Navigating Faith and Finance for Charities: Insights from Yekemi Otaru, CEO of Somebody Cares

Simon

:: 00:06

You are about to listen to 'Where Your Treasure Is...', the podcast where faith and finance meet. Please note that the views expressed are our own and in no way represent any form of financial advice.

And remember, investments can go down as well as up. Happy listening.

Bex

:: 00:24

Hello and welcome, or welcome back to 'Where Your Treasure Is...'. We are on bonus episode two of our season, all about charities and churches and finance.

And so in our last bonus episode we had the wonderful Malcolm Webb, who is an accountant in a church. Now, Simon, where have you gone with the second bonus episode?

Simon

:: 00:48

So again, we've got somebody who works for a charity because obviously charity is the theme, but we've not gone for somebody who works directly in the finance function this time. In fact, we are very blessed to have with us the CEO of a local Aberdeen / Aberdeenshire based charity.

We'll find out a bit more about it from her, no doubt, so I'm going to introduce to you Dr Yekemi Otaru - her official title; we know her as 'Kemi'. Kemi, welcome to the 'Where Your Treasure Is...' podcast.

Kemi

:: 01:18

Thank you very much. I'm delighted to be here.

Simon

:: 01:21

Well, we need to know a bit about you, so could you give us a potted briefing on who are you? What is it that you do, Kemi?

Kemi

:: 01:29

Hi everyone. So, I'm Yekemi Otaru and I've lived in aberdeen for about 21 years, thereabouts. I'm an engineer, if you cut me open.

e becoming an entrepreneur in: 2016

So I started as interim CEO in August and took the permanent position in November of last year. So it's been nine short months since I've been at Somebody Cares.

Bex

:: 02:09

And am I right in thinking we are also speaking to the first black University Chancellor in Scotland?

Kemi

:: 02:16

Yeah, so I'm told. Bex.

So, in: 2021

Simon

:: 02:29

And in terms of your role with Somebody Cares, could you give us a little summary of what this charity is? What does Somebody Cares actually do?

Kemi

:: 02:39

Somebody Cares is quite a prominent charity in Aberdeen, I would say. It was founded in 2002, so has been around almost 23 years. It was founded by Brian and Jenny Taylor, who are Christians.

Jenny, in particular, had the idea of the charity after visiting a similar charity in the US. They really felt that God wanted them to love the city through this charity. And so, Somebody Cares provides immediate relief and support for people in hardship and poverty in and around Aberdeen.

And that takes a couple of forms. The main thing that the charity is known for is providing free furniture for those who need it.

And this is done through a referral type programme where we work with over 80 agencies that refer people to us who have been given social housing, often people that have fallen on hard times. We're often dealing with women and their young children, maybe who have escaped abuse; people coming out of addiction, that kind of thing.

And so, they get these houses or flats and they are empty. There's no furniture in the houses. And so they could lease furniture; they could buy furniture.

But what we do as Somebody Cares is we provide furniture for free for them and we deliver it to their homes for free as well. So that is, I would say, the main thing that Somebody Cares is known for. The second aspect is our food bank.

And I would argue that we have the most generous food bank in Aberdeen. So, when people come to us, they get six days' worth of meals - that's 18 meals in total.

And we account for different needs, whether that is vegan, halal, vegetarian, and we'll also account for situations where there's a young person in the home who might end up having to make their own meal due to whatever situation's going on at home - whether there's addiction, or neglect even. And so we'll pack food parcels that a young person can make themselves, essentially.

And so to give you an idea, last year we gave away almost 200,000 meals, and the need just keeps growing. The year before that it was 176,000. And the need is particularly bad around Christmas time when people are happy and excited but, actually, there are pockets of the community where it's actually a really challenging time.

Bex

:: 04:56

Really helpful to see that overview.

And I just love the extravagant generosity and also the holistic view of thinking about young people who might be making their own meals or not just how do we give people furniture, but actually making sure delivery is included in that and really just thinking through what does it look like to practically love people and support them in that.

