Reciprocal benefits
Amanda Tincknell discusses the impact of the recession on pro bono management consultancy
Professional skills volunteering has developed strongly over the last decade. Supported by a buoyant economy, increasing publicity for personal philanthropy and growing pressure on companies to develop Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programmes, individual and employer-supported volunteering has flourished. A range of ‘brokerage’ organisations have grown up using specialist and general business skills to support third sector organisations with external advice, consultancy and resources. But everything has changed in the last six months: will people from the commercial sector continue to provide the pro bono support they have offered in the past under the economic pressures of the recession?
The Cranfield Trust has recently experienced an influx of new volunteers who have time available for volunteering due to the recession, and in thinking about them, I have concluded that we are now working with people whose expectations of us are dramatically different to those who might have joined us in the last recession in the early 1990s, or since then.
Author: Amanda Tincknell
Amanda Tincknell has been chief executive of The Cranfield Trust since 2000 and first joined the trust as a volunteer in the early 1990s, following her MBA at Cranfield School of Management and an early career in market research and recruitment.
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