AN INTERVIEW WITH TOM ANDREWS

Here’s an extract from my conversation with Tom Andrews on my podcast, Do Good & Do Well.

To listen to the whole conversation click here.

Tom Andrews is Head of Member Support at ACEVO, supporting chief executives of charities and social enterprises.

His role is overseeing their national mentoring scheme, facilitating member meetings and providing advice and one-to-one support.

He is the founder and ex CEO of two pioneering charities, Music for Change, which is about intercultural understanding through music participation and People United exploring how creativity can grow, kindness and social change. Tom is a qualified coach and counsellor, and he enjoys inventing games, ambient music, silent retreats and football.

Sarah

Hello Tom Andrews, and welcome to Do Good and Do Well. I am so excited I finally got you on this podcast. How are you today?

Tom

Yes, I'm good. Thank you. I'm looking forward to, although a little bit apprehensive but I'm looking forward to having a conversation with you.

Sarah

Okay, so let's kick off. First question, tell us a bit about yourself.

Tom

I'm currently head of member support at ACEVO, which is a charity that supports charity leaders and CEOs. I oversee their national mentoring programme. I facilitate member meetings but my main role there is to provide one-to-one support for those charity leaders.

So that might be giving them information, providing guidance, but really a lot of the time it's about providing time for those people. To stop and pause for them to go, whoa, this is what's going on for me. And to be with them, for them to feel heard and supported. So that's what I'm doing now.

My background has always been in the charity and voluntary sector - volunteering in India with Tibetan refugees and then did other odd jobs and volunteering. Over time I grew and ran two creative charities, over probably about 20 years or so. And then in the latter part, I trained as a coach supporting on a freelance basis, supporting individual leaders, but also as a professional counsellor.

And I worked in the community and in a hospice. So that's me. Well, the work me bit. I also like board games and ambient music, and I support a really unsuccessful football team, Charlton Athletic.

Sarah

I suppose what really strikes me about hearing that is that there's a coherence to what you have done in your career.

It feels like, and tell me if I'm wrong, it feels like it's been a natural journey - everything feels like it fits somehow. The work that you are doing now has come from the work that you did 20 years ago, 25 years ago. And none of it is, knowing you, none of it's a surprise, I guess. Does that make sense?

Tom

Yeah, it does. And I think I would agree with you. There does feel like there’s a thread and that sounds like it's quite mechanical. You know, I've planned and plotted and stuff, but it has come through accident and the organic side, but I do feel very grateful in some ways, the feeling around a purpose.

In the early days I was exposed to some real extreme poverty and injustice and that gave kind of an obligation and a push to say, I wanna do something. I've got to do something. And of course, we'll probably talk about the pros and cons of that.

There was the individual side of things and then bringing different people together and then using arts and learning as I go along. I'm still on that learning journey and I'm excited about the next chapter as well. I've got a couple of other little things brewing, which I need to think about. But yeah, I feel grateful having that sort of flow as it were.

Sarah

I wanted to ask you about being a founder. In the sense that you witnessed injustice, you felt, okay, I need to do something. And that motivated you to some kind of action. And one of those actions was to set up, I think, Music for Change was your first charity.

And I suppose I'm wondering how do you go from having an idea to then setting that up and making it happen? Especially as I think about myself with my philosophy of ‘do good and do well’ and the things that I'm trying to do, it feels like it's quite early days in many ways, and that can feel quite tough because you are trying to learn about it.

You're trying to articulate what it is you are doing, you are trying to influence and bring people on board so that they can support both you and the vision. And so there's all these parts to the puzzle and I just wonder whether you can talk us through that a bit. How do you keep going? I suppose that’s the question.

Tom

Yeah. Founders are interesting characters, I think, it's interesting, I think fantastic, but also can be challenging for other people working with founders and the ending of that. I think with my experience there underlies that drive and wanting to do something and make a difference. Thinking, okay, I've got 40 or 50 years and then I'm gonna be dead in my life. Actually, what can I do to make an impact that makes a difference in the world in some shape or form?

So underlying anything there is that that drive and that purpose and the care. And then that links with the idea. I have a couple of images around that. First is a sculpture - that it takes a long time to carve clay and in the background - and I don’t know if you are like that - you're still buzzing around going, actually can I phrase this differently? Can I put that, is this quite the right name?

And so it's honing that down and shaving that often enough until you get to what it's about. And at the same time, I always have a feeling of a candle because it feels quite precious and personal at the same time.

So you're lighting a candle, you've got this little idea, and to start with, you're putting your hands around it, you're protecting it because it could go out if I've mentioned it to someone, and someone said, no, that's rubbish. I'm like, alright, okay. Maybe you are right! Or someone else is doing it. So to start with, it's nurturing that idea and that flame and over time, letting it get a bit stronger so you can bring your hands down and it grows, and then you can speak to other people. So there's something about that for me anyway - the thought took some time. There was doing research, saying, actually, is anyone else doing this? Is there a need?

And challenging myself, the growing it and then speaking to some people to challenge it a bit, which is a bit, like, having medicine. I know it's good for me to speak to these people, but it's gonna be, it can be quite hard hearing. ‘No, you've got this bit wrong’ or ‘that's not gonna work’. But actually, it's useful in the long run.

Sarah

I love those images. I remember when, in the early days of People United, which for those of you who don't know, is a charity exploring how arts and creativity can build kinder, more caring communities. But how long did it take us to come up with that quite succinct phrase?

I think that carving the idea is such a great way of thinking about it and then the idea of the candle. But I think that it can be quite painful if that candle goes out for whatever reason, or, or you are not in a position to nurture it.

A lot of the stuff that I'm doing with people is around how we keep in this place of strength so that you can nurture and then take your hands away and let more people in to support you. I wonder if you were to start another organisation, what's the thing you want to remember?

Tom

Well, firstly I think I'd remember, I don't want to start another organisation. It's tough. And even before you set it up, there's probably years of going around and things coming together, so I don't want to do that. I've purposely thought how can you get the joy and the innovation and the bits and pieces that certainly I liked from the start without 10 years down the line, actually having to worry about HR and policies and the fundraising bits. How can you get that spirit or that side of things without having to set up a structure.

I suppose I'd remember a couple of things. One of the tough bits and you remember, and you know, and you talked about there that it's quite tough from your side setting up and letting people in on something that you want to be there for others, but you've gotta look after yourself. So remembering a little bit of that, that struggle in that tough bit. And actually, while I'm speaking that I also should acknowledge that while I found it challenging, for many other people, it be even more challenging You know, I'm privileged in a number of ways - white male, middle class background. So that supported me being able to write applications or know some of the language. But certainly at the start, I got a lot of nos. There was a lot of scepticism. Because at that time, arts and social change or arts and sort of breaking down barriers was in it’s infancy.

But also linked to that remembering the enthusiasm and the idealism. So I think there's quite a bit, as much as I could think about the doing, there's things I can learn from my past self about idealism. I like the word I, I mean, I know people went, they don't like this. That's an ideal that I want to change the world. But actually, I quite like it

There's a spirit there. Let's give it a go and in some ways, when people were telling me no, a lot of the time I thought, actually there's a bit of me that think if everyone was doing this, I might get a bit bored

So if everyone was doing the thing I wanted to do, I wouldn't need to do it. And so actually that friction, that challenge and that pushback shows actually this is something a little bit different and this is something that isn't the norm. And so there's an energy. There's an energy to that and there's something where you think, actually I can, I can plough a furrow here of something that might bring something new or different.

To listen to the rest of the conversation, listen here….