Prospex was founded in 2001 to support disadvantaged young people aged nine to 19 living in the London Borough of Islington and neighbouring boroughs, where there is social deprivation, high youth crime, and low attendance in school and employment. The charity aims to raise young people’s aspirations, teach basic life skills, support communities and families, and promote positive activities.
It does this through its Street Teams, which target hot spots where large groups of young people congregate or persistent anti-social behaviour takes place; youth hubs, where young people can access positive activities, workshops, personal development and support; and One2One support where a worker helps the young person improve their behavioural issues.
John (not his real name) came into contact with Prospex through one of its Street Teams. Although he was in education, he had a negative reputation locally and was known to the police. He started attending a youth hub and received a glowing reference from the boss after a week’s work experience at an advertising agency in the City in April 2013.
“John worked diligently and thoroughly on the tasks set him and proved to be very capable in generating some fantastic ideas that the creative team have been developing. They were so good we are looking to integrate them into the final product. We would be more than happy to have him come back.”
John used the reference to gain a part-time paid job and says: “The work experience made me see what I can achieve if I apply myself. I am determined to get a job like this when I finish my education.”
There were three issues that prompted Prospex to approach Pilotlight: funding, marketing, and lack of support from the board of trustees.
“We had a tricky situation with funding,” says James Connolly, business development/operations manager. “The funding for my role had run out and I was being paid out of the unrestricted funding so it was crucial to sort that out if my role was to continue.”
The other main member of staff is Richard Frankland. His salary is paid by a grant from The Mary Kinross Charitable Trust, but as James says, “The Pilotlighters helped us see that when we put funding applications in for projects we can include Richard’s time as the project lead, but we can’t do that for my role. So it made sense to put in a new funding application to the charitable trust for my role instead of his, and it has now funded my role for three years. The Pilotlighters guided us to be cleverer about things.”
Other successes since Pilotlight’s involvement include funding from two local housing associations to run youth hubs in two wards of Islington and a street team in one ward.
“The Pilotlighers taught us how to put a better funding application together so that the detail is broken down to make everything clearer,” says James.
When it came to discussing the board, the Pilotlighters were shocked that they didn’t have a job description, says James. “The board was hands off. We met four times a year and everything on the agenda would always come back to me and Richard to do, even though we tried to share the workload.
“We wrote up job descriptions and areas of responsibility and at the last trustee meeting – the first one after the Pilotlight process – it was the first time that the work didn’t come back to us, so it’s definitely worked.”
Prospex completed its programme with Pilotlight in August 2012 and James wholeheartedly recommends it. “Grab it, go full on into it. It is an amazing process that makes you look at yourself, your charity and the service users. However knowledgeable you think you are, you will definitely get something out of the process.”
Prospex’s Pilotlight team consisted of two individual members and corporate members from Apax Foundation and Unilever.
Andy Dunlop, pensions communications manager at Unilever, turned to Pilotlight after becoming disillusioned with donating money to charities but not knowing how much was actually going to the cause.
“Bringing in an external view helped Prospex because they didn’t have a direction of travel; they had a bit of a scattergun approach about what they wanted to do in the short and long term, as well as considerable issues with funding. We challenged them in a way that they weren’t doing internally.”
Andy feels he has learnt a lot from the process: “I learnt about a part of society that I wouldn’t have come into contact with, despite it being in the city where I live and work. That was a real eye-opener. And I was inspired by the level of commitment from James and Richard. By giving them a better sense of direction I hope we have helped give Prospex a longer-term existence.
“I have been so motivated and inspired by the concept of Pilotlight. If a lot more people were doing this then the charitable sector would have access to more skills which would help everybody. I’m a very big advocate of this concept, it’s fabulous.”