Please click here for an electronic version.
If you would like to receive a hard copy in the post, please contact Nicola Hill, Communications Manager, at 020 7396 7414 or nhill@pilotlight.org.uk
Special thanks to Katie Warner at StudioThreeCreative for her hard work and to an anonymous trustee for helping to support the printing costs.
]]>The six new charities and social enterprises are:
Baillieston Community Care Ltd provides high quality service to people with disabilities and their carers. It is looking for support from Pilotlight to develop its strategic business plan, and explore different models of funding to enable them to grow and expand the organisation.
Craigowl Communities provides adult learning opportunities, support, advice and training for people who want to increase their skills and confidence. It runs an employability project, a tenancy support project, delivers adult literacy/numeracy support and runs a job brokerage service. It hopes Pilotlight will help develop a clear strategy and a strong sense of future direction.
6VT Edinburgh City Youth Cafe works with some of Edinburgh’s highest risk and most marginalised individuals. The organisation has steadily grown over the years from a small charity to a 'medium' size charity and it would like assistance to improve business planning skills and strategic funding opportunities to become competitive, sustainable and grow.
Children’s Parliament seeks ways to ensure children’s views are understood and voices are heard at all levels of society. It “hopes Pilotlight will help us ‘see the wood for trees’ and bring specialist support and knowledge that we don’t have”.
West Lothian Youth Action Project works with 10-21 year-olds who may be involved in crime and anti-social behaviour. The organisation has grown considerably but needs a business plan that supports the high level of demand now placed on the service. It is entering into a tendering phase for which it needs a clear strategy and better management structure.
CFINE is a community food initiative in Aberdeen that promotes the benefits of a healthy diet. It provides opportunities to improve employability and personal confidence, and encourages and supports volunteering. It is looking to Pilotlight to help it strengthen its commercial enterprises and e-commerce opportunities in recognition of the changing funding structure.
]]>We have reached an important milestone of 300 business members,
‘Pilotlighters’, across our three offices in London, Scotland and Wales.
Every year Pilotlight surveys our Pilotlighters, to find out about their
experience of volunteering with us. This year, we asked them about their
motivation, whether they had benefited from being a Pilotlighter and whether
it has changed their attitude towards the voluntary sector.
In terms of motivation, 89% said they joined Pilotlight to give something
back to the charity sector and 44% said it was for professional learning and
development.
The decision to join has certainly paid off. Ninety per cent said they were
satisfied or extremely satisfied with their Pilotlight membership.
How have they benefited?
In terms of skills and attitudes, 54% said they were now more willing to see
things from different perspectives, 49% said their experience had improved
their coaching and mentoring, 47% said they were now better at working with
limited resources and 35% said they were now more diplomatic!
Pilotlighters have also benefited in other ways. Forty-five per cent say
they have made useful contacts.
Compared with other volunteering or CSR programmes, 75% think Pilotlight
offers them a better opportunity to make an effective contribution to
charities. Pilotlight also compares well with other professional development
programmes, 61% said their experience with Pilotlight was more satisfactory.
What is the wider impact?
The experience has also changed overall commitment levels to the voluntary
sector. Before joining Pilotlight, nearly 60% of Pilotlighters did not spend
any time volunteering. However, now, over 70% volunteer outside of their
commitment to Pilotlight. Twenty per cent of Pilotlighters have become
trustees and 32% are now giving more than seven days a year.
Not only are they giving more time, Pilotlighters have become voluntary
sector champions. Over 70% have encouraged colleagues or their company to
change their approach to volunteering or corporate social responsibility
since working with Pilotlight.
I am delighted that our members are benefiting in these ways so that the
whole Pilotlight experience is a two-way process.
Fiona Halton
Chief Executive, Pilotlight Group
An effective way to give something back
Eighty-nine per cent of business people join Pilotlight because they want to give something back to the charity sector. Given this motivation, we are delighted to report that 75% of our business members think Pilotlight offers them a better opportunity to make an effective contribution to charities compared with other volunteering or CSR programmes.
