Ahead of Trustees Week 2015, Paul Cardwell met Sally Magnusson, founder and chair of dementia charity Playlist For Life, which has been developed over the past two years by its tight-knit group of six trustees

Having forged a successful career as a journalist, for the past two years BBC Reporting Scotland presenter Sally Magnusson has been moonlighting in the third sector.

In 2013 she found Playlist For Life, a charity which aims to spread the word that dementia patients can have their symptoms alleviated by listening to music which has a deep meaning to them.

The newsreader created the charity after discovering music’s hidden powers when her mother was diagnosed with the condition, and wanted to make it a more commonly known phenomenon.

“It has completely overwhelmed my life but I think there is nothing better I could be doing right now,” Sally, who is the founder and chair of the charity’s board, told TFN.

“We're still very small. We have six hugely engaged trustees – who for the last two years have done virtually everything.

The danger that I see when you start your own charity is that the structures of the charity become more important than why you were originally doing it

Sally Magnusson

“Our vision is basically that every person with dementia should have access to Playlist For Life.”

The trustees, all of whom are unpaid, meet once a month and have moulded Playlist For Life simply by discussing what needs done and then setting each other tasks to do it.

Together they have achieved a huge amount in just a few short years, including created a website which explains the science behind the idea and a DVD for the families of people who have been diagnosed with dementia. The are also launching an app to make it easy for people to create a playlist and have started a research programme with Glasgow Caledonian University. Signficantly, the organisations is also training care home and hospital staff so they are able to offer music as part of a treatment plan in the way that works best personally for each person.

But how did such a hard working board come about? Luck, apparently.

Sally says she had no intention of starting a charity, so didn’t really go looking for trustees.

She was first introduced to Glasgow Caledonian academic Andy Lowndes, now deputy chair of the board, by a mutual friend who knew they were both interested in dementia research. She was then given the contact details of a student dementia researcher Gianna Cassidy.

“Andy, Gianna and I were just a little team,” Sally explained.

“Gianna was seeing what research she could do, and Andy and I were doing some practical stuff, but it soon became clear that if we were going to go any further we would need to get a little bit of money together. As soon as you need to get money together you need to be a charity.”

After getting a grant to cover the legal fees of setting up the charity Sally faced the all too familiar struggle of trying to find a bank account.

“The time and effort that took! Banks just don't want you, they are not interested. It must drive people away,” Sally continued.

Then, following a radio interview, Angus Hogg, chair of Carnegie Dunfermline Trust, offered his accountant daughter Fiona Haro’s services.

“Fiona became our treasurer and one of the first things I said to her was 'I'm having this terrible trouble finding a bank' and she said 'leave it to me'. The firm she worked for had banked with the Clydesdale Bank and she managed to see someone and they came up with the goods in the end and gave us a bank account.

“The next appointment was serendipity as well. I was hosting the Weir Group's conference and was telling Pauline Lafferty the HR director there about Playlist for Life and she tole me her mother had dementia and she would love to do something to help.

“I said 'well as it happens I'm looking for a trustee' and she came on board. Much more recently we have added a lawyer, Shona Brown.

“It's a good mix. We have a journalist and writer as the chair, the deputy chair is a mental health nurse and academic, we have a research lead academic, we have an accountant as the treasurer, we have an HR director and we have a lawyer.”

The board has managed to grow the charity so well that recently it has had to appoint a chief executive in the form of Sarah Metcalfe and an administrator.

Sally says she considered giving up her other professional commitments and taking on the role of chief executive herself, but modestly admits she didn’t think she was up to the task.

“What became very obvious was that although we were doing a tremendous amount of work as trustees we didn't have somebody to coordinate it all and somebody to strategically pull it together to say what we should prioritise. We needed a three-year business plan, we needed to professionalise what we were about to take it to the next stage.

“I don't have that skill set, I don't have that organisational brain, I'm much more of a communicator, I can talk I can enthuse people but sometimes I think it can be a mistake that people who found charities, and who are good at that stage, try to run it at the next stage. They are not always the best people.”

Despite the appointment, Sally continues to spend most of her free time on the charity and remains responsible for leading the board in strategic thinking and in governance but hopes now Metcalfe has been appointed she will be freed up to do more on the communication side of things.

It has been a steep learning curve up to this point but having been thrown in at the deep end over the past two years, Sally is full of tips for those thinking of setting up a charity, many of which are just as relevant to those considering becoming a trustee of one.

“Just do it,” she says. “Take one step at a time. Ask for advice. I did an awful lot of just asking people for help.

“Try not to do everything at once. You can take your time and just do things step by step.

“Try and surround yourself with people who are not the same as you – people who have different skill sets and different temperaments – but at the same time make sure they are absolutely committed body and soul to what you are trying to do."

And a final word of warning from Sally: don't lose sight of why you started.

“The danger that I see when you start your own charity is that the structures of the charity become more important than why you were originally doing it.

“Because it is difficult, because there are all sorts of questions of hiring staff, decisions to be made about getting an office and grants, ticking the boxes, and all these sort of multifarious things, you need to ask yourself often enough 'why am I doing this?'".

“That's what matters, not whether you have a bigger and bigger charity."