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It's been a while, but welcome to Issue 9 of the Newsletter dedicated to all our Company’s diverse philanthropic efforts. In this issue: the Charities Supper, Charitable Fund update including two reports from benefiting charities, a Pro Bono case study and two Pan Livery news items too.
But first a quick plug..... Plans are underway for our annual Education Supper which will be held on 19th June this year, following the Summer Court. The topic is going to be on AI in Education and we hope to announce the speaker, location and details soon. Meanwhile, save the date for what promises to be a highly stimulating, relevant and entertaining evening.
Charities Supper
January 30th 2024 saw one of our defining annual events - the Charities Supper. In spite of the rail strike and work-to-rule, the event was sold out with a waiting list. On the night we had 99 participants (owing to a very last minute cancellation through illness). More than half were guests from charities including Derrick Evans MBE (Aka "Mr Motivator") or prospective members, who enjoyed a convivial reception and a three-course supper, accompanied by Australian and Loire wines from the Company's cellar.
This year we were in the Cutlers' Hall for the first time. The Hall is just west of St Paul's Cathedral in Warwick Lane and is notable for a finely carved terracotta frieze by the Sheffield sculptor Benjamin Creswick (outside) and inside some exquisite stained-glass and the Victorian hammer beam roof in the main Hall. This Hall is a real treat for our event.
PM Patrick Chaman was, as is the tradition, MC for the evening with the traditional support and barracking from assembled Members. We had three speakers, all “longer term” ProBono clients, who talked about their work and how they are going "onwards and upwards" following our help:
- Gemma Juma: the CEO of the Jack Petchey Foundation, the charity set up by Sir Jack Petchey CBE to inspire and motivate young people across London and Essex; his belief is summed up by: "If you think you can, you can!"
- Luke Watson: the CEO of XLP, the charity that helps over 4,000 young people live more fulfilled lives each year. They help keep young people in school and out of gangs through a variety of activities and support. Luke spoke about the help that XLP had received from the Company and its Charitable fund, and how two of his leadership team were benefiting from our pro bono mentoring programme.
- Jeremy Lune: the CEO of Prospect Hospice. Jeremy previously was CEO of Cards for Good Causes and was due to speak to us at last year's Charities Supper. He's defnitely one of our "long term" clients. .......
Also traditional is the award of Matheson Cup to a Member of the Company who, in the view of the ProBono Committee, has made an exceptional contribution to the support the Company has provided over the last year to the NonProfit Sector. This year the Cup was awarded to Steve Mayhew in absentia. Patrick explained that Steve had just been appointed as a Trustee at Bath City Farm where he and his son volunteer, and he had a three-line whip to attend his first Board Meeting! There is no keeping him down…..
There'll be no photos of Members enjoying their supper the Newsletter this time. Instead they will be hosted on the Company's website. (Thanks as ever to Mark Fox for the excellent photos of the speakers).
Charitable fund update
Chair of the Charitable fund Steve Cant reports:
At a meeting of the Trustees on 21st December new 4W Jim Foster was duly elected as Trustee. IPM Chris Sutton stood down but will continue to act as the Fund's primary contact point with the Sea Cadets.
The Trustees have received a couple of feedback reports from grant recipients recently and these are summarised below.
The Pupose Xchange
The following is an edited down Feedback Report from Jonathan Collie on The Purpose Xchange who we supported some time ago and who have made great progress since.
"We are enormously grateful, not only for the £10,000 funds (which came at a critical time in our early development), but also for the exceptional mentoring and guidance we have received from Patrick Chapman over the course of the past 3 years. This is a summary of we achieved with the grant:
1. Product development:
Covid had a terminal impact on The Common Room (the community-rooted, intergenerational purpose hub model which we developed with your support. But in October 2021, we leveraged as much as we could of The Common Room content and curriculum and moved online as The Purpose Xchange. Early on, we caught the attention of Legal & General who were keen to pilot a purpose solution for older workers, but we urgently needed funding to develop the product to suit a corporate audience.
The funding we received from the WCoMC Charitable Fund in early 2022 enabled us to design, develop and test the Zoom-based curriculum of 3 x 105-minute workshops; write the facilitation playbooks & scripts; write the technical Zoom manuals; and produce detailed user workbooks.
The success of this initial product launch enabled us to convert the initial £8.5K tester with Legal & General into an extended 12-month, £60K pilot contract. The contract, which concluded in September 2023, involved 250 employees from 10 major client organisations from Legal & General’s Master Trust pensions scheme. The Purpose Xchange is now well-positioned to unlock social, economic and environmental value on a much bigger scale than ever before.
In March 2024, we expect to launch our community platform to enable our members to learn, share, support and collaborate together and amplify and accelerate the social impact of The Purpose Xchange.
2. Business development:
As a direct result of the L&G pilot, we won a £115K, 12-month contract with Royal London (Jan-Dec 2024) to work with up to 10 of their larger employers to explore how our programme can help achieve 3 key objectives:
- Help people of all ages/ life stages (re)awaken their sense of purpose and make a bigger positive contribution to the communities and environments in which they live;
- Help people develop a greater understanding of the future they want to create for themselves (and give greater incentive to save for their futures and improve their financial resilience); and
- Help organisations build more purpose-driven workforces and cultivate the leadership needed to tactically deliver their ESG strategies.
Get Set 4 Tennis
This charity offer a wide range of lessons at six different locations - all Special needs schools in Harrow, Hillingdon, and Ealing. GS4T have developed their "Tennis Coaching Pathway" which targets children over 16 with SEND that are inactive and many suffering from mental health issues. Such students follow a carefully planned set of lessons leading to a recognised sports qualification that also increases their activity, helps support their physical and mental health, self-esteem and provides the opportunity to start a future in coaching and ultimately encourage more children with SEND to take up tennis.
