Hogan Lovells' EC1 Community Investment programme

To ensure that they tackle the most prevalent and pressing social issues, Hogan Lovells part fund a Business Link Coordinator at St Luke's. This position is seen as crucial, developing projects that are demand-led from the community, and in assessing the impact they are making.

The Coordinator position has provided St Luke's with the capacity and resources to seek out and engage with other corporate partners, enabling over 20 local community groups to receive support from 350+ corporate volunteers (other than those from Hogan Lovells.) This has built the volunteer capacity and enabled St Luke's to develop more programmes designed to tackle the issues within EC1.

One of the unique aspects of this programme is that they work with local EC1 organisations that St Luke's service users access, such as schools, social clubs, charities and SMEs.   Many social issues in EC1 can be prevented if tackled at an early age, so a number of their interventions start with primary school pupils - to help raise aspirations and attainment which will have an impact on joblessness in the area long term.

In 2010, Hogan Lovells dramatically increased the number of volunteers from 204 to 916, working on initiatives including:

• Debate It!: after-schools club run weekly by volunteers in 4 primary schools aimed at raising the confidence, self-esteem, written and communication skills of the pupils.  All data highlights that Debate it! pupils made above average progression in reading and writing.
• Older People's Events: 6 tea and dance events at St Luke's. 
• FoodCycle: new project run at St Luke's designed to tackle child poverty levels and introduce new clients to St Luke's. We've had 2 sessions with 30 service users attending, 5 of which were new to St Luke's.  Volunteers attend in teams.  It is a great social activity and breaks down office hierarchies. 
• JobClub: volunteers help to run the weekly JobClub which is held in St Luke's. They help apply for jobs and practice interviews.  This improves volunteers' communication skills and confidence, and raising awareness around issues of joblessness.
• Market Challenge: worked with community groups to help them sell products at the local market, which they lacked the confidence to do. 2 out of 5 community groups now regularly sell on the market after this help.