Empowering Communities Partnership

The Empowering Communities Partnership launched in October 2021. It brings skills and experience from across the voluntary and community sector together to improve support for local groups and organisations and make it easier for people to volunteer.

Voluntary Norfolk, Community Action Norfolk and Norfolk Community Foundation make up the core of the partnership, with Norfolk Community Advice Network and FUSE Norwich alongside as strategic partners to widen the advice and support available.

Support for voluntary, community and social enterprise organisations includes things like information, advice, training or hands on support. It also includes help with finding funding and applying for grants (opens new window). The partnership also supports organisations with both finding volunteers and keeping volunteers, providing the Norfolk Get InVOLved volunteering portal (opens new window) and the Norfolk Volunteer Passport (opens new window).

Support also includes capacity building, which means activities that you might use to expand your organisation or to change its direction. Not every group wants to grow or change and so there's also support that can help organisations move from surviving to thriving.

The support offered by the partnership is funded through Norfolk County Council’s VCSE infrastructure support grant.

The Empowering Communities Partnership replaces the Working Together Partnership, which ran from 2017–2021.