In this month’s Client Spotlight we spoke with Evelyn Daley from The Clare Foundation. Learn about their work while seeing the success of our collaboration in building their website.
Tell Us About Your Organisation and What It Strives For?
The Clare Foundation is an infrastructure charity meaning we work to support other charities. This is why we put on a range of training sessions and networking events so that charity leaders and middle managers can work together and learn from each other. We also support charities by offering small grants and we have our CHAT program with volunteer mentors. The CHAT program is for CEOs and charity leaders that need help with, for example, a business plan or a marketing strategy. We will then find an expert in this field, and they work with them closely to achieve their goals.
For charities we also run a yearly event called Angels Den, which is based on the programme Dragons Den. Mike Clare, our founder and Chief Angel, along with 4 other entrepreneurs in the area each put in £10,000, which we match with another £50,000 to make a £100,000 prize pot. We then invite charities to apply. Last year we had just over 50 charities apply and this year we have received more applications, which is great. We then review the applications, and a panel comes in to whittle the applications down to the final 10. The chosen charities will present to our Angels at an event in September. They have 2 minutes to carry out the presentation and 4 minutes for questions and answers. After everyone has completed their presentation, the Angels will go away to a separate room and divvy the prize pot between the charities based on their performance, so everyone leaves with something! They also gain a lot of publicity from this as we have a PR person who supports them. It’s a great thing to be involved in as it has made such a positive difference for charities.
As well as charities we also help individuals. We have a program called Family Angels, which is where Community Advocates can recommend families that may be going through a rough patch and need support. We will then offer grants to help them get back on their feet. Overall, our aim is to make Buckinghamshire the happiest county.
What Is Your Role at Your Organisation and What do You Enjoy Most About It?
I have recently acquired a new job title. I am Events, Administration and Communications Manager, it’s quite a mouthful! I look after and organise events which are specifically for training and networking. I work closely with Martin, our Chief Executive Officer, to work out who to invite and then I keep control of the guest list, organise refreshments and liaise with presenters and trainers to make sure the events run smoothly. Whenever we have an event, I love the buzz of having loads of people there and when we get feedback its feels very rewarding.
With the administration side, I’m the bookkeeper looking after day-to-day transactions and on with the communications I look after the website and the social media. As we are a small team, my role is pretty varied which is probably my favourite thing about it.
What Challenge Did You Face and Want Framework Digital to Help You With?
Our original website was very clunky, so it needed a revamp. Every post was a page, meaning we had a lot of pages on the website. The website is much more user friendly now and easier to navigate which has made a big difference. Framework have also helped us a lot with presenting Angels Den on the website. We spoke with Mike about how we are going to present it this year and, in the future, as we will need to plan to prevent having too many pages. We feel it’s important to acknowledge the finalists from previous years so it’s just about working together to come up with a plan to present the information in a sustainable way. This is an on-going project that Framework are supporting us with.
Can You Tell us Something That Happened During The Project You Weren’t Expecting?
It all went very smoothly which was great. It was a steep learning curve for me as this is not my background at all, but I enjoyed learning certain aspects such as putting up posts, lining things up and making any relevant tweaks. Mike has been great at supporting us and I enjoyed the fact it was collaborative and any issues I had were listened to and dealt with, even if you felt like you were being picky. I’ve always had an eye for small details, so sometimes I felt like I was being too picky, but it never felt like a problem which was encouraging.
If You Were to Recommend Framework Digital to Someone, What Would You Say?
I would say you are really good to work with because you work quickly, and it feels collaborative through the whole process. It’s nice for us because you guys are local, so we’ve been down to you, and you’ve been up to us, so we have had a really easy working relationship. We had a lot of work to do to the website in preparation for Angels Den and most of this was last minute tweaks that had to be done quickly. So, we would present this to Framework and ask if it could get done straight away and you did it brilliantly and got everything up and running quite quickly. It’s always been a positive experience with you guys!
Thank you to Evelyn for participating in our Client Spotlight! If you would like to get involved in our Client Spotlight next month, email amy@frameworkdigital.com
