Frank Buttle: Philanthropist and Entrepeneur

Frank Buttle: Philanthropist and Entrepreneur How an Edwardian clergyman’s vision is still changing children’s lives today

Frank Buttle Philanthropist and Entrepreneur How an Edwardian clergyman’s vision is still changing children’s lives today

Acknowledgements Many people have contributed to this book by generating ideas, taking part in interviews, carrying out research and checking facts. The editorial team is grateful for their time and energy, which have been invaluable in collating this historical account of Buttle UK.

Text Julie Pybus Research Rachael Benjamin Design Johnny Burke Printed and bound by www.partridgesuk.com Š Buttle UK 2015 Buttle UK 15 Greycoat Place London SW1P 1SB Tel 020 7828 7311 Email info@buttleuk.org www.buttleuk.org Charity registered in England and Wales no 313007, registered in Scotland no SC037997

A note on images and stories Unless otherwise stated, the photographs of children and young people in this book are posed by models. The case studies and correspondence are real, although, in some cases, names have been changed.

Contents 4 Foreword by David Emerson 5 Foreword by Lorraine Pascale 6

Introduction by Gerri McAndrew

8 History 1878-1953 14 Spotlight The endowment: from £1m to £50m 16 Spotlight The Trust’s original aims 18 History The 1950s 21 Spotlight The Small Grants programme for basic necessities 22 History The 1960s 25 Spotlight Funding a good education 26 History The 1970s 30 History The 1980s 34 History The 1990s 38 History The 2000s 41 Spotlight The Buttle UK Quality Mark 42

Spotlight Research

44 History The 2010s 51

The future An ambitious vision

FOREWORD Buttle UK is unique, and uniquely valuable. There is simply no other charity that so effectively bridges the four roles of a grant-giving foundation; of fundraising to enhance its range and scope; of supporting individuals in need; and of then uniting all its diverse experience and learning from thousands of grants over many years in order to campaign for improvements in policy and practice for those it seeks to support.

This has proved an immensely powerful combination: one, which in addition, has facilitated the work of many other foundations and which, in its distinctiveness, remains appropriately reflective of its origins.

Although the modes of its responses may have changed of necessity over 60 years, Buttle UK still portrays the rare and committed vision of the Reverend Frank Buttle, and in the current uncertain times for the young and poor, I believe that this continues to be an essential focus, and one greatly to admire and celebrate.

This book is a valuable insight into the work and culture of Buttle UK. The

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unusual longevity of a grant-giving trust such as Buttle and the long serving nature of the staff and trustees allows them to make the most of, and learn from their experience, where perhaps few others can. Although Buttle UK has a relatively short history, it has achieved a great deal. This book is a very appropriate commemoration of 60 years of work.

David Emerson Chief Executive Association of Charitable Foundations

FOREWORD My early days were quite rocky, moving between foster families and trying to find my feet.

Then came the moment that my life changed forever. The moment that I believe saved me from myself, and a steady decline into things I would not like to imagine. I sat an exam for a secondary school in Devon as my mother had heard there was a charity which gave out grants for children like me, from families like mine. That charity was Buttle UK. I passed the exam and Buttle UK helped put together a package of support to enable me to attend the school. For the first time in my life I had structure, a network of support, people that believed in me and I was given the lifeline of a great education.

Buttle UK can transform lives by providing a lifeline when there is nowhere else to turn. However hard things may seem, things really can and do get better.

‘Buttle UK can transform lives by providing a lifeline when there is nowhere else to turn’

Lorraine Pascale Television cook, author and former model

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INTRODUCTION

Buttle UK: here to give children and young people in poverty a fighting chance

Our mission is the maintenance, education and advancement in life of children and young people who through poverty and family circumstances are in need of, and will benefit significantly from, Buttle UK’s support.

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Since 1953, Buttle UK has been working to give children and young people in need the power to shape a better future for themselves.

Over the past six decades we have safeguarded and grown the financial endowment that was left to us by our founder, the Reverend Frank Buttle.

At the same time, we’ve honoured his memory as an independent thinker and a pioneering force for change by frequently reviewing our work to ensure that we are being as effective as possible.

Today, our grants to families in need are swift, direct and personalised. We have offices in each country of the UK to ensure that we respond to local circumstances. We have partnerships with thousands of people and organisations working at the frontline of social care. And we are more than simply a grant-maker – with a wealth of knowledge about the effects of poverty across the UK, we influence change to help solve the problems in our society.

We have ambitious plans for the future too. Through a major new fundraising campaign we plan to double our size over the next five years. This will enable us to pursue our aim of changing crisis points in people’s lives to turning points: with grants personalised to specific needs, such as help with training or starting a business, we can give people truly life-changing chances to achieve a brighter future.

As we move forward, the legacy of the Reverend Frank Buttle remains with us. This book aims to document our past, highlight our successes and future plans, and pay tribute to those who have worked so tirelessly to make Buttle UK into what it is today. We hope you enjoy reading it!

Gerri McAndrew Chief Executive Buttle UK

INTRODUCTION

Jude’s story Since she was four years old, Jude was sexually abused by her father. She then spent much of her childhood in and out of care.

In spite of this rocky start in life, Jude, who is now 20, has found some stability and has rented a place to live. Buttle UK provided a cooker and washing machine to help her to get settled.

Jude wants to become a hairdresser, but she has no money to travel to college or to buy a uniform or equipment. Buttle UK is paying for these things to help Jude realise her dreams and take control of her future.

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HISTORY: 1878-1953

1878-1953 Buttle UK exists today because of an East End clergyman’s single-minded vision to raise £1m to ‘launch 1,000 children each year out of poverty’.

William Francis Buttle was born in Brixton, London, on 19 October 1878 to a middle-class Victorian family. After school, Frank, as he was known, began work as a solicitor but, although this was the career that was expected of him as the family’s eldest son, he soon admitted his heart wasn’t in it and that he wanted to join the Church.

After Frank was ordained in 1906 he spent a couple of years as a curate in the slums of Bethnal Green. Later he moved to Cambridge to study theology where he also worked as a curate. As he went out and met his parishioners, he was horrified by the baby farming that went on – unwanted infants were nursed by foster mothers in return for payment, but were often neglected and underfed. Frank resolved to alleviate the problem by arranging for these babies to be adopted instead.

When the First World War broke out, a previous bout of tuberculosis meant

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As a young curate Frank resolved to give a better start in life to unwanted and neglected infants in his parish in Cambridge

HISTORY: 1878-1953

Frank has been described as ‘a man of initiative, vision and drive’ that Frank was rejected as an army chaplain, so he focused even harder upon adoptions. The war rendered increasing numbers of children homeless and orphaned, and Frank’s work expanded so far beyond Cambridge that he opened an office in London.

Frank was later described as having ‘a fearless mind of his own’, and as being ‘a man of initiative, vision and drive’ – this became apparent in these wartime years. Frank had initially been arranging adoptions through established organisations – the Church League for Women’s Suffrage and the Waifs and Strays section of the official Church of England’s Children’s Society – but he became increasingly frustrated when he didn’t get his own way. Rather than bending to someone else’s rules,

or giving up entirely, Frank launched his own parallel organisation, the National Adoption Society, which was officially registered in 1916. ‘The National Adoption Society is the first registered society of its kind for protecting the illegitimate child,’ he said proudly.

Parents bereaved through the war, ‘maiden ladies of independent means with no suitable outlet for their affections’ and childless couples were all potential adopters. Frank’s organisation became a great success.

By 1930, records show that 3,000 adoptions had been arranged and that a home for unmarried mothers had also been established in Surrey.

A life of poverty Of course, getting his own way involved being self-sufficient – Frank had to raise money to fund his organisation and he was becoming increasingly adept at finding imaginative methods of doing this.

Frank’s flair for finances never benefited his own lifestyle though – he was an ascetic. In the words of one

The Reverend once gave me a pound and said, “I want you to save it. You’ve got to keep that and learn the value of it.” I was quite influenced by him – I tend to accumulate money, rather than think I need a new suit or whatever. I’ve got a hoarding mentality like him – he wouldn’t squander a brass farthing.

Frank’s nephew and Buttle UK’s Honorary Vice President, Richard Buttle, who met Frank when he was a child

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HISTORY: 1878-1953

A legendary figure People who don’t know the Reverend William Francis Buttle feel sorry for him as he trundles his ancient bicycle through London’s East End or shuffles along the grey streets in shoes several sizes too big and clothes from which the linings hang in ribbons. They do not know that he has amassed a fortune of £700,000, that he dreams of making a million, and that he will never touch a penny of it for himself.

