Member Article

Kind Currency To Flourish With Philanthropic Support

Kind Currency is an exciting new Community Interest Company with The Kindness Fund charity at the heart of its purpose and thanks to philanthropic support from The Experience Bank, it will soon be flourishing.

Kind Currency brings local ethical kind businesses together with kind conscious people/consumers in one community to create an economy of kindness to generate The Kindness Fund.

This fund will provide opportunities and resources to the kind volunteers and carers who face their own challenges and adversities, and support community causes that society depends upon. When founder Michelle Jones was introduced to Peter Neal, founder of The Experience Bank, the two saw the value in each other and became excited to work together.

Experience Bank Group incorporates The Experience Bank philanthropic, social enterprise company along with a commercial venture providing two, symbiotic services - EB Board Level Recruitment and EB High Performing Boards.

With this combination of specialist expertise, the Experience Bank Group is uniquely positioned to help organisations ensure they have not only the right skills in the boardroom but also optimum board performance with higher value creation.

For founding entrepreneurs and small charities, the social enterprise company, The Experience Bank, has a carefully curated network of inspiring, experienced people who can add value to many start-up businesses and small charities, and can match entrepreneurs to board advisors and non-executives who support businesses to become investment-ready or to successfully achieve the next phase of commercialisation.

Using this approach, Peter introduced Michelle to a number of NEDs and experienced business people from the region who could support her at an advisory level. And Michelle was delighted to appoint Chris Jelley to role of advisor to Kind Currency, with a view to him being a NED in the future. Michelle said:

“The Covid-19 Pandemic highlighted how dependent we are upon the voluntary, charity and care sector whilst the deprivation gap widened further. There are currently 14.4m people living in poverty in the UK, with 20% of adults classed as disadvantaged. The mission of the fund is to close the disadvantaged gap and reduce the poverty rate. This will be achieved through the membership community, an opportunity to create acts of kindness with every £1 you spend. The membership will support consumers to make kinder lifestyle choices and support local ethical businesses and help businesses provide their services and products with kinder values.

“With the support of organisations like The Experience Bank, and advisors like Chris coming on board to support and help bring in the investment needed to take it to the next stage, it is all now very real and exciting.”

Chris Jelley is well known in the region for his role as Chief Technology Officer at Preventx Ltd. With experience across the board in technology and strategy he is well placed to support Kind Currency into a great position. He said:

“Michelle’s enthusiasm is infectious and Peter’s grasp of her needs and what I offer make us a perfect match. To any NED’s and advisors I would recommend putting yourself forward to him, and any businesses with purpose who want to support a Kindness Fund should get in touch with Michelle – this concept is going to go a long way and those on the ride will all benefit themselves and, more importantly, others.”

5% of all revenue from Experience Bank Group is gifted to The Experience Bank social enterprise to enable more start-ups, early-stage businesses, charities and social enterprises access to high quality, advisory and non-executive talent.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Anna Toms .