The Fund made a grant of £1,827 to pay for coaches at 4 schools, to coach their "Tennis Coaching Pathway" for the summer term. The aim was for participants / beneficiaries to complete stage 3 of their coaching qualification by the end of this school year. The courses are offered in close collaboration with the SEND schools in question. The charity has provided the infographic below to show the impact of our grant. You can scan the QR code to find an accompanying video.
World Heart Beat
We stay in touch with WHB following our grant to the charity and them providing musicians at the last two Summer Celebrations. Interested readers should take at look at this article from the Guardian on 3rd Feb.
Recent Grants
Our recent City Harvest “Match Funding" appeal is going well (we are over two thirds of the way to our target of £3,000). This has been the subject of a couple of emails lately so I will not repeat everything here except to say that the appeal will remain open until the end of February 2024. You can still donate here and the Charitable Fund will match your donation up to a maximum of £3,000. Very many thanks to those who have already donated.
Way back in September '23 a City Harvest held a “Thank you” reception that was organised by The Livery Charity Chairs Group (Chair Hilary Lindsey) and hosted by Sheriff Andrew Marsden at the old Bailey. About 50 representatives of Livery funds were presented with rather fetching plaques. PM Denise Fellows, who is on the Livery Food Initiative organising committee, 2W Andy Miles and our Clerk Julie Fox joined me (representing the Charitable Fund).
Bayes Centre For Charity Effectiveness (CCE).
As you know we have a long-standing relationship with the CCE. The Trustees agreed to support a request for funds is to help deliver “The Future Charity Chair” – A Research Project, looking at the essential attributes that Charity Chairs of the future will need to embrace.
The total cost of the research programme is around £26.5k. CCE have secured £10k from Green Park Recruitment (co-sponsor) and £6.6k from the Higher Education Innovation Fund (seed funding), but they had a shortfall of £10k. The Trustees agreed a grant of £4,000.
This project offers multiple opportunities for the Company to combine pro bono assistance, with financial support and education. In particular, 2W Malcolm McCaig chairs the project’s Steering Group on a pro bono basis. We'll report further when the research report is complete.
Pro Bono Case Study - Andrews Charitable Trust
It’s always an aim to include Pro Bono assignments case studies and this time around we are grateful to Liveryman Hugh Tinsley for this example:
Andrews Charitable Trust was set up in 1965 by Cecil Jackson-Cole (a businessman who was responsible for setting up several household name charities after the second world war, including Oxfam, help the Aged and Actionaid) when he bequeathed his ownership of the Andrews Estate Agency to the Trust. ACT remains owner of the business and is funded by the profits it generates. The charity has a number of programmes, but the largest of these is "Establish", which provides accommodation to young care-leavers, working in collaboration with a number of local charity partners, who provide on-going support to the young people.
"Establish" has grown to cover a number of properties across the south of England, and the Trust is ambitious to expand its coverage. It was held back, however, by fragmented management information, which made it difficult to assess the financial viability of the different properties, and the extent to which they formed a sound foundation for further expansion.
Siân Edwards, the CEO, knew of the pro-bono work of WCoMC through one of her trustees, and approached the Company for support. Hugh worked with the CEO and ACT staff to review the available information a created a single consistent dashboard across the property portfolio. The process of creating the dashboard was valuable, providing a basis for detailed discussions about the different properties and what drove their viability. The work was extended to gather information from the different partner charities working with ACT, which provided clearer insights into the value provided by ACT.
Clarifying roles and responsibilities and the costs involved in all aspects of the projects is helping ACT to understand the distinctive role it can play in addressing youth homelessness.
The work has now developed from a one-off project to an ongoing relationship with Hugh now serving on a committee of ACT Trustees and staff to support the continuing development of the Establish programme into the future.
Pro Bono Mentoring Workshops
David Glassman from the Pro Bono Committee reports:
The Worshipful Company of Management Consultants was delighted to welcome members of other livery companies to its two October mentoring workshops.
Each company organised or planned to arrange its mentoring activity to suit its own particular needs which ranged from young apprentices to seasoned chief executives in charities. However, the mentoring approaches covered resonated with all attendees and their contributions cross-fertilised the discussion and added value to the role-played case studies.
We were pleased to host members from the (Institute of) Carpenters, the Horners, the Nurses, the Plumbers, the Stationers, and the Tax Advisers (in alphabetic order). Further workshops will be held in spring 2024 and we look forward to members from other livery companies joining us then.
Pan-Livery Pro-Bono Interest Group
Bob Harris Reports:
The final quarterly meeting in 2023 of the Pan-Livery Pro-Bono Interest Group took place in early December and focused on “The Management of Risk” in undertaking pro-bono assignments and other volunteering activity. The meeting heard presentations from Bob Harris and representatives from the Information Technologists and the HR Professionals on the key aspects of managing risk. These were identified as: confirmation of purpose & scope of the support; agreement of appropriate terms & conditions; selection of suitably experienced volunteers; oversight of and support to the assigned volunteers; and clarity of contractual arrangements.
The meeting also discussed the pros and cons of different approaches to professional indemnity insurance cover, including provision by the Livery Company; provision by the Employer of the volunteer; a volunteer’s own PII cover; or no insurance cover in cases judged to be of negligible risk.
The workshop was attended by around two dozen members from 15 Livery Companies who engaged in lively debate and extensive networking after the formal session had concluded. There was general agreement that the risk management approach discussed provided a framework for a wide range of different types of volunteering and pro-bono support, albeit with differences in the detail. It provided food for thought for our own Company’s approach to PII cover ….
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Thanks for reading this far and to all the contributors of content for this GTKP Newsletter.
Steve Cant
Editor
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