We are going to be diving into all things Somebody Cares and your charity-based role but, before that, I wondered if you could tell us a little bit about your journey of faith.

Kemi, how did you become a Christian and what does that look like today?

Kemi

:: 05:32

I always say that my story is probably very boring because I grew up in a Christian home and went to church from as young as I can remember.

However, in my teens, around about 17/18, I went off to university in a different town from my family, and I had several months of not going to church at all. And I suppose this is maybe quite common for most young people - you go away from home and then you want to try something else, discover yourself, or it's just not cool anymore to be going to church.

And so for me, it triggered a personal journey with God because I had to understand him for myself and not rely on what my parents said and rely on my mom praying for me at night, that kind of thing. I had to develop my own relationship with God. And that was, I would say, very much up and down over the years.

But I really believe that when you come to Christ, He doesn't let you go. He keeps finding opportunities and ways to bring you back. And so, certainly as I got older, I started to hear from God myself.

You know, I had challenges going on, made many mistakes, but God never gives up on us. And so even when I strayed far away, I always knew that, okay, there's somewhere I can go back to. I can always pray. So that's been my grounding.

And then having my own family as well. I married a Christian, and we've grown up together in Christ, and we've raised our children in a very similar way.

And it's been an honour to watch them grow up and know God for themselves and not just rely on what we tell them, because we're not always right. And I'm glad they don't listen to this podcast, because I am always right as far as this home is concerned!

So, it's just been an amazing journey, and maybe we'll get into it later how that's fed into my professional life as well.

Simon

:: 07:13

Well, you mentioned there, Kemi, about God's continual guidance in all of our lives. And what I wondered was, what role has God played in getting you from an engineer into entrepreneurship and through eventually into this role as CEO of a charity? I imagine it wasn't the destination you were aiming for when you were studying. And I know you've done a number of degrees - you've got your doctorate - what role do you think God has played to get you where you are today?

Kemi

:: 07:42

It's a question that if somebody had asked me five years ago, or even a year ago, actually, I wouldn't have been very clear on it.

Growing up in Nigeria, your parents want you to succeed, and for you to succeed, there's always this feeling that you need to be an engineer, a doctor, or maybe going to government.

And so in terms of your professional life, I would say I've always felt that it almost was a side thing that was happening and wasn't necessarily something that had to align with your values or certainly your faith. So, I became an engineer - that's the option that I took out of those three options. Nigeria has a lot of oil and gas, so this was a pretty normal career to be following.

And so, right from the very beginning, as a young person, you know, early 20s, entering the workforce, you take on the jobs that you need to take: what's expected of you; what's going to pay the bills; what's going to help you get a foot in the door - that sort of thing. And certainly for me, I wasn't really thinking about how this aligns with my faith.

All I knew was, as time went on, there were some things that didn't feel right and some things felt right, and that was all I could really decipher at the time.

And so, as time went on, I would say I had an early midlife crisis, probably sometime in my 30s, where I was just feeling really disconnected from what I was doing and my values. And so, I started to chart things.

So, I would come back from work and I would put on a little chart I had on my wardrobe whether today felt good or felt bad. And I would then write, why? Why did it feel good and why did it feel bad? And so sometimes it felt good because I worked with a team of people - I felt that I helped them solve a problem, and that felt really good.

A bad day would be, I had to do something I didn't really want to do, but I had to do it, whether that was being in a meeting that was four hours long or the way somebody was treated, or whether we had to make some people redundant or at least give some bad news about that potentially happening. Over time, I started to understand why I was feeling disconnected.

So when I did that exercise, I wasn't necessarily linking it to my faith; I was linking it to my values. And the fact that you're a Christian means that your values are going to be a certain set of values.

And I think we make the assumption sometimes that everyone has the same values as us. I certainly did. And then I started realising that, no, people actually think the complete opposite of what I think. Hmm, interesting!

And that's been quite a journey in terms of reflection. And then I came to Aberdeen when my husband got transferred here. He worked for Shell at the time. That's how we ended up in Aberdeen.