Professional development and learning
The second most important reason given by business people for joining Pilotlight is professional learning and development. Again Pilotlight compared well with other professional development programmes, 61% said their experience with Pilotlight was more satisfying.
In terms of skills and attitudes, 54% of Pilotlighters said their experience of working with charities had made them more ready to see things from different perspectives. Nearly half said their experience had improved their coaching and mentoring skills. A similar amount said that they were now better at working with limited resources – possibly a key skill in this time of economic austerity.
As a side benefit, forty-five per cent say they have made useful contacts through working with teams of other senior business people and attending our events.
High levels of satisfaction with Pilotlight membership
The decision to join Pilotlight has certainly paid off. Ninety per cent said they were satisfied or extremely satisfied with their Pilotlight membership. Sixty-seven per cent thought Pilotlight’s project management was good, the highest rating possible.
Danny Friel, Head of Operational Model Transformation at HBOS, who works with Pilotlight Scotland, says: "I feel enriched by the Pilotlight experience."
Increased volunteering
The experience of working with Pilotlight has changed business people’s overall commitment levels to the voluntary sector. Before joining Pilotlight, nearly 60% of Pilotlighters did not spend any time volunteering. However, now, over 70% volunteer outside of their commitment to Pilotlight. This means that 20% of Pilotlighters becoming trustees while the number volunteering more than seven days a year has trebled.
Pilotlighters become voluntary sector champions
Not only are Pilotlighters giving more time, they have become voluntary sector champions. Over 70% have encouraged colleagues or their company to change their approach to volunteering or corporate social responsibility since working with Pilotlight.
Going forward
Our aim is to make sure business people continue to derive satisfaction from their work with Pilotlight by providing an efficient and effective way of donating time and skills to the voluntary sector. This in turn will encourage others to help more charities to become sustainable and reach more people.
To find out more about becoming a Pilotlighter, please visit our business membership section
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Dan Ritman is featured in the National Council for Voluntary Organisation's newsletter, Value of Infrastructure Programme Newsletter.
He outlines why we gather data, how we gather it and how the information is used to demonstrate impact.
He says: "Keep it simple. You know what difference you make – when you have a good day; think about the simplest ways to demonstrate that. Don't worry about whether it's an output or an outcome or an impact…!"
Pilotlight collects the following information:
Dan adds: "This takes time! But as a result we have seen improvements to the Pilotlight process and have built a strong, confident case for communicating the difference we make."
To read the full article click here
What motivated you to get involved with Pilotlight?
It sounded like a well organised way of working with charities. I had known about it for some time through working with Brunswick – it seemed like a well backed charity.
How have you helped the charities and social enterprises you are working with?
I’ve worked with six, including Centre of the Cell, Fine Cell Work, Unlock and Safeguarding Children’s Services.
I’m always surprised that charities think that Pilotlighters have helped them as it seems like a pretty painless way of helping – there is no blood sweat and tears. It requires skills that many business people have already. We help charities by prompting, nurturing and talking about focus – this seems to be the most consistent theme I’ve come across. Charities usually want to do 500 things but only have the resources to do three or four. This is actually pretty similar to business, so the skills transfer easily.
I’ve also helped with marketing, particularly for Unlock. It has an amazing, charismatic founder who gets a ridiculous amount done for the size of the charity but they needed to focus their energy. We had some very constructive chats about which activities should be continued. Unlock was so appreciative, it shocks me.
What have you learned from the experience?
It has broadened my experience of the world and made it seem a wider and more interesting place. Working in the City can give you a very narrow focus but through Pilotlight, I’ve learned more about prisons, children who need residential care and mental health issues.
