In mid-March, we celebrated our partnership with Lambeth Council with an event at Lambeth Town Hall.
Bringing together local VCSEs, charities, community groups, businesses and suppliers, the event focused on building stronger local partnerships and delivering meaningful impact across the borough.
What made it distinctly Lambeth, though, was a strong sense of pride, resilience and community-led storytelling, combined with a diverse range of voices all working toward the same goal of improving local lives.
More than beneficiaries
For suppliers, the event was a valuable opportunity to connect with organisations doing important work in the community and to understand where support is needed most.
For community organisations, it was a chance to meet local businesses wanting to help.
We met Helping Hands Collective CIC, who provide accessible food and comprehensive wellbeing support, and Evolve Housing + Support, a charity working towards reducing homelessness in the London Boroughs of Bromley, Croydon and Lambeth, and the Royal Boroughs of Kensington and Chelsea, as well as Get Rid of and Donate, UK Latin Community, Traffic Light System (TLS) Boxing, and wellbeing CIC Lavender Hope.
Incredible Edible Lambeth were also in the room, doing the kind of work that stays with you: empowering local people to grow healthy, affordable food while creating a more biodiverse environment. Their ambition to build a localised food network, with growing spaces accessible within 100 metres of every home, is a powerful example of how community action can directly improve wellbeing and sustainability.
We heard from Autism Voice UK, a local charity working to improve the health and wellbeing of children and adults with learning disabilities in Global Majority communities.
Their CEO and co-founder, Mariama Kandeh, spoke not only about their needs and challenges, but about what they had already achieved — and that shift in perspective was an important reminder.
When the platform — rightly — focuses on filling the gaps in support and matching resources with need, it can be easy to make the mistake of viewing community organisations as simply beneficiaries.
By centring the work already done and the impact already made, everyone in the room is reminded that community organisations are strategic actors powering our communities, not passive recipients of support.
Community organisations are already deep into the work, and what they need is partners willing to step into that, on their terms, in service of what they’ve already built.
It’s a reminder too of what the platform is for.
Our team’s work — or any platform designed to support Social Value, for that matter — didn’t start from ground zero. Community organisations have been doing Social Value years before the Social Value Act was passed in 2012.
The platform provides just another tool in the toolkit, removing some of the heavy-lifting that can damage or hinder creating meaningful impact, funnelling effort and reducing the admin burden.
MMP does not replace established networks and community funding streams, but provides that extra degree of assurance.
A “living pipeline” of opportunity
Perhaps the idea that stayed with us most after the event came from Adam Matich of OCO Connect, a Community Interest Company working to advance financial and digital inclusion and empowering disadvantaged and vulnerable individuals and communities.
On the platform, OCO Connect operates as a business partner, drawing from their supply chain to support other community organisations, and Adam spoke to what that relationship has looked like in practice.
He described Match My Project as a “living pipeline” of in-kind and volunteering opportunities — and within just a few months, OCO Connect has completed over five projects and established three stable partnerships with other VCSE organisations.
For an organisation whose own mission centres on reducing inequality, those aren’t just business metrics, proof of Social Value/CSR compliance: they’re direct extensions of what OCO Connect exists to do.
What the platform provides, Adam noted, is the structure to make those relationships verifiable and sustainable, with clear impact tracking and streamlined reporting on both sides. The result is accountability that works for everyone, and partnerships built on more than goodwill.
Beyond operational benefits, this approach has had a noticeable positive effect on staff morale, with increased engagement driven by meaningful involvement in community-focused projects.
Looking ahead
The Lambeth launch was another reminder of what becomes possible when the community are all in the same room. We’re proud to be supporting this borough and we’re excited to see what these new connections go on to create.
Get involved
Are you a supplier or community organisation based in London?
Sign up to Lambeth’s site here. It’s free, quick and connects community projects with local suppliers.
Or, if you’re already registered with another authority, login and head to the authority switcher and click ‘Add new’.
Have questions? Reach out at hello@matchmyproject.org 💌