And so that kind of theme of oil just continued. And it was really about wealth, about prestige and being in a credible industry that everybody respected; or most people did, anyway.

And then, over time, I suppose role models play a key role in careers. And so, I started looking around - did I see any Christians in senior engineering roles? Not really. Very few. Did I see any Christian women in senior engineering roles? Not really. Did I see any black Christian women in senior engineering roles? Definitely not!

And that's what started, I would say, my journey to figure out what I wanted to be. So I eventually started an MBA while I was working full-time as an engineer. And that felt right - I felt that my interest in commercial topics was being fed. And I realised that I had far more interest in commercial topics, like helping companies grow. I had an affinity for finance.

Fun fact - I actually wanted to be an accountant when I was 16! That's what I wanted to be! And I am very good with numbers and I can remember up to, like, 12 digit numbers all at once.

So that whole finance, leadership, business, marketing all felt natural to me. And so, that was a bit of a hint for where I was going to probably head on to.

I didn't realise other ethnic minority groups, other engineers or technical people, other women were watching people like me and looking at what I was doing - whether that was educating myself, whether that was getting promoted, whether that was moving from one sector to another. It turned out that some people were getting inspired. And so that was almost like a side-effect. Certainly, I wasn't expecting it or doing that on purpose.

And so, the journey - a lot of it was unplanned. But I believe that, as Christians, all our steps are ordered.

And it says in the book of Romans that everything works out together for the good of those that love God. So I felt somehow that the natural skills and affinities I had, I had them for a reason.

For several years, I didn't really know what that reason was until I was approached about a year ago to take on the role at Somebody Cares, which did not feel like something that was possible because I had never worked in the third sector, never been the CEO of that size of charities - quite a high income charity when you think about it from a city perspective - and, suddenly, I thought perhaps my commercial mindset and leadership skills and my values sit here. Maybe this is where I'm supposed to be. And it just felt right. It felt like the coming together of the years of experience that I had.

Bex

:: 13:02

Absolutely love hearing that story. And I love the way you practically walked through mapping out - this feels right and this is why; and this doesn't and this is why.

And through that process, you uncovered a whole range of gifts that now fit perfectly into this role. So, give us a bit of an overview of your day or your week, Kemi - what does that look like as CEO of Somebody Cares?

Kemi

:: 13:27

It's hectic! It is very different every day. You can't actually predict what's going to happen.

But, overall, I try to do at least one thing every day that is strategic in terms of day to day. There will be stuff that you have on your 'to do' list, and for me, that would be things like maybe looking at the new funding opportunities coming up; it might be a meeting of a couple of different charity leaders in the city for just getting to know them, networking opportunities - things like that.

Sometimes I have more, what I call, kind of 'brain work', like we just started a new financial year and we need to put together an operating budget for the next 12 months - that sort of thing.

And it requires looking at what are we going to do in terms of who are we going to hire, what are we spending on, do we need to continue spending on that, that sort of thing. But sometimes you're working on that and then something happens. You get a text or an email that something's happened at a retail shop - you know the roof is leaking and, oops, we need to get someone out there and abandon that brain work and begin to work on that. So it is very varied and different, mainly because Somebody Cares does so many things.

We have quite a few buildings in and around Aberdeen at the moment. We have 25/26 staff; we have almost 100 volunteers - so, there's many moving parts.

And so, I'm learning to focus on what I can control and every opportunity to do something strategic - something that is more long term, that is going to sustain the charity long-term. I always appreciate those moments because it's quite easy to just focus on tactical short-term solving of problems. Those problems need to be solved - you can't leave the roof leaking, right? So, you have to deal with that. But at the same time, you have to go back to the long-term planning and vision.

I have to look at things like how do I get the employees on board, how do I share the vision in a way that they understand, that they can buy into; how do I involve them in conversations? And so I would say a lot of my time is spent talking to people and solving problems.

