Leveraging Corporate Skilled Volunteering at Tottenham Foodbank

Link UP London in Conversation with Eniola Akinlabi, Corporate and Partnerships Manager, Tottenham Foodbank

Jul 2026

In this interview, Tottenham Foodbank’s Eniola Akinlabi describes her experience of leveraging corporate skilled volunteering events from Link UP’s Social Impact Solutions programme to make a tangible difference to her organisation.

What is your current role at Tottenham Foodbank?

I am the Fundraising and Corporate Partnerships Manager at Tottenham Foodbank. My role focuses on generating and diversifying income, building meaningful partnerships with businesses, funders and community stakeholders, and strengthening long-term sustainability.

A key part of my role is helping people understand that Tottenham Foodbank is more than an emergency food provider. Alongside food support, we provide access to advice and wider support that helps address some of the underlying issues driving food insecurity.

In simple terms, my role is about securing the resources, relationships and visibility we need to keep supporting local people and to build a more sustainable future for the food bank.

How did you first get introduced to Link UP London?

I was first introduced to Link UP London when they reached out to us about a Flash Consulting corporate volunteering event with Amazon UK, focused on strategy and planning solutions. At the time, we were developing a strategy for the foodbank, so the opportunity came at exactly the right moment.

Being matched with skilled corporate volunteers for a focused conversation gave us access to fresh perspectives and practical thinking that we might not otherwise have had. That first experience really showed me the value of Link UP’s model, especially for smaller charities like ours.

Tell us more about your involvement with Link UP’s Corporate Skilled Volunteering programme, Social Impact Solutions? Which corporates have you been able to work with?

Through Social Impact Solutions, we’ve attended three Flash Consulting corporate skilled volunteering events, and have worked with corporate volunteers from Boston Consulting Group, Amazon UK and Smart DCC. From there, we were subsequently also matched with an individual Link UP volunteer to support our work around fundraising strategy and corporate engagement.

The timing of these events was perfect. We were coming to the end of several funded projects, all of which supported staff salaries within an already small and stretched team. That made fundraising and long-term sustainability an urgent priority and there was a real need for us to think about fundraising in a more strategic and structured way.

Casting your mind back to the corporate events you’ve participated in, what are some of the organisational and business challenges that you’ve featured in your briefs for the events?

The challenges we brought to the sessions really reflected where Tottenham Foodbank was at different stages of our development. As the foodbank grew and the level of need in the community increased, we found ourselves having to think not just about day-to-day delivery, but also about the systems, strategy and sustainability behind our work.

One of the first challenges was around project management for our housing disrepair campaign. That campaign had a lot of moving parts, from research and stakeholder engagement, planning events, and thinking about how to influence decision-makers. I spoke to volunteers from Boston Consulting Group about how to approach that work in a more structured and phased way, so it felt less overwhelming and more manageable.

Another challenge was around organisational strategy. We had reached a point where we had grown beyond being just an emergency food provider. We were running different activities, building partnerships, doing campaign work, providing advice and thinking more about long-term change, so we needed a clearer strategy that reflected the full picture of our work. That was something I explored with volunteers from Smart DCC, who were a fantastic help in supporting me to step back and think through our priorities more clearly.

Data, impact and evaluation was another big theme. We realised that although we were collecting some data, we weren’t using data as effectively as we could. This became more important as we started thinking about stakeholder engagement, fundraising and reporting to funders. The session with Amazon UK helped us think about how we could use data more intentionally as something that could help us understand need, evidence our work and make better decisions.

So the challenges varied, but they were all connected by the same bigger question: how do we strengthen our organisation behind the frontline service? We were trying to make sure that we could keep responding to urgent needs, while also building the strategy, systems and sustainability needed to support the community in the long term.

What was it like to work with corporate volunteers in a two-hour Flash Consulting format?

I didn’t really know what to expect at first, but it ended up feeling a bit like having access to a small team of consultants for two hours, which was incredibly valuable, especially as that kind of expertise would usually be very costly for a small charity like ours.

The corporate volunteers were really good at asking thoughtful questions, suggesting ideas and helping me look at the challenge from a different angle. It never felt like they were just giving generic advice. It felt like they genuinely wanted to understand the issue and have some kind of impact, even within a short session.

Did Link UP’s corporate programme help you access skills and capabilities that Tottenham Foodbank wouldn’t otherwise have?

Definitely! We’re a small team of four, and because we’re so close to the day-to-day running of the foodbank, a lot of our work is naturally reactive. There’s always something urgent to respond to, so having the space to step back and think more proactively was really valuable.

The corporate programme gave us access to skills and capabilities we wouldn’t normally have had access to, without the budget to bring in consultants or specialist support. It meant we could benefit from people with experience in project management, strategy, data, communications and problem-solving, and apply that thinking to real challenges we were facing.

So yes, it definitely helped us access skills we wouldn’t otherwise have had. But more than that, it gave us space to think, structure and confidence to think differently about the challenges in front of us.

Did the corporate volunteers you were matched with at Flash Consulting help you to unlock specific actions to address your challenges? Can you give an example of how the recommendations from your corporate volunteers have made a difference?

I think one of the most useful things about the Flash Consulting sessions was that the volunteers helped me move from having a broad challenge in my head to having a clearer set of actions I could actually take away.

A good example was the session with Boston Consulting Group, where I brought our housing disrepair campaign as the challenge. One of the practical suggestions was to map out everything that needed to happen, break it down into phases, and create a project schedule with a timeline, owners and key dates. That helped me see the campaign more clearly. It meant I could work out what needed to happen next, what could wait, and what could potentially be delegated to someone else in the team. It shifted the work from something I was trying to manage quite loosely to something that could be mapped out and managed more intentionally.

The difference created was not that they came in and solved everything for us in two hours. It was that they helped us take challenges that felt big or slightly messy and turn them into something more structured, phased and actionable. I could then take those ideas back to the team and use them straight away.

What would your advice be for companies and corporate volunteers who are considering a Flash Consulting event?

My advice to companies and corporate volunteers would be to get involved, because it really is a worthwhile and meaningful use of your time. For small charities, having access to people with professional skills, strategic experience and fresh perspectives can be incredibly valuable, especially when that kind of support would usually be difficult or costly for us to access.

I think corporate volunteers might sometimes feel pressure to come into a session with the perfect answer or a ready-made solution, but that is not always what charities need. Sometimes the most helpful thing is having someone act as a sounding board, ask thoughtful questions, challenge your thinking, or help you see the issue from a different angle. That alone can unlock something really useful.

For companies, it may only be two hours, but those two hours can genuinely support a charity doing important work in the community. Many small charities are having a big social impact with limited resources, so sharing your skills in that way can go a long way.

My advice would be not to underestimate the value of your experience, but also not to feel like you have to solve everything or have all the answers. Sometimes the most helpful thing you can do is listen, ask thoughtful questions, and help the charity untangle the challenge in front of them. Even if you only help them leave with one or two clearer next steps, that can be incredibly valuable.