Get skilled with Skill-UP

Tracey Philipson is Programme Manager for Charity IT Association (CITA), an organisation which provides support and services to small charities around IT. Wanting to scale up CITA’s operation and develop the skills to do so, she attended a Team London Skill-UP session. When asked if her initial objectives had been achieved Tracey replied, “Yes – and more!”

Feedback like this perfectly demonstrates the fantastic value of the Skill-UP programme, which matches skilled business volunteers with staff from small charities to help them develop particular skills. By offering high-quality free training and post-training mentoring, the programme aims to bridge the skills gap that small charities often find.

The training module that Tracey attended was held by Natixis, entitled ‘Preparing your pitch’. Tracey knew that to reach more charities and partners she would need strong presentation skills - especially when pitching for more funding.

Tracey says,

The training session was fantastic! We had the opportunity to present our rough pitches and Graham and Wesley of Natixis gave positive and constructive feedback… Their professional advice, enthusiasm and support left me feeling far more confident in both creating and delivering a pitch.

Tracey was also a fan of the post-training support. It allowed her to seek further, bespoke advice on how to target different audiences within a business who may be interested in partnering with CITA.

The Skill-UP programme also has modules on Human Resources, Finance, Communications, Social Media, Business Planning and Strategy Writing, and the Digital Workplace, all hosted by experts in their field who want to support the vital work small charities do in their local communities. As James Bardrick at Citi says,

Small charities are the unsung heroes in many local communities, making an incredible difference to people’s lives… If we can help make their jobs easier by sharing the skills and expertise of our employees, it frees them up to do what they do best – provide much needed services and support to those in need.

For Tracey, the whole Skill-UP experience – from workshop to post-training mentoring – had an immediate impact on CITA, its vision and its strategy. Buoyed by confidence and knowledge, she was able to begin developing a pitch right away that will be used by CITA’s board to approach fundraisers.

Using the tailored advice from the post-training mentoring, Tracey also created a short ‘elevator’ pitch to be used at a networking event.

Thanks to Skill-UP and the volunteer business mentors, CITA and Tracey can now go forward with confidence, new skills and a great pitching technique!