http://business.scotsman.com/business/Charity-restaurant-venture-tastes-success.5447190.jp

There is a 9% increase in membership at Pilotlight London compared to last year. Membership of Pilotlight Scotland, where we were just beginning last year, is over double that of a year ago.

A steady stream of email enquiries is coming through from people interested in individual membership. Companies like Scottish Power are increasing the number of members they offer us.

If stress is the result of feeling out of control then Pilotlight must be the antidote – a way of taking back control and acting to change the world by helping charities.

In 2008, Safeguarding Children Services, an award-winning social enterprise that works with abused and at-risk children and young people on Merseyside, started working with Pilotlight. We put together a team to help SCS focus on financial planning, branding, marketing and business strategy.  The Pilotlight team, which included a BP executive, a marketing specialist, a risk officer at Reed Elsevier, and an entrepreneur, were impressed with the drive and determination of the people from SCS. The relationship has been a productive one and in December 2008 SCS were delighted to find they had received funding of nearly £1.2m from Futurebuilders, which will enable them to build an eight-bed residential unit for young people who have suffered abuse and harm.  The unit will be up and running from July 2009.

The Jeely Piece Club is another charity changing the world. Read about it in this month’s newsletter case study below.

As John Schaar, the American political theorist once wrote, “The future is not some place we are going to, but one we are creating. The paths to it are made not found – and the process of making them changes both the maker and the destinations.”

Fiona Halton
Chief Executive

In March, the Women’s Resource Centre published a report about funding for women’s charities that showed one in five women’s organisations closed between 2004 and 2007. Yet the needs of society’s vulnerable women are growing. One in four UK women experience domestic violence at some point in their lives, and two women are killed every week by current or former partners. In the last decade the number of women in prison has nearly doubled, from 2,305 in 1996 to 4,463 in 2006. In 2006 only 20% of MPs, 10% of high court judges and 10% of executive directors of FTSE 100 companies (0.4% from black minority ethnic/BME groups) were women. Women in full-time employment earned 17.2% less than men in 2006; for part-time workers the gap was 35.6%.

At Pilotlight, we have worked with several partner organisations addressing women’s issues. Many are feeling the effects of a changing environment, and not necessarily as a result of the economic downturn. Pilotlight London charities Kiran Asian Women’s Aid and Cheshire-based Vale Royal Women’s Aid both support women suffering as a result of domestic violence. Since 2003, local councils across the country have funded women’s refuges through Supporting People grants ring-fenced for housing-related services for vulnerable people, including refuge provision for individuals and families fleeing domestic violence. In April 2009, the ring-fence will be removed and local councils will have the option to grant the funds to vulnerable people in a variety of situations, not necessarily housing-related.

Smaller refuges like Kiran and Vale Royal are concerned about the competition for funds that these changes will bring about. A loss of funding will make them more vulnerable to takeover by larger housing associations or put them in a position where they have to merge with other smaller refuges, which would undermine the specialised, high quality services that they provide.

The Ashiana Network worked with Pilotlight London between 2004 and 2006. The charity supports South Asian, Turkish and Iranian women experiencing domestic violence. Chief Executive Shaminder Ubhi says the funding challenge is particularly acute for organisations working with black and Asian women. She explains that three years ago there were 14 independent specialist BME refuge providers in London and now there are only six. Only 50% of these specialist organisations have survived the last five years.
 
"In a climate where mainstreaming services is becoming the norm, it is crucial for funders to understand the need for culturally specific services that support the needs of vulnerable black and minority ethnic women" says Shaminder. "Specific provision is not just about providing a service in a particular language, but about having an understanding and knowledge of cultures, communities, traditions and specific forms of violence against women within these communities. The result is a culturally sensitive service, focused on empowering women and making a significant impact on their safety, health and well-being."

The government is currently conducting a consultation into violence against women, which our partner organisations hope will help the smaller providers to do their invaluable work. With the future uncertain it is more important than ever for women’s charities to plan strategically. Pilotlight is pleased to be supporting their work by helping them explore innovative ways to generate income, find collaborators and deliver essential services to the women who need their help.