I’ve enjoyed working with founders of charities who are entrepreneurial, risk takers and often over-worked. The other Pilotlighters on the teams have taught me a lot – I’ve been very fortunate to work with brilliant people, who can follow a thread of conversation and gently but firmly bring it back to the key point. It is a masterclass and I’m not above stealing ideas to help me in my own business. I am now able to adapt my style to different situations, for example, one minute I can be talking to a charity leader working in a tough environment and the next a fixed income trader.
What would you say to other people thinking about becoming Pilotlighters?
Pilotlight provides a very comfortable environment for business people to volunteer their time – meetings start and end on time, they are well organised, with agendas and meeting notes. This is a big selling point.
The experience broadens your mind and helps you to develop your own skills.
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I am struck by the parallels between the task ahead for the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats and the work that Pilotlight does on a daily basis.
We bring together teams of people who may have long-held stereotypes about each other, get them to roll up their sleeves and tackle social problems.We play a unique role, matching teams of senior business people from the corporate world, with directors of small charities, working at grassroots level in the most deprived parts of the country.In our annual review, which will be published next month, you will be able to read about the success of our project managers over the last year.
Our head of project management in London, Helen Lang says: I act as a leveller,as people often arrive with lots of preconceptions both about charities and the corporate sector. I want to make sure there is mutual respect and thateveryone feels the meeting is an independent space.
As well as sharing our experience of bringing together disparate groups of people to achieve great outcomes, I want to make newly elected MPs aware ofthe work we do to help charities and social enterprises to really make a difference. I also want them to realise the potential of small charitiesto play a part in the recovery from recession. In this difficult economic climate, we will be helping charities and social enterprises to diversifytheir income and build strategic plans to ensure stability, so they can continue to deliver vital services.
Our key messages will be that small charities:
• can find solutions for local communities
• are cost-effective
• are endlessly innovative.
I will be meeting newly elected MPs in the next few months to build on the momentum generated by our Westminster briefing at the start of the year. Iaim to raise our profile further, influence policy and gain support for Pilotlight’s work.I will urge politicians to recognise that small charities and social enterprises can, given the right support, save the country money while solving social problems.
I am keen to show that we are already ahead of theagenda, capitalising on David Cameron’s words in his speech to launch his ‘Big Society’ plans. He said: "The incredible wealth of the City exists side-by-side with some of the poorest neighbourhoods in our country. .. Bringing these two worlds closer is a multi-faceted endeavour: moral, social, and of course economic."
Fiona Halton
Chief Executive, Pilotlight Group
]]>A new ‘mark’ launched by Pilotlight, a charity that works to improve the sustainability and impact of partner organisations, aims to help donors and funders identify organisations that are benefitting from the ‘Pilotlight’ effect.
Evaluation of the capacity building work Pilotlight has done with charities and social enterprises shows that applying business strategies and know-how to them leads to an average 48% increase in their income within two years and the scope to reach 71% more people.
Pilotlight deputy CEO Gillian Murray says, ”One of the inspirations for launching the mark was to share the success our strategic review process is having on the sustainability and performance of organisations. It gives those wanting to invest or donate to charities another string to their bow in identifying effective organisations. It is in part a response to the current climate and the demand by donors to create greater impact from their donations and for recipient organisations to be more accountable.”
Organisations bearing the new Pilotlight mark will have undergone Pilotlight’s 12 -18-month strategic review; that is, they will have acquired the business skills and tools to help run their organisation through the process of writing a business plan, coached by a team of four senior business people.
The potential benefits of carrying the mark to a charity include a greater likelihood of securing funding, accessing corporate support, and even attracting new trustees, says Pilotlight.
The mark is an outward commitment to Pilotlight’s ambition and ongoing commitment to tackling disadvantage in the UK.
Charities will be invited to display the ‘Pilotlight Mark’ prominently on their website homepage, in their annual review, grant proposals and other communication documents.
Earlier this year Philanthropy UK reported on a new Social Enterprise mark, that allows people to identify enterprises that use at least 50% of its profits for a social purpose and comply with other socially focussed criteria.