A few years ago, what I started doing, even in my previous roles, was I colour code my calendar because I want to know what I spent most of my time on. So, my calendar is very colourful! Internal meetings is green; external meetings is yellow; brain work is purple; events is blue; personal appointments is orange. And just sometimes, at a glance, I will look at the last month or the last week to get a sense of what percentage of my time I'm doing what with.

And that's always really helpful. So, if I'm having a lot of internal meetings, that's probably a problem. Maybe I'm having to chat to quite a few people, which is fine. I think it's necessary sometimes or when I'm new in the role, it's normal that I'm having a lot of internal conversations.

And if I'm having a lot of external conversations, it means my networking is at an all-time high, which is also good. But it could indicate that I'm maybe neglecting some internal conversations as well. And I try to look at - is this the right balance right now? And that could change from month to month and from quarter to quarter.

So that's a long-winded response to your question, Bex.

Bex

:: 16:19

That's great. I want to adopt the calendar technique. That sounds really helpful.

Simon

:: 16:23

Do you not have a colourful calendar, Bex?

Bex

:: 16:26

I will check in with you to let you know how that's going! Because sometimes I think, gosh, what have I actually achieved today!

Simon

:: 16:32

I love hearing how deliberate and organised you are, Kemi, and clearly that is part of the story of what's helped you achieve the many things you have managed to achieve.

Now, you've alluded to this already, but what I wanted to ask about was how do you find your current role and maybe specifically how money is played out in your current role?

How does that differ to previous roles where you've worked for a large organisation in the oil and gas sector, or you've started your own business or worked in a small business as an entrepreneur? Is it different or is it just like you've always been doing?

Kemi

:: 17:05

Oh, it's very different. Some things are the same, but I would say a lot of it is very different. In the private sector, you know, there's a lot about return on investment. You probably have shareholders; they want to know what profit they're going to make on top of what they've given you. Depending on the set-up, you're maybe reporting to them regularly.

It also means that if you're needing money, you go to this group of people and say, we need an extra 2 million to build this product, or whatever that looks like. But money is always important and it's always about making more money.

Sometimes it means making more money and making a profit, because - you'll know this - revenue and profit are two different animals. And so, the conversation can be about maximising revenue or maximising profit.

Coming to the charity sector, I actually got some, I guess, relief, if you like, about the fact that it's really about servicing charitable causes rather than trying to maximise profit per se. In fact, if you have a lot of surplus left, it begs the question of, well, why aren't you using it to serve your charitable purpose?

At the same time, money is very important because if you don't have money, then you cease to exist. And so, I think the sectors have a lot to learn from each other.

I think what I bring to the charitable sector at the moment is certainly commercial thinking. I know that I'm asking my team questions that no one has ever asked them before.

And it's that balance between, are we making money, is there a surplus? And, actually, do we need to spend this money? Because actually, there's a cause over here that could benefit from us spending money on.

So, I get excited when we've got a little bit more money because I think, oh, we can maybe go into the schools and do this piece of work we want to do. Or we wanna do something, and we say, oh, let's speak to this corporate sponsor and share our vision around this project.

So, we get excited about getting money because we're excited about what we're going to do with it, rather than being excited about the dividends. There's nothing wrong with dividends, of course - but you know what I mean.

Bex

:: 19:06

Now, what really struck me there was the fact that, in the charitable sector, actually having a surplus can be a negative thing in terms of, well, why aren't you spending that money? And as someone who can be a little bit more conservative and is used to not having a regular, stable income, that thinking feels so foreign to me.

And so I'm wondering, how do you get that balance between - we absolutely want to prioritise the causes, the people who we are helping - and also: I have 26 employees who are reliant on us. And so, therefore, we need to make sure that we can still pay them in a month's time or a year's time. What does that look like?

Kemi

:: 19:47

Yeah, it's a great question. And I think the balance is always something that we strive for.

I've made a mistake in the past, and probably recently, of feeling like, oh, yeah, we've sorted that - cash flow is sorted. And then three months later, it's like, oh, my gosh, it's not sorted, actually - so it's a consistent balance.

