Sobus provides a range of services which support voluntary and community sector organisations with the expected impact for those organisations:
- Capacity of VCS to support beneficiaries increasing
- Organisations reporting improved financial stability
- Organisations more able to demonstrate impact.
- Increase in partnership working
- Improved governance of organisations
- Greater success rate for commissioning contracts and grant funding
Sobus will know if it has been successful when we are:
- Able to demonstrate the impact its activities have to trustees and staff
- The first organisation contacted about the VCS in H&F by the local authority, CCG and private companies
- Very efficient and effective with the resources it has
- Generating an annual surplus to put into a building sinking funding, organisational reserve, staffing reserve and invest in future opportunities
- Generating enough unrestricted income to cover the cost of core functions
- Working with a broad range of trusted partners to offer and develop services, activities, events and new resources
- Having regular two way engagement with all VCS in H&F
- Highly rated by the VCS and partners in H&F
- Demonstrating the above with recognised quality standards
Our Services fit into four areas:
Brokering
being a broker between Voluntary & Community Sector (VCS) organisations and statutory, private and other VCS
Information and Intelligence
gathering, analysing and sharing information and intelligence on the VCS and needs of H&F
Capacity building
providing locality based capacity building
Affordable premises
being a provider of high quality and affordable premises for VCS and start up enterprises
Our Vision is
Leading the transformation of Voluntary Organisations into a thriving and significant sector which better identifies and supports the needs and aspirations of our communities.sobus
sobus is the Community Development Agency for Hammersmith & Fulham. It has been created through the merger of the Community and Voluntary Sector Association Hammersmith & Fulham (CaVSA) and the Fulham Community Partnership Trust (FCPT).
sobus operates across the Borough and works with community and voluntary organisations, social enterprises and business startups, residents and statutory agencies.
The name sobus has been created by combining the words ‘social’ and ‘business’ and was first used as the ‘brand’ for a joint Transforming Local Infrastructure Project between CaVSA, HAFAD (now Action on Disability) and FCPT. The name closely reflects a core operating principle for sobus which is to develop and promote enterprise as a means to supporting community and voluntary organisations to achieve greater social impact.
CaVSA
CaVSA Hammersmith & Fulham was the Council for Voluntary Services (CVS) organisation in Hammersmith & Fulham. The organisation was established in 1997 and over the years has provided a range of services based on two core areas of work:
- Capacity building support to community and voluntary sector groups and organisations, including training, information, advice and practical support with governance, fundraising, project development, monitoring and evaluation, Trustee recruitment etc
- Facilitating and supporting networking between groups and engagement with statutory and private sector partners.
FCPT
Fulham Community Partnership Trust (FCPT) was established to champion civic engagement and to keep the legacy of the New Deal for Communities alive in North Fulham. New Deal for Communities (NDC) was a national, decade-long government programme targeted at a number of disadvantaged parts of the UK, including North Fulham, empowering local people to design their own solutions to a huge range of difficult problems: poor health, crime rates, high unemployment, and low educational attainment. The programme ended in March 2010.
