Olympias provides free music lessons to children from low-income families in Manchester to help change the course of each child’s life. It succeeds because it doesn’t just teach, it nurtures the whole child, in their community, so that they grow up to have more confidence, more self-belief and have music to support them throughout their life. Since 2015, it has delivered nearly 27,000 free music lessons to children from low-income backgrounds, engaging hundreds more through choirs, workshops and performances.
Olympias has a bold vision of a more diverse and vibrant music industry and currently has families from 30 countries represented on its programmes, with 93% of Olympias’ children from Global Majority backgrounds. Its work highlights the transformative role that music can play in changing lives and advocating for social change, so that the confidence and joy that music brings really is for everyone.
Jo Yee Cheung, Chief Executive at Olympias shares their experience of Pilotlight Direction.
What motivated you to apply for the Pilotlight Direction programme run in partnership with Barclays?
We first heard about Pilotlight through the Weston Charity Awards. As a small team without a dedicated marketing person, we have always struggled to maximise our PR and communications and approached Pilotlight for support with writing a Marketing and Communications strategy. Through the process of working with Pilotlight and the Pilotlighters from Barclays, we were able to identify and explore a much broader range of issues and develop solutions for each of them.
How did the project go?
The project was seamlessly managed from beginning to end, with a clear timeline of activities and milestones, and expectations from both the charity (e.g., sharing key documents with the Pilotlighters and answering questions) and the Pilotlighters (e.g., having a presentation prepared and responding to feedback as part of a final draft).
The Pilotlighters were warm and supportive throughout, and clearly keen to use their expertise in an area outside of their day-to-day work. The process enabled us to lean on each other’s strengths and identify gaps in our knowledge, whilst learning from new people and trying new approaches!
What have been the results/implementation after the project?
The Pilotlight Direction project has really helped us to look strategically at all parts of the charity and how they interact with each other. The project has resulted in new prospect lists, campaign ideas and conversations about how we might restructure our development team to maximise the strengths of existing members and recruit new individuals to support new areas.
Off the back of the research done by the Pilotlighters into local music shops and companies in Manchester, we are looking forward to delivering our inaugural ‘Play it Forward’ campaign, which we hope to integrate annually as part of our fundraising calendar!
Thank you Pilotlight and Barclays for this incredible growth opportunity – your support and encouragement has helped a small charity dream big and think strategically about how we can support hundreds of children in Manchester to continue benefitting from our work for years to come.