In April 2022 Sight Life completed a planned demerger from the RNIB having been part of its group since 2009. The separation allows and facilitates each charities’ ability to focus on its core strengths. For Sight Life this means providing practical help across south Wales to anyone with limited sight. We aim to ensure that people with sight loss can do the things (shop, travel, work, access leisure activities) that most people with ordinary vision take for granted. Post the de-merger both charities will still work in partnership to help people with sight loss, while at the same time exploring new opportunities.
The demerger required Sight Life to adopt and implement its own full range of back office and policy systems as it returned to independent charity status. Having secured funding from the Phase 3of the Welsh Government / WCVA’s Third Sector Resilience Fund to develop its fundraising potential, Sight Life was introduced to Cranfield Trust as part of the programme of support presented by the WCVA. Cranfield Trust undertook a detailed assessment of Sight Life’s needs and requirements and were able to quickly place a highly skilled and experienced volunteer with us to help develop our strategy and implementation of our financial management systems.
Richard Harvey, Chief Executive Officer OF Sight Life noted,
“We are extremely grateful to the WCVA for their support via the Third Sector Resilience Fund and the introduction to Cranfield Trust. Sight Life has had an extremely positive engagement with Cranfield Trust. Our relationship manager from the Trust took the time to understand our needs and secured an appropriately skilled volunteer to assist with the implementation of our financial monitoring systems and continues to be diligent in monitoring our programme and satisfaction with developments.
Our appointed volunteer has been invaluable in assisting our finance staff with getting to grips with new systems and his knowledge and experience has enabled Sight Life to quickly adapt to new and better processes.
We wish to thank Jayne Kendall from Cranfield Trust for her support and our volunteer Stuart W for sharing his invaluable knowledge and experience with us. I highly recommend the Trust and would encourage those in needed of support or assistance to engage with the Trust."