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Charity Partner

Building Meanwood Valley Urban Farm's corporate partnerships and sponsorship opportunities with Pilotlight 360

Developing new fundraising streams and clear strategic direction.

About the project

Based in Leeds, Meanwood Valley Urban Farm offers people of all ages, cultures and backgrounds the chance to experience nature, farm animals and food growing so that they can learn, flourish and have fun in a place of calm, care and compassion.

The charity works with schools on outdoor education projects, provides opportunities for adults with learning disabilities, hosts two busy forest schools, and is a popular visitor attraction open 362 days a year.

Meanwood Valley Urban Farm - Pilotlight 360 (Video)

What is it like to participate?

Adam Ogilvie, CEO, reflects on the impact of participating in the Pilotlight 360 programme after winning a Weston Charity Award.

 

What is Pilotlight 360?

Explore the programme

Pilotlight 360 is an intensive 8 month programme bringing together charity leaders and expert business partners.

Through focused exploration and expert coaching, the business experts share their skills to help charities address pressing challenges and strengthen their strategy and governance. In tandem, the business experts develop their professional skills while creating a positive, direct impact.

  • Charities who participate in our Pilotlight 360 programme increase their income by an average of 48% (two years after working with us).

  • Nine out of 10 charity leaders say the Pilotlight 360 programme has a major positive impact on strategic vision.

<p>Contact us to find out more</p>

 

Adam Ogilvie - CEO - Meanwood Valley Urban Farm

Q: What motivated you to apply for the Weston Charity Awards?

A: We’d reached a point in our development where we wanted to look outward and plan for the future. But we knew we needed external guidance to help develop our future strategy and become a more financially resilient organisation.

The Pilotlight 360 programme, offered as part of the Western Charity Awards, seemed like an opportunity too good to miss.

It could provide us with this strategic support alongside some welcome revenue funding.

Q: What impact has participating in Pilotlight 360 had on your charity?

A:  We now have the key ingredients, alongside the confidence, to produce a brand-new strategy for the organisation thanks to the work we have done with Pilotlight.

We have a more focused approach to developing corporate partnerships and sponsorship which will bring in new sources of revenue and a case for support which will guide our future fundraising.

The business volunteers gave us a lot of advice on how we might reach out to and connect with the business world to support our charitable work and we have been putting this into practice.

We’ve now created a fully designed 'CSR & volunteering opportunities for business' brochure that outlines how we can help organisations and their staff teams. We also recently hosted a Business Breakfast at the farm and are currently in conversations with a number of attendees.  

The business volunteers also helped us deep dive into our organisational structure and how we could improve how we do things, helping us to see that we cannot do everything and sometimes we have to say no so that we can do our best work!

Meanwood Valley Urban Farm - Kids playing with goats

Adam's key takeaways for Pilotlight 360

It has been so powerful to take time out every month to lift our sights and imagine what our future as a charity could look like.

I would strongly encourage charity leaders who participate in Pilotlight 360 to embrace the constructive challenge and encouragement you will get and advise them not to worry that sometimes you can’t have all the answers!

With the help of Pilotlight and the expert business volunteers they will make real strides forward on the areas they collectively decide to focus on. We have thoroughly enjoyed being part of this programme.

“We have found the project easy to be part of and our Pilotlight Project Manager facilitated the process so well. The business experts who volunteered their time were very friendly, engaging and provided lots of very constructive advice, feedback and challenge.”

 

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