The One About Coachathon

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:00:32]:
Hey. Hello. Welcome back. Lovely to have you with me for another episode. This is an odd numbered episode. So, normally, this would be a solo episode. And what I want to talk about today is a thing called Coachathon, which is where you can get, top quality coaching from a range of of international coaches. You can get it at a very, very modest price, and all that money goes to help, to help a charity.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:01:02]:
But I’m not gonna talk about that. The reason I’m not going to talk about that is because I have one of the organisers of Coachathon has agreed to come on and be a sort of be a guest, what the 2 of us are gonna explore Coachathon today. So that’s why this is, a guest episode even though it’s a solo episode, if you see what I mean. So who is my guest today? My guest is Cassandra Pilosoff. Sandra has been in the nonprofit sector for over 10 years. And during this time, she’s worked as a trauma counsellor, she’s worked in communications, and then found her forever home in fundraising. She’s predominantly worked in the development sector, both for education and for poverty alleviation. Now she’s originally from South Africa, and is very passionate about supporting sustainable development in that region.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:01:50]:
She’s currently the fundraising and events lead at Microloan Foundation. And in that role, she is leading, on Coachathon 2024. That’s my guest today. Let’s bring her in. Hello, Cassandra. How are you doing?

Cassandra Pilosoff [00:02:07]:
Hi, Keith. Well, thanks. And yourself? Thanks for having me.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:02:10]:
My absolute pleasure. Thank you for having me, and thank thank you, to you and Coachathon for allowing me to take part in Coachathon for for the 3rd year in a row. It’s it’s I absolutely love it. It’s it’s a wonderful, wonderful project, and we’re gonna explore that, throughout this through this episode. Just before I do, I have to ask. We we’ve heard your bio and a very impressive bio it is too. Who is Cassandra? Who’s the lady behind it?

Cassandra Pilosoff [00:02:39]:
Well, my bio sums me up quite nicely. Makes it sound far more impressive, I think. No. But I as you mentioned, I’ve been in the nonprofit sector for 10 years, specifically within, international development, working predominantly with people in Sub Saharan Africa. That’s where my passion, that’s where my heart lies, and I have found an amazing home in Microloan Foundation, who does incredible work there, you know, working in Malawi, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. And I’m really excited to be leading, as you said, on the Coachathon, which is having such an enormous impact in that area.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:03:24]:
Beautiful. Beautiful. So just tell us a a little bit about, a little bit about, the Microloan Foundation. You you mentioned some of the some of the people that that they help. What what do they do? How do they actually help people?

Cassandra Pilosoff [00:03:39]:
So my current foundation works with women living in poverty in Malawi, Zambia, and Zimbabwe, as I mentioned. And how they work with women is they provide really small startup business and agricultural loans, as well as business and agricultural training, ongoing support, and mentorship to women to enable them to start small businesses. They also, you know, there’s no easy routes out of poverty. So the women that we work with, we work with over a long period of time. Women kind of come back, year after year to to access loans, to access training, to access mentorship, to help sustain and build resilience into their businesses. And when I talk about small loans, I mean really small loans. The loan loans that we’re accessing are about £25 as a start up loan to support a woman through to an entire year. That’s about £120.

Cassandra Pilosoff [00:04:37]:
I mentioned that because it kind of gives the scale of what we’re looking at. The businesses that the women start are small businesses, but they enable women who have very limited education. Many of the women that we work with are literate. It enables them to have independence, to become financially secure, and to provide food, education, clothing, health care to their families, and work their ways out of poverty. It’s something that’s really sustainable. So that’s very exciting work that Mike Clones doing.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:05:11]:
Yeah. Very exciting and and incredibly invaluable and important work. Excuse me. And I like the way that you you, highlight that when you’re talking about small wounds, they are they are very small or they seem very small to us. £25. £25. That’s nothing. But to these women, it makes such a massive difference, and it just shows small amount of money from us or what to us feels like a small amount of money really can make a huge difference to these people’s lives.