The Charity Commission encourages these kinds of initiatives that accredit quality and facilitate the sharing of best practice. In its recently republished guide Hallmarks of an Effective Charity it says, ”an effective charity… is not complacent but is engaged in a process of continual improvement, using techniques and tools best suited to its size and activities, such as recognised quality systems and benchmarking, in order to improve its own future performance.”
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Jane is 38 years old, has two children and is a partner at one of the large consulting firms. She is constantly juggling the demands of a high profile career with the needs of her young family, constantly dreaming about getting more sleep and constantly trying to figure out a way to give something back to society.
She’s worked hard to get where she is today. But she’s also been fortunate enough to have had the unending support from family and friends. Now, she’d like to give that support to others, make a contribution in some small, positive way. She just doesn’t know how.
“That’s our typical female Pilotlighter,” explains Fiona Halton, chief executive of Pilotlight, the charity that brings together some of the UK’s leading business people with small charities to help them grow. “They’re at the height of their career, want to get involved in charity, but they have a young family, 101 things to do and just don’t know how.”
Halton has the answer. By giving just three hours a month to Pilotlight, their time can boost the number of people a charity reaches by over 50 per cent within two years, and grow their income by 48 per cent.
“Our typical female Pilotlighter is at the height of their career, wants to get involved in charity, but they have a young family, 101 things to do and just don’t know how.”
Halton and Pilotlight do this by assembling a dream team of four business people, or Pilotlighters, who all have different skills and are from different organisations. They then match these with a charity or social enterprise that wants to grow.
“The charities have been founded by someone who has spotted a problem and come up with a way to tackle it,” Halton explains. “But, as the charity’s grown, the people have found themselves running a small business. They need to grow to be sustainable, but they lack the business skills to do it. Pilotlighters have these skills. So our model brings these two groups together,” she says simply.
Except it’s not that simple. What can three hours a month really achieve? It’s a long lunch, a meeting that’s run on, even a daily commute. In fact, with the help of Pilotlight’s highly skilled project managers, this time is all that’s needed to turn charities into more sustainable and efficient organisations.
A project manager is assigned to each of the charities Pilotlight agrees to help. They bring together the team of Pilotlighters with the charity, chair a meeting every 4-6 weeks, and ensure that, over a 13-month period, a solid business plan is created that helps the charity or social enterprise grow. “They manage the meetings, take notes and push action forward in between, so that all our Pilotlighters need to do is point their brains at the problem,” explains Halton.
But it’s not just the charities that benefit. Pilotlighters also gain significantly from the process, with research showing 77 per cent are more effective in their professional work as a result of their involvement, while 84 per cent feel more fulfilled.
It’s why companies donate an annual fee for their executives to be involved. They recognise the vast developmental opportunities it gives their leaders without taking them away from the office for long stints.
“Pilotlighters learn about influencing in an environment where it’s very difficult to influence people because there’s no hierarchy. They learn a whole set of different skills from the other business leaders they’re working with, and it often prepares them for trustee positions or non-executive roles.
“It’s also a great option for women re-entering the work market, especially women who have held senior positions in the past. It validates the importance and power of the skills these women have learnt in their day jobs,” she says.
Fiona Halton’s work has always involved bringing two worlds together. In the 1980s, she started up British Film Year, which brought British cinema to general public, and led to her being a finalist in the 1986 Veuve Cliquot Business Woman of the Year. Later, she launched the Great Investment Race, which brought City investment teams together with charities.
Then she received a call from Comedy Relief founders Richard Curtis and Jane Tewson, asking her to work on their inaugural fundraiser, which brought together comedians with grant makers and logisticians to raise £13m for charity.
“It’s also a great option for women re-entering the work market, because it validates the skills these women have learnt in their day jobs.”
But the more she worked in the philanthropic world, the more charities she discovered that needed her help. Suddenly organising one event, and benefitting one charity, just didn’t seem enough.
