From Success to Significance
Our Generous Gene’s Advisory Service encourages innovative companies and ‘successful’ people who have accumulated / earned ‘enough’ to become ‘significant’. To use their energy and talent to make a real difference in the world. Most successful people lead very busy lives. They naturally want to be generous, to help charities and special causes, but often don’t know where to begin. It’s not easy finding special charities or for that matter to give money away effectively.
We work with people and companies that want to create real social change and impact, who have the time and resources to do so. Importantly we work with people we like, and who trust our judgement. All our work comes from personal introductions and we only work with a small number of clients at any one time.
Over several years we have successfully worked with companies ranging from private banks, hedge funds and private equity firms to retailers, an airline, sports organisations…..and many individuals and families. They’re all very happy to give references.
If you would like to meet for a coffee and learn more – email me mike@ourgenerousgene.com or call me on my mobile 07771 603885.
Changing the world together is inspiring work – and fun.
Creating the Future Conference
We’ve been working with one of our special clients, Weatherbys Private Bank, on an exciting and exclusive conference ‘Creating the Future’.
An outstanding line up of speakers gathered to talk about the future of work; education; our environment and health and medicine – and other issues that ‘keep us awake at night’. It was an outrageous success,“Quite simply the finest conference I have ever attended”, “unbelievably powerful and extraordinary”,
The speakers were…
Dr Scilla Elworthy, Rory Sutherland, Alvin Carpio, David Birch, Gabrielle Walker, Mark Stevenson, David Price OBE, Liz Parrish, Ed Fidoe, Nipun Mehta, Jeremy Leggett, Dr Keith Grimes, and Dr Aseem Malhotra, with Oli Barrett MBE moderating.
A private event for clients and contacts of the bank, the talks can be viewed here.
Turning our minds to the future and those creating it has been a fascinating addition to our normal work. The good news is ‘the future’ is full of innovative, hopeful, sometimes astonishing new developments and ideas that will help to make our world a better place to live and work.
Testimonials
‘Inspiring’, ‘engaging’, ‘pragmatic’, ‘grown-up’ advice
James Hopkins. CEO Annington Holdings PLC
“Anningtons has always supported charities but we felt we could be more organised and effective so asked Mike and his team to review our programme with a view to growing the contribution. An immediate and important result is our employees have welcomed the new charity partnerships and we have agreed to double the company’s annual charitable contribution.
“Mike led us through a process which aligned our values with causes that would inspire and engage everyone. Mike’s team then sourced a long list of well-managed, dynamic and effective charities that we’d never come across. From long-list to short-list we then selected a small number of charities to establish new partnerships with.
“It’s a pleasure to see motivated employees, volunteering and fundraising for effective charities and know the feeling of a job well done. We couldn’t have done it on our own.”
Paul Fisher. Group Managing Director, The Jockey Club
“Mike Dickson and his team’s knowledge of the not-for-profit sector has been invaluable. It made expanding The Jockey Club’s philanthropy programme simple, structured and, importantly, in a position to make much more of a long-term difference to causes we care about. From a successful pilot with Wincanton Racecourse, The Jockey Club agreed to expand our philanthropy programme across all 15 racecourses. Involving our employees and keeping our 2 million plus annual local racegoers informed about the difference their contributions made were at the heart of the plan.
“Mike supported our charity selection process with pragmatic ‘grown up’ advice at every stage. He made sure we made sound decisions that were enthusiastically received by our staff. As a result our established support for Racing Welfare has expanded to include new charity partnerships with Carers Trust, Rainbow Trust and Box4Kids, and our workforce have really bought into the idea. It’s a result we’re very pleased with, a long-term shift in our charity policy, and we’re looking forward to seeing the difference we’ll make.”
Roger Weatherby. Chief Executive, Weatherbys Bank Ltd
“We decided to grow the work of the Weatherbys Charitable Foundation. Our goals were clear – to increase employee engagement and enable them to use their skills, talents and energy to directly help small charities near our main offices in Wellingborough, Northants and in Ireland.”
“Mike’s many years creating successful partnerships between business and charities, and his in-depth knowledge of the charity sector, was invaluable. His no-nonsense advice – always delivered with gentle good humour – ensured that the process was effective and enjoyable.”
“As a result Weatherbys formed new partnerships with four local charities and we have begun a journey – both the company and our people – to give more to charity in terms of time, energy and money.”