professionals4free is a collaborative project being developed by a small steering group with a wider advisory group. Its origins go back to a conference arranged in October 2000 by Business in the Community and other partners. An informal working group of brokers and providers of free professional services came together and commissioned research into how the supply of free services for voluntary and community groups could be improved. Many people contributed to the research and the resulting proposals, which were written up in a report for Business in the Community and the Home Office Active Communities Unit, who had funded the work. (See Free for All? Home Office, October 2000 – see www.homeoffice.gov.uk/docs/freforall.pdf).

The site has been produced by a group of four organisations:

• Business in the Community
• NCVO
• Business Community Connections
• TimeBank

Many other organisations have been involved in earlier stages of the work:

• Bar Pro Bono Unit
• Home Office ACU
• Planning Aid
• PricewaterhouseCoopers
• Project FullEmploy
• Solicitors’ Pro Bono Group
• The Cranfield Trust
• The Media Trust

We are very grateful to them, and to the many people who contributed ideas and advice, and we hope that they will recognise many of their ideas in the site.

The Free for All? research and the feasibility study presented the following options to meet the needs identified in the study:

• to develop a pro bono portal website
• to conduct a marketing and outreach campaign
• to set up a national pro bono centre or network.
• It was agreed to move forward with development of a pro bono portal website (professionals4free) with immediate effect and review further options at a later date.