Canon Buttle, at 72, is the Church of England’s most fantastic Parson – Solicitor, real estate operator and shrewd share speculator – a legendary figure whom some call a saint, and some a miser. In 20 years he has built up two fabulous trusts which he claims will one day educate, maintain and send out to life 1,000 children a year who are either illegitimate or from broken homes. At one moment, he will buy tens of thousands of pounds’ worth of property, and at the next he will haggle over the payment to a charwoman to clean his Bloomsbury office. He never uses public transport if he can avoid it. He has been seen eating sausage rolls as he rides on his bicycle from one financial deal to another. He refuses a lunch if it is offered, preferring to dine on a packet of biscuits which he keeps in his pocket.

Extract from an article by Christian Petersen in the Sunday Dispatch, December 1950

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newspaper reporter, he ‘renounced comfort and adopted for himself a life of poverty’. Frank wore secondhand clothes, rode an old bicycle, and lunched on baked potatoes, cheese sandwiches or a boiled cod’s head (‘the cheapest and most nutritious food known to man’, he claimed).

After the war, he remained unmarried and his work took him to various parishes in Essex, Sussex and Huntingdonshire. In 1937, he moved to London and once again focused on the poor East End, becoming vicar of St Chad’s in Haggerston.

At this time, Frank had a new idea: to accumulate £1m to become the capital of a trust to assist deprived children.

His interest in arranging adoptions waned as he energetically pursued his fresh objective.

His money-raising activities now really stepped up a gear. He spent time visiting brokers in the City of London buying shares and properties in which few other people showed much interest, but which he believed were sound investments. He thought an ecclesiastical title would help him in his affairs and, always with an eye

HISTORY: 1878-1953 for a bargain, he bought a prebend of Exeter Cathedral for £50 from its ageing owner, and began to call himself Canon Buttle.

At this time, Frank’s brother Gladwin was working in the School of Pharmacy in Bloomsbury Square. A visiting external examiner, Professor Harold Stewart (who would later play a key role in the Trust), recalls meeting Frank twice when he visited Gladwin.

‘He had a black bag which served as a briefcase,’ he said, ‘and was usually tied up with string and in it would be cods’ heads (his staple diet), apple cores and the remains of a mouldy sandwich, all mixed up with deeds of properties worth many thousands of pounds!’

Frank was well connected and picked his advisers wisely. Two of his friends, Benjamin Astbury and an accountant, Herbert Reynolds, encouraged him to execute the Trust deeds of 1937 and 1942 which protected the funds – rapidly becoming a fortune – from estate duty on his death. Their sensible advice secured the future of Buttle UK.

The great smog Frank’s life as an ascetic living among the poorest people of east London was eventually his downfall. At the time of his death, aged 74, he was living in what was described by one reporter as ‘the chilly air of his rambling vicarage’ in Haggerston.

In December 1952, the great smog of London darkened the freezing streets, bringing the city to a standstill and enveloping everything with a choking, acid mist. It was at its worst in east London where the density of smoke-belching factories and homes was greatest and where the smog fell heavily into the lowlying land.

Frank fell ill. His brother tried to contact him by telephone, then called round and discovered Frank with bronchopneumonia.

Gladwin took him to the hospital but Frank died within a few weeks; a contributory cause was malnutrition.

Even at the end, Frank’s asceticism would not abate. A friend brought flowers to the hospital and Frank asked for them to be taken away. The friend would have pleased him more, he said, if he had given the money to the poor children of London.

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HISTORY: 1878-1953

1878-1953 milestones

1906 Frank is ordained and becomes assistant curate in the slum parish of St James, Bethnal Green. Between 1906 and 1907 he also spends some time studying at the University of Durham, but he doesn’t settle and leaves without taking exams.

1908 Frank leaves Bethnal Green

and becomes curate at a church in Cambridge at the same time as studying theology there.

1911 Frank starts a subcommittee of the Church League for Women’s Suffrage to deal with the problem of unwanted children.

1913 Frank establishes the National

Adoption Society.

1878 William Francis Buttle (pictured

above) is born in Brixton on 19 October.

1903 Frank leaves school and works in his father’s office.

1903 Frank qualifies as a solicitor.

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1914 Frank obtains a degree in theology from Downing College, Cambridge.

1916 The War Charities Act is passed

and Frank registers the National Adoption Society.

1920-22 Frank is rector of Mistley with Bradfield, Essex.

1922-27 Frank is rector of Selham with South Ambersham, Sussex.

1927-37 Frank is rector of Chesterton with Haddon and Alwalton, Huntingdonshire.

1937 Frank becomes vicar of St Chad’s, Haggerston where he remains until his death.

1937 Frank founds The Reverend William Francis Buttle Trust for Adopted Children, which is registered with the Charity Commission on 20 October.

This is the start of the organisation that is now known as Buttle UK. 1937 The Trust’s assets stand at £82,847. The Charity Commission allowed Frank to accumulate rather than distribute funds over the coming years, allowing him to aim for his target of £1m.

1953 Frank dies on 11 February at

St Leonard’s Hospital in London, leaving £923,265 to the Buttle Trust.

He is buried in the family vault at Woldingham, Surrey.

Following the suppression of the Hungarian revolution by Soviet tanks in 1956, Peter Hay arrived in England as a teenage refugee, shortly before his father, a prominent writer, was arrested. He lived with his grandparents in London and was supported through his education by the School Fees programme. He is now an author and retired antiquarian bookseller.

‘As I read through letters I found in my mother’s files after her death I realised that the Buttle Trust had been the main sponsor for my education at one of England’s boarding schools, which helped me realise the dream of studying at Oxford and generally made possible all that I became, and most of what I did subsequently.’

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SPOTLIGHT

The endowment: from £1m to £50m Frank discovered that the children he was most concerned about – those born illegitimate and unwanted, but not orphaned or completely destitute – would get no financial help through the ‘ordinary channels of charitable support’.

Therefore, he had to turn to other sources.

Frank is often described as a ‘financial genius’. He started his fundraising career by borrowing £1,000 from an aunt to buy the right to be paid tithes from several owners. At this time farmers, particularly in East Anglia, were refusing to pay their tithes and there were riots in some places. The tithe owners wanted rid of them and Frank was willing to buy. Frank commented that with these purchases he was ‘bringing back tithe to God’.

He had struck gold – after the Tithe Act of 1936 Frank’s tithes were redeemed by the government with tens of thousands of pounds’-worth of gilt-edged securities, providing the money with which Frank’s Trust was ultimately formed.

Frank also invented a scheme called ‘returnable donations’. He persuaded wealthy people to lend him money free of interest, which he then invested.

The income on the investments, he said, would help fund his charitable work. And, if the lender wanted the money back at any time, he’d pay it to them from the income and keep the investments themselves as part of the endowment for the future.

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Frank became well-known in the City of London as a ‘wolf in sheep’s clothing’.

He always wore his parson’s collar, perhaps to portray an air of gentleness, but he was a tough haggler over the prices of stocks and shares In Frank’s words, this ‘new and novel scheme’ was ‘intended to appeal to practical businessmen who may be willing to assist financially’. His idea is echoed today in the growing social investment movement which rests upon the same principle of investors committing their funds for both a social and a financial return.

Frank became well-known in the City of London as a ‘wolf in sheep’s clothing’. He always wore his parson’s collar, perhaps to portray an air of gentleness, but he was a tough haggler over the prices of stocks and shares. He particularly targeted

SPOTLIGHT

those that no-one else wanted to buy – little known securities in little known companies.

One of Frank’s shrewdest (or perhaps luckiest) investments was made in 1935 when he bought a large block of Crow Catchpole shares from the official receiver. In the early 1960s this company was taken over by Tarmac Limited.

Frank had originally paid £9,000 and eventually the Trust realised around £250,000 on them.

Modernising the portfolio When Frank died he left almost £1m, a phenomenal achievement which set in motion a trust with true financial power. However, the trustees faced an enormous task to shape Frank’s eccentric selection of stocks, shares and properties into a more conventional and manageable portfolio.

Once this was done, a priority of Buttle UK over the following decades was to ensure that the endowment was well cared for so that it would continue to grow.

This has been successfully achieved by a number of very capable trustees under the direction of a succession of Investment Committee Chairs, including in recent times, Stephen Fielding (19982009) and Keith Mullins (2009-present).

Today, the portfolio stands at £50m.

The Investment Committee currently is comprised of five trustees, most with substantial expertise in investment or banking, plus an independent expert adviser from within financial services.

