Community partnerships

Hackney voluntary and community sector grants programme

The voluntary and community sector grants programme is available to local voluntary and community organisations to support projects for Hackney residents.

Hackney voluntary and community sector strategy

We developed the current VCS strategy (PDF 754kb) by working with the voluntary and community sector (VCS) to identify challenges and actions that will help the VCS thrive and keep supporting Hackney’s residents. It also aims to strengthen our partnership with the VCS. While things have changed over the past five years, much of the strategy remains relevant as it focuses on long-term goals. The refresh will give us a chance to review and update it for the current situation.

Thanks to our relationships and the work done on our new Equalities Plan, we have a lot of information to begin updating the VCS Strategy. However, we need to test this with our VCS partners, identify any gaps, and agree on a shared approach. This will help ensure that, even in challenging times, we are making the best use of our combined resources.

We’re planning many online sessions to share what we’ve learned and discuss the recent changes. The updated strategy will guide the design of a new grants program for 2025 to 2026 and beyond. All session presentations will be available on our website.

If you would like to join any of the sessions, or watch any recordings from previous sessions, visit our Community grants page.

​Volunteering for Hackney

Volunteering for Hackney is a new Council initiative in partnership with Volunteer Centre Hackney and Hackney CVS, providing support for small, locally based volunteer led projects to help them ‘be the change’ in their communities.

Your group could get, among other things:

• help with fundraising
• free meeting rooms
• one to one help with social media and communications
• promotion of your activities through Council channels
• free training on topics such as recruiting and retaining volunteers, safeguarding

For more information please contact communitypartnerships@hackney.gov.uk.

The Hackney Community Strategy Partnership

The Hackney Community Strategy Partnership is our local strategic partnership board. It ensures that we, and the organisations that work with us, are working towards our collective vision for Hackney.

We consider the whole borough and work across organisations, looking at the big challenges are that no single organisation or partnership can solve on its own, and work towards solving them together.

Hackney Compact

The compact agreement is an agreement between us and voluntary and community sector partners. It’s a set of shared principles committing us to getting the best out of the partnership on behalf of local people.

Hackney Armed Forces community covenant

The Council, together with Hackney Homes, Hackney Police, Hackney Council for Voluntary Services and representatives from the Army, Royal Navy, Royal Air Force, Greater London Reserve Forces and Cadets Association and national Armed Forces Charities signed a Hackney Armed Forces community covenant on 29 January 2013.

Charity and not for profit – discretionary rate relief

We can also give charities and not for profit organisations discretionary rate relief of up to 100%, if you are a registered charity in receipt of the 80% mandatory charity relief or a not for profit organisation. More information on charity and not for profit discretionary rate relief.