It’s Small Charity Week, and at Pilotlight we know how these organisations play a crucial role in providing support to those that need it – whether they are giving young people the opportunity to see what they can achieve or helping veterans build confidence and get into employment. Despite an ever increasing need, it is a tough world out for there for them right now. It’s no surprise, then, that the charities who won this year’s Weston Charity Awards overwhelmingly agreed that funding was their biggest challenge.
Sharing their experiences at the Awards’ launch last week, they identified core funding as a particular issue. Other challenges included capacity to grow and recruiting staff. They saw opportunities to tackle these issues through engaging with the business sector, building up their reputations and expertise in the work they do and the impact they have. This is why they applied to the Weston Charity Awards in the first place, and they were all excited to be starting their 10 – 12 month journey with senior business mentors through Pilotlight to help solve their problems.
Abigail Homer, CEO at The Clock in Thirsk and previous Weston Charity Award winner, spoke at the launch about the impact the journey had had on her and her organisation. “I felt like I was Dorothy on the yellow brick road!” she said. “It gave me the courage to put on paper what I had in my head about where we could be and made me believe we could get there.”
It was very rewarding to hear Abigail’s reflections on her time as a Weston Charity Award winner and it’s going to be an exciting time for our new winners – I’m looking forward to seeing where their mentoring takes them!
