Morgan Stanley have announced that the Save the Children team has won the fourth UK Strategy Challenge. The programme, facilitated by Pilotlight, pairs teams of top-performing Morgan Stanley professionals with non-profit organisations in London for eight weeks to provide pro bono strategic advice on issues affecting five chosen charities.

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Save the Children’s aim is to give children in the UK and around the world a healthy start in life, the opportunity to learn and protection from harm. They were announced as winners after the teams presented their final strategic programmes to judges at Morgan Stanley’s London headquarters.

“We set out to make a real difference. Charities face significant challenges to help those in need, and their resources are continuously tested. I am immensely proud that Morgan Stanley is able to play a part, by lending our in-house expertise, to help them overcome some of the obstacles they face.” said Robert Rooney, CEO of Morgan Stanley International. 

The Morgan Stanley team working with Save the Children developed an ambitious strategy around the charity’s vision to build the most effective business model to grow its UK parental engagement programmes.

“Save the Children will benefit tremendously from the efforts of the team from Morgan Stanley. The energy and enthusiasm with which they approached the challenge was admirable, and we look forward to putting their hard work into practise. While fundraising clearly remains an immensely important part of any charity partnership, the Morgan Stanley Strategy Challenge highlights an evolution in the relationship between the private sector and charities” added Nicola Marshall, Deputy Director, UK Programmes at Save the Children UK.

Bruce McCombie, Head of Partnerships at Pilotlight, said: “Strategic planning is integral to the success of a non-profit organisation, but many lack the resource to focus on their wider commercial goals. Working in close collaboration with Morgan Stanley, we have offered guidance and coaching to help improve the impact of these chosen charities, equipping them with robust analysis and recommendations to address their mission-critical challenges. We’d like to take this opportunity to congratulate the teams for all their hard work, and wish all of the charities well in implementing the team’s recommendations.”

Since its inception, the Morgan Stanley UK Strategy Challenge has delivered 13,000 hours of service to 19 charities.