Cassandra Pilosoff [00:05:40]:
It’s an enormous difference. And, you know, the the Lawrence is such an important part of what microloan does. But when we talk about poverty, it’s, you know, it’s always important to kind of understand what we mean by that. In terms of poverty, we’re talking about women who are surviving on less than £2.50 a day in an area that where health care education, that’s not free, it’s not provided for. So out of the budget, that £2.50 a day budget, women have to, you know, find money for education. They have to find money for food, find money for health care, and with high really high rates of unemployment. That’s a very, very difficult task. So when we’re providing small loans of £25, that mentorship and that training becomes so important because these women are facing such difficult decisions.

Cassandra Pilosoff [00:06:33]:
You know, if anyone puts themselves in that position, you can imagine that £25, for example, it would be so tempting to spend that on food for the family. But rather if we kind of help them invest that and work on, you know, creating these sustainable businesses, they can have income, sustainable income, into the future. So these are really difficult decisions that women are making on every single day that we’re trying to support.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:07:06]:
Yeah. Yeah. And I great just a great point you make there when when they get that £25, it would be so so tempting to go. You know what? Let’s feed the family. So at least the family’s fed for for for this month. But you’re right. Instead, you help them to appreciate how they can use it as an investment in themselves and their future so that they can then start to to generate the money that they need to feed their family forever rather than just for a for a short period. It’s amazing work that that, Michael, does.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:07:39]:
And one of the ways in which we can all help is through, Coachathon. So, yeah, what is Coachathon? What’s that all about, and how how did it come about?

Cassandra Pilosoff [00:07:52]:
Well, let me start with how it came about because it’s a lovely story. So we had an incredible volunteer, whose name was Sandra Pennington, who was a coach herself. And she joined in a voluntary capacity, onto Microloan Foundation’s Women Development Board, which is a group of external fundraisers We have a committee that fundraised for my growing foundation. And one of the things when she joins the women’s development board, she was tasked with, you know, let’s come up, you know, with a fundraising activity that we can do. And she spent quite a bit of time thinking about this. And apparently, in the middle of the night, she just kind of woke up and went, wait. I’ve got an incredible network of coaches. Let’s create the Coachathon.

Cassandra Pilosoff [00:08:38]:
Let’s do this win win win for everyone where coaches offer their time, to provide 45 to 60 minute coaching sessions, where they volunteer their time doing that. And in exchange, clients can access really affordable, high quality coaching, and all the proceeds go to Microloan Foundation. So that’s exactly what we did. And in that 1st year, in 6 weeks, they set up the coachathon, which is insane. I’m very glad we have a much, much longer lead time than that now, but they did an incredible job. They set it all up in 6 weeks. And in that 1st year, they raised £13,000 for my clone, which is incredible.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:09:24]:
Yeah.

Cassandra Pilosoff [00:09:26]:
So we have this is now the 5th year that we’re doing it. We have a much longer lead time. We’re now working with over 200 coaches this year from all around the world. So, you know, over the last 4 years, we’ve we’ve offered coaching in 35 different countries, and this year is no exception. So the coach fund is taking place on the 9th October where we aim to have all the coaching sessions happen on 9th, 1 on 1 coaching session with a coach of anyone’s choice that’s on the coachathon website. And we’re hoping to have, you know, a foul over a 1000 coaching sessions happening on that day.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:10:13]:
Yeah. Wow. As you said, hopefully, a 1000 coaching sessions, which, means a 1000 people are gonna be helped. And more than that, all the all the money that’s raised will then be helping presumably tens of thousands of of women in Sub Saharan Africa and and and around. So, very much a women. So, I mean, coachathons, so you you get to you get to have a session with a coach. Wait. Wait.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:10:43]:
What’s what’s the sort of investments involved here? If if I were if I were to decide, you know what? I would like a coaching session through coaches. I don’t know what let’s cut the chase. What’s it gonna cost me?

Cassandra Pilosoff [00:10:56]:
So we’re asking for a donation of £50 for a 5th 4 45 to 60 minute coaching session. What will happen is, you will go on to kind of the CoachFund website, and there are a range of coaching streams that are that coaching is taking place in. So we’ve got 3 different main categories, and that’s career coaching, which is kind of you can find a coach that specializes in career development, career transition, career confidence, public speaking for your career, or leadership, which is executive, business, people leaders, or lifestyle coaching. You can get coaching in resilience, mindfulness, health and nutrition, and again, confidence, but a very different kind of confidence to career confidence. And you can then find a quote exactly what kind of coaching you want. Once you go there, you can then find a range of coaches, coach profiles that you can read up, find a coach that, you know, sounds like someone that you want to work or sounds like someone that, you know, will get you. And then you have that coaching session. And once you book that session, the coach will ask you to make a 50 pound donation to Microloan Foundation.