PL:  Have you always been interested in the charity sector? 
PZ:  "For me, for many years, the charity sector was part of the backdrop of life that did 'good works,' but I chose not to question what or why. It was only when I had achieved some success that I became more focussed on life around me, and came face to face with this amazingly powerful, passionate and willful body of organisations."

PL:  What is the first charity you can remember supporting? 
PZ:  "I'm not sure if 'Bob a job' as a cub aged seven or eight counts, but I certainly took great pleasure in raising money during Rag week at University. I remember once when we came down to London on a 'Rag Raid' and I went straight to Berkeley Square near the cash points in just a dressing gown and boxer shorts (yes, bare feet)....in February!! I'm not sure if people gave through fear or pity but it worked, and I remember feeling great at the end of the day!!"

PL:  What motivated you to get involved with Pilotlight?
PZ:  "The moment I heard about Pilotlight I was moved by the simplicity of the model that struck at the heart of the sector's challenges. By facilitating the marriage of the amazing passion, energy and knowledge in the small charity sector with the broader strategic thinking and direction cultivated in bigger business, Pilotlight delivers so much more value to the sector than money ever could. 'Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, teach a man to fish and you have fed him for life.' That's what Pilotlight does."

PL:  Do you think working for/with a charity has altered your perspective in your own life?
PZ:  "I am constantly in awe of the people I meet in the sector, and I don't think anyone can fail to be influenced by such drive and passion. I have learned so much and undoubtedly have a clearer understanding of how I can make a difference, however small, to those less fortunate.....and how good that feels."

PL:  Which cause do you feel most passionately about?
PZ:  "Any cause with a human element, where vulnerable people are suffering through no fault of their own. Children are perhaps inevitably top of the list as they have no opportunity to stand up for themselves, but any disadvantaged person deserves care and support from those more fortunate, it's what should distinguish us as a species, although we too often fail in our duty of care."

PL:  If you could have any dream job, what would it be? 
PZ:  "Running the Gates Foundation would be right up there! To have the means to make such a meaningful difference would be amazing, and of course Pilotlight would be a significant beneficiary!!"

Pilotlight in the News: Deborah Xavier featured in the "My Week" column in Third Sector magazine in February.  In March, the rise in executive volunteering was the focus for articles in both The FT and Philanthropy UK on Pilotlight.

Pilotlight Wales will be launching in June this year and we’re keen to hear from charities/social enterprises and businesses who would be interested in taking part.  For more information, please contact Shantel Irwin at sirwin@pilotlight.org.uk or on 020 7242 1899.

Pilotlight is always looking for new Pilotlighters, and we recognise that a professional management qualification, such as an MBA, indicates a breadth of business education which would strengthen our membership. If you have a qualification in business, management or any other related subjects, we'd like to hear from you so we can communicate with your institution about Pilotlight.  It isn't important if the work you are doing now isn't directly related to your degree, just let us know what qualification you have and where you graduated. Please email these details to Marlijn Wijkhuizen at mwijkhuizen@pilotlight.org.uk.

Congratulations to Jackie Barnes at Globetown, a Pilotlight partner charity.  Jackie has been awarded the Steve Sinnott Fellowship.  This award allows 15 teachers across the country to have two days per week of their salary paid to help develop education within the community.

Good luck and congrats also to Sian Vasey, from the Ealing Centre for Independent Living (ECIL), who will be collecting her OBE from the Queen on 11th June.

Congratulations to two of Pilotlight Scotland’s partner charities:  Sikh Sanjog and The Junction.

Sikh Sanjog provides a range of quality opportunities for Sikh women and their families in response to educational, cultural, social and leisure needs, recognising the potential for lifelong learning, and social and economic inclusion. It has just been announced that Sikh Sanjog have been awarded Investors in Volunteers, the smallest organisation in Scotland ever to have won this accolade.

The Junction offers access to a wide range of health related services, education and information.  This project has won a GlaxoSmithKline Impact Award, which includes unrestricted funding of £25k! Additionally, Sam Anderson, Project Manager of The Junction, has gained the Bronze Award in the Voluntary Organisations' Manager of the Year category of the national YouthLink Scotland Awards.  Last but not least, The Junction have also been nominated HSBC Edinburgh Charity of the Year.