But rule of thumb - whether it's a charity or a private organisation - is having some reserves. So, being able to put aside enough money for, say, three months of expenditure, what we sometimes call, run rates.

So, if something happened and you didn't make any money in a month, do you have a pot of money somewhere that could be spent on those expenses that are happening within the organisation? I would argue that if an organisation is not striving to have some kind of reserves, that that's probably irresponsible.

So, if there's surplus and you don't have reserves, then you maybe want to keep your surplus and put that to one side. It's a long-term strategy for us. For instance, the end of the year, like December, January tends to be quite quiet. And so October, November, we might make a bit more money than we'd normally, but we'll just put that aside because we know that we might have a negative month in December and January; but we're not freaking out because we had some surplus from the previous month and we've deliberately put that aside to be able to spend on the costs that would come up, especially the fixed costs - costs that you can't get rid of. If you consistently have a deficit, then it does mean that you're eating into some money somewhere.

In the private sector, if you're consistently making a loss over three, four, five years, someone's going to ask you what are you doing? Why are you always losing money? And I think that commercial kind of thinking has to always be top of the mind for the third sector.

I think often they don't really think in that sense about, you know - imagine this was an organisation you wanted somebody to invest in; what would they be asking you? Because you are custodians of money. It might be money generated from the community, generated from charitable events, but it's still money that's been given to you for a purpose, and you should use it wisely.

Simon

:: 21:47

It's really interesting hearing that perspective, Kemi, having recently spoken to a church accountant in our last bonus episode. And as a church, I think we've recognised in the past we have quite a solid income base. When you have people who are committed to the church and charity giving regularly, maybe by standing order, it's not massive fluctuation month in, month out. But then there are charities, and I'm guessing Somebody Cares is more like this, where your income is more volatile.

How does Somebody Cares raise its money? How might our listeners be able to get involved in supporting a charity like that?

Kemi

:: 22:23

Somebody Cares, I would say, is quite unique in terms of the way we get our funding. We are not one that relies heavily on government funding or funding from the local council.

We actually get zero funding from the local council and government. Some days, that's great and I'm happy about that. And some days I'm like, gosh, we could use a few bucks to be honest. Mr/Mrs Government!

So, at the moment, I would say something like 70% of our income comes from our retail side.

So if listeners are thinking, how can you support directly - if you're changing out your furniture in your home, whether that's living room furniture or bedroom furniture, we take those in and we will either put them to our retail shop to be sold or they go to our client showroom where we give them for free to people who are taking on social housing. So, the sale from furniture, in particular, helps us raise income; also toys, clothing that people donate. So 70% of our income comes from that.

And then we get some income from corporate organisations. We've got one main organisation in Aberdeen that gives regularly to us and they also volunteer. So, they come and they actually drive our vans and go and help us deliver food parcels, for instance. And they've been a huge, huge support to us. And so, those are the main sources of income.

In terms of funding, we apply for different types of funding. It's not something that we're guaranteed, and we have less control over that compared to say, the retail side, where the challenge tends to be either footfall or having enough donations.

So, that's how we get our funding, and we've accelerated our gift aid side because, quite frankly, the gift aid process for retail is not something that the charity has followed for many years.

I suppose it's different from the church. For instance, if you give £100, the church can claim 25% of that and you as the giver of that money can get some tax credit or you can claim that on your self-assessment. With the retail side, we have to collect the item and if the donor is a taxpayer, then they can complete a gift aid declaration form. But we don't get any gift aid on that until we sell the item, and we need to let the donor know that we've sold the item. And long boring story about gift aid is, many chapters later, we then get this gift aid paid through. So, there is some income to come from that because, historically, the charity didn't have a robust, consistent process to claim that, just because it's a little bit more complicated than just a simple gift aid, that people are used to. And it's also educating our donors around it and explaining what gift aid is and what's in it for them, that kind of thing.

And so, we have to educate our drivers who go and collect this furniture from people's homes around that. So, there's a lot of people to educate. It's a journey that we're on.

