NIJL Returns for Second Year of Volunteering with Stichting Present Zwolle

For the second consecutive year, a team from NIJL Group gave up a working day to volunteer with Stichting Present Zwolle — one of the city’s most quietly important community organisations.

On 18 June 2026, a group of NIJL colleagues headed out across Zwolle not with access equipment or engineering drawings, but with paintbrushes, tools and a few hours to give.

The day was spent on interior renovation work at a residential property — painting, repairs and practical tasks that made a real, visible difference to a home belonging to someone in the local community who lacked the means or support network to tackle it themselves.

It was the second time NIJL had committed a team to the initiative, and it will not be the last.

About Stichting Present Zwolle

Stichting Present Zwolle began in Zwolle in 2003 with a straightforward idea: there are people in every city who want to help, and people who desperately need it — and what’s often missing is simply the connection between them.

Since its founding, Present has built bridges between people who have time, heart and hands to give, and people without a support network — often facing financial hardship, poor health or social isolation.

What started locally in Zwolle has grown into a national network of more than 70 foundations operating on the Present model, with 50,000 volunteers having been matched to people in need, reaching more than 80,000 individuals across the Netherlands in 2023 alone. In Zwolle itself, 2,500 volunteers give nearly 20,000 hours of their time each year.

The organisation works as a volunteer broker. Rather than asking volunteers to fit a fixed role, Present starts with what individuals or groups have to offer — their time, skills and availability — and finds a project or longer-term commitment that matches. Practical projects like the one NIJL took part in — renovation, painting, gardening, moving — sit alongside longer-term support programmes including grocery deliveries for families living in poverty, and a welcome network for refugees and asylum seekers new to Zwolle.

In Zwolle, families live on as little as €75 per week, people live in homes that have fallen into disrepair, and more than 30% of residents report feeling frequently lonely. Present works with professional care organisations and social workers who identify where help is most needed — and then coordinates the volunteers who provide it.

Present is registered as an ANBI foundation and holds ANBI status, meaning donations are tax-deductible. The organisation is largely dependent on the support of local residents and businesses from the Zwolle region.

Why NIJL Supports Present

NIJL has been based in the Netherlands for nearly a century. The Zwolle region is not just where the business operates — it is where the team lives, where colleagues’ children go to school, where the company has roots that predate most of the organisations it works with commercially.

Supporting Present Zwolle is not a corporate social responsibility exercise. It is a straightforward recognition that being part of a community carries obligations that go beyond employment and tax.

The renovation work completed on 18 June was practical, unglamorous and exactly the kind of task that makes a genuine difference to someone whose day-to-day life is harder than it should be. That is reason enough.

Get Involved

Stichting Present Zwolle welcomes both individual volunteers and companies looking to engage their teams in meaningful community work. Projects are organised, well-supported and designed to be accessible regardless of experience or availability.

For more information, visit presentzwolle.nl

NIJL Group designs and manufactures access equipment for aviation, road and rail, and power and process environments, and has been headquartered in the Netherlands for nearly 100 years. For more information, visit nijlgroup.com