Commonside Community Development Trust

Project description D07

The Commonside Community Development Trust is an active and growing community outreach organization whose staff and volunteers have accomplished a great deal. It has sponsored three IQPs (see http://www.wpi.edu/cgi-bin/Interactions/search.cgi?s=full&sponsor=Commonside%20Community%20Developer%20Trust and http://www.wpi.edu/cgi-bin/Interactions/search.cgi?s=full&sponsor=Commonside%20Development%20Trust) and one MQP (which created its web site and its graphic image).

Organisation name and address

New Horizon Centre

South Lodge Avenue

Pollards Hill, Mitcham CR4 1LT

Proposer's name and contact information

Naomi Martin

(44 0) 20 8764 9582

(44 0) 20 8404 2349

Naomi@commonside.net

Background

Commonside Community Development Trust has worked very successfully with WPI students over the past few years on projects addressing: volunteer involvement, marketing, website design and strategy tools. The partnership with Commonside originally grew out of WPI’s cooperation with the London Borough of Merton, where the Chair of the Trust works as Merton’s Principal Environment Officer.

Over this time, Commonside has grown from a new community development trust employing two members of staff and operating from a draughty former dental surgery, to become a larger organisation, operating from a former day centre for the elderly (in the same neighbourhood) with five members of staff, four secondees from the London Borough of Merton and a team of around seven volunteers. The Trust is funded by Bridge House Trust, for its work on sustainable development, by the Learning and Skills Council and European Social Fund, for its work with teenage mums, by the Esmee Fairbairn and Lloyds TSB Foundations for its organisational development work and is in receipt of a number of smaller charitable grants for discreet projects. The Trust is the contracted delivery partner for Merton’s Lunch Club for the Elderly in Pollards Hill, serving a cooked from fresh meal to around 25 older people daily, Monday – Friday.

Commonside’s growth and change are welcome developments but do need careful monitoring, eg finance management, HR and the changing role and responsibilities of the board and chief executive officer. The Trust is merging with the Community Centre next door (this is, in effect, a charity take-over) and thus a considerable amount of management and governance time is currently taken up ensuring legal due diligence for the merger.

Problem statement and objectives

The need for a Communications Strategy

Although the Trust and Community Centre have an active community interface – passers by dropping in to ask about room rentals, students attending English and literacy classes in the Teaching Room, local shoppers at the Monday and Friday market etc, recent studies have revealed that the Trust is only reaching a small proportion of the people it was set up to serve. The work it does is of a high standard but its reach is poor. This is particularly true in those parts of the area that are geographically furthest from the Trust and Community Centre’s building. The redesign of the website and advice on marketing and branding have improved the efficiency of these communications tools but it is now recognised that the bigger issue lies around the need for a Communications Strategy. No individual member of staff, volunteer or member of the Board has any particular skills in this field, hence the need for outside support.

The timing of this piece of work will be doubly useful, since it will enable staff and volunteers in the recently merged (i.e. expanded) organisation to review their own communications patterns and style – with each other across the organisation and with those people they seek to recruit, help and/or train. The design of a communications strategy will build on some of the evaluative work that has already been carried out and feed into future community consultations.