Charity begins at work as business gets on board

Mike Dickson

Charities have always been wary of getting involved with the corporate world, but the Pilotlight initiative, which brings the two together, is positive, inspiring and brings many benefits to both parties, says Mike Dickson

Pilotlight prompts the charity to develop a strategic plan and then introduces its volunteer senior executives, who often want to write the plan immediately. Facilitation works by encouraging them to help the charity write its own business plan. It might take six months, but is more likely to last. Pilotlight gives permission to think and ask the hard questions.

Pilotlighting works. And works very well. The organisation has tracked the growth of 100 of its current charity clients and the average rate is 22 per cent a year – against a sector average of under 3 per cent. And every year it introduces another 40 or 50 charities to its support network. There are now 193 in London, 40 in the newly opened Scottish office and plans to open in Wales and other major cities in the UK.

More companies are joining Pilotlight; many regard the involvement of their executives as a more pragmatic way of developing leaders than many leadership courses. About 20 blue-chip companies, including BT, M&S, Sainsbury’s, KPMG and Goldman Sachs regularly second their senior executives to be Pilotlighters.

The Pilotlighters are hugely enthusiastic about their involvement, and so are the charities. All in all, it is a genuinely useful and inspiring partnership.

But it’s not a pushover. Rachel Archer of JusB, which helps young people in Bromley, found the ‘P’ process ‘really painful’ when it started, but she now keeps on coming up with schemes to keep them involved. This charity is the sort of grassroots stuff the government is behind – keeping kids away from crime and ASBOs by developing their confidence and self-esteem. JusB sticks by the kids through thick and thin, and has helped over 4,000 of them in the last three years. This is practical, hands-on work, but Rachel is a youth worker who suddenly found she was running a small business without any business training herself.