They are supported by Buttle UK’s Director of Finance and Administration, and two fund management companies which currently manage the portfolios between them.

The investment strategy aims to ensure that the capital grows over the long term – it is an endowment in perpetuity – as well as providing enough funding (from income and capital too, if necessary) to cover Buttle UK’s administration costs and contribute to its grant making each year. What’s more, the fund managers must take into consideration a number of ethical requirements: Buttle UK will not directly invest in companies whose

primary activities are a major contributory cause of many client family problems.

The total return from Buttle UK’s endowment each year covers all the infrastructure support and administration costs which means that 100 per cent of most donations received can be given directly to children and young people in crisis.

The total return also enables Buttle UK to contribute its own income to its grantgiving activities and partner other funders to help beneficiaries. The organisation’s expertise in working with the most excluded children and families means that partners know that their money is going to go to the right places.

Frank was undoubtedly a man of great vision, but perhaps even he could not have predicted that his ragtag collection of investments could have turned into such a powerful and lasting financial force.

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SPOTLIGHT

The Trust’s original aims The Reverend William Francis Buttle Trust for Adopted Children trust deed, which was drawn up by Frank and his advisers, states that the Trust’s income was to be used as follows: • For the primary purpose of maintaining, educating and advancing in life adopted children whose adopters had died, or deserted them, or become incapable of maintaining them.

• For the secondary purpose of maintaining, educating and advancing in life children born out of wedlock, whose parent or parents were unable to educate and maintain them in the situation of life of their birth and, in particular, to help unmarried mothers to bring up their own children in cases where there was no possibility of marriage and the birth of the child had resulted in complete alienation between the unmarried mother and her relatives.

• There was a further secondary purpose in connection with the

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welfare of adopted and illegitimate children. This was to include the provision of food and meals for poor, ill-nourished children at religious services, Sunday Schools and instruction centres in Christian faith and practice.

• Failing these primary and secondary purposes, then the Trust’s income should be used for the maintenance, education and advancing in life of orphan children of the business and professional classes left without means of support and relatives able

Buttle UK is today able to focus its efforts upon those who are most in need at the same time as remaining true to its founder’s desire to help those children and young people who have no-one else to turn to

SPOTLIGHT

and willing to support them, or whose parents through sickness, accident or infirmity were unable to maintain them.

• It was made clear that no beneficiary was to receive benefit who was not a member of a Christian church.

The references to children of the business and professional classes reflected Frank’s commitment to helping children who were not ordinarily helped by the Church.

These purposes have been adapted over time to reflect social changes. Some amendments – such as the removal of the need for beneficiaries to belong to a Christian church in 1996 – were difficult and painful steps for the organisation to take. However, they mean that Buttle UK is today able to focus its efforts upon those who are most in need at the same time as remaining true to its founder’s desire to help those children and young people who have no-one else to turn to.

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HISTORY: 1950s

The 1950s Six months after Frank died, the inaugural meeting of the trustees of The Reverend William Francis Buttle Trust for Adopted Children was held on 14 August 1953.

Frank’s brother, Gladwin, approached brothers Piers and Major Sidney Thompson to join the existing trustees that Frank had appointed before his death. Sidney Thompson, who had recently retired, said he was initially ‘quite pleased’ at having something to interest him. But he added: ‘I hadn’t the slightest clue what I was letting myself in for.’

At this meeting and over the coming months, the enormity of the challenge that Frank had left became apparent.

The Trust had assets of a little under £1m and the trustees decided to set up two committees, distribution and finance. ‘No one volunteered to join the Finance Committee,’ said Sidney, ‘until, after an awkward pause, I said I was a little interested in investment. Professor Buttle said: “Good, then you are Chairman of the Finance Committee.”

‘The day after the first Trust

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Professor Gladwin Buttle, Frank’s brother, who became the Trust’s first Chairman

meeting, I received a schedule of the investments, properties and other assets, and only then realised the appalling complexity of the task I had unwittingly let myself in for.’

There were 850 items on the list of investments ‘of which less than 60 could be considered suitable trustee investments’, said Sidney.

‘They did, however, include some good investment trusts and property shares,’ he added. ‘We seemed to have an interest in so many odd activities, from brass fittings for coffins, and numerous cemetery companies, to a luxury hotel in the Highlands, from tugboats in the Thames to magnesite mining in Greece.

‘It was clear that it would take a very long time to sort out the good holdings from the bad, yet it was so obvious that Canon Buttle had a wonderful gift for picking bargains that each holding had to be treated as possibly valuable.’

For the first five years or so, the Finance Committee meetings were frequent and long. Frank was not as shrewd or successful in buying property as he was shares, so the weakest properties were sold as soon as possible. The aim was to form a balanced and productive endowment to allow the Trust to continue.

This was eventually achieved thanks to the financial acumen of Herbert Reynolds as Accountant and the flair of the committee Chairman Sidney Thompson for buying and selling at just the right time.

While the Finance Committee was busy ensuring the long-term future of the Trust, the Distribution Committee slowly got

HISTORY: 1950s grant-making up and running. In the Trust’s first year of operation (the year ending March 1954), around £2,300 was given out in grants; this increased fivefold over the next year when nearly £12,000-worth of grants was made.

The records show that grants in these first years were diverse. They covered school uniform costs, weekly payments for a child’s welfare, a oneoff £10 for Christmas, a sum to pay off a family’s debts and school fees.

In 1958, at the suggestion of the Ministry of Education, the trustees began to discuss setting up one or more small hostels for ‘maladjusted children’. These children, more usually referred to these days as children with mental health problems or learning difficulties, would be at special schools until they were 15 or 16, but then needed somewhere else to go. They weren’t ready to live independently, but often their families would not or could not have them at home, so they needed some other form of care. Research began into a suitable property for a home for 12 boys, which continued into the next decade.

Who’s who: the first meeting of the Trust Held at Denison House, London, 14 August 1953 Trustees Professor Gladwin Buttle, Frank’s brother, a physician and surgeon, who became the Chairman Reverend Frank Dodgson Wilkinson, a clergyman who Frank had met while studying at Durham university Professor Alan Moncrieff, Professor of Child Health at Great Ormond Street Hospital for Sick Children Eileen Younghusband JP, a university teacher and expert on social services Professor Harold Stewart, physician at St Mary’s Hospital in Paddington Piers Gilchrist Thompson, a publisher Major Sidney Gilchrist Thompson, a retired agricultural scientist

The following officers were appointed Benjamin Astbury, expert on running charities and close associate of Frank, appointed Secretary Herbert Reynolds, accountant, appointed Accountant to the Trust

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HISTORY: 1950s

The 1950s milestones 1953 First trustee meeting held on 14 August.

1954 Stock market rises and takes assets to almost £1m.

1958 Trustees begin to discuss establishing one or more homes for maladjusted children over school age.

1954

£

Assets: £1m Value of grants given:

£2,300 Minutes from the Distribution Committee, July 1956

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SPOTLIGHT

The Small Grants programme for basic necessities Since Buttle UK began, it has focused on getting small amounts of money to families in crisis to help them buy the necessities of life.

Today, the very poorest families in the UK are still struggling to afford clothes, cookers and beds, plus more modern utilities such as fridges and freezers.

Without a warm and comfortable bed, a

child cannot sleep well and cannot focus at school, so their education suffers.

Without a tumble dryer in the rainiest parts of the UK, wet clothes hang indoors, making the air damp and cold and contributing to ill health.

Buttle UK now has long-standing, trusting relationships with thousands of partners including local authorities and charities

across the country who identify families that need help and make applications on their behalf. Buttle UK’s caseworkers keep in close contact with beneficiaries too.

In 1999, Buttle UK took the innovative step of forming a partnership with a white goods supplier. This meant that instead of a social worker being handed the grant to go out to buy a fridge-freezer, for example, the company would deliver and install the new product, with a guarantee, as well as disposing of an old one. Since then, further partnerships have been made, and it is a much more efficient way of getting goods to families in need.

The Small Grants programme continues to this day, and the grants are usually enormously appreciated by the families.

The workers who support them too can see the difference that these gifts make to the day-to-day quality of children’s lives, and also to their futures.

The success of the Small Grants programme is replicated in the Emergency Essentials programme, which Buttle UK manages on behalf of BBC Children in Need.

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HISTORY: 1960s

The 1960s The formidable task of sifting through Frank’s investments and creating a balanced investment portfolio continued into the 1960s – and it was mostly carried out by Herbert Reynolds, who eventually gave up his own accountancy practice and devoted all of his time to the Trust. By 1963, Mr Reynolds considered the challenge achieved and he was then appointed Secretary.

