Today, 17th of June, Pilotlight is hosting its first ever conference; bringing together charities, businesses and funders to demonstrate and celebrate the impressive results achieved by working in partnerships.
Why a conference?
Our work at Pilotlight is all about bringing people together, and day in, day out, we see the results. Bringing our partners from different sectors together to share with us the outcomes from our work was the spur for launching our first conference, which we hope will become an annual event. However, we quickly realised that our partners from the business and charity worlds have much to share themselves so the programme has broadened in scope to include information and research which we hope will spark ideas about the future for partnerships, between charities, businesses and funders.
Why now?
There is interest from all sides currently in how businesses can involve their people more effectively in supporting their communities, and the value of business skills to charities. This interest spans government, businesses, charities and funders. Looking back over 10 years of Pilotlight’s work, we feel we have much to contribute to this conversation. Our line up of speakers includes examples of our partnership working with Barclays, who has been a corporate partner since 2006, and the Garfield Weston Foundation, with whom we launched the Weston Charity Awards this year.
The conference is also an opportunity to launch a new piece of research, commissioned by Pilotlight, and carried out by Dr Beth Breeze, Director of the Centre for Philanthropy at the University of Kent; Beth will be presenting key findings. The report, ‘Philanthropic Journeys: new insights into the triggers and barriers for long-term giving and volunteering’, highlights the impact of structured volunteering like Pilotlight. The research comprised an online survey of 227 Pilotlighters, past and present, and in-depth interviews with 10 more.
At Pilotlight, one of our strategic aims is to make better use of our knowledge and experience. We work with an extremely engaged community of businesses, charities and funders and no doubt bringing them together to hear about our results and our new programmes will spark discussion, debate and plenty of new ideas. We look forward to sharing the outcomes from the day in forthcoming blogs.