Trustees

The Clothworkers’ Foundation seeks to improve the lives of people and communities, particularly those facing disadvantage and marginalisation, through grant making. Established in 1977 to be the primary vehicle of charitable giving for The Clothworkers’ Company, The Foundation’s grants to date have exceeded £158 million. With specific programme areas for funding that include disadvantaged young people, disadvantaged minority communities and domestic and sexual abuse, The Foundation generates its impact through the charities it funds.

After previously partnering with The Clothworkers’ Foundation to appoint new Trustees, Prospectus were delighted to continue to support the Foundation and its board evolution. In 2022, the Foundation sought to appoint two Trustees to the Board. One trustee would ideally come from The Clothworkers’ Company Membership and one from outside of The Clothworkers’ Company.

New Trustees would help to strengthen the Board as the organisation develops and implements an ambitious strategy to increase its impact. The new Trustees would improve the representation of diverse voices and lived experience of The Foundation’s programme areas among its Board members. The Board were also interested in profiles of those with demonstrable experience and understanding of social impact investments.

Prospectus were delighted to support the Board in appointing an ‘external’ Trustee, from outside of The Clothworkers’ Company Membership, Amir Rizwan. Amir brings a great depth of experience looking at new funding models to support social change working with civil society organisations and a wide range of other funders. He is now working at Big Society Capital as a Relationship Director (on a job-share basis) where he is focusing on building partnerships and new ways of working on social challenges with foundations and mission-aligned investors. Furthermore, he is also the diversity lead at Big Society Capital where he is working on implementing and enhancing the organisations EDI strategy across the whole business. Amir also currently chairs the Diversity Forum for the social investment sector which looks at how to improve diversity, equality and inclusion within the social investment. Amir came to the UK as a refugee in 1991.

Prospectus were also delighted to support the Board in appointing a Trustee from The Clothworkers’ Company Membership, Dr Hugo Slim. Hugo’s humanitarian career has combined leadership roles in academia, policy and diplomacy. He has been a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Ethics, Law and Armed Conflict at the Blavatnik School of Government at the University of Oxford and Reader in International Humanitarianism at Oxford Brookes University. He has also worked as a frontline humanitarian for Save the Children and the United Nations in Morocco, Sudan, Ethiopia and the Palestinian Territories, and been on the boards of Oxfam GB and the Catholic Fund for Overseas Development.