But ‘a grievous blow’ was dealt to the organisation when he died unexpectedly. Mr Reynolds’ work had been so successful that, by 1963, the Trust’s income had outpaced the speed at which the trustees could give grants.

So it was decided to use £100,000 of unspent income to establish the Reynolds Memorial Fund.

The trustees said they knew of Mr Reynolds’ concern for the welfare of school leavers and ‘there seemed to be no more fitting way to provide a memorial than to make suitable arrangements for the furtherance of the work to which he had been devoted’.

So the Fund’s aim was to assist

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those young people who came within the terms of the 1937 trust deed and who wanted to remain in education or training after leaving school – the school leaving age at this time was 15.

(The trust deed set the age limit for support as 21, but special permission could be sought to continue to support young people who had embarked upon education or training before they were 21.) Support would be given to help young people study to enter the professions such as accountancy, law and medicine. And others would be assisted to launch themselves in trades such as making musical instruments, saddlery and farming. The first grant awarded was £13 4s 0d to enable an apprentice to buy tools.

The first chairman of the Reynolds Memorial Fund was James Earle, a previous director of Tarmac Ltd, a firm in which the Trust now had a very substantial shareholding.

Mr Reynolds was also honoured when Reynolds House was opened in December 1963. After a long search for a suitable property for their home for ‘maladjusted school-leavers’, the trustees eventually settled on a

Reynolds House: giving the choice to the boys If the application seems suitable, the hostel social worker visits the school and interviews the boy and the headmaster. The report is circulated and if the case conference still considers the boy suitable he is invited to visit the hostel.

If, after this visit, the boy feels that he would like to live at the hostel when he leaves school, he is invited to write and say so. It is felt to be important that the boy should feel the choice to be his own rather than he is being ‘put’ in the hostel by someone in authority.

Extract from Interim Report on Reynolds House, 1967 house in Bromley in Kent.

They bought the freehold for £11,600 plus £225 for an extra piece of land, legal costs and stamp duty. The necessary alterations – which included giving it ‘the latest design and colour’, according to one newspaper report – cost another £14,304.

HISTORY: 1960s

The Mayor and Mayoress of Bromley at the opening of Reynolds House, which was to take an experimental approach to helping boys from special schools move to independence

The capacity of the home was for 12 boys plus resident staff, including a matron and a warden, plus the support of specialists such as a psychiatric social worker. The aim was to provide a homely atmosphere for boys who had made good progress at their special

schools but who might relapse once they left, and help them move on to earning their own wages and living independently – in the words of the then trustees, the aim was to prevent them becoming the ‘dregs of society’.

Various reports over the subsequent

years revealed the ups and downs of the home – which was the first of its kind in the country and acknowledged to be experimental. At times things appeared to run smoothly with only the odd minor incident, such as a neighbour complaining about a motorcycle being driven in the home’s garden. One report stated: ‘There is now a pleasant feeling of an established tradition in the hostel and the boys are undoubtedly happy there.’ However, another report was much less positive, noting the boys being ‘quarrelsome and ill-tempered with each other’.

Undoubtedly, though, Reynolds House made a difference. One resident who was described as ‘seriously disturbed’ and who ‘indulged in the most bizarre behaviour’ became head chef at a local hotel. And another, who had a ‘very stormy passage’ at the hostel, became a trainee train driver.

On 30 September 1968, the Trust’s financial interest in Reynolds House ended, but the National Association for Mental Health agreed to continue to run the house with support from the sponsoring local authorities.

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HISTORY: 1960s

The 1960s milestones 1963 Benjamin Astbury retires as Secretary.

1963 Herbert Reynolds becomes Secretary in May after 10 years serving as the Trust’s first Accountant.

1963 Herbert Reynolds dies in October and Colonel ARH Waring takes on his role.

1963 The Reynolds Memorial Fund is established.

1963 Reynolds House opens in Bromley,

Kent.

1964 Welsh office opens and first Welsh Distribution Committee meeting marks the start of regional grant-making. The first caseworker is Mr HG Vodden.

1964 Eva Buttle, the wife of Gladwin

Buttle, becomes a trustee (previously she had been involved as a ‘co-optative trustee’).

1964 Trustee Alan Moncrieff is created Knight Bachelor in the Queen’s birthday honours list.

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1965 Dame Eileen Younghusband is appointed a life trustee.

1967 Frank’s nephew, Richard Buttle, is appointed a trustee.

1968 Inaugural trustees Alan Moncrieff, Piers Thompson and the Reverend Frank Wilkinson resign.

1969 The trustees resolve that the Alan Moncrieff Research Fellowship should be established.

1969

Assets: £3m Value of grants given:

£195,000

£ The opening of Reynolds House, which was believed to be ‘the first of its kind in Britain’

SPOTLIGHT

Funding a good education Frank recognised the importance of a good education and Buttle UK has always appreciated how providing a place at a fee-paying school can not only boost a child’s life chances, but also help a family survive turbulent times.

Good independent schools and state boarding schools can provide pastoral care, education and stability for vulnerable children. These might be children from abusive homes; those with an ill parent who can’t provide the care they need, or those living with grandparents who are too elderly to cope. They might be adopted children whose families are at risk of breaking down. Or they might be children being bullied in a local authority school.

‘These schools promote the kind of values and support that we know these children require as a priority: stability, continuity and a decent education,’ explained David Shepherd, a former chair of Buttle UK’s School Fees Committee and a former headmaster of an independent school. ‘The children are fed, housed, washed, clothed and have a decent night’s sleep, which

is sometimes what they haven’t been getting at home.’

The Goodhart Bursary Fund, launched in 2009, focused particularly on getting young carers into boarding schools, to give them a break from their caring duties and the opportunity to get an education, while the local authority stepped up its support for the family when the young person wasn’t there.

Buttle UK also runs a Day Fee Programme which contributes to a school fee package for children from vulnerable families to attend or continue attending independent schools. Its purpose is to provide for the specific needs and circumstances that vulnerable children are facing where families are unable to afford the full fees themselves.

Applications are considered where the child or young person has current and severe health, social or emotional needs that cannot be met within the state school system. This is likely to be where they have been attending a state school and the school placement has irrecoverably broken down and there is no alternative school.

‘What the Buttle Trust have done for me, in a sense they have saved my life.’

Zak, whose school fees were paid by Buttle UK. His mother died when he was eight and he went to live with his aunt, but their relationship was breaking down when Buttle UK stepped in

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HISTORY: 1970s

The 1970s Amidst the political and economic turmoil of the 1970s, the Trust continued steadily with its grant-giving work, according to the principles laid down by its founder. The investments continued to perform well and there was plenty of income available to distribute in relation to the number of applications.

Miriam Sopel, who joined the staff as a social worker to help with grant distribution in 1970, noted that the usual yearly grants for children in hardship were 75p per week maintenance and a one-off payment of £30 for clothing (totalling £69 a year) or, in the more needy cases, £1 per week maintenance with £30 for clothing (totalling £82).

The child’s social worker would be sent a renewal form a year later inviting another application, she said.

And all cases where there was more than one illegitimate child had to go to the Distribution Committee as ‘it was frequently stated that we must not encourage women to be feckless or promiscuous’.

The Trust’s Distribution Committee

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‘It was frequently stated that we must not encourage women to be feckless or promiscuous.’ Miriam Sopel, who joined Buttle to help administer grants in 1970

sat every month on Friday afternoons at 3pm. Maintenance cases were considered first, followed by ‘the weightier matter’ of school fees. The committee would usually finish by 6pm or 7pm.

In light of the Trust’s healthy financial position, a new type of grant-giving was introduced through the General Grants Committee which was formed

in 1971 to give fairly large grants to other organisations. Beneficiaries included the Church Adoption Society (which received £7,500), the National Council for One Parent Families and the British Epilepsy Association.

The 1970s saw two significant milestones. The first was the 21st anniversary of the first trustees’ meeting, which was celebrated with a buffet lunch at the Trust’s offices in 1974. (The trustees’ minutes around this time show that the Trust was keen to keep reviewing its ways of working. Gladwin Buttle raised worries about grants being distributed by agency workers of ‘varying abilities and standards’ and urged his colleagues to constantly get closer to the children.)

The second celebration of the decade was in 1978, which marked the silver jubilee of the Trust as well as the 100th anniversary of Frank’s birth. This was marked in some style with a memorial service at St Mary-le-Bow Church followed by dinner at the prestigious Grocers’ Hall: 134 trustees, staff and guests attended and they were entertained by the band of the Scots Guard.

