Transforming the operations of a fantastic charitable organisation through donations of monitors, high-vis and printers
The CIC Professionals in Construction, also known as Black Professionals in Construction, has been on a mission since 2019 to improve diversity in the construction and built environment industry. Rumbi Nambureti, Operations Manager, joined A Good Thing in June 2023 and began spotting things she liked the look of straightaway. In the past few months her organisation has had monitors, high-vis jackets and printers all donated via the A Good Thing platform.
Professionals in Construction on the up
We caught up with Rumbi and she told us a little bit about what the charity stands for:
“We’re working to increase the participation of people from black and minority ethnic communities in the construction industry, especially on the professional side. We really want to open the industry up to people within our communities. We want to say to young people ‘you will enjoy it!’”
Rumbi explained what her organisation works to do:
“We can help employers to meet the diversity and inclusion quotas that they want to achieve. We run networking events, some centred around mentoring. We help with recruitment, editing CVs. And we deliver an awards ceremony every December, celebrating diversity and inclusion: we don’t want diversity and inclusion to be dominated by sad stories, we want to have people celebrating and having a good time.”
Professionals in Construction is growing fast, and people are really engaging, as Rumbi explains – and that’s where A Good Thing has come in:
“The network has really grown, people are really supporting us. When we came across A Good Thing, we thought it was an amazing platform. It’s been amazing in terms of equipment received. We appreciate all the help we can get.”
Boosting health and safety
Rumbi told us they had recently been gifted an office on Fenchurch Street in central London, but they still had to furnish it, and that’s where A Good Thing has been so helpful. It was also helpful when it came to a donation of high-vis jackets from A Greener Future:
“High-vis is essential when we go on site visits with young people. We took some young people to look at the new Google offices being built in King’s Cross recently, we had a guided tour to really inspire them.”
The firm A Greener Future had joined A Good Thing after having seen a post in a sustainability-focused WhatsApp group they were in. The company works to improve the sustainability of events, tours and festivals, among other things. Some 150 brand new, good-quality high-vis jackets had been delivered to Victoria Park in east London for an event run by LS Events, but the jackets had arrived with the incorrect colours on them – they had slightly the wrong shade of blue printed on them. The jackets were suddenly in need of a new home: A Good Thing was the ideal solution, and they were matched with Professionals in Construction.
Getting greener
Claire O’Neill, CEO and Co-founder of A Greener Future, told us a bit about what her firm does:
“Sometimes we provide sustainability management staff, but the main bulk of our activity is assessment and auditing. We provide greener venue certifications (‘Greener Arena’), and recommend what clients should do. We offer a ‘sustainability diagnosis’ service, and help clients to build sustainable strategies and action plans – then independent auditors come in to do the certifying.”
Going forward, Claire suggested her firm could potentially share A Good Thing with its clients as an ‘opt in’ – a way for people to deal with reusable materials. A Greener Future works across the UK but also all around the world, and the live events sector makes up its biggest clientele. Past events have included the Queen’s Jubilee, Royal Horticultural Association events, the huge British Summertime festival, as well as other cultural events, marathons and football club events. So there is lots of scope to work together! As Claire says, “there are lots of routes to get A Good Thing out there”.
Quick turnaround for cups
In addition to the jackets, over the summer (before the single-use plastics ban) A Greener Future donated 14,000 plastic cups via A Good Thing, as Claire recalls:
“The cups had been ordered and delivered for a huge event in Hyde Park, but at the last minute it was realised that single-use plastics were not permitted within the park – so we were on the look-out for a new home for these!
The firm was quickly matched with two charities, and Claire remembers:
“The service was brilliant. It was all incredibly swift and easy. A Good Thing solves a problem that we would otherwise have to spend time and resources on. Keep up the great work, it’s a great service!”
Easy to use and fast
Rumbi Nambureti of Professionals in Construction has found A Good Thing to be similarly easy to use:
“I get the emails, and they properly detail what’s on offer. I always know straightaway if I need it or not. I like the fact that the email tells you upfront exactly what the item is. It’s a really great platform for people who are trying to do good things with limited resources. A brilliant, brilliant platform!”
Rumbi tells us her matches have all been very easy:
“I had a response within 24 hours each time, and an introduction pretty quickly afterwards. Then it was just a case of arranging collection. It was quite easy to collect each time: some of the things were near to where our team lived, or where our parents lived, or our office. I just took an Uber to collect the monitors.”
A wonderful community organisation
Our Barn Community donated printers to Professionals in Construction via A Good Thing: we caught up with Karen Adams, Our Barn Community Manager, to find out a bit more about her west London-based charity:
“Our Barn Community mainly supports young adults with learning difficulties and/or autism. We tend to get involved when they’re leaving formal education: we work with them, talk about their hopes and aspirations, put together a programme of activities for them, to help them move forward into a meaningful and rewarding adult life. This can include going into paid employment if appropriate.”
Karen is one of the charity’s founders: Our Barn Community was set up 11 years ago, when Karen’s own son had significant support needs. It started as a youth club, and the digital inclusion element came much later.
Karen explains how the charity became a hub for rehoming digital devices:
“We started asking around for laptops during the pandemic, and ended up with so many we started offering them to the local community in Brentford: we had 250 laptops donated during the pandemic. This digital element all started quite by accident!”
A phenomenal impact
One of the charity’s work experience projects developed into young people taking some of these old laptops and refurbishing them, and the charity is now contracted by Hounslow Council to take its old laptops and carry out a refurbishment: Our Barn Community is expecting to hit 1,000 devices refurbished in 2023! This equates to a quarter of a million pounds’ worth of refurbished laptops, which we think is just phenomenal.
On a Friday afternoon, people now arrive at Our Barn Community with laptops and devices they’d like help with: Karen tells us these are frequently elderly people from within the community who can be quite isolated. Whatever tech queries people have, Our Barn Community is there to help them.
Through collecting laptops, the charity has ended up collecting printers as well – but there isn’t a huge demand for these. Which is where A Good Thing came in! Karen recently listed five printers on the platform, and ended up being matched with North Harrow Community Library (which was keen to set up a printing station for library users) as well as Professionals in Construction (which was slowly equipping a new office space on a very limited budget).
Karen tells us:
“It was all quite straightforward: you just take a picture, list what it is, and wait for people to contact you. I’ll use A Good Thing again. Definitely.”
And thank you to Anthesis
The Anthesis Consulting Group has been part of A Good Thing since the beginning of 2023, and donated the monitors that the Professionals in Construction charity is now enjoying. The firm has also donated sound absorption boards and a really smart 3-section office rubbish/recycling bin in the past year or so through A Good Thing. Rumbi was delighted to be matched with the monitors, and told us what a huge help they will be in the charity’s office.
Before we finished chatting to Rumbi at Professionals in Construction, we asked her to tell us what her charity is most in need of, and she told us they are desperate for boots and hard helmets.
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