Cassandra Pilosoff [00:12:14]:
And, you know, one way of thinking about it is a 50 pound donation, as we’ve mentioned, is to start up loans. Yes. We’re supporting 2 women by having coaching sessions with really high quality coaches, and we know that they’re really high quality coaches. We all our coaches are qualified coaches. They’ve got more than 2 years of experience. Many of the coaches, including yourself, have been coming back, you know, year after year to do the Coachathon.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:12:43]:
Yeah. Nice. And I think, one thing we need to let people know is it’s a 5050 pound donation to, to Coachathon. The coaches themselves see none of that money. The coaches are are giving their time completely for free. So every penny that you donate goes straight to Coachathon, which I think is an important thing for people to realize that all of their money is is going to help those, those, very deserving ladies in, in Africa. Wonderful. So, yes, you you say you got, around 200 coaches, and many, many different, specialisations as well.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:13:25]:
So, basically, whatever you’re looking for for for coaching in, you you’ll find somebody who, who’s offering it as somebody somebody that you gel with, somebody you fit with. Beautiful.

Cassandra Pilosoff [00:13:36]:
Exactly. Which is the the beauty of Coachathon. And I think that that’s what’s been so successful as we’ve had such a great outpouring from coaches. Coaches are have been so generous with their time and so willing to support the work that we do.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:13:52]:
Yeah. Yeah. No. It’s that’s wonderful. And we’ll, give you all the links on how you can find this, find out all the information, how you can you can find and and book, the coach for you. We’ll set give you all that information a little bit later on in the show, the links where you can find all of that stuff. So, so, yeah, it it it all happens on the 9th October. That’s that’s that’s Coachathon day, basically.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:14:18]:
So how how many sessions, typically would would a coach do, during during that day, or does it really vary?

Cassandra Pilosoff [00:14:26]:
It it it varies, but it doesn’t vary too too much. So coaches offer about 4 to 10 coaching sessions. Most coaches offer about 5 or 6 coaching sessions on the day, which is a lot. That is a very busy day. And, you know, one of the things that we’ve seen is that the 9th October is Coachathon. That is when 99% of the coaching is going to take place, but there’s also Bolton flexibility. We know that it doesn’t always suit people’s stories. So we see some coaches after, you know, a day or 2 before, a day or 2 after.

Cassandra Pilosoff [00:15:01]:
But, really, the excitement and the buildup is all around 9th October.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:15:05]:
Yeah. And it’s it’s nice to have that one day to focus everything on. Yeah. Yeah. I love that. I I mean, I I know for me, when I, offer the coaching, so I have the 9th October for coaching. 10th October, not gonna lie, 10th October, I’ve blocked off as a day off to recover because you’re right. It’s it’s it’s, a lot of work in in in all that coaching, and it’s very rewarding as well.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:15:28]:
And it’s it’s important to, look after yourself too. So, yes, I imagine there’ll be a lot of coaches, having a nice long lie in on 10th October.

Cassandra Pilosoff [00:15:38]:
I’m sure. How have you found the Coachathon, Keith?

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:15:42]:
Yeah. I’ve I’ve really enjoyed it. I met, quite a diverse, diverse selection of people, people who I had I would almost certainly never have have come across or come in contact with had it not been for Coachathon. Some of them I’ve gone on to maintain a a a not not just coaching relationship, but actually become, you know, acquaintances and friends, as a result of of chance meeting through Coachathon. So, yeah, I’ve I’ve really enjoyed it, and it’s it’s, it’s great to to get to work with these complete, effectively random strangers going, right. Here’s my here’s here’s what I wanna work on. Let’s let’s do this for an hour. I I I love it.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:16:27]:
Because often as a coach, by the time you get to work with someone, you’ve you’ve built up quite quite a, a history with them, beforehand as they’re they’re talking about everything, and you’re exploring what’s the best way forward is coaching for them. Am I the right coach for them? Are they the right client for me? So you you but with with coach, I thought and, obviously, the way you’re almost coming almost, not quite, but almost coming in cold is like, okay. Tell me, what are we doing? I mean, obviously, you have the you, presume most coaches do the same. I’ll I’ll give them a pre session thing so we we can we can understand what we’re going to be working on. But it’s like, pretty much the first time you really meet is is in that session. Okay. Let’s let’s do this. It’s I I love the challenge.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:17:13]:
It’s it’s nice to have something something fresh really get your, get your teeth into, and seeing that for some people for some people, it’s the first time they’ve ever had coaching. And so then Mhmm. Wow. We can get achieve all of that in in just one hour?