HISTORY: 1970s With several medics, including Frank’s brother, Gladwin, taking a prominent role in the early years of the Trust, there was a desire to use some of the funding to tackle childhood illnesses. In 1972, the trustees established a Biological Research Committee to support research into medical problems in the early years of life. The committee was chaired

by Sidney Thompson who worked alongside Gladwin Buttle and Harold Stewart, another physician. Two more medical experts were co-opted on to the committee. One of the committee’s early grants was £1,860 for a study into the abandonment of children in longstay hospitals.

Another medically focused move was the development of the Alan Moncrieff Research Fellowship, which the trustees had resolved to establish at the end of the previous decade. It was to mark the retirement of one of the founding trustees and well-respected children’s physician Alan Moncrieff.

One of Alan Moncrieff’s great interests was the ‘physical basis of mental retardation in children’. The trustees consulted with experts at Great

Ormond Street Hospital for Sick Children and its research partner, the Institute of Child Health, to consider where some funds would be best spent. They also had to work with the Trust’s solicitors to ensure that the resulting project would fit into the rules in the governing documents.

After some discussion about the appropriate levels of funding and

Professor Harold Stewart, a founding trustee, served on the Biological Research Committee and, in 1979, was elected as Chairman of the Trust

suitable subjects, eventually a researcher was appointed – Dr MJ Dillon, a consultant physician at Great Ormond Street. He began his research in 1973 and it concluded in 1976 with the ultimate cost to the Trust of just over £20,000.

Dr Dillon reported that the diagnosis and treatment of children suffering from salt-losing disease and hypertension had been ‘revolutionised’ by the study.

‘Without the support of the Buttle Trust,’ he said, ‘these valuable advances would not have been possible.’ The trustees agreed that the research had been a ‘very worthwhile memorial’ to Sir Alan Moncrieff (who had died in 1971).

As the decade drew to a close, the Trust’s work began to become better known and applications increased. John McGeary was appointed as part-time Field Officer and toured the country meeting social workers and other professionals to spread awareness of the Trust. New people gradually began to bring fresh approaches – most notably the Reverend Robin Crawford, who joined as Deputy Secretary in 1978, but who would have more impact in the decade to come.

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HISTORY: 1970s

The 1970s milestones 1970 Reynolds House closes.

1978 Trust’s silver jubilee plus the 100th anniversary of the birth of the Reverend Frank Buttle are celebrated.

1971 Ian Fraser is appointed Deputy Secretary.

1978 Ian Fraser is appointed Secretary.

1971 The General Grants Committee is established with the power to make awards to organisations within certain financial limits.

1978 Robin Crawford joins as Deputy Secretary.

1972 The Biological Research Committee is established.

1979 Harold Stewart becomes Chairman after Sidney Thompson steps down.

1974 Major Sidney Thompson is appointed Chairman.

1974 21st anniversary of the first

1979

1974 Olivia Staughton is appointed a trustee.

£486,000

meeting of the trustees is celebrated in December.

Major Sidney Thompson with his wife outside Buckingham Palace after being awarded an OBE by the Queen in 1975 for services to the Buttle Trust

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1975 Major Sidney Thompson is appointed OBE for services to the Buttle Trust.

1976 The Alan Moncrieff Research Fellowship ends.

Assets: £6m Value of grants given:

£

‘I live with my two sisters and my grandma and grandad. They do everything they can to look after us and provide us with what we need.

Because their money was a bit tight they could not afford a new fridge freezer but down to your generosity we now have a new one and I would like to say thank you.’ Alice, Small Grants programme beneficiary.

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HISTORY: 1980s

The 1980s The world was changing, but, in some ways, the Trust was not. The Trust was proud to say that it was a professional and well-run organisation: finances were processed properly; everything was duplicated. The grants moved slowly: a big whirring machine in the basement churned out cheques and massive card indexes held the records for every single child supported.

Everyone was very formal, referring to each other only by titles and surnames.

In some ways it felt Victorian.

But underneath this formality was a powerful feeling of mutual care – the trustees cared about the staff (once a year staff were invited to the Chair’s home for lunch, the trustees were keen to ensure that workloads were manageable and everyone was doing well), the staff cared about each other (there was a friendly atmosphere in the office with teatime get-togethers and sociable meetings) and they all cared enormously about their client group.

In 1986 Robin Crawford took the lead and heralded changes in the Trust’s priorities. He was enthusiastic and

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energetic, and set about reinterpreting the rules to make them fit for the current day and age.

Mr Crawford recognised that the welfare state provided much more of a safety net than it had in Frank’s time; single parent families were no

Ian Fraser, who retired as Secretary in 1986

HISTORY: 1980s longer on the breadline as benefits were available for them. What’s more, social changes meant that being an ‘illegitimate’ child no longer held the stigma that it used to.

In his review of the rules, Mr Crawford said, ‘the basis of any application must now be deprivation of normal family life together with the presence of some compelling or exceptional misfortune’.

Grants were made possible even if there were two parents. He also noted that an area of growing public concern was the need to support young people who had been thrown out of home. He emphasised, however, that the Trust could only assist those being brought up in the Christian faith.

Even though it’s true that there was more of a safety net in the UK than in the past, the welfare bill was nevertheless being cut back by Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government. Staff noted that the number of applications from social workers began to increase following the abolition of particular hardship grants from the government.

The support for medical research, which had been energetically promoted during the 1970s, was boosted at the

end of the 1980s. In 1989 the inaugural meeting took place between the Biological Research Committee and Gladwin Buttle’s own Pharmacological and Medical Research Trust. The two bodies agreed to work together to fund research and became the Professor Buttle Research Committee. The objective was to support the health of children and young people.

The welfare state provided much more of a safety net than it had in Frank’s time; single parent families were no longer on the breadline

Robin Crawford was appointed Secretary in 1986, and immediately set about making the organisation fit for the modern world

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HISTORY: 1980s

The 1980s milestones 1980 Scottish office opens and

Catherine Scott is appointed as Secretary to the Scottish Committee.

1989 The Reynolds Memorial Fund is discontinued and its assets merged with those of the main Trust. However, the work continues via the Reynolds Memorial Committee.

1980 Alan Moncrieff Memorial Fund approved by trustees.

1983 Gladwin Buttle dies.

1985 Eva Buttle appointed President

in recognition of her work over many years.

1986 Robin Crawford becomes Secretary after Ian Fraser retires.

1987 Northern Ireland office opens and Rosemary Whalley is appointed Secretary to the Northern Ireland Committee. The Buttle Trust now becomes a truly UK-wide organisation.

Gladwin Buttle’s wife Eva (above right, with Miriam Sopel) was appointed as President in 1985

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1989 The inaugural meeting takes place between the Biological Research Committee and Professor Gladwin Buttle’s Pharmacological and Medical Research Trust.

1987

Assets: £12m Value of grants given:

£974,000

£

‘Thank you so, so much for buying my two boys a set of bunk beds and mattresses. Their faces were a picture as they have never had their own bed, they have always slept with me, their mum.

At 6 and 8 they needed their own space at night. I am so very grateful for you helping us as a family, your kindness brought tears of joy to us all.’ Jacqui, Small Grants programme beneficiary.

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HISTORY: 1990s

The 1990s Difficult conversations were held at the start of the 1990s about the place of religion in grant-making decisions.

When Frank drew up the deeds in the 1930s he was emphatic that beneficiaries should be members of a Christian church and, since the Trust’s inception, trustees and staff had maintained a strong Christian ethos.

But, by the 1990s, the UK had changed dramatically in a way that Frank perhaps could never have envisaged. The population now encompassed people from a huge number of different religions as well

as none. And poverty and hardship affected all children – regardless of their faith. Eventually, after many painful and lengthy discussions, in 1996 the trustees agreed to remove the question about religion from grant application forms.

In 1991, one of the last remaining founding trustees, Harold Stewart, stepped down at the age of 85. A lunch was held at the Rubens Hotel in London to celebrate his birthday and mark his extraordinary service.

The recession of the early 1990s put pressure on finances. The General Grants Committee members agreed to a reduction in the money allocated to their cause (funding for

Eventually, after many painful and lengthy discussions, in 1996 the trustees agreed to remove the question about religion from grant application forms 34

Hugo Perks, who became Director in 1997, believed the Trust could have greater impact

HISTORY: 1990s other organisations) so that more resources could be devoted to ‘the needs of individual beneficiaries facing exceptional problems’. This reduction occurred for several consecutive years, until the committee was wound up in 1993.