So the mother-of-three joined Pilotlight in 1998 and became chief executive in 2000. Within ten years, the organisation has grown from helping four charities a year to transforming 56 from their bases in London, Glasgow and Wales, which opened in March.
But not even helping 56 charities a year is enough for Halton. The reason for this rolls off her tongue. Four million children in the UK living below the poverty line. Fifty per cent of families with a disabled child living in poverty. One in six pensioners not seeing anybody all week. “Terrible statistics,” she sighs. “And I think, well, we’ve only one life. What can we do?”
What Halton wants to do is double the number of charities Pilotlight helps over the next few years. To do this, she needs more Pilotlighters, more businesswomen like Jane who are juggling and busy, and barely have a moment to themselves. But who, deep down, know they want to give something back. All it takes is three little hours.
Find out more about Fiona Halton and Pilotlight at www.pilotlight.org.uk
By Barbara Walshe
This article first appeared on Coutts website
]]>Hands off to be helpful
Nick Gornall has a little secret. He’s a Pilotlighter, which means he spends time, every month,
sharing his expertise and knowledge with a charity. Here, he tells Coutts News about
working with good causes and his next big challenge – The Coutts Charitable Trust.
I heard about Pilotlight around four years ago, after learning some of my colleagues were
involved. It’s an innovative organisation which brings experienced people from the business world to the charitable
sector, giving charities access to skills they normally wouldn’t have.
For me, the first thing was deciding which charity to work with.
There are so many good causes out there, I really had to search my soul to decide which area I wanted to
work in. Pilotlight pitch different ideas to you, and then you decide if you want to be part of that team.
It’s a bit like joining a dating agency – they find you a charity that matches your needs. I rejected the first couple
put to me, but that helped me understand what I really wanted to do. I’m the type of person who, if
I am passionate about something, I will be able to add more value.
The commitment is that I give up three hours of my time every month and meet with usually the
charity’s CEO and help solve a challenge they might be facing. My first assignment was coaching a
woman who ran a South London charity called Music 4 All, which gave children in the area an opportunity to get
involved in radio and music production. She was a remarkable person working around the clock,
seven days a week, and what she really needed was an understanding of how to delegate.
I sat down with her and showed her how she could plan her time more effectively. But it was
probably tea and sympathy as much as anything else. I really saw the benefits of helping her first hand.
She grew in confidence and felt more at ease about getting other people involved in the day-to-day
running of the charity.
Right now I am working with CBIT – the Child Brain Injury Trust. They provide support to families with children who have
suffered a brain injury, usually after an accident. Often the child’s behaviour changes so fundamentally
that all the penotice a complete difference.
My job is to support the CEO in developing a five-year strategy for where the charity wants to be. I’m
not allowed to write the business plan or actually interfere, which can be frustrating, especially as
usually I am so hands-on. But that’s all part of the development process. And it’s also about
helping someone else gain those skills themselves. While you don’t need to be a
subject expert, you do need to have the ability to get your ideas across in a proactive and supportive way,
rather than a dogmatic ‘You will do it my way’ sort of approach.
Coutts sponsor my subscription to Pilotlight, which is great. As an organisation, we are well connected in terms of social
responsibility but I think it’s only as I have become more senior that I am aware of exactly what we do.
But now I have taken on Peregrine Banbury’s role on the Coutts Charitable Trust, I think I will see
so much more. Being a trustee is a great honour for me and will also mean I get more visibility of how Coutts
supports the charitable sector. I think the Trust represents the avenue for Coutts to support good
causes and charitable organisations, and we do that through a percentage of our profits.
I’m looking forward to working with the chairman and the other Trust members. I took on the
trustee role because I feel passionately about Coutts and believe I can help influence the Trust’s work going forward.
Coutts is an incredible place, where there are so many people doing their own bit for charity or community, in a big or small way.
It really is a special business and makes me proud that I am part of it.
www.pilotlight.org.uk
This story first appeared in Business 7, a Scottish weekly newspaper, on 9 April 2010
More leaders at Pilotlight
The organisation works to place teams of executives into small charities on a project management basis to utilise their business skills.
