In her first magazine interview, Joanna Averley, the new chief executive of LandAid, tells Noella Pio Kivlehan her hopes and aspirations for the industry’s charity
Not many organisations could persuade 300 property people to don Lycra and run up 888 stairs in a London high rise – but LandAid managed it. The charity has been able to persuade people and businesses to do many different things during its 26-year history, for the simple reason that it has a special place in the property world’s heart due to its work helping disadvantaged young people.
And on 23 February, 300 participants heading to the top of the Heron Tower in the City for the CBRE Property Peak challenge managed to raise more than £50,000, while burning off some calories.
Greeting the runners on the 37th floor was Joanna Averley. The charity’s newly appointed chief executive had taken up the job earlier that month, having previously been the interim CEO of Centre for Cities and a founding director of CABE.
Averley says: “What really excites me about LandAid is that it is the industry – the private sector and private enterprise – getting involved in a wider community social agenda, and what I experienced in my first couple of weeks was this huge appetite and energy to do just that – get involved.”
The Property Peak Challenge is just one of a number of events held each year by LandAid that also include the 5km Battersea Park Fun Run on 20 June and a day out at Ascot on 20 July. Set up in 1985, the charity can count some of UK property’s biggest names as supporters, including British Land, Estates Gazette, Helical Bar, Jones Lang LaSalle, Make and Prupim.
Through its fundraising efforts last year, the charity’s income exceeded £1m, a rise of more than 15% on the previous year, with a 66% increase in funds invested and £640,000 committed to projects.
This money goes to help disadvantaged young people. And it is clear just how passionate Averley is about the charity’s core cause. “One of the striking things about LandAid is its relevance today, as we are still in a difficult economic position. National youth unemployment is just over 22%, compared with a national total unemployment rate of 10%, so young people are getting hit the hardest by the economic troubles. And, increasingly, data has shown that it is not just difficult for young people to get a job, but they suffer when there are job losses.”
As a result, focusing on disadvantaged young people as the property industry’s charity is very current, says Averley, who adds: “It’s very much about where we can have an impact.”
Averley’s tenure as chief executive – having taken over from Jon Siddall – comes just after the 25-year celebrations in which the charity achieved its key objectives of increasing its overall funding, supporting new centres and broadening industry support.
It’s a basis Averley intends to build on. While no specific goals have been set as such – “we haven’t discussed it with the board” – there are, says Averley, “ideas and ambitions which seem to be shared”.
Increasing the funds LandAid raises from the industry is an obvious goal. But Averley says companies can do more, such as matching charitable grants as developer Argent has done. It matched the money LandAid put in for a new playground at King’s Cross. “They wanted to do something quite immediate [for the existing community],” she says.
Then there is the pro bono work. “The industry is supporting charities in capital projects, not just by [giving] money, but by providing expertise,” she says. “When people are up against issues of managing a property or building, they are quite novice – the industry provides pro bono help and support to the charities to help them get through issues or opportunities presented by a capital project.”
Averley says when LandAid gives a grant, it asks the charity if it wants any technical support in addition to the money. Pro bono work has already been tried on a number of projects. “Our ambition is to widen [the scheme]. We are hoping in the next couple of months to be able to define how we literally, logistically might do that, so it’s a case of watch this space.
“But as well as giving expertise, it may also be about leveraging the purchasing power of a pro bono partner with the charity. For example, Telereal Trillium, one of our foundation partners, used its purchasing power to save a charity £30,000 when buying furniture,” adds Averley.
For her part, she is keen to emphasise that LandAid is the industry’s charity and, as LandAid is now going through the process of deciding where to allocate grants, she is keen to hear from the industry about where people think the charity should be going.
“The industry owns [LandAid],” she says. “It funds it. [I want to know] what the industry is interested in doing. I’ve outlined a menu – there’s the question of how we prioritise, how we move forward in different areas of work, whether it will be pro bono giving, and so on.
“But what I’m really interested to hear about from people are their ideas for fundraising, what they personally want to do, if there are investments involvement they have in place that they might want to connect into. So get in touch.”
If you want to help or contact LandAid: Tel: 020 3102 7190. Email: enquiries@landaid.org. www.landaid.org. Twitter: @joannaaverley
Joanna Averley CV
June 2011 – present interim chief executive – Centre for Cities.
June 2000 – January 2011 deputy chief executive and director of design and planning advice – CABE.
August 2000 – July 2006 interim director of design – Olympic Delivery Authority.
June 1996 – June 2000 associate director – EDAW, acting as project manager for the rebuilding of Manchester City Centre after the IRA bombing in 1996.
The Lighthouse Group (TLG) was one of the 11 charities to receive funding from LandAid in 2011. It gives education and intensive mentoring to 500 young people who have been excluded from school and supports them back into education through eight regional centres.
LandAid gave a grant of £14,000 to install a training kitchen and classroom in TLG’s Bradford centre. Now more than 200 young people, such as Abi (pictured second from left), will be able to learn basic skills such as eating healthily and budgeting.
Abi’s story
“If I hadn’t come to TLG, I’d be dead now. Either that or wasting away in prison,” says Abi [not her real name].
Abi’s story is similar to that of many young people TLG works with. She grew up on a rough estate with a dysfunctional home life, and her father died when she was very young. She got involved with the wrong crowd, experimented with drink and drugs, and turned to crime.
Problems at home began to affect things at school – Abi often skipped classes, got sent out of lessons for disruptive behaviour, and would fight with teachers. After several years of poor behaviour and attendance at school, she was permanently excluded.
Arriving at TLG aged 16, Abi had little hope, having hit rock bottom following a miscarriage. Gradually, through support received from TLG, Abi made progress with her education, developed key life skills needed to get her back on track, and her confidence grew. She says: “I didn’t dare share my problems at school, but at TLG, things were different. I just started trying harder and not getting so stressed out. I thought ‘I’m not so thick if I can do this’.”
Returning to school on a part-time basis, she took her GCSEs. TLG has helped her to make some crucial choices that have changed the course of her life. She is now working full-time in a stable job and pursuing a career in retail.
Abi reflects: “I’ve improved so much, even my mum says so. Mum just wanted me to do well – but only I could have changed my behaviour and it took me a while to realise that. I had to see that there was more to life than just behaving that way.”
