Elevate

Governance → Elevate sits across panels and governance bodies at Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, so community voices directly shape the decisions and developments that affect them.

Research → Elevate conducts focus groups across East London, research workshops, and community consultations, coding data into measurable learnings and recommendations.

Consultation & Co-design → Elevate consults on placemaking and co-designs spaces alongside architects, designers and built environment experts, bringing intersectional insight that shapes projects and informs wider co-design practice.

Talent & Opportunities → Elevate upskills members through the programme and leverages its network across youth focused organisations and the Park to open doors to careers, mentorship, and pathways to progression.

From grassroots consultation to institutional partnerships, here is some of the work where Elevate has had a big impact:

• Future Me Future Youth Conference: A youth-led conference that has connected hundreds of young people to employers, partners, and career pathways - directly addressing the barriers to opportunity in East London.
• Waterden Green & Women’s Safety Charter: Co-designed a safe space for girls in partnership with architects, built environment experts, and local governance which embedded community voices into regeneration and directly influencing women's safety policy across East London.
• Park Planning & Development: Elevate have fed into every major planning application on the Park from the overarching master planning phase right through to the detailed design of the individual neighbourhoods.
• QEOP Strategic Framework: Input into the overarching strategic framework for Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, ensuring its activation phase and themes are representative and translate into outcomes that are measurable and realistic for the people who live and work there.
• Plexal Future Industries Demonstrator & V&A Creative Futures Lab: Served as expert judges and programme shapers across two major innovation initiatives, directly influencing which SMEs and projects received investment. Brought insider knowledge of East London communities to bear as critical evaluators ensuring concepts were stress-tested against local realities and programme design was accessible.

In 2024, Elevate pioneered its first community grant fund distributing £83,751 across 28 projects to young people and youth-led organisations, tackling the issues that matter most to East London communities. The Fund was co-designed entirely by the Elevate Board, from the funding strands and assessment criteria to outreach and evaluation. It was built to reach the people traditional funding too often misses and it did exactly that.

Of the 28 projects funded, 89% of awardees came from Global Majority backgrounds, with over half accessing grant funding for the first time. More than 500 young people were engaged across the three strands:

• Young Person Award - grants of up to £500 for 16-30 year-olds to support personal development, creative projects, or enterprise
• Catalyst for Change Award - up to £2,000 for early-stage ideas tackling community challenges, led by or for underrepresented young people
• Breakthrough Award - up to £15,000 for youth-led organisations looking to scale their reach and deepen their impact.

Elevate also supported awardees to plan, evaluate, and evidence their impact, building the skills and confidence to access future opportunities.

To see the incredible work of our award winners and the impact of their programmes, watch the film below: