Charity’s leading light is honoured by Prime Minister
PROMINENT North East businessman Graham Wylie has told of his delight after being singled out for his charity work with the Prime Minister’s Point of Light prize.
The Prime Minister yesterday announced the award, which celebrates outstanding volunteers, for Mr Wylie, who launched his own charitable foundation in 2015, having spent many years working with charities in the North East.
Mr Wylie, who founded tech giant Sage and also owns Close House Golf Club and software firm TSG amongst other business interests, set the Graham Wylie Foundation in motion with the ultimate goal of fundraising and providing grants to causes across the North East which help underprivileged children.
He personally meets the running, administration and staffing costs of the charity and devotes his time to running it on an entirely voluntary basis.
This allows 100% of donations to be channelled into funding organisations, equipment and buildings to improve services for vulnerable children and young people across the region for years to come.
He said: “It is an honour to receive a Point of Light Award. It came as a complete surprise. I got an email on Wednesday telling me I’d been awarded the Point of Light, asking if I’d accept it, and that was the first I knew of it.
“I’m not very good at being in the limelight, and to be honest it’s my name at the top but I’ve got a great team of people working for me, doing all the hard work.”
As a successful entrepreneur, Mr Wylie had spent many years making private donations to a number of charities but it was a life-saving heart operation for his daughter Kiera, now nine, which kick-started his wider charity ambitions.
Kiera underwent open-heart surgery when she was just two days old, after surgeons identified a complex heart condition while she was still in her mother Andrea’s womb.
As a thank you to the hospital, Mr Wylie began fundraising for the Children’s Heart Unit Foundation (CHUF) and became a patron of the charity.
“When they asked me to become a patron that became the start of my charity work. But after a while, friends were telling me they were happy to help, but that they wanted to donate to other causes, so that’s what’s started my thought process on how I could help others, by setting up the foundation,” he said.
“CHUF is still a huge part of my life – I’m sponsoring the annual CHUF toddle this year – but through the foundation it’s nice to be able to do things for other projects and other children across the region.
“Now my challenge for the year ahead is getting ready to welcome 3,000 from 70 countries to the North East for a week in August as chairman of the World Transplant Games. It’s going to be a brilliant week, with so many events taking place.”
Since the foundation was established it has provided national charity Nordoff Robbins with a building to become the first music centre outside of London to use music therapy to support isolated groups of children.
The charity is also funding a building conversion which will see St Mary’s RC Cathedral’s dining room transformed into a hub to help homeless and vulnerable young people in Newcastle.
Mr Wylie said the award would inspire him to make his foundation bigger and better.”