Trustees

William Butler is a former director of the UK’s largest mental health charity, Chief Executive of a membership disability charity, Chief Operating Officer and Chief Executive of a major voluntary sector provider of substance misuse treatment services.

He is a trustee of educational, homelessness and community action charities; and a former senior interim charity manager and a social impact consultant.

Lesley is the Chief Executive of the Hull and East Riding Citizens Advice Bureau. Operating from four offices in Hull, Beverley, Bridlington and Goole and a further 33 outreach venues, the CAB employs 55 staff and has over 160 volunteers.

Previously, Lesley was the Director of Human Resources and Administration at the Refugee Legal Centre and prior to that Campaign Director and Company Secretary for The Industrial Society.

Lesley was a Trustee and Chair of the charity ChildHope for four years and is currently on the Advisory Panel for the University of Hull’s Legal Advice Centre.

Emily Hughes has worked in the voluntary sector since 2005, with a particular focus on empowering volunteers to contribute to the sector.

She held strategic volunteer management roles at the National Autistic Society and Parkinson’s UK.

She is passionate about what organisations of all sizes contribute to the sector and spent 2010 volunteering in Zambia with VSO, supporting a community organisation to work effectively with volunteers.

She is also a trustee of AVERT, a small international HIV/AIDS charity based in Brighton. Since 2016 Emily has been Head of Volunteer Experience at Girlguiding, leading a department that takes a partnership approach to supporting 75,000 volunteers to deliver great experiences to girls across the UK.

She has a Masters in Voluntary Sector Management from Cass Business School (now Bayes).

Andrew is lead Policy Trustee for DSC. He was an international Board Member (and Vice Chair) of the global development charity ActionAid from 2013 to 2020.

He is a former Chair of Safe Passage International, ActionAid UK and of three other UK charities, a Deputy Chair of two others and a former Board Member of the Charity Commission and of the Parole Board.

A former fast stream civil servant, he has held senior leadership positions in NCVO, CPRE, and the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fund and been a special adviser to the Archbishop of Canterbury about the world outside the Church.

He was a p/t adviser to The Samworth Foundation on their grants policies and has been a governance consultant to charities including YHA and OxfamGB. He is a Trustee of the charity Choose Love and of his local Church of England church.

Andrew is a contributor to Civil Society News and blogs about the campaigning role of charities and charity regulation at www.andrewpurkis.wordpress.com.

Matt began his career in the charity sector in 2014, while at university in Derby, as an Administrative Assistant for a small local mental health charity. In 2013, he graduated with a First Class BSc(Hons) degree in Applied Criminology (Investigation). Since then, he has held several roles involved with Business Development, Project Management, and Communications.

Matt is now Head of Business Support and a member of the Senior Leadership Team for one of the UK’s largest Homelessness and Social Inclusion charities. He is responsible for the oversight of national IT Transformation and leads technology-related change, exploring and implementing innovative solutions to increase the charities resilience whilst enhancing the frontline delivery of services to people experiencing homelessness or other social exclusion.

Matt is a Fellow of the Royal Society for the Arts (FRSA), a qualified PRINCE2 Practitioner (Project Management), and holds Level 5 accreditation from the Institute of Leadership and Management (ILAM).

Lizzie Kenyon has spent the last eighteen years years working and volunteering for a range of frontline and second tier voluntary organisations. She started her career at Voluntary Action Cardiff, supporting over 100 children and young people’s voluntary groups and facilitating their participation in the strategic planning of local services. Her work helping the sector was identified as best practice by Estyn, the education and training inspectorate for Wales.

Latterly Lizzie joined BASSAC where she developed and delivered support for London-based anchor organisations around governance, funding and communications including a new bespoke capacity building programme funded by the City Bridge Trust. There she was a strong advocate for demand, rather than supply-led support for voluntary organisations.

From 2011 to 2022, Lizzie worked at Keep Britain Tidy where she held a number of roles managing community and education programmes and campaigns and spent eight years as part of the Executive Team. In 2023, she became Chief Executive of The Bike Project which refurbishes unwanted second-hand bikes for refugees and people seeking asylum.

Dhillon is a student and young person passionate about voluntary service and collaborating with communities to deliver social change.

His work with charities and NGOs has seen him doing a range of different things as a volunteer, whether playing the piano for senior citizens' tea parties, observing and noting magistrates court hearings in London, and collaborating with teams of youth volunteers in Zambia.

He was formerly a volunteer and then a young trustee of a small legal advice charity for young people in South West London and also served as a students' union trustee.

Outside of volunteering, he is working towards becoming a barrister but maintains an open mind to future prospects.

Michaela Clark is the Capacity Building Manager at MK Community Foundation, a prominent foundation charity based in Milton Keynes. With a deep passion for community development and empowerment, Michaela brings her extensive experience and expertise to the forefront of the foundation's mission.

She plays a pivotal role in strengthening local community groups by providing them with the necessary resources and support to thrive.

Michaela is actively involved in trustee recruitment and development, further contributing to the foundation's commitment to building a strong and resilient community network.

Additionally, Michaela excels in brokering corporate pro bono support to the community, ensuring that local businesses are engaged in giving back to the community and making a meaningful difference in the lives of those they serve.

In her spare time Michaela enjoys traveling and is a bit of a foodie, she is always on the lookout for a new restaurant to try!

Garry has been Chief Executive of the VCSE membership charity Support Staffordshire since it’s founding in 2014, having coordinated the merger of 6 Local Infrastructure Organisations.

He was previously Chief Executive at York CVS and before that spent the best part of a decade in the nature conservation sector, working in education and community roles.

Andy Townend is the Chief Administrative Officer of LightEn, a global philanthropic organisation.

He is a Director, Treasurer and Chair of the Finance, Audit and Risk Committee on the board of Amnesty International UK, and serves as a Trustee and Chair of the Finance, Audit and Risk Committee on the board of King’s College London Students Union.

Andy previously served as the Chief Operating Officer at AfriKids, an NGO supporting education, child protection and health projects in the north of Ghana, after two years as the Treasurer and as a Trustee on the Board.

Andy served as a Non-Executive Director on the board of Wilton Park, an executive agency of the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office.

Andy has provided strategic, policy and programme management support to governments, regulators and businesses in many countries including Australia, Belgium, Ethiopia, Ghana, New Zealand, Nigeria, Serbia, Taiwan, the UK, and the USA.

A Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales, after a successful career with both KPMG and EY held senior leadership positions in organisations as diverse as the BBC and the Australian Government.

Andy is passionate about the need for greater equality, justice, and the protection of human rights, especially those of children, and is delighted to have the opportunity to use his experience helping make this a reality. Having used their services himself, he is aware of the crucial role played by DSC in supporting learning and development in the sector.

Nasrullah currently works as the Head of Global Development at The Citizens Foundation, a prominent educational non-profit operating in Pakistan. In his role, Nasrullah is responsible for global governance, market development and Country Partner support efforts.

He has spent the past 14 years working and volunteering with various charitable organisations.

Nasrullah's significant contributions earned him a place on Civil Society's prestigious "25 Under 35" list in 2020.

Outside of his professional commitments, Nasrullah is deeply committed to community service.

During his free time, he actively volunteers with local grassroots organizations in Wales, where he resides. His volunteer work is focused on increasing their visibility and fostering community engagement.