Naveed

Naveed is a Cranfield Trust volunteer consultant based in the East of England. Since becoming a volunteer in 2011, he has completed several projects with different charities, in a range of organisational areas including business planning, marketing strategies, and mentorship. 

Being heavily involved in his local community, including being the chairman of the Enfield Asian Welfare Association (EAWA) which provides day-care facilities and support for elderly Asian people and a social hub, to socialise and alleviate loneliness, for the over 50’s in the whole community. Naveed has long experience of working on projects with well-being organisations. 

Naveed’s key skills include:

• Strategic Business Management
• Business Planning
• Marketing & Communications
• Mentoring & Executive Coaching

Naveed has been able to use his experience to have a positive impact on a number of charities. An example of this included a project where Naveed provided CEO mentorship for a small charity supporting those with the genetic condition, Fragile X.

When the charity was matched with Naveed, the CEO needed guidance on a few strategic and organisational areas, one of which included how they measure and record their feedback so that they could demonstrate the impact, value, and effectiveness of their activities. Naveed worked with the CEO to review their current methods for evaluation to understand what data they were gathering and how this was recorded. He was then able to work with the CEO to come up with a plan for implementing a more effective approach, which would ultimately help them to achieve greater success with funders. 

As well as directly supporting charities as a volunteer himself, Naveed also uses his skills and experience with Cranfield Trust to be a buddy to new volunteers.

Q&A with Naveed:

What inspired you to volunteer for Cranfield Trust?  

After retiring from a stressful but enjoyable career, where I gained a lot of knowledge, skills, and experience, I wanted to continue to use these to the benefit of community organisations. In many cases, these organisations provide a lifeline to the less fortunate in our community.

What do you enjoy the most about volunteering? 

Meeting people from diverse backgrounds, appreciating the challenges being faced by these organisations, and the satisfaction of being able to give back to society and making a difference. 

What would you say are the main benefits of volunteering? 

 Helping and supporting the community and the charities that provide the infrastructure for that invaluable support. Also, a degree of self-satisfaction that I can still make a contribution after my retirement!

What skills do you feel you have gained through volunteering with Cranfield Trust? 

Learning from the different approaches from other Cranfield Trust volunteers, through the webinars that they organise and the database of information available on their website.

Overall, how would you describe your volunteer experience with Cranfield Trust?  

Personally a very rewarding one, from still being able to use the knowledge and skills gained from my corporate life to feeling that I am making a difference to those charities I have worked with. It also gives a reason to get up in the mornings and fills a gap created when I retired from my working life. Cranfield Trust provides the logistics and structure to match the charity to the volunteer, thus ensuring that volunteers can focus on the task.

above: feedback received from the charity client for Naveed.