Sustained leadership and cultural support
Power2
October 2026
Summary
Since 2022, Power2 has drawn on a wide range of Cranfield Trust support to help it lead and grow well: strategic and financial consultancy, mentoring for six members of its senior team, and a nine-month culture development project with volunteer Muriel Tersago. Together, this support has helped Power2 build a stronger leadership team and a clearer, more embedded culture as it has grown from 28 to 65 staff, better equipping the team to support the children and young people who rely on them. The charity’s own diagnostic data shows measurable progress, including a rise from 76% to 84% in overall organisational health.
Background
Power2 is a children and young people’s charity delivering one-to-one and group mentoring programmes across the North West, London and the West Midlands. Supporting children and young people experiencing vulnerabilities, the charity helps them improve their wellbeing, re-engage with school, and build the confidence to access future opportunities. Power2 was introduced to Cranfield Trust in 2019 through the Mercer’s Charitable Foundation, beginning a relationship that has since drawn on almost every strand of Trust support: consultancy, mentoring, on-call advice and peer-to-peer learning.
Challenge
Since 2020, Power2’s staff team has grown from 28 to 65, with three new leaders promoted onto its Senior Management Team. That pace of growth brought a familiar challenge for a fast-growing charity: how to build the structures, leadership capability and shared ways of working needed for a bigger organisation, without losing the close-knit, values-led culture that had always set Power2 apart.
A partnership that grew with them
The support began in 2019, when volunteer Philip Thicknesse helped CEO Julie Randles turn high-level strategic thinking into a fully worked strategy document and updated financial processes, alongside mentoring for Julie herself.
As Power2’s senior team grew, so did its investment in leadership development. Since 2024, six senior leaders, including CEO Julie Randles, have worked with a Cranfield Trust mentor. Danielle Garwood, Head of Communications and Fundraising, describes her mentor as feeling like “another member of our team,” bringing “such a wealth of experience” that the support “felt really tailored” to the challenges she was facing.
The most substantial piece of work has been a culture development project, running from October 2024 to June 2026 with volunteer Muriel Tersago. Muriel, a management consultant by background, started with a half-day session where she worked through what Power2's values actually meant day-to-day, and what needed to change: how people communicated, how line managers were supported, how HR processes worked, and how the senior team modelled the behaviour they wanted to see. From there, it grew into practical changes around recruitment, performance management and induction. “It was really about helping them describe what it would feel like to work in the organisation,” Muriel explains, “and understand what change levers... could help drive those behaviours.”
It was Power2’s first time undertaking a piece of work like this, and Danielle is clear about the difference it made: “Working with Cranfield and specifically Muriel has been absolutely transformative. We had never undertaken a culture project before. As a small charity that has grown quickly, our brilliant culture has been something that has just happened – we know that as we grow, we have to be more intentional about how we maintain that culture, and Muriel has been a great help. She has acted as a critical friend but also as a mentor to us.”
Impact
The results are clear in Power2’s own diagnostic data. A Journey to Excellence assessment taken before the culture project scored the organisation 76% overall; by the project’s end, that had risen to 84%, with Leadership and Strategic Direction climbing from 67% to 88%, a change Power2 attributes directly to Cranfield Trust’s support.
For Power2, stronger leadership and culture are key to delivering its mission. Many of Power2’s staff, like many of the young people they support, have lived experience of Adverse Childhood Experiences, so building a culture of psychological safety and open feedback shapes how well-equipped the team are to support the children and young people who rely on them. As Danielle puts it: “Developing our staff team will help us to continue to support young people by prioritising psychological safety and a culture that values their wellbeing.”
“A lot of the support we’ve received from Cranfield has been building our leadership team and improving our processes and approach to the management of the organisation,” says Danielle. “I’ve seen the team’s confidence grow… it genuinely has been really transformative and incredibly supportive.”
Nicky Everett, Regional Project Manager at Cranfield Trust, has seen that shift first-hand: “You’ve gone from this kind of passivity to this kind of activity, where it’s collectively owned, and they are aware of how they operate and how it can impact on their beneficiaries.”
“Working with the Cranfield Trust has been transformative for Power2. I would encourage any charity that is considering starting a project with Cranfield to go for it – you won’t regret it!” says Danielle.
