Transcript
The following transcript is autogenerated so may contain errors.
Matt Nally
On this week’s episode, we have Theresa Melissa from Lionheart. So thank you for coming on today.
Melissa Gough-Rundle
Hi Matt. Nice to see you.
Parita Odedra
Hi, Matt, thank you so much for having us.
Matt Nally
No problem at all. Do you want to start by introducing, I suppose who you are, and then we can come on to what LionHeart is?
Parita Odedra
Yeah, so I’m Parita Odedra. And I’m the programme Delivery Manager at LionHeart. So I look after all of our services that we offer to artists professionals.
Melissa Gough-Rundle
Hi, I’m Melissa Gough-Rundle. And I’m the strategic relationships manager at LionHeart. And I look after all of the relationships that we have with corporate and ambassadors.
Matt Nally
Awesome. Awesome. So I think I suppose quite a lot of people will have heard of Lionheart, others won’t have. And there probably be some misconceptions around what you do what you don’t do. So I think that’d be quite a nice thing to explore in the first part of this, of this podcast. As we start, I suppose at its core as as to what Lion Heart is and what support is available from Lion Heart.
Parita Odedra
Yeah. Yeah. So Lion Heart is the charity for RSUs professionals, their partner, their spouse, only children that are dependent on them. As we know, you know, life does have like a way of throwing unexpected challenges are all of us. And that’s exactly what we’re here for. We give expert advice that prevents life’s challenges from becoming a process. And our mission is unchanged, which is to offer flexible, personal born, support for RFCs professionals and their families. We’re here when they want us for as long as they need us. And we’ve been doing this since 1899. We are actually celebrating our 125th anniversary next year. About the support that we actually have available, we’ve got two main types of services that we do offer. Firstly, we’ve got our helpline, which is where an RCS professional can call us. Or they can use the chat option on our website. And the second type of service we’ve got is our training programme. So we’ve got a variety of over 40 workshops and webinars around personal and career development, wellbeing, and mental health. And I’ll be talking a bit more in detail about these later on.
Matt Nally
Awesome, awesome. And I suppose you touched on this a moment ago, but who who can use Lionheart? Like is it suggests rsgs members and families or can students get involved with it? Yeah,
Parita Odedra
absolutely. We’ve actually recently expanded our support on that. So we are a charity that we support artists, professionals, their partner, their spouse, and any children that are dependent on them right from the start. So right from when they start studying on like an accredited course, throughout their career and into retirement. And so like you’ve just said, we do support students and apprentices, that’s something that we’ve just recently expanded our support on. So we do help retired and past professionals as well, which people aren’t really aware of. So once you’ve actually become an RTS, professional, even if you decide to leave membership, you can still get access to all of our services, which I don’t think many people are aware of about and it’s it’s not like a common thing that you know, that people don’t know. So I think that’s absolutely amazing. And then we’re here with people with the duration of their career and beyond as well. We also do support RSS professionals globally, and will always find a way to kind of help people.
Matt Nally
Interesting. Okay, I suppose later on, we’ll come on to how, how does the support get provided? And how’s it access? But is it doesn’t misconceptions, I suppose, isn’t just the one. You do hear about people talking about whether or not is linked to the RSS, and to the RSS funded and so on. So I suppose what are the misconceptions around Lionheart or online hearts links with any other bodies? That
Melissa Gough-Rundle
probably is the biggest misconception, Matt, actually, and that’s the one that we come across most often. Because I certainly find this a lot with our corporate partners is they think that we’re linked to our ICs and that we’re one of the benefits, they get a membership, but we’re not. And we do have to explain that we are totally separate from them. We are a charity that is set up entirely for the benefit of our ICS members. And we still have a really, really close relationship with them. We have a lot of connections between our team here at Lionheart and with certain members on the ICS team. So it’s a great relationship that yes, we are totally separate from them. And I think in some cases, that’s actually quite helpful for beneficiaries because they know that when they contact us it’s incomplete confidence so we don’t share any information with our eyes. CES, we don’t share any information with employers. So when they contact us at using complete confidence.
Matt Nally
Interesting, okay. That’s good to know. Because you want to be able to reach out without the fear of it. Yes. Or getting back to somebody else, I suppose. How’s it how’s it funded? Is it separate to the RSS perspective, isn’t it? Yes,
Melissa Gough-Rundle
it is. And coming on from that saying that we are separate from the ICS. We’re also not funded by them. So although there is that connection, when you renew your subscription, you’ll hopefully see at the bottom of the subscription form, there’ll be a tick box saying, Do you want to donate to Lionheart? And that is the biggest way that we receive our funding. So it’s really important that when subscription time comes up, that you do tick that box, because that’s how we get to, to help so many more beneficiaries in that situation. But we also receive legacies from those that have left money for us in their wills. And we also seek through our corporate partners and also other foreign firms as well is unclaimed client funds. So if you want money sitting in those accounts, we they do have to be donated to charity, and there is that ability to donate them to Lionheart. So we’re always looking for those ways. But yeah, we don’t receive any government funding. There’s no other independent funding. So it all comes through donations.
Matt Nally
Just do you find that those that I suppose tick to support what on their, on their renewals and so on? Is that people proactively providing funding? Or is it often people that have used the service before that then give I’m thinking more of a situation where like, you’ve been stuck on a mountain mountain rescue? And you go, I should probably start supporting that? Yeah.
Melissa Gough-Rundle
We do. We quite obviously, if people have received our help, before, there is always that motivation to tick the box. And I think that’s great that people make that donation, we don’t expect that donation to be fair. And certainly people contact us, we don’t check to see if they paid in or they’ve made a donation in the past that is totally free all of the services at source. But yeah, I think most people like to think that they get a bit of a warm and fuzzy feeling when they tick that box when they get to the to the bottom of their form. So it is really important. And I know sometimes that firms and individuals don’t get the opportunity to tick the box if firms are paying on behalf. And we do find this with some of our corporates, that actually they’re paying on behalf of their members. So sometimes you don’t get that opportunity to tick the box. So it’s really good that we can have opportunities like this with you, Matt to talk about what it is that we do and how important the donations are. So the individuals that don’t get the opportunity can donate to us separately. And you can do that through our website as well. Okay,
Matt Nally
so that’s been quite interesting. So I suppose Jonathan, quickly round off just to summarise again, who can access it? Because you don’t want people to miss out on that? And then we’ll move on to topic two.
Parita Odedra
Yeah, absolutely. So we support APC candidates, right throughout their career and into retirement. We also support anyone who has left membership as well. And we’ve more recently expanded our support to final year students on our ICS accredited courses. And we also support apprentices. So you can find out more information on our website about the different types of support that are available for everyone.