In 1997, a new Director was appointed – Hugo Perks, who had been running the Welsh office since 1990. He had previously worked in the civil service and had many years’ experience of assisting a wide variety of voluntary organisations. This brought a new perspective to the leadership and he had a vision that the Trust could have a much greater impact. This proved a transformative moment for the direction of the Trust.

He set about modernising all the back office functions. Staff were given appraisals, consistency over levels of pay was introduced, and a new computer system ran a powerful database which recorded the details of each and every grant – the old card indexes were gone.

As well as examining the organisation’s internal workings, Hugo looked outwards: he predicted that the

Jose Marshall, who became Director in July 1992

Trust could be more of an influencer of change.

As a starting point, Hugo petitioned the trustees to let the Trust carry out some research. They allocated a small sum of money towards this but only on the basis that the majority of the funding was raised from

Olivia Staughton (left, with Eva Buttle) became Chair in 1991

external sources. Hugo therefore set about raising funding for research into education for children with dyslexia. This was the Trust’s first toe in the water of research and fundraising, and in the next millennium this really began to take off.

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HISTORY: 1990s

The 1990s milestones 1990 300 Vauxhall Bridge Road sold

and the organisation moves to 13 Palace Street, modern premises better suited to the use of IT equipment.

1991 Olivia Staughton is appointed Chair after Harold Stewart retires.

1992 Eva Buttle dies.

1992 Miriam Sopel becomes Acting

Director in January after Robin Crawford retires on the grounds of ill health.

1992 Jose Marshall becomes Director in July.

1992 Miffy Goodhart is elected Chair of the Reynolds Memorial Committee.

1993 The funds remaining with the General Grants Committee are reallocated to the Reynolds Memorial Committee and the London Distribution Committee. The General Grants Committee ceases.

1993 Miriam Sopel retires as Deputy Director.

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1996 Trustees agree to remove the question about family religion from application forms.

1997 Hugo Perks becomes Director, moving from his role as Secretary for Wales.

1998 Miffy Goodhart becomes Chair after 19 years as a trustee.

1999 Comet starts delivering white goods to grant recipients.

1999

Assets: £39m Value of grants given:

£1.5m

£

Miffy Goodhart became Chair of the Trust in 1998

‘I would just like to say a big thank you for your funding as I have achieved my diploma and can now continue on to the next level and go to university, which has, and will, change mine and my son’s lives for the better. I’d have never achieved this without your funding. Thank you so much!’

Tina, supported by the Student and Trainees programme.

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HISTORY: 2000s

The 2000s By the early part of the new millennium, the Trust had become better known and demand for its support ‘went through the roof’, according to caseworker Alan Darke.

The Trust had huge amounts of expertise in making grants for the most deprived children in the UK, good relationships with agencies working on the ground, experienced and caring caseworkers, and an efficient administration process – it just needed more money to make a bigger impact.

To address this, the role of Head of Development was established in 2001 to boost the organisation’s fundraising capacity so that it could raise more money for research work and grantmaking.

In 2003, the Trust won the tender to distribute a slice of the millions of pounds raised by BBC Children in Need. In the first year of the partnership, this annual TV megaappeal gave £600,000 to the Trust to distribute via an Emergency Essentials scheme. Echoing the Trust’s own

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tremendously successful Small Grants programme, it provided families in crisis with essential household items.

The Trust began to become more proactive: it was more sure of its voice, its expertise and its ability to influence the outside world. Capitalising on this position, the Trust became more assertive with local authorities, asking them to give more backing to some of the children that it was supporting.

When the Labour government pledged to end child poverty, the Trust was there at the table with Gordon Brown, discussing how it could be done.

Partnership working started to become a key feature of the Trust’s work and it joined together with the National Children’s Bureau and the Child Poverty Action Group to found the End Child Poverty Coalition. It was now much more than a quiet family-based grant-giver.

The first piece of research about dyslexia didn’t make many waves, but, as it was concluding, a new research project which would have a much bigger effect was already well under way.

David Anderson became Chair in 2009

By Degrees: Going to university from care was published in 2005, after its researchers followed the experiences of 129 care leavers through higher education for five years. All of its recommendations are now enshrined in various pieces of law, guidance and policy. It also led to the development of the Buttle Quality Mark which supported education institutions to help care leavers to aspire to and succeed in further and higher education.

HISTORY: 2000s In the meantime, Hugo Perks retired and, in 2003, Gerri McAndrew joined as Director. (The role evolved to become Chief Executive in 2008.) Having previously been an Assistant Director in children’s services and worked at Chief Executive level in the charity sector, Gerri’s knowledge and experience of how to influence government and work in partnership with other organisations placed the Trust firmly on an upwards trajectory.

With the BBC Children in Need partnership proving that the Trust could successfully deliver grants on behalf of others, the Trust’s Head of Development was able to win funding from other trusts and foundations.

As the fundraising role continued to develop, the Trust appointed an additional member of staff to take this forward – a Director of Fundraising, who sat above the Head of Development.

While researchers were beavering away, and the grant-giving was continuing to grow, Gerri knew that the organisation still needed modernisation behind the scenes. Caseworkers with huge amounts of experience had to

have trustee sign-off on almost all of their decisions. Eventually, she persuaded the trustees to relinquish this duty, but ‘it was a huge cultural change’, she said.

The computer system needed pushing forward again. In the early 2000s, applications were still carried out via the post, so it could take eight to ten weeks to get a bed to a child.

By 2007, the Trust had introduced online application forms which sped things up tremendously – a social worker could visit a family in the morning and then spend 20 minutes filling out the online application form in the afternoon. Furthermore, the online application form captured all the necessary information on the Trust’s database, saving staff administration time and freeing them up to deal with more grant-making.

In 2009, David Anderson became Chair, after 11 years on the board. An investment banker with ambitions to professionalise the organisation that matched Gerri’s, together they brought more new ideas to take the Trust forward.

An Emergency Essentials grant Ngyo is an eight-year-old boy, born in London of Somalian parents who came to England in 1990. Ngyo’s mother died in March of this year from tuberculosis.

After Ngyo’s mother died, social services became involved and found that Nygo, who has never been to school and was not registered with a GP, cannot walk, bear weight or speak properly. His father takes him for a walk in a pushchair and he has no friends. Father and son live in total isolation in a two-bedroomed council flat with no white goods, carpet, furniture or furnishings.

Social services are now making provisions for Ngyo to attend school and for him and his father to be assessed medically. Ngyo has been admitted to hospital for tests. The Trust awarded a grant of £350 to go some way towards providing essential items for the home.

Extract from Buttle UK report on its Children in Need grant-making, June 2004

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HISTORY: 2000s

The 2000s milestones 2001 Christine Manning Prior is

employed as Head of Development, the first formal fundraising role.

2003 50th anniversary celebrated

with an evening reception in the City of London. The organisation is renamed as The Frank Buttle Trust.

2004 Trustees cease authorising expenditure on small grants.

2005 A new bespoke database goes live, the streamlined grant-making process significantly shortens the turnaround time.

2005 The Trust is awarded a three-

2003 The Trust wins the tender for BBC

year contract with BBC Children in Need, receiving £900,000 a year to distribute.

2003 Gerri McAndrew is appointed

2006 The Buttle UK Quality Mark for Care Leavers in Higher Education is launched.

Children in Need funds. The first year’s funding is £600,000.

Director.

2006 A new website is launched.

2008

£

Assets: £45m Value of grants given:

£3m 2008 Head of Development, Christine Manning Prior leaves.

2008 Ann Brooks is appointed as the first Director of Fundraising.

2009 The BBC Children in Need contract is extended and funding is increased to £1.1m for the next two years.

2009 The Goodhart Bursary Fund launches following Miffy Goodhart’s retirement as Chair after 30 years’ service to the trustee board.

2009 David Anderson becomes Chair.

2009 The School Fees and Student Committees cease, and delegation for decisions on these grants is given to the Chief Executive.

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SPOTLIGHT

The Buttle UK Quality Mark In 2006, the Buttle UK Quality Mark was launched and it proved to be a groundbreaking step forward to help children who had been in care survive and thrive in higher education.

Initially working with higher education institutions and later with further education institutions, the Quality Mark set out a number of standards that these educational establishments should meet in order to better support care leavers.

The aim was to raise aspirations among care leavers and help them to succeed at college and university. These young people often struggle in their adult lives – as support slips away when they leave care, too many drift out of education or jobs and into crime, drug dependency and poverty.

The Quality Mark has helped colleges and universities transform the way that they support this group of young people by, for example, ensuring they get the funds they are entitled to, providing them with someone specific to offer advice, and guaranteeing accommodation throughout the year, including holiday time. Those institutions

that have achieved the Quality Mark see more care leavers join their courses and fewer drop out.

