I meet 23-year-old Linz Darlington at his local, The Woodbine, on Blackstock Road. By day he’s a corporate strategist at management consultancy Accenture. But in any spare moment he spends his time connecting volunteers with charities.
Accenture is one of many businesses that give employees free days to volunteer at charities. But what Linz noticed was that the system does not always benefit both sides.
“I had my own three days in the summer where I volunteered for a local church and two days in an environmental centre,” he says.
“Neither of them were particularly well organised.”
“I’m young and fit so if you give me a hedge trimmer I can cut an awful lot of hedges in a 12-hour shift, but I’m also a professional and have certain professional skills”
The reality of the system is that charities are often reluctant to invest a lot in volunteers who are only around for a few days, worried that their investment won’t pay off.
That’s where Linz comes in. He helps them make the most of the young, fit professionals on offer to them who might be different from their typical volunteers.
“People who are in their twenties and thirties have access to large networks of other professional people, they bring enthusiasm and skills providing these charities with something they wouldn’t otherwise have,” he stresses.
The idea was born 18 months ago in August 2012 and the first volunteers began in December. Since then Benefacto have had around 10 volunteers a month, and have sent people to Spitalfields City Farm, Notre Dame Refugee Centre in Leicester Square, and New Cross Learning, among others.
His bosses at Accenture are big fans too; Linz tells of his embarrassment about being held up as an example to his colleagues in a meeting he wasn’t even there for.
He has no intention of giving up the day job (where he regularly jets off to Paris – not bad) just yet, but one day he’d love to run Benefacto full-time.
Or indeed something else. As he turns to me with a gleam in his eye, he says: “Are you always coming up with business ideas—or is that just me?”
