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Visionary is the only organisation that supports local independent charities that support blind and partially sighted people across the UK. These independent local societies provide practical on the ground services for local people with sight loss.
Visionary is the collective voice of local societies, bringing together a wealth of experience and expertise. Visionary encourages and supports the development and improvement of local societies and their services for blind and partially sighted people in three main ways:
To Connect – bringing the network of local societies together, promoting joint working and the sharing and learning from best practices, opportunities and challenges. Also providing shared purchasing benefits for members using the collective scale of local societies.
To Influence – consulting Visionary members on issues that affect them and representing them on the national stage and promoting their diverse interests and lobbying for change.
To Develop – offering direct support to Visionary members, providing advice, learning opportunities, guidance and funding to facilitate the development of new local societies and services from existing local societies.
Organisations cannot exist alone- there’s definitely strength in numbers. By becoming a member of Visionary you will be able to draw on the collective experience of Visionary and its members to support you in developing your services and in how you develop your organisation which provides essential services to local people with sight loss.
We support independent local sight loss charities - the organisations that deliver vital services to visually impaired people at a local level. Read more about the work of local sight loss charities.
Our history began in 1991 with the formation of The National Association of Local Societies for Visually Impaired People (NALSVI). Charitable status followed in 1995.
For 18 years NALSVI was run by a dedicated volunteer Executive Committee, supported by one part-time member of staff. In August 2009, in order to move the organisation forward, the Executive Committee appointed NALSVI’s first Chief Executive, Angela Tinker.
Recognising that the charity’s name was neither memorable or nor easy to say Angela suggested a name change to Visionary – linking local sight loss charities and also recommended that the charity should incorporate. Both proposals were agreed to by the Membership at a Special General Meeting on 9th December 2009
The necessary Charity Commission and Companies House paperwork was finalised in April 2010 and Visionary –linking local sight loss charities was born!
