In early February, housing association A2Dominion ran their first in-person matching event as part of their partnership with Match My Project, bringing together suppliers and community organisations from across London and the South East to build meaningful, long-term partnerships.
The venue set the tone.
Mahaba Café creates employment pathways for young people with special educational needs, disabilities and autism.
As Advanced Maintenance UK articulated, the setting perfectly epitomised the theme of the day: long-term impact over short-term fixes.
What happened in the room
The event brought together suppliers, those with time, skills and resources to give, and community organisations, those already powering our communities.
That’s the connection Match My Project is built on: linking the people who know where the gaps are with those who have the means to help close them, so that what results is meaningful and genuinely felt, rather than peripheral or transactional.
The community organisations in the room were already delivering: Bromley & Croydon Women’s Aid providing vital crisis support; Cycle Sisters, We Run Ealing and Zebra Sports building confidence through sport and creativity; The Garden Classroom connecting children to the outdoors; The Store Cupboard and SUFRA tackling food insecurity with dignity; Sylvia Beaufoy Youth & Community Hub creating safe spaces for young people; and Trailblazers helping people into employment, among many others.
They weren’t pitching.
They were there because they were already deep in the work.
What they needed were partners willing to step into that — on their terms, in service of what they’d already built, and genuinely curious about how to help it grow.
For suppliers, it was a chance to share what they’d been contributing through the platform, to meet the organisations they’d previously only connected with online, and to start conversations with new organisations about collaborating on future projects.
What Match My Project is — and isn’t
The event showed the impact of connection: Social Value delivered together rather than in fragments.
The Match My Project platform is not about removing these opportunities for organic relationship-building, or systematising them so businesses can deliver their Social Value commitments in as low-effort a way as possible.
Far from it.
We built the platform to remove the heavy-lifting that can damage or hinder creating meaningful impact — funnelling effort, reducing the admin burden so when organisations come together, it’s a perfect fit. So community organisations get the support they need, not what has been assumed.
It’s about helping supplier commitments go beyond compliance, towards genuine, targeted outcomes felt by the local community.
The technology can’t replace what happened in that room: people understanding who they’re working with and why it matters.
The platform provides the foundation. Our partners — authorities, businesses, and community organisations — make it real.
Ready to get involved? Find your local authority at matchmyproject.org to get started.
Huge thanks to the team at A2Dominion for organising such an inspiring event, and to every organisation across the voluntary and private sector who came along and made it the opportunity it became — for sparking conversations and new connections around making our neighbourhoods better, more resilient places.
Congratulations to AD Construction Group, Advanced Maintenance UK, Mitie & AkzoNobel Dulux, Mulalley and Rose Property Services on their well-deserved award wins!
Discover more
Bromley & Croydon Women’s Aid | Cycle Sisters | The Garden Classroom | Mahaba Café | The Store Cupboard | SUFRA | Sylvia Beaufoy Youth & Community Centre | Trailblazers Mentoring | We Run Ealing | Zebra Sports
Got questions? Get in touch at hello@matchmyproject.org
