Company director and charity trustee
I started a new independent youth volunteering charity, which I was a trustee and director of.
Identifying a need in my local community
With friends from a variety of professions, I formed and went on to be chair of the board of trustees of a new independent youth charity, created to address a need that we saw in our community.
We began by carrying out research and running pilot projects under the supervision and support of an existing charity, to confirm and validate our observations. The feedback from this work fed continued development and refinement of the ideas, which have been steadily grown over time. These went on to be successful projects run by twenty-four members of staff of our charity, managing over £660k a year.
Team work and leadership
This has included work in recruitment, management and assessment for the members of staff that we employ. It also involves providing strategic direction and guidance at an organisational level.
Embracing new challenges
Setting up a new charity was a challenging thing to attempt, and necessitated learning a lot as I went along. In the early years, this included creating the concept, designing how it was going to work, writing a business plan with financial requirements, fundraising for it, marketing it, and generally ensuring that it was viable, as well as issues such as the creation of a constitution and application for charity status.
As the charity grew, the challenges became how to lead a fast-growing organisation, particularly as we opened new offices in neighbouring towns.
It also involved learning about the challenging roles and responsibilities of an employer.
More info
More background can be found in a history that I wrote of how we started the charity.
I occasionally blog about some of the challenges facing the charity.
