Five pillars of the St Mirren Foundation

An interview with Gayle Brannigan, CEO of the St Mirren Foundation

Part 2: the five pillars…

In the first part of the interview, Gayle Brannigan, the CEO of the St Mirren Foundation, talked to us about how they began and grew from a very small starting-point.  Our conversation then moved on as she described the five pillars upon which the Foundation is built.  These are:

Community Connection – Bringing People Together

Health & Wellbeing – Movement Is Medicine

Education & Empowerment – Achieving Your Potential

Mental Fitness & Resilience – Developing Healthy Minds

Inspiring Our Youth – Creating Our Future

“Poverty is the common thread and root cause of all of these,” Gayle explained, “and the challenges we have in and around Renfrewshire are mirrored across the entire country.  Underpinning the challenges that each of the five pillars presents is the biggest obstacle facing the Foundation, and it’s one that is, in my view, the most important.

“That is the thorny question of ‘where does the money come from?’  With my business background, I make no apologies about focusing a huge amount of my time on this subject. To give you an idea, at any given time I’m likely to have 10 funding applications sitting on my desk, waiting to be presented. Of these, usually only one results in any money coming our way, but that’s not to say we are not grateful for what we get. Without the Scottish Government, the local authorities (Renfrewshire Council in our case), the SFA and our current incredible funding partners life, and having financial security, would be much more difficult for the Foundation.

“Also crucial is having money for a rainy day. The nature of charity funding means that it’s often short-term, with money available for a specific project/time period, whereas what we need are more grant funders making multiyear funding pots available to cover core costs. is a bank of money that will allow for longer-term planning. Having a robust funding strategy and healthy level of reserves are essential. No-one knows when that proverbial rainy day will come. For example, if we had another pandemic like Covid, it’s estimated that 30%-40% of all charities in Scotland would close. We don’t intend that the St Mirren Foundation will be one of them, should the worst happen.”

To be continued…