touch. ELBA’s job is to put that latent desire to volunteer to good use in the community.
- Measuring Impact – we will continue our journey by adding social value measurement alongside our anchor frameworks of UN SDGs, B4SI and SkillsBuilder
- We will continue to develop our digital interface -EVI – so that potential volunteers can get easy access to opportunities that interest them.
- Some deep seated social issues following the pandemic remain. We continue to deal with the cost of living rises, which are hitting the less well off in the communities we serve. We continue to face issues of social and racial injustice, and issues of how communities can respond to climate change and help protect the environment are continuing to gain prominence with both our corporate and community partners.
- We need to help our community partners – both organisations and residents to adapt to new digital technologies, while also making a good transition ourselves to be a more digitally enabled organisation.
- There will be a General Election in this year, so we need to be ready for any changes which may occur. The economic forecast is not as strong for the UK, but inflation will be lower. It’s our job to help the community however they are impacted, and provide practical means for business partners to help and support.
Once again, it will be a challenging and exciting year. We begin from a strong position with well established relationships with the business, education and community sectors. We have a strong leadership team and an excellent culture which stand us in good stead.
We will continue our digital journey and significantly increase the use we are making of digital technology to improve productivity. The aim is to automate basic processes where possible so that staff time is freed up for building partnerships and delivering face to face activities. We have designated a senior leader and deputy to drive forward both Salesforce as our database of record, and EVI (ELBA Volunteer Interface) as our volunteer interface. They are supported by internal champion groups drawn from each team.
Our Business Partners
ELBA works with around 100 businesses each year, in short and long term collaborations. ELBA is dependent on the commitment of our business partners and their staff – it is through them that we deliver impact in the community. We place great value on the longer term relationships with our business partners. Building long term partnerships is how we achieve impact. We are proud that 61% of our business partners have been with us for 5 years or longer, and 40% have been with us for 10 years or longer. In the last 12 months we have worked in one form or another with three of the original five founding business partners from 1989 – and the other two are no longer in existence.
We have early signs that the coming year will be tough for our business partners in financial services, with a very competitive sector envisaged. This may result in some budget tightening in CSR and ESG teams with consequent knock on to their contributions top ELBA.
Our aim is to achieve high levels of retention of existing partnerships while steadily welcoming new partners.
Impact
We continue our journey to improve the way we report impact. We have revised our theory of change and have adopted three anchor frameworks:
- Skills Builder
- United Nations Sustainable Development Goals
- B4SI
In the coming year we will be adding social value measurement as our fourth pillar of how we measure impact.
We publish an annual Impact Digest which summarises our approach to measuring outcomes, and highlights the impact achieved in the last year.
ELBA’s Theory of Change
People
ELBA comprises a happy team of 42 members of staff. Our people are at the heart of our success. We have worked hard to create an organisation culture where all colleagues can feel they are appreciated, can develop their skills and deliver fulfilling work.
There is a Leadership Team comprising the CEO, Deputy CEO, Finance Director, and two further directors, the HR manager and six Heads of Programmes.
Each year we conduct a Staff Survey and year in year out, people tell us the three things they like most about working at ELBA are the colleagues they work with; the worthwhile nature of the work we do; and that people have great agency in how they do their jobs.
Our aim is to be among the best employers in the charitable sector. Our aim is to pay at the higher end of the scale for medium sized charities, and to have a non-financial benefits package that is as good as any in the sector. In the last two years we have made enhancements to leave, life assurance, introduced a health cash plan, and enhanced maternity and paternity pay.
We have an active staff led wellbeing group – Welba- with a busy schedule of activities, and a staff led equalities and inclusion group.
In the last two years we have become much more systematic in how we develop our people. We have integrated our learning and development into a simplified annual review and monthly keep in touch cycle.
We are a very diverse organisation and we continue to reflect our communities – 46% of the population in ELBA’s five core boroughs are white, compared to 41% for ELBA. 14% of the boroughs’ population is Black, compared to 21% for ELBA; 29% of both ELBA and the local population are Asian and 11% of the population is mixed race compared to 7% for ELBA.
Some results from the annual staff survey:
What do you enjoy working at ELBA/LW?
- The people
- The work itself
- Flexibility in working patterns
- Culture, trust, being supported, recognition
- Chance to progress and new opportunities
ALSO: leave, diversity, learning and development, agency, manager
