Yesterday, Nicola and I interviewed Anthony North who is Head of Fundraising for The Big Issue Foundation. He moved us both to tears more than once, often with his own passion for his job! I know I wound up feeling I wanted to do even more to support The Big Issue than we are already doing. We expect to be able to donate around £4,500 on 21st March from our Property Extravaganza day and Nicola ended up emailing him after the interview offering to help them with their internet marketing. Anthony already said he comes into work every day with a brilliant idea which they have insufficient funds to put into practice. Nicola had a brilliant idea about that. Or two.
Our interview series in support of our Property day generally last for 30 minutes. My thinking is here that we are all busy and time-poor. But within moments of Anthony opening his mouth, Nicola had skyped me to say "allow him to go to 60 minutes if you want, he's fascinating". I had already made that decision since Anthony can talk for England - how I am going to keep him to just 10 minutes on the day I have no idea!
The Big Issue have an event of their own on 17th March, just a few days before ours. Its called Real Lives, Real Achievements and I am going along with Karen & Rich (Money Gym clients) to find out more about their work in action. I know from Anthony's talk with us that they support a fluctuating population of about 2,500 vendors and we found out how to become a vendor, what constitutes a happy ending for the vendors and how much it costs to spend a night in a homeless hostel, amongst other things.
You can listen to Anthony's interview here and you can also book your tickets to our event or donate by Paypal if you are not free to attend.
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