VoiceOver Man [00:17:29]:
You know what? Maybe co maybe there is something

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:17:31]:
to this coaching after all. It’s it’s a good a good taste, I think, for some people. Because there is no commitment. There is no, You’ve had one session you’ve got to sign up for. It’s not Some people will. Some people just go, you know what? Just have one session, and that’s that’s it. So it’s it’s a nice a nice taster for them. It’s a nice challenge for the coaches, and it’s a great way of raising raising funds as well.

Cassandra Pilosoff [00:17:54]:
No. It really is. And as you said, a lot of people that do the Coachathon participate. It’s their first time coaching. A lot of we get a lot of individuals as their first time. They’re like, oh, you know, what is coaching? And they have such a great experience. They find that it’s really useful for the one thing that they kinda wanted to bring in and chat about. But we’ve also found that companies and small organisations find it incredibly useful as well because they don’t necessarily have the budget to commit to and invest in coaching for an entire team.

Cassandra Pilosoff [00:18:31]:
But in this way, they can test it and they can trial it and they can, you know, benefit their team with this once of coaching. And that’s also been really exciting to see. And we’ve seen kind of companies come back year after year and a range of them, really small and really big ones, ones that you don’t expect as well, like other charities, you know, who are working on such limited budgets and development budgets for their team, you know, because that’s the nature of, you know, nonprofits that are able to take this up. And that’s really exciting to see as well, how it’s giving back to to others in so many ways.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:19:06]:
Yeah. That that’s one thing I wanted to ask you. Coaching obviously works brilliantly for individuals. Someone goes, you know what? I’ve got this issue. Let’s let’s give this a go. Let’s explore coaching. Let’s have a coaching session. But how, so you say that companies or, and organisations also take advantage of this.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:19:24]:
How does that work how does that work for them? What’s what’s how do they do I mean, presumably, they don’t, all sit around the the the session and the coach works. And how how how do, comp does, coaching work with companies with coaches on?

Cassandra Pilosoff [00:19:38]:
Well, predominantly, companies will, they’ll basically bulk buy sessions for their team. So they will buy 10 or more sessions for their team, and then they will they will send, they will send information to their team, and the teams can then go on each of the individuals on the team can go on and find a coach find a coaching stream that they want, and they can build that into their development plan, which is so nice. This year, what we’re trialing, which is really exciting because it’s the first time we’re doing it, is we’re offering really limited, team and group coaching as well. Mhmm. That’s the very first time we’re doing it. So we’re doing it on quite a small scale, but it’s really exciting. We’re working with 3 incredible coaches. 2 coaches are working together to offer group coaching, which is a group of people who have different roles within an organisation, but they need to come together on a specific project.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:20:45]:
Right.

Cassandra Pilosoff [00:20:46]:
And they need support, coaching support to do that. So that’s an 8 hour, you know, intensive coaching session that they do with, you know, 10 people. And then, yes, they are in a room together, and they are getting that support from these 2 coaches. And then team coaching is slightly different. Team coaching is where you have a group of people from an organisation who have the same or a similar job function, and they are getting coaching in the same thing. Right. So they’re not having to work collaborative collaboratively, but they have the same topic that needs they need support from from that coach. So we’re trying that this year, and we’re working with 3 incredible, incredible coaches on that.