Staff Updates

Pilotlight Scotland is delighted to welcome Allan Farmer as Project Manager.  Allan has worked in the not-for-profit sector for a number of years, including older people’s services and employment schemes for homeless young people.  Most recently Allan was involved in the acquisition of a private business by a charity, to run as a social enterprise.  He brings this wealth of experience to us, as he moves back to his hometown of Edinburgh.
 
As you may have noticed above in News in Brief, we are excited to officially announce that Shantel Irwin will be leading up our Welsh project expansion.  The London team will miss her and wish her the best for this exciting opportunity.  In view of this internal staff change, Pilotlight London is pleased to welcome Marlijn Wijkhuizen to the team as Membership and Business Development Manager.  Marlijn was previously at The Tree Council where she was Partnerships Manager; prior to that, she was Student Co-ordinator for the Howard League for Penal Reform.  We also welcome John Raffles who’s joining Pilotlight as a part-time volunteer.  Pilotlight London is John’s work placement as part of his participation in the "Working for a Charity" scheme, which trains people making the transition from business to the third sector. John was the MD of a family business until it was sold last year and has a wealth of business skills and experience to bring.

Edinburgh based The Junction which is currently working with Pilotlight Scotland has won a Glaxo SmithKline Impact Award – this includes unrestricted funding of £25k! 

Following on from this fantastic news we are delighted to announce that  Sam Anderson, Project Manager of The Junction, has also gained the Bronze Award in the Voluntary Organisations Manager of the Year category of the national YouthLink Scotland Awards.  Well done Sam! 

The good news continues………..The Junction have also been nominated for the HSBC Edinburgh Charity of the Year!  Pilotlight would like to congratulate The Junction for this well deserved recognition and wish them the best of luck. 

I am delighted to announce that Pilotlight is coming to Wales.

In 2008, Pilotlight undertook a feasibility study into the need for and viability of a Pilotlight service in Wales.  The result was overwhelmingly positive. Now, as with our charities in London and Scotland, the downturn has caused Welsh charities’ need for effective strategic support to be all the greater. We have already had emails from Welsh charities anticipating our arrival and asking for support.

Our dilemma at the end of last year was whether we could expand to meet this need during a recession. By December we could see that Pilotlight in London and Scotland were bucking trends and continuing to sign up and keep senior business members on board. We also had enquiries about membership in Wales. For this we have to thank our members who are more determined than ever to share their skills.  All we needed was the start up funds.

We now have the funding to go ahead.  Thanks to Big Lottery and The Esmée Fairbairn Foundation we will be signing up our first members before the summer and working with our first five charities before December. Once we hit 20 Pilotlighters and five charities, we will build to a local staff of three, with a local advisory board representing Wales on the Pilotlight Trustee Board.

If you would like to contact me about our plans, please feel free to do so on fhalton@pilotlight.org.uk or 020 7242 1899.

Fiona Halton
Chief Executive

The report shows charities anticipating falls in income versus growing need, and 21% were already reporting a drop in income at the time of the survey. The greatest decline is expected in the areas of corporate giving, trusts and legacies. However 71% are already taking action, principally in the area of financial management, and many saw opportunities as well as risks in the changing climate.

Several described the credit crunch conditions as a catalyst to improve management and governance. The report concludes, “All experience says that recessions can be viewed as similar to “pit stops” in a grand prix, with those organisations using the time to reassess their position emerging stronger and those that don’t at risk of falling behind.”

Small charities were described as more optimistic about the impact, but the report speculates that they may well lack the resources to fully model the impact of the recession.

A Pilotlight relationship could be just the pit stop charities and social enterprises need to weather the recession and come out stronger. The voluntary sector is well practiced in responding fast to the needs of disadvantaged people on scant resources; now more than ever they need the business skills and tools to mediate risk and capitalise on opportunities.

