Yorkshire business community organises match-making volunteering event

Governance | Kirsty Weakley | 1 Feb 2012

A business networking group in Yorkshire is organising a networking event to connect business people with charities that can benefit from their skills.

Yorkshire Mafia is organising the Skill Will 2 event, which takes place this month in Leeds, and aims to connect potential volunteers with skills in areas such HR, PR, design and IT with charities that can benefit from their skills.

So far about 75 business people and 75 charities have signed up to attend the event.

The networking group was founded in 2008 as a way for the business community in Yorkshire to share ideas and learning and has more than 9,000 members.

Yorkshire Mafia founder, Geoff Shepherd told civilsociety.co.uk that he thought, “a lot of people are suffering from charity fatigue” and that he wanted to use the framework the network had built up to support each other to do something to support charities.

He added: “Sometimes giving time is better than giving money in many ways as some of the charities cannot afford to pay for the skills volunteers can bring.”

At the first event, Skill Will, last November 40 business people met with 40 charity representatives and Shepherd estimates that £150,000 worth of volunteering took place as a result.

Shepherd hopes to host events in other cities in Yorkshire in the coming months and that eventually there will be events across the country.

Skill Will 2 will take place on 8 February between 6pm and 8pm at the New Ellington Hotel in Leeds. To register click here.

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