Stronger Foundations, Bigger Impact: A Good Thing’s Skilled Volunteering Story

Impact Story by Skilled Volunteer | Nada Savitch

Link UP volunteers are different. Cathy from A Good Thing explains that although they regularly work with volunteers across their organisation, without the advice and guidance she received from her Link UP volunteer, the organisation might not have continued to exist.

Cathy describes the concept behind A Good Thing as very much like the ethos behind Link UP London. They are both match-making services that are all about facilitating local connections.

A Good Thing makes connections between businesses and local charities. They provide an online marketplace where businesses can donate anything for any reason – it could be stock, furniture, left over materials from construction, equipment. The match works for both sides. For businesses, it hits two targets: saving on waste and having a powerful social impact in their community. And charities get stuff they would have paid for and only have to sort out how to collect it.

About a year ago, Cathy was getting more and more queries from businesses about liability. Cathy was sure that the donating businesses couldn’t be held responsible if something went wrong with anything they donated. But also knew that, without proper legal guidance on the issue, the future of the organisation was under threat. It was that simple, without some kind of legal advice, they could not have continued to operate.

“We didn’t have the knowledge or capability ourselves and we had no money to pay for the advice we knew we needed.”

A Good Thing relies on regular volunteers for communications, social media and liaising with businesses, but now they needed one-off specific support. The sort of support that Link UP volunteers can provide.

A colleague suggested that they turn to Link UP London, as they are specialists in this type of volunteer consultancy. Cathy found the process easy and was matched with Jemima in a few days.

Jemima was everything Cathy hoped for and more.

The game changer was a basic statement around liability and proper Terms and Conditions. Jemima also made suggestions about where to point people to the Terms & Conditions at various point on the user journey on both the website and the matching platform.

Cathy was pleased that Jemima immediately understood that they needed a common-sense rather than a “legalese” approach. A Good Thing’s mission is to make reuse as easy as possible, so the process of donating needs to be straightforward, quick and barrier-free.

“She didn’t complicate things. If there are 17 statements that you need to agree to before you can start, no-one will use the platform!”

As often happens with Link UP volunteers, Jemima made an impact on A Good Thing in ways Cathy hadn’t even thought of.

Jemima made a list of all the policies that a small organisation needs to have in place and found the appropriate templates through Charity Excellence.

Since Jemima worked with A Good Thing they have recruited a part-time operations manager. Cathy believes that the foundation Jemima gave them, allowed them to recruit and provided the operations manager with the tools to put the policies and procedures in place.

“You can only get so far with a DIY approach and online resources such as Charity Excellence, having Jemima reassuring us that we know what we’re talking about gave us the confidence to grow.”

A Good Thing is all about local connections, but as they have grown, more opportunities have arisen. Having a strong legal grounding with appropriate policies and clear Terms & Conditions has proved to larger national or international corporates that A Good Thing is a trustworthy and reliable partner.

With these good foundations in place, A Good Thing has thrived. Since working with Link UP London and Jemima in March 2025, they have doubled the number of businesses they engage with and the number of matches made.

Link UP London volunteers are different. They provide specialist one-off consultancy on your terms. Working with a Link UP London volunteer is a professional relationship with a personal touch.

“Jemima offered to stay in touch – we haven’t had to contact her. But knowing that we have the safety net of being able to talk to her for 10 minutes to get advice is amazing.”