Do you want to help people make it easier for people to get outdoors?
After 4 years service, Debbie Readis stepping down from the Alpkit Foundation and we're looking for a new Customer Trustee to join us. Debbie is one of our founding trustees and truly helped the Foundation get off the ground.
Alpkit Foundation is the charity that helps people to Go Nice Places, Do Good Things. We do this by making small grants to people, schools and groups that work to remove the barriers in getting outdoors and experiencing wild places.
We've given away over £200,000 to more than 500 causesandhave supported a vast array of incredible projects. We feel unique in giving small cash and equipment awards knowing that lasting change comes from many small steps. The Alpkit Foundation plays its active part in encouraging and promoting the well-known benefits of responsible outdoor activity.
You'll be joining our team of trustees that include the four directors of Alpkit, two staff trustees, an independent trustee alongside a Secretarial Trustee who helps administer all our applications. We meet every two months on a Wednesday evening in the Peak District.
If you’re interested in putting yourself forward then please send an email explaining why you would like to be a trustee and any relevant experience toakf@alpkit.com. We are open to everyone and the kind of experience we're looking for is someone with an interest in the outdoors and can make a bi-monthly meeting close to Alpkit HQ (NG16 3QU).
The appointment is for a one year term and is unpaid. All trustees givetheir time to the Foundation to maximise the support we can give to projects. We'll expect you to read about 100 applications in advance of each meeting and help us decide the 40 or so successful applications. We'd also appreciate if you could help with the administrativeworkload by promoting partnerships with other organisations and the Foundation generally. We don't expect work to be more than 4-6 hours a month.
The current trustees will consider each application at a meeting chaired by Adge Last, our independent trustee.
For more information please go to the Alpkit Foundation site: www.alpkit.com/pages/foundation
The closing date for applications is 30 April 2019
More about the Alpkit Foundation (Registered with the Charities CommissionNo 1162585)
We want to make it easy for people to get outdoors. So Alpkit donates a minimum 1% of sales or 10% of our profit to directly support real people doing real things.
We have all experienced the benefits of being outside. But schools that cant take kids on fields trips or to climbing walls because of the cost of hiring a coach; scout groups need equipment; expeditions suffer with lack of first-aiders; conservation projects are threatened by lack of funds.
So we set up an independent charity to get support from us to those that need it with the minimum of fuss.
It's easy to apply for a grant. Go to the Alpkit Foundation website and fill in the application form. The questions are quite detailed so that we have enough information to assess each application. The trustees meet and assess each application. The criteria is simple: if a project meets the aims and we have the money then the project will get the support.
The kinds of projects we’ll support are:
- £50 to £500 cash to individuals, schools and organisations to go on trips that otherwise wouldn’t be viable; e.g. giving a cash grant to a school to fund transport costs
- Providing discounted equipment to individuals, schools and organisations at discounts that wouldn’t be commercially viable without support from the Alpkit Foundation
- Supporting education programs; e.g. grants for expedition First Aiders or Mountain Leader Training that wouldn’t be possible without Alpkit Foundation support
- Supporting conservation projects; e.g. grants to help rewild woodland
The charity is the real deal. It is registered with the Charities Commission (Number 1162585) and is completely independent to Alpkit. We’ll have 9 trustees who meet regularly including an independent trustee, a staff trustees and a customer trustee.