We return to the E3M away day with two interviews from June O'Sullivan, from the London Early Years Foundation, and Danny Dickson, from Charity Bank.
We have already covered the E3M event that Kibble hosted at The Experience, our themed entertainment and events venue. In that interview we had a chat with Keith Ward about his thoughts on social enterprise, social impact and social investment.
During that event we also sat down and had a couple of short conversations with June O’Sullivan from London Early Years Foundation (LEYF) and Danny Dickson from Charity Bank.
LEYF is one of the biggest childcare charities and social enterprises in Britain. For over 112 years they have been a catalyst for long-term social change by supporting the next generation of people that will shape our world to come. They are a family of 38 community-based nurseries across London and they support 48% of their parents with a free nursery place, allowing children from less affluent families access to early years education, which in turn allows their parents to work. This is just one of many examples of their social impact and the results certainly speak for themselves.
June has been involved with LEYF for about ten years and has been instrumental in driving major strategic and cultural change in the company, change which has led to increased profitability and profile within the last decade. She is an MBE, awarded for services to London’s children, and advises the government in their implementation of their vision for early years learning and support.
Charity Bank needs little in the way of introduction. They are a bank whose mission is to support charities with finance that they are unable to find elsewhere, whilst demonstrating how people’s savings can be invested ethically, in positive ways. People can save with Charity Bank knowing that their money is doing good and is helping others in ethical ways. In an era where big banks are often met with suspicion, Charity Bank is out there showing how banks can, and should, work for good.
Danny Dickson is the director for Charity Bank in Scotland and has only recently come into post. He has worked in banking for almost 40 years, and was a corporate relationship manager for Co-operative Bank in Glasgow, manging the portfolios of charities, credit unions, social enterprises, co-operatives and social landlords among others.
Both Danny and June have vast amounts of experience in social enterprise, and I think you get a sense of that in these very brief, but interesting, chats.