Bex

:: 25:23

It's so interesting just hearing your model and actually that most of your money is coming from the retail side. And even just the balance of knowing what to sell versus what goes to the client showroom, I can imagin,e must be a bit of a headache some days.

But what is really fun about this podcast is it often gives people an opportunity to say something to people who they interact with that they maybe couldn't say day to day.

And so, if there was one thing you could say to people who give to charities, whether it's Somebody Cares or other charities, what would you want donors or potential donors to know?

Kemi

:: 26:02

I had a conversation with a friend of mine a few weeks ago about charity shops in general, and I said, why do you go to charity shops? And she was really honest with me. She said she doesn't go to the shop because she wants to support the charity. It's not that, 'Oh, this is cancer research,' and, 'Oh, I've got a real heart for this.' She goes there to get a bargain, essentially.

And so, if she goes to the charity shop and there is no bargain to be had, it doesn't really matter what the cause is. And I suppose my comment to the listeners is, charities are often carrying a big load. They are an extension of your local council, and they are doing things that the government is not able to do and your local council isn't able to do. And so, we need people to actually care about the causes of the charity, because that's really important.

We need people to understand some of the social impact of the charities in and around their area. So, for Somebody Cares, we don't have a specific target group because we deal with anyone who's in hardship and poverty. But, specifically, we focus on furniture poverty, which is a huge thing. And so, I encourage people to care about causes. And yours might not be homelessness; maybe that's not what's close to your heart - it could be cancer; it could be children; it could be people living with disabilities. Whatever it is, I think the more people actually care about causes, the more likely they are to support that charity - whether it's by giving money, whether it's by volunteering their time.

I know that we all love a good bargain but I think we're all in trouble if we're just looking for a good bargain and we don't really deeply care about the causes that these charities are ultimately trying to alleviate.

And I would encourage people to pick a cause that you care about and lean into it.

Simon

:: 27:44

As somebody who has been part of a local church for many years and grown up as a Christian and who has only recently really moved into the third sector in your professional life, has your attitude towards personal giving, the money that you give, the time that you give, between Christian and other causes (non Christian/secular causes) changed at all? what would you say to people about how they're deliberate with their giving?

Kemi

:: 28:10

I think I've become more conscious of my giving and I've become more deliberate about what I'm giving to and why I'm giving. Because Somebody Cares has Christian values in the way it was set up, I find I'm more and more leaning to God for help, whenever there's a challenge, I'm leaning to God for help. And as a result of that, I think that I have become closer to God in terms of how often I'm talking to Him and how often I'm asking for help.

And I think it's ultimately meant that I've started asking Him about my giving and whether I'm giving in the right way to the right causes. Am I giving enough? And, over the years, I've had different excuses for how and why and who I give to. I've had different things like, 'Oh, I'm not actually earning that much money. I'm just a start-up founder, so I'm just gonna do this; I'm just gonna do that,' or 'Oops, I haven't given in a while; I'm just gonna look for a random place to give some money to,' and just different excuses.

But because I'm talking more to God about different things, ultimately I'm talking also about what I'm giving to and whether my heart is really in the right place, because I do believe God loves the cheerful giver; and it's possible to give and not be cheerful about it.

And so, I'm asking questions about what it is that I'm doing and my motives and allowing that to be laid bare, allowing a mirror to be held up, basically to my soul - because only God really knows that and He sees everything, and that matters!

Bex

:: 29:34

We are coming towards the end of the episode. One thing I would like to ask you, Kemi, is that obviously this is your first role in the third sector - big shift from what you were doing before - I imagine there was a lot to get up to speed with. Are there any resources or tools that you have found particularly helpful that would also benefit other people working in the third sector?

Kemi

:: 29:58

I laugh because the website that explains charity VAT has been hugely important to me! I've ended up having full blown conversations with ChatGPT just about charity VAT and allowable and disallowable VAT. So that's been interesting!