In 2014, having achieved its original aims and objectives, and more, Buttle UK felt that it was the right time to hand over the continued development and embedding of support for care-experienced students to the higher and further education sectors themselves. The Buttle UK Quality Mark for Care Leavers project finally concluded on 31 July 2015. By this time, a total of 114 universities and 85 colleges across the UK had achieved the award.

The aim was to raise aspirations among care leavers and help them to succeed at college and university

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SPOTLIGHT

Research The research that Buttle UK began undertaking at the turn of the millennium marks it out as an organisation that aims to learn from the experiences of its beneficiaries by investigating the challenges that they face. This research then informs its grant-making as well as putting it in a strong position to be an influential voice in the debate about fighting poverty across the UK. Some key pieces of research include the following:

By Degrees: Going to university from care, 2005 This research was commissioned by the Trust and undertaken by the Thomas Coram Research Unit at the Institute of Education, University of London.

A detailed five-year study identified many areas where students who had previously been in care needed particular assistance in order to survive and thrive in higher education. It led to changes in legislation as well as to the groundbreaking Quality Mark.

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Living with Hardship 24/7, 2007 This report, based on interviews with 70 households, from Buttle UK, the University of York and the NSPCC highlights the need for more recognition of the many ways in which poverty has an impact on families and calls for a holistic

approach to supporting parents and children. The report’s findings have gone on to inform the work of social workers.

The Poor Relations: Children and informal kinship carers speak out, 2013 Published by Buttle UK and the University of Bristol, this studied, for the first time, the largely hidden population of children who are brought up by grandparents or other relatives (who aren’t their parents) in informal arrangements that don’t involve local authorities.

Buttle UK is today using the report’s recommendations to influence the policy and practice of government, public services and voluntary organisations.

Additionally, Buttle UK’s own grantmaking now focuses more strongly on alleviating the hardships faced by kinship care families, in particular, through the Kinnections Project in Northern Ireland.

‘Going to such a good school opened so many doors for me and helped me on my journey to achieving a dual honours degree in neuroscience and psychology. Without your help, I would have struggled to get to the point I am at today. Thank you once again for changing my life.’ Marc, supported by the School Fees programme.

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HISTORY: 2010s

The 2010s ‘Why change? It’s dull to stay as we are.

The cause is so good and so strong that, communicated properly, we could do more of what we are doing. It would be a shame not to try to do more with what we have. And we’d prefer to be dynamic and interesting.’

These are the words of the Trust’s Chair, David Anderson, who, with Chief Executive Gerri McAndrew, led the organisation through a significant transformation between 2010 and 2015. This moved it on from being a successful grant-giving trust, to becoming a wide-ranging children’s charity which today runs many successful projects, carries out research, is fundraising to carry on expanding its work and plays an important role in influencing social policy.

The modernisation of the trustee board continued from the previous decade, focusing the trustees more firmly on strategic work rather than operational decision-making. And a new name was decided upon – the

44

Buttle Trust became Buttle UK. The new branding gave the charity a more modern look and feel, and helped to reaffirm the organisation as UK-wide, while maintaining the important and recognisable Buttle family name.

Buttle (as the charity is now often known) started the 2010s by continuing to work energetically on its traditional grant-giving – the Small Grants and the BBC Children in Need-funded Emergency Essentials programmes.

The School Fees programme and a Students and Trainees programme (to help young people stay in further and higher education) were also still going strong.

During this time, Buttle also began to develop several new projects which would specifically influence policy and practice.

Launch of Access to the Future The recession following the financial crisis of 2008 had made things difficult for many young people. In 2010, government figures showed that nearly 1 million of the country’s 16 to 24-yearolds (16 per cent of the total) were not in education, employment or training (often known as NEETs) and the number was rising. Buttle saw this as an opportunity to create an innovative solution and launched a grants programme that ran between 2010 and 2013 with the aim of re-engaging some of these young people by enabling them to gain qualifications, build their confidence and restore their motivation.

Acceleration of the Quality Mark Buttle’s Quality Mark for higher education institutions, established in 2006, had already proved successful. In 2010, Buttle embarked on an 18-month development programme for a Quality Mark for the further education sector.

Development of the Boarding Chances for Children project Since its inception, Buttle has recognised the transformative power

HISTORY: 2010s of a boarding education and the ability of a diverse range of schools to meet the varied needs of children and young people who otherwise may enter public care. In partnership with independent and state boarding schools, Buttle began work to establish 150 new school places by 2016 and change forever the opportunities available for these children.

and informal kinship carers speak out was published in 2013. The recommendations are today used to influence the policy and practice of government, public services and voluntary organisations. Additionally, it now directly influences Buttle’s own grant-making.

Kinship care research Through Buttle’s grant-giving programmes, the charity understood that many children in the UK were being brought up in informal arrangements by relatives or friends because their parents were unable to look after them. The significant needs of this, largely hidden population of children, were going unrecognised.

A new Buttle research project was supported by the Big Lottery Fund and undertaken by Bristol University to identify the number and characteristics of kinship carers, then to find out, through detailed interviews, what challenges the children, young people and carers in these families faced.

The Poor Relations: Children

In 2012, in a review of Buttle’s strategy, the trustees concluded that Buttle was in danger of spreading itself too thinly and so they decided to refocus activities on Buttle’s core objectives of financial support to vulnerable children and families. The trustees wanted to ensure that Buttle had more impact on individuals as well as using its influencing role to help larger numbers of children.

The trustees reaffirmed that the primary purpose of Buttle was: The maintenance, education and advancement in life of children and young people who through poverty and family circumstances are in need of, and will benefit significantly from, Buttle UK’s support.

2012 strategic review

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HISTORY: 2010s They also emphasised that Buttle should continue to play to one of its key strengths, that as much work as possible should involve a direct relationship between the charity and the beneficiary.

They agreed that the charity would focus on the 0-18 age group and on those whose development was, or was likely to be, impaired by the situation in which they found themselves. Buttle would focus on three groups of people: • Families with young children.

• Children aged from 11 to 18 and those in transition from school for one year after their leaving date.

• Vulnerable teenagers without home support.

The trustees felt that there was some work to be done to determine the most appropriate way of helping vulnerable teenagers and that providing a standalone setting-up home grant may not necessarily be the most appropriate or effective way of providing support.

This shift in focus, however, clearly had implications for some of the programmes that existed at the time.

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A refreshed approach The trustees confirmed that delivery of grants should remain flexible, efficient and personal, and, where appropriate, in partnership with others.

As the focus was to be on under18s, the Access to the Future and Student and Trainees programmes would cease. However, what had been learned from them would be taken forward into other projects, and Access to the Future was transferred to the St Giles’ Trust.

The key activities from 2012 included: Small Grants and BBC Children in Need Emergency Essentials programmes Always the core of Buttle’s work, these small grants for families in crisis were regarded by the trustees as being vital to children and their families. The knowledge that Buttle gained through these grant-giving programmes helped it to develop other well-targeted programmes, and the fact that Buttle does these efficiently and well continued to enhance the charity’s standing and reputation.

Enhanced Packages for Estranged Young People Young people who have become estranged from their families or carers are incredibly vulnerable. They are at risk of becoming homeless and struggle to keep up with their education.

Building on what the charity had learned from running the Access to the Future and Student and Trainees programmes, Buttle developed a new Enhanced Package pilot that provided a personalised grant of up to £2,000 which would not only ensure that these young people had household essentials, such as a cooker or a fridge, but also help them achieve their education, training or employment goals by funding access to interests or activities.

Support continuing for 11 to 18-year-olds The focus in this area continued to be school fees and providing support to vulnerable teenagers. Buttle sought to grow its activities in this area, for example, through the Boarding Chances for Children project.

HISTORY: 2010s activities. The trustees felt that Buttle should seek to influence policy and advocate on behalf of its beneficiaries in targeted areas where the charity has particular expertise. They also suggested that Buttle could work in partnership with campaigning organisations.

Fundraising It was agreed that Buttle would be looking at the fundraising strategy going forward. It was recognised that fundraising was ever more important and investment in this activity was essential.

2014 strategic review

During the 2010s Buttle boosted its fundraising activities with events such as the Royal Parks Foundation half marathon in London

Winding down the Quality Mark Buttle drew up a plan to withdraw from the Quality Mark by 2015. After eight years of successfully galvanising change for care leavers in higher and further education, it was being integrated well into education institutions.

An increase in advocacy and policy work Buttle appointed a new staff member to focus upon monitoring and evaluation.