Chris Horne, director, said: "Just over two years after launching in Scotland, Pilotlight now has many stories to tell of charities that have grown as the result of input from our business volunteers.
"This has attracted a number of new business people to join us, who will often comment about being delighted to have found a way to give business skills in a meaningful, managed way, where real measurable impact can be seen."
The increase was also reported in The Times on 10 April 2010
Charity mentoring organisation Pilotlight Scotland has a reported a near-50% rise in the first quarter of this year in the number of executives giving up their time to volunteer at not-for-profit organisations.
Among the generous executives to volunteer with Pilotlight is Colin Temple, managing director of Livingston-based retailer Schuh and Richard Smith, a senior partner at Glasgow law firm Biggart Baillie.
The organisation claims that charities show an average of 48% growth in income two years after working with Pilotlight and an increase in the number of disadvantaged people they support by 71%. Not bad for three hours’ work a month.
]]>Click here to read more.....
]]>by Sion Barry, published in the Western Mail on Mar 5 2010
‘Pilotlighters’ to help the Arts Factory
AN organisation which brings together teams of executives to help social enterprises and charities with strategic planning has gone live in Wales.
Launched initially in England in 2003, Pilotlight has signed up four corporate partners in Wales in Admiral, Watts Gregory, Ofcom and Lloyds TSB.
Now selected executives from the four organisations have been assigned to a team to support charity the Arts Factory in Ferndale.
Over the next 18 months the team of four will get to understand the charity with a view to devising a sustainable long-term business plan for the organisation.
For the executives, known as “pilotlighters”, the project is also seen as part of their leadership development, as well as giving insight into a specific charity and gaining from the benefit of knowledge sharing with other pilotlighters.
In its first year, Pilotlight, which is based in Cardiff, is planning to have around 30 pilotlighters on-board supporting around eight charities.
The charity in Wales is being headed by business development manager Shantel Irwin. Canadian Ms Irwin said the plan was for Pilotlight to have signed up more then 90 pilotlighters in three years time, providing expertise to around 24 charities and social enterprises across Wales.
She added: “Our first team of four pilotlighters have started supporting charity the Arts Factory. This involves three-hour meetings once a month with the charity.
“They started in December and the first six meetings will be mainly a case of information gathering.
“After that they will look at things like the governance structure and the marketing and financial plans, before producing a holistic business plan.
“This could, say, include identifying external funding sources and reducing dependence on grant funding with a focus on providing a sustainable long-term business model.”
Ms Irwin said each team would work with a charity for 18 months, although that could turn out to be a shorter time period – but built into each team’s terms of reference would be a review of progress six months after the ending of the formal relationship.
Ms Irwin said:“The experience from Pilotlight in England and Scotland is that at the end of the relationship some pilotlighters maintain contact with the charities, including joining their board of trustees.”
She said that Pilotlight currently had a pipeline of around 40 businesses and organisations in Wales which had expressed an interest in becoming corporate partners.
Julia Mortimer of Cardiff accountancy firm Watts Gregory said: “It is great that Pilotlight has launched in Wales and that we are partnering with them.
“This will enhance our commitment to and development within this sector, alongside the beneficial aspect of training and developing our team.”
Commissioner for Wales for the UK Sustainable Development Commission, Peter Davies, said: “I welcome Pilotlight to Wales because it has a very positive impact on the voluntary sector.
“It also provides the structure, focus and a range of business skills which are vital for charities and social enterprises to grow.”
Chief executive of Pilotlight, Fiona Halton, said: “We are really pleased to be launching in Wales. Start-up money from Esmee Fairbairn and the Big Lottery made this possible and nothing could have been achieved without the fantastic support of the Welsh business and voluntary sector.”
]]>Capacitybuilders, the government agency responsible for improving support to frontline third sector organisations, has set up a partnership with Pilotlight. The aim is to offer support to a number of Capacitybuilders’ grant holders who are in the final stages of working through a merger or collaboration.
