Through my Financial Planning work over the past 15 years, I have on many occasions seen the effects that loneliness and social isolation can have. For our clients, thankfully, money worries tend to be few and far between, but lack of social contact can be a real problem; perhaps because of mobility issues, illness, family living far away or any number of other reasons.
Link Visiting Scheme is a charity dedicated to reducing loneliness by helping isolated people connect with others and their community. They offer a range of services that has developed over time and have put hundreds of volunteers in touch with lonely individuals; Link Friends, to build lasting friendships.
I first heard about Link Visiting through a client who is involved with the charity. The purpose of the charity strongly resonated with me given my past experience and I was keen that Spend Time should do what we could to provide support to such a great organisation.
When I founded Spend Time in 2019, I was clear that I wanted to do more than just setting up another advisory practice. I wanted to do things differently and not only provide what I believe is a service to our clients that is leading the way in Financial Planning practice, but also to do what we can for those in our community who perhaps we cannot directly help through our day to day work.
Of course, we want to remain profitable so that we can be here for our clients for many years to come, but at the same time I wanted to develop a culture amongst the team as it grows, of a business whose purpose is far greater than just generating revenue. While our contributions may only be modest right now, we certainly hope to grow our business over time and to be able to provide further support to Link Visiting and other similar organisations whose purpose is aligned to our own.
The past year has seen tremendous growth in demand on the services provided by Link, as lockdown and the “stay at home” message has brought about greater and more urgent need from those who are isolated and lonely. The rapid response to these demands from Link has been incredible and as a firm, Spend Time are proud to support them.
More recently, I was put forward as a Finance Trustee and I'm delighted to further assist the charity by giving my time to oversee the financial affairs of the organisation.
If you are interested in finding out more about Link Visiting and perhaps getting involved in the work of the charity, you can do so here.
Michael Roberts
Chartered Financial Planner and Director
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