In February, the Pro Bono Panel held the first in what is hoped to be a regular series of meetings aimed at strengthening volunteer engagement and highlighting the impact of the Panel’s work.
As well as hearing how the pro bono process works, participants heard from Jeni Burchell of Reach Inclusive Arts, who received pro bono support from Liveryman Liz Thrussell. Jeni’s reflections offered a valuable insight into how meaningful this assistance can be for organisations that might otherwise struggle to secure specialist help.
Speaking about being matched with Liz, Jeni recalls how she immediately felt in safe hands. “Liz had such a lovely, calm, patient nature. The first session felt a bit like a counselling session for me – I offloaded all this stuff and Liz just listened and started to unpick what I always though was a big knotted ball of wool in our organisation! Having that space really helped me feel it was manageable and that we could start to make progress.”
The help had, she said, been transformational. “It feels as if it’s really made a difference to our tiny organisation, and in no small part that is down to the support we had from the WCIT and Liz.”