But I came across a really great site a few months ago - goodfinance.org - and really what the website does, it allows you to highlight who your target groups are and the kind of social impact that you want to have within your organisation and then you can track it and it gives you examples of other organisations who are, for instance, focused on education and the sort of key performance indicators and targets that they've set for themselves and how they measure it. We have some stats - obviously we talk about how many meals we give away and how many homes we furnished, which is fantastic, but I'm looking at, kind of, end to end. So, somebody came to you with nothing; you gave them this... five years later, three years later, 12 months later, what's happening to them? Where have they ended up? Are we signposting people and making sure that there's holistic impact?

And so, the Good Finance website has been really great in showing me a few examples and some of the key performance indicators we could be measuring as a charity to allow us to have robust social impact reporting.

Simon

:: 31:20

So helpful, so good to hear all that! I think many of our listeners have some connection in the charity sector and, so, to get your insight is really useful.

There might well be people who listen to the 'Where Your Treasure Is...' podcast who, they're not really thinking of moving into the charity sector, but they have some of the skills and maybe, hearing you, they're thinking, 'Well, that's the kind of thing I do day to day.' If there's somebody out there who has just got this inkling of, 'Maybe God's prompting me to do something different, something more, but, hey, no one's asked me, so I'll just leave it,' what would you encourage them to do to maybe get involved in that third sector in a more proactive way? Is there anything you would suggest?

Kemi

:: 32:02

Yeah, in terms of Somebody Cares, I found out about the charity in depth probably 3 years ago, not because I ever thought I was going to be the CEO of the charity, but I met one of the trustees and we got talking and it did implant a seed in me, and I started thinking about what more I could do with my commercial skills.

And so, I think if someone's thinking, 'What more can I do with my commercial skills? How can I contribute to the third sector charitable sector?' I would say, first of all, pray about it, because I think God lines things up in a way that we can't even imagine.

One of the first steps I would suggest is maybe get on a board of a non-profit organisation. It doesn't necessarily need to be a Christian organisation.

If you believe in the cause and you're passionate about what it is you're doing, it'll be a great opportunity for you to see just how it works - be on that board, advising and supporting. I think board trustees are gold dust. Good ones are gold dust.

So, if you can get on a board like that, you get to work really closely with a CEO running a charitable organisation. Essentially, the CEO reports to the board of trustees, and so you get to see the inner workings. And that could give you a sense of whether this is something you want to be involved with from a leadership perspective.

For me, I've got five trustees right now with different sets of expertise, you know, whether that is marketing, HR, finance, or business experience. And so, I don't have to feel like I need to know everything - I have this team of people that have got my back.

I was on a couple of boards during my business time. I served as a trustee for Catalyst Vineyard, and I was also on the board of Interface, which is an organis ation that does a bit of matchmaking between Scottish universities and companies looking to drive innovation, and so they can work with a university to get some piece of innovation off the ground.

So, I would say definitely pray. And a place to start is to seek out a board that you feel that you can give to in terms of your expertise, and then pray again and see if there's something more you could be doing there - whether you need to step into a leadership role.

Bex

:: 34:09

Kemi, thank you so, so much for your time and your expertise and insight today.

What I have loved in this conversation is just the way that so much of it is through your lived experiences and figuring it out whether that's just, 'How do I want to spend my time or my money? Where do my values lie?' And it is deeply challenging and deeply encouraging for each of us to go away and think about.

Simon

:: 34:33

Kemi, thank you so much for joining us on the podcast.

Kemi

:: 34:37

Thanks. Appreciate the opportunity.

Simon

:: 34:40

That brings us to the end of our ninth season of the podcast. Season 10 will be coming up once we've decided what we're going to talk about!

Feel free to get in touch through the usual channels if you have ideas or if you have any questions you'd like us to pose to future bonus guests. We'd love to get your input.

Bex

:: 34:57

And when we return, there may be a little Instagram social media refresh, so there's that to look forward to as well. Don't say we don't spoil you!

And so with that, I'm gonna say 'Goodbye!' and see you next time.

Simon

:: 35:11

See you next time, guys. Bye.

Bex

:: 35:13

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