Bring us a project 
Active Communities Network · Capacity strengthening
Strengthening the UP CHANGE Network
A separate commission to design and deliver capacity building for leaders across 13+ organisations delivering women and girls’ mentoring with Propel funding.
Network13+ funded organisations
Commissioned throughActive Communities Network
Funding ecosystemPropel / Greater London Authority
FocusLeaders · Mentoring · Delivery quality
The UP CHANGE Network brought together 13+ organisations funded through Propel to mentor women and girls aged 10–25. Active Communities Network, acting as intermediary, separately commissioned Local Champions to strengthen the leaders and organisations responsible for delivery.
- Design capacity-building support around the real needs of funded organisation leads.
- Facilitate practical learning for leaders responsible for mentoring delivery.
- Bring frontline experience from Local Champions’ own mentoring platforms into the consultancy.
- Support shared learning, stronger practice and relationships across the network.
- Capacity-building design and delivery for leaders across the UP CHANGE Network.
- Practical development focused on mentoring quality, programme design and organisational leadership.
- Learning spaces that helped peer organisations compare practice and solve delivery challenges together.
- A practitioner-to-practitioner model grounded in Local Champions’ simultaneous experience delivering Propel-funded mentoring.
Results and evidence
13+organisations in the networkWomen and girls’ mentoring organisations received shared capacity-building support.
3 yearsof Propel-funded mentoringThe wider funding programme supported sustained mentoring delivery rather than a one-off intervention.
10–25participant age rangeNetwork organisations mentored girls and young women across this age range.
1shared learning networkLeaders could compare practice, solve delivery challenges and strengthen quality together.
What the work shows
Capacity strengthening is most useful when it respects delivery organisations as peers. Local Champions could connect strategy to practice because we were strengthening the network while also delivering our own mentoring through YEA! and Mothers & Care.
“Local Champions worked at two levels: delivering our own mentoring pathways and helping the wider network of organisations strengthen theirs.”
Local Champions · Project reflection