Our history

From 2000 –

  1. TimeBank founded!

    Founded by the Government and BBC to inspire a new generation to volunteer their time, as Comic Relief had motivated a new generation to donate money.

  2. Time Together launched!

    Funded by the Home Office to develop and deliver a cutting-edge volunteer mentoring project to integrate refugees more effectively into UK society.

  3. 2002 – 2010 – TimeBank delivered the following mentoring projects:

  4. Young TimeBank:

    Mentoring young people in schools

  5. Back to Life:

    Matching volunteer mentors with young adults with mental health issues

  6. Leaders Together:

    Leaders from the wider charity sector supporting leaders of refugee community organisations, which later developed to business leaders supporting charity leaders in all areas

  7. Digitall:

    18-25 year old mentors matched with over 45s to support them to get online and break down intergenerational perceptions

  8. Futures Together:

    Younger Muslim women supporting older Muslim women with English language and computer skills

  9. Junction 49:

    Encouraging young people to set up their own online social action projects

  10. 2011 – 2017 – TimeBank delivered the following mentoring projects:

  11. Carers Together:

    Supporting carers both face to face and through our first online mentoring platform, preventing carer breakdown and working with volunteers who had previously been carers themselves

  12. The Switch:

    Mentoring young people as they transitioned from child and adolescent mental health care into adult care services (awarded MBF, APS 2013)

  13. Refugees into teaching:

    Matching refugees who were teachers in their home country with teachers in the UK to shadow and be mentored by them

  14. Parents First:

    Supporting parents to get online to help their children’s development

  15. Engage:

    Supporting young people not in education, employment or training to develop skills by managing a budget and running a small community project followed by six months mentoring

  16. Shoulder to Shoulder:

    London and Birmingham: supporting veterans and their families transitioning back into civilian society

  17. Starting Together:

    Matching young female care leavers with a mentor before they left care – our first pre-emptive intervention to support better transition

  18. Shoulder to Shoulder Erskine:

    Building on our London and Birmingham projects in partnership with Scottish veterans’ charity Erskine, mentoring veterans and their families transitioning back into civilian life

  19. City Opportunities:

    Mentoring care leavers who aspired to work in the City but who had no experience or connection with it

  20. Hidden Carers:

    Finding and supporting people particularly from BME communities who are caring but don’t self-identify as such with volunteer-led training sessions on benefit entitlement, support networks and their own mental and physical well being

  21. Time Together Birmingham:

    Matching asylum seekers and refugees with a UK national to support them to integrate into UK society

  22. RISE – Refugees into sustainable employment:

    Mentoring refugees through the challenges of working in a new country with different professional and cultural norms

  23. Talking Together:

    In 2013 we were awarded a £1.12 million contract from the Department for Communities and Local Government to set up and run volunteer-led, basic, functional English Language classes for Muslim women predominantly from Pakistani, Bangladeshi and Somali backgrounds. The external evaluation of this project showed a social return on investment calculation of £9.31 for every £1 spent and we were awarded the MBF, APS in 2015. Since that time our contract has been renewed four times and we have developed, reviewed and enhanced our curriculum

  24. TimeBank will celebrate 20 years of delivering volunteering projects.