Sam Weller
Sam was introduced to CCF when he was Director of the Kodak European Research Laboratories in Cambridge and sought the support of Kodak to set up a Fund with CCF, which was used to make grants to a number of local groups. When Sam retired, he and his wife decided to remain in Cambridge and he has utilised his past experience to help the local business and charitable communities. He kept in touch with CCF particularly and was invited by the board to join CCF and to take an active role in developing the grant making strategy of the Foundation.
An interview with Sam Weller
Emma Gilbey, intern at CCF, interviewed Sam Weller about his involvement with CCF.
Why did you get involved in CCF?
We relocated our UK research laboratories from Harrow to Cambridge along with staff from our French laboratories. Arriving in a new area, we didn’t really know anything about the local charities and needs of the community near our facility on the Cambridge Science Park. Obviously, we wanted to support the most appropriate charities and fortunately I was introduced to Jane and she explained the concept of CCF to me.
From a company point of view, CCF helped Kodak in just the way Jane said it would. CCF was a one stop shop for us by offering help with the task of identifying local charities and community groups. We agreed a certain amount of money to go into our Kodak Community Fund and the areas which we wanted to support. CCF then provided a portfolio of possible projects for us to choose from and we chose the most appropriate to make a grant. We also visited the selected charities during the life of the project.
When I retired from Kodak, I thought I’d like to contribute to the other side of this arrangement. When I first contacted Jane, I thought I was going to help charities to make better business cases, help them understand what was needed and therefore improve their applications. However, talking to Jane she felt that I could contribute more by assessing the impact of our grants. So, I agreed to join the grants committee and make impact assessment the focus of my work at CCF.
How long have you been a trustee?
Two years now.
What issues in the community are you particularly interested in?
Of the five CCF programmes, I suppose the areas that I find especially interesting and challenging are “Children, Young People and Families and “Adults facing Life Crisis”. These programme areas have important priorities such as family crisis, young carers, child disabilities, skills development, economic hardship and homelessness.
Which grant have you been pleased to support?
The grants which I’ve enjoyed getting involved with most have been those working with children and families. I visited a group that enables families with autistic children to get together. The autistic children benefit from interaction with specialist toys provided and with the other children. The families benefit by meeting one another and sharing their experiences. I was surprised by the range of disability the group was able to cater for and how much the weekly sessions can provide, despite the very modest budgets. I think the visits I make to groups that we have funded strengthen my ability to encourage others to get involved with CCF. I feel I can give a much better and more passionate presentation to an audience of potential donors because I’ve been there - I’ve seen the other side and what great work these small charities are doing.
What do you hope CCF will be doing in ten years?
I have a clear view that we should be seen as one of the key charitable organisations in the county. If a donor is unsure about where to give charitable gifts into their local community and are not quite sure where they are most needed, I want the first name that comes to mind, or is recommended, to be CCF. Of course, this could be done with large marketing budgets but, as we do not have a lot of money to spend in this way, we must adopt low cost approaches. To me, this is all about regular messages on radio and in newspapers, about making sure your website is at the top of everybody’s search and embracing all forms of social networking. I want the Foundation to be seen, and recognised, as the number one charitable organisation that can bring together donors and charities in the lowest energy way.
I hear you have recently started to write a blog about your work with the CCF? What do you see the benefits of this being?
This is an experiment. I’ve always been an experimentalist from my time at Kodak as a scientist. I feel that we should be exploring more and more of the social networking, which we have not really engaged with in past. However, as you Emma, and others, have been able to help us think about different opportunities, we are now giving it a go. I am keen and want to try these new approaches. So, I thought I would look at blogging and twittering. The overall idea is to raise our profile and to ensure that the resources we do invest time in, like our website, are used by as many visitors as possible.
