Pilotlight has set a series of ambitious goals for our work and impact in the five years ahead. The refresh of our strategy follows the appointment of a new Chair, Alison Forrestal, at the start of the year.
We were founded in 1996 with the mantra that ‘great causes deserve great talent’. This remains our watchword today as we connect people from the worlds of business and charity, to learn from each other.
While the world grows more apart, Pilotlight has spent time refining a model to bring people together across the divides of business and charity. We have developed an outstanding reputation of skills-based volunteering, bringing leaders from business and charities together to do more for their world.
Volunteering is traditionally philanthropic in nature. We have championed a new model, which is the practice of volunteering as a carefully curated form of learning. We believe that this new model is ready to scale up.
Charities of course have always learned from skilled volunteers, who bring professional skills to help. Seven out of ten charities are looking for skilled volunteers to help them to do good. In our programmes, we have been able to demonstrate how business participants leave with stronger interpersonal skills. These are vital ‘power skills’ that businesses value. As a result, rather than being a cost, skills-based volunteering is an investment for business, generating returns of up to £3.60 for every pound spent.
By 2030, through our new strategy, we aim to double the number of empowering partnerships that we run, strengthening the resilience and impact of charities we work with and creating value for businesses by enabling their employees to give back and grow their interpersonal and leadership skills. By doing this, we will reach an annual level of:
1. 280 charity projects
2. 2,500 skilled volunteers
3. 15 strategic business partnerships.
To support all this, we are looking to recruit four new trustees to our outstanding Pilotlight Board of Directors.
The call of great causes and the call for great talent remains as strong as ever.