Cassandra Pilosoff [00:21:33]:
And I think that that’s really exciting. I wouldn’t be surprised if next year we do a lot more of it as well.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:21:38]:
Yeah. No. I love that. I hadn’t realised that you were you were trying that this year. That that is very powerful. So, yeah, so, basically, what whatever, whatever requirements you have from coaching, whether it’s as as an individual, whether it’s as a as a company going, you know what? We’d like to offer some coaching for some of our for some of our team members. Here’s a voucher. You can you can get yourself a coaching session.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:22:03]:
Or as you say, whether it’s actual proper team coaching and group coaching, Coachathon has has something on offer for actually every everything there. Yeah. Which which is awesome. And you’ve already alluded to, hoping to increase that for next year. So, presumably, coachathon is here to say I mean, this is its 5th year, so it’s it’s definitely doing something right. It’s definitely going well. The plan is to keep Coachathon going as an as an annual annual event for the foreseeable future?

Cassandra Pilosoff [00:22:34]:
Yes. Because it just keeps growing. I mean, to date, we’ve support you know, to date, we’ve raised £90,000 through the Coachathon over the last 4 years. And this year alone, we’ve got a fundraising target of about £30,000. I mean, that’s

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:22:47]:
Yeah. Yeah.

Cassandra Pilosoff [00:22:47]:
That’s close on you know, that’s about 1,300 women that we could reach if, you know, we reach our fundraising target this year. 1,300 women, that’s, you know, that’s about almost 500 children that those women will be supporting. 5,000 children that those women will be supporting. So the impact is huge, and the coaches keep coming back. They really enjoy the experience. Clients keep coming back. They’re loving it. And, you know, our beneficiaries are really reaping the rewards.

Cassandra Pilosoff [00:23:18]:
So, yes, coach upon is definitely here to stay.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:23:22]:
Oh, fantastic. That that is good news. So if you’re listening to this and this is after 9th October 2024, you’re thinking, oh, no. I’ve missed it. No. They’ll they’ll be there’s another one each year for the foreseeable future. So, do check it out. In fact, don’t keep checking it out.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:23:42]:
People wanna find out more. People wanna get involved with Coachathon, find out more about Microloan, maybe book themselves Coach, any any of those sorts of things. What we’ve got is we’ve actually got a website, keithbn.link/coachathon That will take you to, the extended show notes for this episode, which include all the links you’re gonna need, where you can find more information about Microloan Foundation, its website, LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, emails, you can contact them. It’s gonna it includes links to Coachathon, links so you can what Coachathon’s live, you can check out the coaches that are available, book yourself in. So all the ways in which you can find out more about Microphone, find out more about Coachathon, and get involved in it and help. For all that information, keithbn.link/coachathon. And do share this far and wide as well.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:24:42]:
Get get get other get other people involved. I presume, it’s possible for people to to gift coaching to someone else, as well.

Cassandra Pilosoff [00:24:51]:
Definitely. That’s that’s an option, you know, and we have gift cards that you can purchase, for friends, for family, for colleagues. So you’re right. That’s definitely an option as well.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:25:04]:
Oh, brilliant. Love it. Love it. Well, Cassandra, as as it always does, time is marching marching away. We’re gonna have to wrap it up there. But I just wanna thank you for for taking some time out of what I know is an incredibly busy time for you at the moment with organising all of this stuff with Coachathon. Thank you so much for taking some time out to share with us a little bit about what Coachathon is, how it, and all the people it helps, both here and in in Africa as well, and for sharing how people can get involved. Thank you so much, yeah, Cassandra.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:25:37]:
Really appreciate your time.

Cassandra Pilosoff [00:25:39]:
Thank you, Keith, and thank you so much for having me, and thank you for, you know, being part of the Coaches Fund this year. How exciting. I’m sure after today, your sessions are definitely gonna spell it out really fast.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:25:52]:
Fingers crossed. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you so much. And thank you, dear viewer. Thank you, dear listener, for for, for joining us. Hope you’ve enjoyed this. Do give us a like, comment, share, subscribe.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:26:03]:
Give us a review on your favorite podcast platform. It all helps to spread awareness, both of the, podcast and in this case, of the fantastic work that Micro Home Foundation do and have coached us on. Of course, you can get us on Apple, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Audible, Spotify, YouTube, anywhere you can get podcasts, you’ll find us. Do share us far and wide, and do come back for another episode very soon. Until then, thank you once again, Cassandra. Thank you, dear listener, dear viewer. Go check out Coachathon, and, see if you can help to transform some lives.