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Our story

In 2006 we developed SUIT our service supporting people who use drug treatment services, at a time when no-one else wanted to do that work – we continue to provide holistic support to citizens through this project today.

In 2013 the four Black Country CVS organisations came together to establish Black Country Together (BCT), a vehicle for collaborating on a sub- regional basis for the benefit of the VCS in each place. BCT has developed over the past nine years, continues to deliver in line with its original aims and currently oversees Creative Black Country, Family Matters and most recently, work that we lead in ensuring that the Black Country VCS plays a full role in and benefits from the new health and social care structures. 

In 2014 we secured over £10M to deliver Talent Match, a mentoring programme for young people facing multiple barriers and significant challenges – we are the accountable body but delivery has been through a range of voluntary sector organisations who have received most of the money. So successful was this model that it has since received further funding and continues to deliver for those young people most in need 8 years on.

In 2016 we began the development of our Social Prescribing Service, a key part of which is supporting and encouraging people to utilise the support and services available in our sector, in order to improve their well- being. As the popularity of Social Prescribing has grown so has our service, one of only a handful across the country that is a partnership of all key partners, including GPs, and covering the whole City. For social prescribing to be a success there needs to be a wide and varied range of social prescriptions, typically delivered by our sector – we are starting to see a response to this need and we are currently using funds from the wider health and social care “system” to fund the delivery of counselling services by voluntary sector partners.

In 2017 as part of our 5 year plan, and following several years of austerity, our Board decided that we would build on the success of Talent Match and its collaborative approach.

Since then through projects like IMPACT, Thriving Communities, Girls Allowed, Building Connection and most recently Skills Connect we have secured and allocated over £10M to Voluntary Organisations. The funds are important to the organisations who benefit but equally important is the impact of collaborative approaches to supporting people in our communities and the added value that this brings.

We believe that our City should be powered by the people who live and work here and in response to this belief, we began to develop Wolverhampton for Everyone in 2018, a social lab and platform.

Created by people and organisations it aims to cultivate a creative, connected network where people can dream, design and experiment solutions that together contribute to creating a thriving culture of participation across the city.

Of course we also continue with our tradition activities of supporting, providing information, capacity building, working alongside and championing our sector within what feels like an increasingly complex environment. Volunteers continue to be the lifeblood the wider sector and Wolverhampton Volunteers have been placing volunteers and supporting volunteer involving organisations for some 10 years now.

In 2018 we celebrated our 30th anniversary with an event for over 200 people at the Lighthouse, which highlighted our work and more importantly the work of the brilliant groups and voluntary organisations in our City. Those 30 years and the past four have seen huge change and the impact of COVID, the emergence of new ways of working, including aspirations for a “whole system” approach to health and well- being, presents even more by way challenges and opportunities.

In 2022, supported by the wider VCS we changed our name, to Wolverhampton Voluntary and Community Action (WVCA), one that we feel better defines the work that we do.

To continue to thrive, innovate, and be flexible with a focus on action in delivering our mission feels more important than ever, as does a clear and strong voice for our sector and the diverse communities we support – WVCA is well placed and fully intends to continue to play a key role in this landscape for many years to come.

Find out more about what we do, our mission and our principles here.