The Volunteering Experience from a Standard Chartered Bank employee

I learned about Peek Foundation when they won SIB Innovation Fund grant. I knew their organisation has just been formed (from their application) and on our catch up with them I learned about interesting set up between Trust and commercial company they combined in order to get their social enterprise going.

I saw opportunity to offer my help with financial advice on their set up as part of the SCB’s employee volunteering scheme. They accepted the help immediately as they didn’t have in house accountant and idea of having one, for free of charge, seemed as a great opportunity for them.

We arranged a meeting at the bank where they shared their cash flow and budget (prepared some time ago) which we analysed together. This session was used to explain how they can manage the cash flow and the budget themselves, until they recruit accountant. I learned a lot about their organisation, the products they are developing, their funding structure and relationship between the commercial company and the trust.

I thoroughly enjoyed the session as I was teaching adults how to manage their organisational finances. My help was genuinely appreciated, they said they learned a lot on how to simplify something quite complex as funding / spending plans, and got confident how to keep both organisations going until the permanent accountant was recruited.

If I have opportunity, I would definitely do similar type of skills based volunteering as I felt my help was greatly appreciated, and will definitely be used in their day to day management.

Marina Azdejkovic