It’s now just over three weeks since we gathered business leaders from across the county, to share more about this summer’s Community Action Suffolk-led initiative – #TheBigSuffolkPledge.
Our breakfast event, held at the Suffolk Food Hall, gave an opportunity for Suffolk’s High Sheriff, Mark Pendlington, to emphasise his support for the concept, and to call upon leaders to ‘do their bit’ by pledging in the name of volunteering.
Since this event, we’ve been so encouraged and excited by the response received.
We’ve seen numerous pledges by companies, individuals, teams and communities….and they keep on coming.
From businesses offering to tackle garden projects for voluntary causes, to carrying out neighbourhood initiatives, providing the use of their offices or facilities, or, as we had hoped for, deciding to commit to create an Employer Supported Volunteering programme.
ESV is one very straightforward but impactful ‘legacy approach’ which any company could undertake.
It means formally having a structure in place whereby staff can give a set number of hours or days per year to voluntary sector work, or it might mean the company themselves undertaking specific causal work as a team annually.
If you’ve not yet opted for this route, please have a think about the great many benefits it could bring to your employee culture and your engagement with your community, and get in touch with myself and the team at CAS to learn more.
While sharing this update, we’d also like you to know about a very important intention, for which you might want to save a space in your diary.
On 27th September, we plan to stage an ‘open to everyone’ ESV Taster Day.
We will be firming up details and sharing them with you in due course, but the hope is that we can bring a great number of businesses together, to get involved in a sizeable voluntary sector project – in a limited time of just one day!
If the thought of this excites you, please feel free to make contact with us so that we have you on our list for when more information is available.
Share your details with me via [email protected]
In the meantime, if you, or someone you know, is yet to make a pledge, please tell them to head over to: https://www.communityactionsuffolk.org.uk/thebigsuffolkpledge/make-your-pledge/