Our new strategy 2023 – 2027

DOWNLOAD our new 5-year strategy

WATCH a short film by Aaron Barbour, our Chief Executive and Abby Cable, our Vice Chair of Trustees

 

What’s in a strategy?

Since completing our last 5-year strategy KLS is now larger, busier and operating within a community attempting to recover from the impact of the Covid pandemic, grappling with the cost of living crisis and do its part in responding to climate change. 

We have added to our community programmes and now regularly support 800 members. We supported nearly 30 charities to start-up and grow. We became an active coordinator of the charity & voluntary sector in Battersea and Wandsworth. We supported 10 campaigns, with notable successes including Wandsworth Council becoming a London Living Wage employer and creating a Borough of Sanctuary for refugees and asylum seekers. 

We’re able to spend almost twice as much on making a difference, in part thanks to the generous support of the individual donors and Charitable Trusts who have supported us since 2017. And are ably supported by a fantastic team of staff and volunteers who work closely with our amazing members and partners. 

Today’s the day

We’ve known that we needed new strategy for a while. We spent much of last year listening and talking with our members, volunteers, staff, supporters, donors and partners to develop a new one. We are not ripping anything up, simply building on the amazing stuff KLS has always done. 

We’re delighted to be formally launching our next 5-year strategy today. 

The core of KLS remains constant

Everything we do will stay true to our vision, values and aims of creating an inclusive society where the people of Battersea and the wider Wandsworth community achieve their potential together. We continue to be led by our values of collaboration, respect, kindness and lasting sustainability in all that we do. These enable us to achieve our aim of fostering and empowering local communities in Battersea to tackle poverty and reduce isolation. 

Growing our community Programmes

Our community programmes will continue to grow and evolve to meet the changing needs of our members and the local community. Within our teams we will: 

  • Elders Programme: deepen support to enable more independent living, improve health and wellbeing and increase friendships and social support. 
  • ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) Programme: extend extracurricular learning alongside the classroom.
  • Love to Learn Programme: progress children and young people from early years through to the world of work.

We will continue to work with passion, commitment, ambition, empathy, love, care and kindness.

Increasing our partnerships 

We cannot and should not try to do everything ourselves. We know from experience that better outcomes are achieved by working in partnership. To this end we will deepen the relationships we have with our 60+ partners and inevitably develop new ones too, as issues and opportunities emerge. We will continue to work with partners who:

  • help us deliver our community programmes.
  • we can signpost and refer to, so that we are each playing to our strengths and expertise.
  • can work strategically and ‘on the ground’ through our networks and partnerships.
  • we can incubate start-ups enabling them to grow and thrive as community organisations and charities.
  • campaign for social change.

Strengthening our foundations 

We are a larger community organisation in Battersea supporting more members and activities than ever. Having nearly doubled in size over the past five years, we have asked more of our people with minimal change to processes. We need to invest in support functions, our systems and processes and our buildings, making them robust and sustainable enough to underpin both our own activities and those of our partners. 

Along the way 

We will refurbish our main building on Battersea High Street; work out of more community venues near us; and do a lot more to reduce our carbon footprint. And, we’re going to celebrate our 100th birthday in 2024. 

We need your help 

To achieve this we are going to need more of your help and support. We totally appreciate everyone who supports us already with their time, money, networks, kindness and love. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. 

We hope you will join us over the coming five years to make this new strategy a success. It is only by working together that we will make this happen. As this proverb inspires us: ‘If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.’

Get involved 

Please get in touch with Aaron, our Chief Executive, on 020 7223 2845 and [email protected] to discuss this further and explore how you could get involved.

 

DOWNLOAD our new 5-year strategy

WATCH a short film with Aaron Barbour, our Chief Executive and Abby Cable, our Vice Chair of Trustees

Support our family

We are committed to building stronger communities and enabling people to challenge themselves and find ways out of isolation through our varied community projects. There are so many ways you can support our work and help us to deliver our services to even more people.

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