We are often asked what effect the economic conditions are having on our membership. We are grateful for the continuing support of our corporate partners as their organisations adjust, and delighted to report that enquiries from individuals are on the increase. Perhaps as organisations assess their fitness to cope with recession, individuals are reassessing their personal priorities in the light of a shifting environment. Whatever the reason, we are very pleased to put their skills and expertise to work preparing our charities to meet greater need with fewer funds, and continue their essential work.

 To read "Managing in a Downturn" paper, please click here.

We work with organisations with a turnover of less than £3m who help disadvantaged people or are working in the environment in the UK and are willing to work in partnership with a team of senior business people with a range of strategic skills to develop a plan for growth and greater impact. Our in-house team of Project Managers facilitate a series of meetings where the ‘Pilotlighters’ coach charity managers to acquire the skills and tools they need to make their organisation thrive. These meetings mean that charities must be willing to travel to London, Edinburgh or Glasgow for meetings approximately once a month.

If you would like more details please contact Pilotlight London on 020 7396 7414, Pilotlight Scotland on 0131 243 2765, or visit  www.pilotlight.org.uk.

It is a service which is desperately needed and has been a lifeline for young people such as Scott:

“I was seventeen when I met Elaine and Jaci and I had been overdosing and self-harming.  I had counselling sessions and benefited a lot from these and enjoyed going.  I could feel myself improving and feeling better about myself.  Now I’m doing some voluntary work for SCS and I’ve joined their Young People’s Panel.  I’m on the Business and Technology Education Council (BTEC) course to become a Peer Educator. I’m glad I met the workers at SCS — I wouldn’t be who I am now if I hadn’t met them.  I am becoming very successful.”

In 2008, SCS started working with Pilotlight and a team was put together to help SCS focus on financial planning, branding, marketing and business strategy.  The Pilotlight team, which includes a BP executive, marketing specialist, risk officer at Reed Elsevier, and entrepreneur, were impressed with the charity’s drive and determination and the plans for future services.  The relationship has been a productive one and in December 2008, SCS were delighted to find they had received funding of nearly £1.2 million from Futurebuilders which will enable them to build an eight-bed residential unit for young people who have suffered abuse and harm.  The unit will be up and running from July 2009.

Elaine Allison says:

"Pilotlight has given us so much confidence…it was a very safe environment where we could talk honestly.  The level of expertise was very high and we got the help we needed to go forward in developing a social enterprise.  Our Pilotlighters are brilliant and it’s a wonderful process.”

The new residential unit will pioneer the use of “social pedagogy” — an approach used in Europe that uses only qualified graduates to deliver services.

Jaci Quennell explains:

“At the moment, the most vulnerable children (those who are in care) are looked after by the least qualified and trained staff. We want to change all that by investing in the quality of staff that we employ — Pilotlight have given us the confidence to innovate and this will benefit children and young people for years to come. As the Department for Children, Schools, and Families says, we should be caring about, not just for, children and young people.”

Pilotlight would like to thank the SCS team, which includes Pilotlighters Clare Dobie of Marketing Measures; Jean-Baptiste Renard of BP; Andrea Sinclair of Incentr Limited; and Arnout van der Veer from Reed Elsevier, as well as Craig Carey, Project Manager from Pilotlight London.

Congratulations to Forensic Therapies Limited and to all the Pilotlighters who have worked as part of the team.  Forensic Therapies Limited (FTL) provides offence-focused therapeutic interventions to prisoners both in custody and following release. FTL has grown from an organisation with an annual turnover of £10,000 to one which now has a turnover of £300,000 and growing.  They are now running several projects in London prisons and have government funding to develop new and exciting services.  We wanted to pass on the comments from their trustee, David Moffitt, about Pilotlight:  “The advice we have received has been absolutely vital in ensuring that our expansion has been planned, manageable and operationally secure. The experience and knowledge of the Pilotlighters has allowed FTL to maximise its potential for undertaking demanding work with some of the most vulnerable members of the prison population. I would therefore like to extend our deepest gratitude and respect for the staff and volunteers of Pilotlight who have helped immeasurably in our ongoing development and success.”

