Richard Handover, former chairman and CEO of WHSmith, has been appointed as chair of the new £150m Power to Change Trust, which will give grants to community-led enterprises across England.
BIG announced the fund last year, describing it as the country’s largest-ever community enterprise fund, which would be delivered through new charity the Power to Change Trust.
It has today announced that Richard Handover, former chairman and CEO of WHSmith, and vice chair of Kids Company, will be the first chair of the Power to Change Trust, leading four new directors.
Handover and the new four directors will lead a company limited by guarantee, which will be the corporate trustee of the Power to Change Trust. An endowment grant of up to £150m to invest over a period of up to 20 years will be available.
BIG will be working with Trinity Mirror as a media partner as part of the scheme.
Power to Change will be open to applications from community enterprises from autumn 2014.
Commenting on the Power to Change Trust, Nat Sloane, Big Lottery Fund England chair, said: “Our ambition is to make People Powered Change an economic reality as well as a social one. This can be achieved by encouraging enterprise and asset ownership within local communities in order to improve community resilience, regeneration and wider economic prospects.”
The four directors announced today are:
- Michelle Mitchell, CEO of the MS Society, and former director general at Age UK
- Graeme Oram, CEO of Five Lamps
- David Godden, client director on the group board of Telereal Trillium
- Vidhya Alakeson, deputy chief executive at the Resolution Foundation
