CELF alumni Class of 2017, International Business Manager at Prolife Foods Brendon McLean talks about his experience on the Elevate Leadership Programme. The eight-week programme, delivered over the course of eight months brings together established leaders from different kinds of organisations, in an effort to increase the elevation and social impact of all participants. CELF believes in the positive impact that connected, responsible leaders have on their community.
If you are an organisation in the Waikato and looking at developing your leaders and building stronger connections across the region there is nothing more impactful for your teams, your business and your region than the CELF Programme.
I was fortunate to be part of the 2016 cohort. Up until that point in my life, I had had little knowledge or connection with the not-for-profit sector. And certainly, I had no appreciation of how spending the next eight months with 20 people from vastly different sectors would affect my life.
Through meaningful self-reflection, CELF’s programme helped us to understand what and who had influenced us over the course of our lives and shaped us into the people we had become.
The conversations and self-reflections with a group of people I had never met were enlightening and powerful. I quickly gained immense admiration for the individuals working in the not-for-profit sector. Their humbleness, selflessness and passion for helping people continues to inspire me to this day.
Through a CELF connection I was invited to join the Child Matters board. Established to advocate for children effected by abuse and neglect, Child Matters has been around for 25 years. New Zealand has some of the worst statistics in the OECD with an average of one child dying every 35 days due to child abuse and neglect. And every day there are over 220 individual reports of concern received. An independent organisation working with government agencies to improve outcomes for children, Child Matters largest area of responsibility is the training of organisations who work with children to help them identify and respond to possible cases of child abuse and neglect.
Child protection training is currently not required in any industry which, in my view, is simply wrong and we are working to change this.
The team at Child Matters are humble and selfless in their dedication and are making some significant progress. However, with so many priorities it can be difficult to know where to start.
Most not-for-profits operate in the ‘here and now’ due to funding or sector constraints. It is a privilege to be able to contribute to this remarkable organisation in ways that complement their existing expertise and knowledge.
Working with Child Matters over the last six years, I have gained so much more than what I’ve contributed. I get to work with a group of people who have dedicated their lives to improving outcomes for children and that, to me, is both motivating and energising.
My journey at Child Matters started because the Bernie and Kaye Crosby, David Irving and the other CELF co-founders decided to initiate a programme with a simple goal of connecting business and not-for-profit organisations. Although this appeared to be a crazy idea at the time, and had never really been seen anywhere else in the world, it has worked on so many different levels.
I will be eternally grateful for the many opportunities and learnings it has afforded me, but especially for allowing me to connect and work with an organisation like Child Matters.
Prolife Foods together with the APL, ASP, BNZ, Fosters, PowerFarming, Schick, Trinity Lands and WEL Energy Trust continue to be supporters of the CELF who deliver the Elevate Leadership Programme with the University of Waikato.
Every year, a leader from each of these sponsor organisations, alongside an individual from the not-for-profit sector, is sponsored to participate in each year’s cohort.
With each year there are more graduates, who will only too willingly share their story of impact of the programme on themselves, the organisation they work for and their community.
