Fans of The Apprentice since it first came to our screens six years’ ago will know Tim Campbell as the programme’s first ever winner. Before applying to appear on the show Tim, a psychology graduate from Middlesex University, had a successful career with London Underground where he progressed from a Graduate Trainee to a Senior Marketing Project Manager.
Tim was kept on as Project Director of the Health & Beauty division of Amstrad PLC for an additional 12 months after the initial 12-month contract expired and left the company in March 2007 to set up his own company, Bright Ideas Trust. Simultaneously, Tim took on the role of a Social Enterprise Ambassador as part of the Government’s initiative at that time, which aimed to apply modern business solutions to social and environmental problems.
Bright Ideas Trust is a charitable organisation which exists to provide a package of funding and business support – through a network of Mentors, Advisors, Partners and Financial Supporters – to 16-30 year olds living in London who are not in employment, education or training, or are from socially excluded groups, and who are looking to start up their own business. There are no handouts, it is real-life business for both the young people and their backers. While Bright Ideas Trust buys equity in the start-up businesses they will ultimately want to exit from the investment, taking their returns to put back into running the charity and helping yet more budding entrepreneurs.
Boris Johnson, London’s Mayor, was behind the trust from the beginning, stating, “Bright Ideas Trust will be working across London to ensure they can help young people unlock the positive futures they deserve. I fully support this new approach to business support with a model that moves away from handouts and grants and provides valuable bespoke support and mentoring.”
Tim’s natural ability to strike up rapport with an unemployed young person or a high-profile business professional with ease has contributed to the huge success of Bright Ideas Trust. The charity’s current supporters include names as big as Bank of America; Accenture; Taylor Wessing; Ernst & Young; and WPP, all of whom donate financially and/or through pro bono professional services work and volunteering. The charity’s successful young entrepreneurs include the owner of a beauty salon in Hackney, the owner of a graphic design company specialising in bespoke gifts, a pyjama designer, and the owner of a commercial-and-domestic cleaning company.
With his obvious sixth sense for seeking out talent, hard grafters and good all round value we were flattered here at minx design to have been approached by Tim to create the trust’s brand new website. With our strong work ethic and social conscience his business is something we have a lot of respect for – there was never a question of our saying no! Having worked very successfully in the past with the organisation producing many and varied marketing and promotional materials for print, we saw this as an ideal opportunity too to showcase our talents as an agency just as competent when creating with pixels on screen as we are when designing for print onto paper. What we’ve created is a contemporary, easy to navigate, transparent and accessible website which will appeal to the specific target audience profiled. As part of the whole site we’ve created an online application process which handles the applications through to a back-end management system used by the admin staff at Bright Ideas Trust.
Bright Ideas Trust has grown in four years from a proposed initiative to a fully-fledged successful venture and Tim’s intention is to roll it out nationally. When this occurs we hope to pick up more work from them. With their tireless endeavour to make a difference to the lives of young people through employment and the confidence, freedom and self-worth that comes with it, minx design are proud to be have an association with the organisation.
Visit: brightideastrust.com