Pilotlight in the News: In December, Pilotlight’s partner charity, Safeguarding Children Services, was featured in The Times and Pilotlight’s Chief Executive, Fiona Halton, was also in the Financial Times. In January, Fiona was profiled in the FT Weekend “How To Give It” column.  February sees Pilotlight in the European Venture Philanthropy Association’s newsletter with an article on trustee training by Chief Executive of Pilotlight London, Deborah Xavier, and in the Social Enterprise Coalition newsletter.   Pilotlight Scotland also featured in the Chartered Banker magazine this month.  We wanted to share with you the recent quote by Deborah Xavier in the FT’s Weekend magazine “How to Spend it” (February 7th):  “Many charities are chronically under-resourced and lack the business skills in-house to grow and develop,” says Deborah Xavier, Chief Executive of Pilotlight London in the new edition of Philanthropy UK’s “A Guide to Giving.”  The charity’s mission is to “help the world’s most talented business people to work with innovative and ambitious charities.” Volunteers with business skills can help charity managers plan for stability, efficiency and growth bringing a range of much-needed skills to ambitious organisations including financial planning, marketing, income diversification, information technology, human resource management, change management and legal expertise...An intelligent and sympathetic eye from outside can be a great source of support and perspective.”  Though she urges volunteers to see themselves as coaches and advisers, their role is to improve the way charity operates.

Pilotlight Scotland ran a very successful Fundraising Day in conjunction with the Institute of Fundraising for Scotland, for their partner charity directors, which has already had a positive impact on their fundraising strategies.

The first Scottish project to complete the Pilotlight process is The Jeely Piece Club which works with children 0-12 years in a deprived area of Glasgow.  We are delighted to have worked with Tracey and her team over the last 18 months. The charity has gone from strength to strength – not least in having secured £46,000 from a corporate sponsor – and looks set for a bright future.

The Yard in Edinburgh, a facility for children with additional support needs, is also due to complete in March/April and again the entire process has been extremely valuable for everyone in the team, with a new staff structure and policy system now in place.

Former Pilotlight partner charity Sixty Plus, which supports older people to maintain their independence, is now merging with Age Concern Kensington and Chelsea. Cynthia Dize, the Director of Sixty Plus, will be running the new merged organisation.

The pioneering work of Pilotlight London’s partner charity, Tender, which educates young people about domestic violence through its TRUST project is to be featured in a BBC3 documentary entitled “Dangerous Love.” Click on the link above for more details.

CoolTan Arts, one of Pilotlight London’s partner charities, is holding an International Women’s Day Conference on 11th March.  Click on the link above for more information.

Welcome and Farewell:  Staff Updates

Pilotlight Scotland welcomes two new members of staff. It has doubled its membership team for 2009 to step up recruitment of business members and meet demand. New Membership and Business Development Manager, Graeme Powrie, has joined the team.  He brings a wealth of customer service, sales and business development experience. Most recently, Graeme was Area Director of Sales and Origination at Bank of Scotland Commercial based in Edinburgh. In addition, we welcome Jason Dawes to the team, also in the role of Membership and Business Development Manager. Jason joins us from Head Resourcing, where he was a Consultant in the Sales recruitment team.  Jason is covering for Fiona Ramsay who is now on maternity leave.

Pilotlight Group welcomes Sylvia Attoh. As Development Officer, she will be supporting Pilotlight’s Foundation Board, helping us raise the funds to enable Pilotlight to reach twice as many charities over the next three years. Sylvia’s background includes work for the Institute of Cancer Research and the University of Westminster.

Pilotlight London welcomes Keith Short as Evaluation Officer. Keith joins us from the programme funding department at Oxfam GB. Prior to that, he researched and wrote several chapters for a guide to the world's leading financial law firms, focussing on Eastern Europe.

And a farewell: Pilotlight is sad to have to say goodbye to Kat Morley-Fletcher, but happily Kat is not leaving the Pilotlight family.  She is going to be the Business Manager for one of our partner charities, Maytree, and we think she will do wonderful things for them.  Pilotlight would like to thank Kat for all of her hard work in the last three years and we’re sure you will join us in wishing her every success in her new endeavours.