David Sollis – Deputy Chair - Shares his vision on how ACT should support community projects

David Sollis has been working in the charitable sector for more than 20 years, as a paid employee and a volunteer, including stints as the CEO of the Youth Enquiry Service and the CEO of Healthwatch Essex. 

He is also the Trustee for a few very successful Not For Profit organisations, including Active Essex and Achieve Thrive Flourish.         

During his time as the CEO of Healthwatch Essex, he had an opportunity to work with Anglian Community Enterprise very closely through the Care Closer to Home initiative, which both organisations were intensely involved with. 

Value of the “lived experience” 

David said this work involved capturing the “lived experience” of people to improve future services, which also led to him learning about ACT – the charitable arm of ACE.  At the time, ACT would award funding to projects run by community groups that were not supported by the statutory bodies – many of which were informed by people’s lived experiences.  

“What inspired me about ACE and ACT is that they found a way to work for the community and also give money back to the community,” added David. “So when I met Julie Young, who was the Chair of ACT at the time, and talked about ACT being relaunched and re-engaged with the community again, I believed I had enough experience to become a Board member. 

“As I’m already a Board of member of a few other organisations, I thought I could bring some useful expertise and a new pair of eyes to the project. I also had good local knowledge of the health and social care systems.” 

David also strongly believes in the ethos of ACT. So when he was invited to be part of its relaunch, he was excited about being involved with helping people in the community in response to the greatest gaps in need. 

Additionally, he was keen to help set-up a more approachable system for ACT as a grant giver, which would involve establishing a partnership with the projects that the organisation decided to fund. 

“I like the concept of asset-based community development work, which involves asking the community what they need and then responding to that by setting up new solutions. My vision has been for ACT to have its finger on the pulse with this kind of approach to grant-giving.  

“From my experience, you can make real change in local communities with just a little bit of money.” 

David’s greatest achievements 

David is also proud of many achievements during his career, which he said helps him to make the right decisions when agreeing grants as a Trustee for ACT. 

“Initially I started off as an insurance broker and was very money focused. However, what I’ve enjoyed about being involved with the charity sector is the work I’ve done with helping people who have the same ethos as me. And I want to do that more. Since then, one of my biggest achievements has involved working as the CEO of YES with young people and going through periods of time when we have prevented any teen suicides. 

“I’ve also been proud of other things I’ve been involved with, such as when I worked with Achieve Thrive Flourish. With this organisation, we have helped many people to improve their mental health through sports. I met this team in 2012 during the Olympics, when just one guy was running it and only helping seven young people. But over the last ten years we have grown it now to be a fully established charity that supports 3-4,000 people a week all over South Essex.  I’m the Chairman for ATF and enjoy how it helps young people to really flourish and realise many of their biggest ambitions. 

“I also enjoy helping to make projects to become sustainable, which we did with this one.” 

David adds that he prides himself on being a storyteller, plus he enjoys meeting and talking to people about their lived experience. He says it is important to use their voice to influence and motivate others to make significant changes. Through these experiences over the years, he has witnessed very positive changes with projects focused on the areas of mental health, disabilities, frailties and dementia.  

David also enjoyed the work he did at Healthwatch Essex with young people who did not have access to any healthcare services.  “I’m pleased we challenged the system, through making a series of films about their life experiences. We took on board a young person who was ten years old who used to interview people from the health and social care sector. Through this work, we were able to break down some barriers and make it more accessible for young people. 

“We did some filming in a taxi too, to record the voices of young people, such as carers, who could not travel far. We painted the taxi with Healthwatch colours and visited their houses to record what they had to say. That was one of my biggest achievements too and it helped us to put Healthwatch Essex on the map. We also won some awards for that work.” 

Future plans for helping local community projects 

David added that all of these experience have been very valuable with bringing ACT to the point it is at today.  

“There’s a lot of conversations about funding being withdrawn or, you know, or decreased. However, we’re in a position where we can step in and say: ‘Actually, what you do is so valuable’. For us, we want to not only invest money in it, but also channel our time and energy into the project too.  

“I want to fund some of the great stuff out there, and then tell their stories, plus say: ‘You know – we genuinely changed people’s lives’.  We don’t just want to hand them a cheque and say –  ‘See you later’. We want to be actually involved in changing society with them.” 

David said that ACT aims to respond quickly to people’s requests and not make them jump through too many hoops.  

“If we see a project we believe in, and it could already be up and running, or a new idea, we don’t want to have a huge conversation about. We want to see how it fits in with our current system and what impact will be.  I think that’s the real advantage because we can give good responses quickly.” 

David is also very interested in ACT helping people who are suffering due to the cost of living crisis and the aftermath of COVID.  “We have to think about how we can help them and encourage more community action around these issues. And I think one of the things that we were very keen on is post COVID where groups and faith organisations have stepped in and helped and we’re trying to encourage them to continue doing that because the problems actually haven’t gone away. The need is still there.  

“COVID has just gone back to being a problem for Social Services to deal with. Well, that’s an issue because Social Services and the NHS are overrun. There’s not enough help out there. We’re trying to invest money into people on the street. We want to know about what’s happening in people’s neighbourhoods. Plus we’re not confined by what we can support, like other statutory bodies.”