This gave Buttle much more scope to make the most of all the information that it gathered through its many

At the trustees’ next strategic review in 2014, all of their decisions of 2012 had been implemented.

The trustees were therefore in a good position to set out a vision for Buttle’s future, and they reiterated the message from 2012 that Buttle should maintain grant-making as the core of its activities.

While small grants should remain at the heart of what Buttle UK represents – assisting families in crisis when there is no-one else to turn to – the trustees recognised the success of the Enhanced

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HISTORY: 2010s Packages pilots in offering more to beneficiaries. They emphasised that, complementary to the small grants, Buttle should aim for ‘the transformation of life chances’, so, with any beneficiary of any Buttle grants programme, Buttle has the opportunity to offer a higher level of support with a personalised, larger grant that can help someone to achieve long-term stability.

Having considered the evidence from the Enhanced Packages pilots, the trustees agreed that Buttle should focus on children and young people aged from 0 to 20 across all of its grant-giving, supporting everyone for the duration of their grant.

Buttle’s influencing role was reinforced once again as an important strategic priority as it enables Buttle to effect greater change and reach even more children and families than simply making grants. However, the trustees acknowledged the potential tensions that exist between a role as a grant-giver and a role as an influencer, and agreed that this needs to be kept under review as Buttle moves forward.

Now, in 2015, Buttle has a number of

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projects under way to influence change: Boarding Chances for Children An extension of the School Fees programme, Buttle is working with local authorities to proactively identify vulnerable children that could benefit from a boarding The Anchor Project is launched in January 2015 by (left to right) school education.

Chief Executive Gerri McAndrew, Director of Grant Programmes Over three years, and Project Development Olu Alake, and Monitoring and Buttle aims to place Evaluation Manager Madeleine Thornton 150 students (in addition to those themselves, the Royal National placed via the School Fees Children’s Foundation and Buttle. programme). Outcomes will be measured against a control group over The Anchor Project a three-year period. This project is The project, funded by City Bridge supported and funded by a range Trust, provides financial support to of partners who are committed to help children living in London who offering boarding to vulnerable are experiencing lasting effects from children: the Education Endowment domestic abuse. Buttle supplies Foundation, the Department for products or services such as extra Education, the independent schools tuition, therapy and essential household

HISTORY: 2010s items to reduce the emotional, educational and social impact of domestic abuse on a child, as well as meeting their physical needs.

The Kinnections Project The Kinnections Project in Northern Ireland is one of the outcomes of the kinship research of 2013. Grandparents caring for children under the age of 12 can apply for grants of up to £1,500 over and above Buttle’s usual grants.

The project began in May 2015, will last for five years and is run in partnership with Kinship Care Northern Ireland.

It is funded by the Big Lottery Fund Northern Ireland.

Support and Connect Starting in March 2014 and based in Renfrewshire and East Renfrewshire in Scotland, Support and Connect offered grants of up to £1,500 for a mix of household goods and social activities to encourage social inclusion. More than 200 grants were made to support families with children in need across the relevant areas of focused activity.

This project, funded by the Big Lottery Fund Scotland, ended in June 2015.

Kate’s story Kate’s mother was an alcoholic and left when she was seven years old. Kate’s father then had an accident which caused major brain damage. He had to move into a home to receive round-the-clock care. Since she was 16, Kate has had no parental support.

In danger of becoming homeless and with no-one to turn to, Kate went to live at a supported lodgings centre. She resorted to drugs to cope, refused all offers of help and was – in her words – ‘in total chaos’.

Kate eventually realised that this wasn’t the sort of life she wanted for herself. She started to engage with the support available and – driven by her dream of working in childcare – she gave up the drugs and got her life onto a more stable footing. She found a place to live and was helped by Buttle UK to buy some basic possessions to furnish her flat.

Kate is now a fully qualified nursery nurse and is continuing to take her studies to a higher level.

Buttle UK is helping Kate with travel, a laptop and internet access to help her education and to visit her father regularly. Buttle has also provided funding for her uniform for work, some more furnishings for her flat and some warm winter clothes. Thanks to the ongoing, personalised support from Buttle, Kate can now look forward to fulfilling her career dreams.

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HISTORY: 2010s

The 2010s milestones 2010 Access to the Future begins.

2011 Richard Buttle steps down as a trustee and becomes Honorary Vice President.

2010 Buttle is shortlisted in the grant-

2011 The Frank Buttle Trust becomes

giving category of the Charity Awards and receives a ‘highly commended’ accolade.

Buttle UK and a rebranded website is launched.

2011 BBC Children in Need contract is awarded to Buttle again with £2m for each of the next three years.

in the category of Education and Training for the Quality Mark.

2011 Buttle wins a Charity Award

2013 Start of the Buttle Bake Off, a new fundraising event.

2013 60th anniversary celebrations at RADA in London. Lorraine Pascale gives the keynote address.

2013 Access to the Future transfers to the St Giles’ Trust.

2014 Audley House is sold. Buttle moves to more modern and suitable offices at Greycoat Place.

2015

Assets: £52m Value of grants given:

£3.7m Buttle staff celebrate the launch of the Buttle Bake Off

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£

THE FUTURE

An ambitious vision

Gerri McAndrew with Lorraine Pascale at Buttle UK’s 60th anniversary celebrations

Buttle UK is now certain of its direction into the future. ‘We are an amazing, effective deliverer of grants to individuals,’ says Chief Executive Gerri McAndrew. ‘We understand better and better what families need and in the future we aim to have a more transformative and longer term effect on people’s lives.’

Therefore, from 2015, Buttle’s ambition is to raise £20m over the coming five years through a major fundraising campaign, which will double its size and enormously increase its impact. It will mean it can not only give more grants, targeted to different needs, but also continue to grow its influencing work.

At a time when the economic and social environment is looking tougher and tougher for the UK’s poorest and most vulnerable children, Buttle’s work – and the Reverend Frank Buttle’s legacy – might never be so important.

Buttle’s 60th anniversary event in November 2013 celebrated the thousands of vulnerable children that

The need that Frank Buttle saw back in the 1920s and 30s has not disappeared – far from it.

There is every reason to believe that our funding will be in greater need in the coming years

had been supported so far by Frank Buttle’s legacy. However, at the event, Chief Executive Gerri McAndrew pointed out that ‘the need that Frank Buttle saw back in the 1920s and 30s has not disappeared – far from it…

There is every reason to believe that our funding will be in greater need in the coming years.’

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‘Buttle supported me, and believed in me. It was like unconditional love. If you hadn’t stepped in and supported me to get an education, my life would have taken a very different turn.’

Lisa Cherry, who, as a teenager, arrived in London with a carrier bag and nowhere to stay. Buttle funded her through her A levels, then her degree. Today she’s a life change facilitator, helping people work through their own difficulties.

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Buttle UK staff and trustees 2014/15 Trustees

Staff

Gordon Anderson Jillian Dinsmore (from December 2014) Damian Ettinger Stephen Fielding (Deputy Chair to June 2015) Thomasina Findlay (from September 2015) Caroline Gipps (Deputy Chair) Keith Mullins Rosemary Norris (from December 2014) Julia Ogilvy Trevor Reaney Michael Seaton (from December 2014) Elizabeth Stearns (to December 2014) Leo Wong (from December 2014)

Olu Alake Richard Barron Rachael Benjamin Alan Cox (to May 2014) Jane Edwards Oliver Jarvis Diane Kerr Alan Knowles (from April 2014) Rodney Moxham Susan Mueller (to July 2015) Grainne Murray (from January 2015) Paige Murphy (to June 2014) Paramjit Sangha (from July 2014) Nicholas Sankey (from February 2015) Hazel Sewell Sonja Sital Gari Sparling (from June 2014) Madeleine Thornton (to May 2015) Lilli Trautvetter (to July 2014) Andrew Walters (from January 2015) Sally Ward

David Anderson (Chair)

Gerri McAndrew (Chief Executive)

Northern Ireland Jane Black Scotland Anne Marie Peffer Patricia Farrell Wales Chris Mullane

Contact us England Buttle UK 15 Greycoat Place London SW1P 1SB

Wales Buttle UK PO Box 2528 Cardiff CF23 0GX

e info@buttleuk.org

e wales@buttleuk.org

t 020 7828 7311

t 029 2054 1996

Scotland Buttle UK PO Box 5075 Glasgow G78 4WA

Northern Ireland Buttle UK PO Box 484 Belfast BT6 0YA

e scotland@buttleuk.org

e nireland@buttleuk.org

t 01505 850437

t 028 9064 1164

www.buttleuk.org