We can help with additional support
If you have been awarded a grant by the Women’s Fund for Scotland and would like to access some additional support via mentoring, coaching, pro-bono management consultancy and more please get in touch with the Women’s Fund for Scotland Executive Director who will work with you to determine which group has the best chemistry and refer you onto them. Each organisation will have their own approach to matching once referred.
As growing numbers of women take their place in the global economy as leaders, consumers, producers, employees and entrepreneurs in both developing and industrialized countries, they will have a profound effect on the equality of people, planet and profit.
The Aspire Foundation aim to inspire and empower ‘M.A.D.’ – ‘Making A Difference’ women working in not for profits, charities and social enterprises around the world that are already making a difference to women and girls. Through mentoring, we support them to make an even bigger difference. In this way, we are creating a multiplier effect of change.
Our 6 month pro bono virtual mentoring program matches women who work in charities and social enterprises with female and male mentors in the small business and corporate world. We mentor women to become more powerful leaders in their life, work and world by enhancing skills such as management, influence, communication and career and life planning.
The commitment for both mentors and mentees is 1 hour a month by telephone or Skype for 6 months.
The Cranfield Trust has over 140 highly skilled commercial sector volunteers in Scotland available to provide free consultancy support on a friendly one-to-one basis. Many are alumni of leading business schools. We can offer you this service if your voluntary organisation is involved with poverty, disability or social exclusion.
How it works: Get in touch and tell us about the management issues you’re dealing with. Our Scotland Projects Manager will work with you to understand how we can help, will find the right consultant to meet your needs, and support you to get the best possible results. We could help you:
- develop your strategy and improve your planning
- strengthen your financial processes and reporting
- evaluate the performance of your trading activities and win contracts
- build and develop your board
Typically, you’ll get up to eight days of a volunteer’s time, mentoring and advising you over several weeks or months, however all projects are different and this is a bespoke service.
The Kilfinan Group is a group of senior business people who provide free and informal mentoring to charity chief executives.
The Group was founded by Nicholas Ferguson, Chairman of Savills, in 2003. It now has nine ‘Chapters’ and around 175 members. Six Chapters are based in London, two in Scotland and one in Northern Ireland.
The Kilfinan Group is dedicated to mentoring individuals not organisations and is committed to absolute confidentiality. Mentors attend occasional Chapter meetings to share their experiences and to keep abreast of developments in the voluntary sector, but these are never shared outside the Group.
Mentors, who volunteer their time, have extensive business experience and each brings a range of skills and interests.
The Group is deliberately informal; we avoid bureaucracy and each mentor/mentee relationship is different. Once matched, mentors and mentees are free to structure their relationship to fit their needs and styles however; we recommend that meetings take place 4-6 times per year.
Pilotlight helps ambitious charities and social enterprises thrive by harnessing the skills of business leaders.
Pilotlight offers free strategic planning support to charities and social enterprises tackling disadvantage in the UK.
Charities work with Pilotlight for a period of 10 to 12 months. They are assigned a team of four, carefully selected senior business leaders to serve as mentors and a Pilotlight Project Manager to facilitate monthly meetings, making the most of everyone’s time.
During the Pilotlight engagement the teams look at every aspect of the organisation and tailor the project to explore and realise its strategic needs, strengthening the leadership and making organisations more resilient.
Pilotlight supports charities and social enterprises with building measurement into the strategic planning process in order that they are focused on continually improving and developing their services and ultimately increasing their impact.
We are working with State Street to place candidates as Trustees in organisations that we fund. State Street is a global financial services business with an office located in Edinburgh’s Quartermile. If you are interested in recruiting a new Trustee please get in touch with Shona to see if there are any candidates available. The Women’s Fund for Scotland will introduce candidates and organisations so that individuals and organisations are then able to follow their own decision making processes.