Around 70 Modernisation Fund grant holders, who have each received grants from Capacitybuilders of up to £10,000, have been invited to work with Pilotlight to explore whether they could benefit from additional support. This would include work towards a new strategic plan for the development and growth of their organisation. Pilotlight will act as broker, sounding board and critical friend.
The Modernisation Fund Grants Programme was launched in June 2009 to offer grants to frontline organisations working in areas affected by the economic downturn. The idea was to explore the possibility of merging or collaborating. One example is Hearing Concern LINK, which used its £1,000 Modernisation Fund bursary to explore how working collaboratively with regional organisations would help it to reduce costs and increase the reach of its work.
Matt Leach, Capacitybuilders’ Chief Executive said: “I'm delighted to announce Capacitybuilders' new partnership with Pilotlight. This partnership will help to provide Modernisation Fund grant holders with important additional assistance to develop their plans for merger and collaboration."
Pilotlight will bring together multidisciplinary teams of skilled strategists and experienced professionals from the private sector to work with the grantholders.
Deborah Xavier, chief executive of Pilotlight London said : “The Pilotlight Process is designed to develop the skills of the managers of charities and social enterprises doing essential work in their communities, to help them to manage the change necessary to achieve growth and sustainability. Many of our senior business volunteers have been through the process of merger or partnership in their own organisations, so they bring the benefits of their own experience to the Pilotlight teams. We very much look forward to working with Modernisation Fund grant holders as they carry out their partnership and merger plans.”
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In the run up to the election, politicians will be campaigning on issues that Pilotlight charities are tackling all the time, from rising unemployment to child care. We started the year at a Pilotlight Westminster Breakfast, hosted by Lord Kirkwood, talking to parliamentarians about exactly why small charities can be so effective in tackling big issues.
As unemployment figures for the young had peaked in October, we highlighted the work of one of our partner charities, Globetown, which works with young people from families on low income and a history of high unemployment. We know there are many Globetowns in many communities across the country able to dent the figures.
Three reasons to back small charities
We gave three reasons why small charities work. I would be interested to hear from you with additions to our list. Too often, we all pay lip service to the work of small charities but never say why they work.
First, small charities succeed by tailor making solutions to needs of the local community, for example, Globetown works with families as well as students.
Second, small charities are cost-effective. I gave an example of CCVS, a non-emergency ambulance service in the Cotswolds. Gloucestershire County Council was amazed when CCVS cut their cost per ambulance mile by 22% in a year.
Third, small charities are endlessly innovative. Sikh SanJog in Edinburgh encouraged Sikh women who had not ventured into town at all out of their houses and into employment by asking them to run a café. The café is now a thriving and profitable part of the community and the women are at its hub.
Many of the charities we work with are set up by practitioners whose sheer determination and passion gets them the first grants. Three years on they are swamped by clients. However, instead of being able to celebrate success they find themselves running a business with very little management training. On top of this, their first funding often runs out as some grantmakers have a duty to fund new projects.
We, at Pilotlight, believe in the power of small charities and also in the power our members and charities have combined, through Pilotlighting, to take the next steps to growth and stability.
We urged the politicians to recognise that small charities and social enterprises can turn around a myriad of problems and could even turn local solutions into national ones. We asked them to think of ways they could help such charities in their local community.
If any of you are meeting politicians in your course of work, please mention your connection with Pilotlight so we continue to spread the word. We want to make sure that policymakers are aware of the charities in their communities that are able to solve problems. We also want them to know about the tried and tested method we use to enable such charities to reach more people, more efficiently. We need their help to make sure more small charities grow and realise their full potential.
Our thanks to host, Lord Archy Kirkwood and former Pilotlighter, Iain Anderson and his colleagues at Cicero Consulting, who made the event possible.
Fiona Halton
Chief Executive, Pilotlight Group