London Mayor launches £4.5m volunteering programme
Howard Lake | 30 June 2011 | News
Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, has launched a scheme with corporate support to persuade thousands more Londoners to volunteer.
The £4.5 million Team London programme is supported by 10 major businesses including Bloomberg LP, IBM, Procter & Gamble and Mastercard.
Initial funding of £2 million came from the Reuben Foundation and £2.5 million from the Mayor. New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has provided additional support and resources through Bloomberg LP.
The programme aims to recruit around 10,000 volunteers to focus on six areas of activity, to act as leaders of uniformed youth groups, mentors, sports coaches, literacy champions, and to help London’s environment through planting trees and to support learning activities for older people.
The programme is based on the Cities of Service model created by Mayor Bloomberg in New York and now being implemented in over 100 American cities. London is the first city outside the United States to develop its own plan to bring individuals, public, private and voluntary organisations together to work more effectively to change communities.
New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said: “We are extremely proud that the approach to address pressing local challenges through high impact volunteer strategies has made its way across the pond, pioneered by Boris. We are looking forward to sharing your success here in the state and then working together to spread the word even further.”
The Mayor has appointed third sector organisations to deliver each of the inaugural projects, including Age UK, National Literacy Trust and National Skills Academy.
Londoners and London businesses can sign up from today.
www.london.gov.uk/teamlondon
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.