The Mayor of Solihull, Councillor Shahin Ashraf MBE and the Leader of Solihull Council, Councillor Ian Courts welcomed over 60 businesses and voluntary and community groups to the launch of Step Up for Solihull and Match My Project on 2 October.
Match My Project is an online platform that lets local businesses interact with community organisations across the borough. Businesses can find projects they might want to support to meet their social value or corporate social responsibility requirements. Similarly, community groups can explain what help they need or outline projects where they need specific support.
Step Up for Solihull is about local businesses using their corporate social responsibility programmes to increase their positive impact on the local community. Businesses can play a crucial role improving the wellbeing and prosperity of the areas they operate in. By stepping up for Solihull and offering expert services, information, and resources, through Match My Project, they can contribute to making Solihull an even better place to live, work and do business.
The official launch event follows similar events that have already built meaningful, ongoing relationships between the two sectors that have benefited communities across Solihull.
The Mayor of Solihull, Councillor Shahin Ashraf MBE, said:
“It was great to see local businesses and our borough’s community-based groups talking to each other and working out how they might be able to help each other.
“It is great that events such as this allow such positive dialogue between the voluntary and private sectors. I am glad that our business colleagues see the value in supporting our communities in addition to strengthening our growing and thriving economy. I hope that our community groups will find ways to harness this goodwill and expertise.
“I want to thank everyone who attended for taking the time to see how they can step up for Solihull, especially those who downloaded the Match My Project app and talked to new potential partners - long may these conversations continue and blossom for the benefit of businesses, communities and everyone in the borough.”
Councillor Ian Courts, Leader of Solihull said:
“I was really pleased to see so many here at the launch and to see productive conversations between our businesses and community and voluntary groups.
“Solihull has one of the strongest economies in the UK and offers a world class, well-connected place to live, work and invest, but we are also home to an active, diverse and well-supported community and voluntary sector.
“Step Up for Solihull will allow us to strengthen the connections between the public, private, and voluntary sectors. It can tap into businesses desires to be good neighbours and our communities’ ambitions which sometimes require extra help.
“To be clear, Match My Project isn’t just about money, matches could be skills-sharing, mentoring, volunteering or donations. These matches will help ensure that some of the remarkable energy and resources within our business community can be directed where they can make a huge impact.
“Congratulations to all those reaching out to others to make the borough an even better place to live and do business.”
Dan Ebanks, from Match My Project, said:
“It was great to meet so many businesses and community groups at the event in Solihull. It was obvious form the conversations that there’s an appetite for businesses to become more involved and engaged in their local communities and likewise community groups were keen to get support.
“Match My Project can help that process by being a virtual meeting point for the business and community sector, where community organisations can get help for their projects from businesses working with Solihull.”