Green Corridor offers disadvantaged people aged 14-25 the chance to develop skills, experience and qualifications through land-based activities such as pond clearance, tree planting and work on allotments. It links young people with the environments around them through volunteering programmes, accredited educational opportunities and practical education as a way to boost self-confidence, skills and their chances of finding a job.
According to the charity’s CEO, Jean Rolfe, the Pilotlight experience changed her and Green Corridor profoundly. “I went into it thinking it would help us identify additional funding sources. On reflection, I realise it made me understand why my organisation wasn’t able to find that funding we were chasing.” Jean’s Pilotlight team of expert business executives helped her understand that it wasn’t broadening Green Corridor’s remit that was required, but narrowing it. “If you put me in a new organisation and offered me a Pilotlight team or money, I would choose the Pilotlighters any day, because any funding you get will be used so much more effectively after you’ve been through the Pilotlight process.”
Pilotlight helped Jean and her team develop a five-year business plan, gain clarity about the charity’s focus and mandate and increased its ability to win grants to secure its future, including a Big Lottery grant worth £350,000 over five years.
Rick Bacon, chief executive of Incutoc which supports business start-ups, was a member of Jean's Pilotlight team and was impressed with the way Green Corridor managed to turn itself round over the course of the mentoring programme to become stronger, both strategically and financially. “It wasn’t a painless process for Jean and her team but we gave her the critical sounding board she needed to move her organisation forward.”
In addition, the Pilotlight team offered access to resources that helped the charity at a crucial time: Rick put the charity in touch with a professional bid manager Mark Protheroe, CEO of The Bid Team, who volunteered to help them apply for a Big Lottery grant – it was successful and has provided financial security until 2016.
A further bonus for Green Corridor was getting a new trustee in the form of Rick. “I liked the charity very much,” he says. “It makes positive changes in young people’s lives, so I was happy to take on the challenge, get to work for them in a more operational way and help them in the drive to be self-sustaining,” he says.
For Jean, recruiting Rick gave her a new, dynamic trustee who had historical knowledge of the charity and a wealth of business acumen to help them through choppy times.
Now, she says, the work she did with her Pilotlight team underpins everything she does. “In the past we had six or seven projects on the go, now all our focus is on disadvantaged youth. It’s difficult for charities to narrow their mandates but the work we did with the Pilotlighters made us experts in the area we now concentrate on and we can focus on finding money that supports that work.
“If people go through the Pilotlight process they need to be prepared for hard work,” she adds. “It takes a lot of time, thought and energy. It’s not easy, but I can’t stress how much difference it can make.”
