What a royally exciting month we've had here at Keyfund!
If you haven't already heard, Keyfund has been hand picked by Prince William and Miss Middleton as one of only 26 charities worldwide to receive a share of their Royal Wedding Gift Fund. How exciting! A Royal seal of approval, and some money to boot.
It has been said that a healthy marriage 'is the union of two already complete people who chose to invest in one another'. This couldn't be more apt as we celebrate the great news that Jon Niblo, CEO of Northumberland Clubs for Young People is leading the latest Keyfund licensee into the fold. Jon has known and used Keyfund since his early years of youth work and is a true ambassador for the process. We're delighted to have him on board and know he will take the Northumberland network from strength to strength.
So why did the Royals pick Keyfund? One reason is our win-win approach to partnerships. What better example than a recent Keyfund application where the young people are planning a fundraiser for Combat Stress - a fellow Royal charity. A win win situation - the young people develop their skills by delivering a fantastic event for other people to enjoy, and ex-service personnel receive support from these inspirational young people.
We've had other brilliant reasons to celebrate this month. Over 6000 young people engaged in Keyfund in 2010/11, with an increase of 40% more groups being successful at panel. Young people earned £288k in total for their projects, helping us smash the £1million mark for the last 4 years.
Great stuff! Let's keep it up and together make 2011/12 even more successful!Speak soon,
Hannah
What better place for our wedding style event than a fairytale castle? Lumley Castle hosted From This Day Forward last week to celebrate our Royal news and launch our exciting partnership opportunities. With candelabras, favours and a wedding 'breakfast', we stopped short of dressing Hannah in a white gown!
81 delegates from all sectors and backgrounds heard from inspirational speakers on how partnerships work and their experiences of uniting with Keyfund.
After a recorded interview with Nick Booth, CEO of the Prince William and Harry Foundation, Amelia Sussman from Impetus Trust spoke about why they chose to support Keyfund with their venture philanthropy model. Phil Roberts, Head of Region from the BBC, spoke of his experiences (just don't mention Ant and Dec!). Martin Harris, Go North East's Commercial Director explained why they love Keyfund, mentioning our fantastic Winter Extravaganza. Jon Niblo, CEO of NCYP, spoke about the huge benefits of becoming a licensee.
Delegates thought about how their piece of the jigsaw fits into the bigger picture, with each leaving behind a list of pledges which we're looking forward to following up.
Have your groups planned to do anything to celebrate the Royal Wedding? Maybe a street party? Then we want to hear about it!
Or have they used Keyfund to organise any other kind of party, event or fundraiser?
We'd love to hear their top tips for organising a Keyfund event - so that other groups can benefit from their fantastic ideas.
We want to hear about your stories!
We know that your groups of young people do some truly brilliant things and we want to make sure we can shout about it, so please send us in your case studies, photos and publicity consent forms.
You never know, with journalists' interest in us as a Royal Wedding charity - you could be famous!
Tom, Fiona, Patrick and Barbara make up the Pickled Fried Chickens. Like their name, these young people truly are unique in the impact they've made on their communities and the way they've grown in their personal development.
At stage 1 the group hired a graffiti artist to teach them to decorate their youth room - a great learning experience, but also gave them some real recognition and respect from their peers. For stage 2, the PFCs set up and ran a successful breakfast club at school every morning (shifts started at 7am!) for six weeks until their exams, raising over £500 which they donated to a new community and youth space.
The group planned a residential for fellow volunteers for stage 3 and are busy planning away their stage 4 project - we have no doubt it will be brilliant. Lyn their facilitator told us "experiencing this group's enthusiasm helps me to recognise why I do this job. The learning these young people have made has been phenomenal as has their increase in confidence!"
Each member of the group has stories to tell about their personal development but as an example - one of the girls was so shy when she started Keyfund she made phone calls from inside a cupboard. She has now spoken confidently in front of all her peers in assembly! A wonderful positive journey!
While we're talking about celebrations, check out our video of the Winter Extravaganza.
Listen out for us on BBC Radio Newcastle and Capital FM who are both featuring us in their Royal Wedding coverage. And don't forget to log on to www.royalweddingcharityfund.org if you want to pledge your support for Keyfund. The more pledges we receive (no matter how small), the bigger slice of the 'Wedding Fund' pie we get when it's all divvied up at the end... so we'd really appreciate your support.
