THE Centre on Philanthropy was formed 16 years ago with the objective of developing the spirit of giving in Bermuda. In the years since, its mission has changed somewhat.

Today, having assumed responsibility for a wider portion of the community, the registered charity cuts a wider swath. This week, Mid-Ocean News reporter HEATHER WOOD and photographer AKIL SIMMONS spoke with the Centre's new executive director, Pamela Barit Nolan.

Q: What is the role of the Centre on Philanthropy?

A: Our mission is to educate and advocate on behalf of all participants in the Third Sector. By the Third Sector, we refer to the non-profit sector. Not just those who are incorporated or working in it, i.e. charities, but churches and schools, corporate and individual donors and Government.

Pretty much the whole community touches that sector and so our aim is to educate and advocate and then to support and increase volunteerism throughout the island. We're looking at things like the Charities Act ? what can we do there to make that more workable and understandable for charities?

Q: What determines whether an organisation is granted charity status?

A: We recently had a workshop with Marlene Christopher, the Registrar of Companies, and Cheryl Harney, the chair of the charity commissioners. It was really interesting. I think there is a desire within the donor community, the Government and the charitable sector to hold charities more accountable, to have more of a focus on what the charity is trying to do, whether or not it's meeting it's missions and objectives.

I think there's just a little bit higher vigilance that has been agreed upon within the charity commissioners who work under the auspices of the Ministry of Health & Family Services. So they're looking to see that proper financial statements are filed.

They're looking at what the actual mission and vision of the charity is ? do they have an appropriate structure? Do they have a good plan to deliver their programme? The Act hasn't changed and the requirements are as they have been for several years but I think there's a general desire to be a little more focused on ensuring that the Act is followed and that guidance is given to new and existing charities as to how they might improve themselves.

I don't want to speak for Cheryl, but that's the general message that I took away from the workshop.

Q: How many members does the Centre have?

A: We have over 80 members now. I was hired in November, although it was on a part-time basis until the end of the year, when I could move back to Bermuda. We developed our business plan in the first three months of the year. We set a goal of 75 members by the end of June and we now have close to 86 or 87.

By the end of next June, we hope to have between 150 and 200 charity members. We also hope to have membership from other stakeholders. We've expanded from our previous mission of working with and for charities. We've broadened that spectrum to include other stakeholder groups, anybody participating in the Third Sector. We're now looking at how we can make the Third Sector more efficient and effective and get better outcomes.

I've gone out and talked to people. What I've learned is there's a frustration that there's quite a bit of money to be focused on some of the issues in Bermuda, but it's perhaps not being as effectively channelled as some people want.

It's a bit fragmented. I've been pleased to meet groups that are trying to come together to more effectively deliver their services, to ensure that collectively, they're addressing an issue.

There are also some good public-private partnerships that are going on ? Government with the Family Centre or on the Bermuda Sloop initiative, the Bank of Bermuda working with Government and other private members on the housing issue. Ace is working on education. XL is focused both on education and the environment. Where we come into that is the facilitation of those partnerships.

Q: Are all the island's registered charities affiliated with the Centre?

A: I haven't counted the most recent report from Government but there are probably over 400 registered charities. There are those that are small and either have a very single-focused purpose, or who are doing events perhaps once every year or every two years ? we don't anticipate that every charity will desire to be a member of the Centre although we would like that and we certainly want to reach out broadly to all the charities in Bermuda.

It's our estimation that about half of the registered charities are actually actively working in the non-profit sector here today. If we can get all the active charities involved with the Centre, we'll be very pleased.

Q: You mentioned moving back to Bermuda. Where were you before?

A: I'm Bermudian but I spent 20 years working in the financial services industry in the US, both in the banking and investment world. I had a great experience at the Bank of Bermuda, in their New York office and the last ten years of my career I spent at Wellington Management Company.

My husband Gil and I had a great life in Boston, which is where Wellington is headquartered, but we decided that we weren't quite happy with the way things were. Despite good jobs and good salaries and a nice place to live, we weren't being fulfilled and, much to the surprise of our managers, we quit our jobs in 2003. We were fortunate, we had saved our money and had the economic wherewithal to take that step back. I know a lot of people don't have that opportunity but we're very blessed and I'm thankful every day that we were given the opportunity to take the time off.

Q: What did you do?

A: We spent nine months travelling in the US visiting friends and family that we had lost touch with. Our one treat in that space of time was rafting down the Grand Canyon for 16 days, but otherwise our route was pretty much dictated by the close friends and family we wanted to see.

We bought a station wagon, packed our life in it and drove from September through to June of the following year. We spent three months with my husband's 90-year-old grandparents in Atlanta ? one of the hardest and most rewarding jobs we've ever had.

We'd kept our house in Massachusetts and so we then went home for a couple of months. We left again in September of 2004 and came back at the end of March in 2005. We travelled through China and Vietnam and Thailand, Australia, Tasmania and New Zealand.

Q: Were you in Thailand when the tsunami struck?

A: We were actually, but we weren't on the coast. We thought we'd made that clear to our friends and family but I guess the news actually made it seem like all of Thailand was under water. We were basically up in the mountains, on the border between Thailand and Burma.

We had no clue what had happened. We didn't have a phone. The owner of the lodge we were staying in had satellite TV so we (eventually) saw what was happening. Since it was just after Christmas we'd talked to our family.

We'd sent e-mails to everybody and we thought that everybody would know where we were but when we came out of the mountains our cell phone worked again ? our voice-mail was full. When we got to a computer, we found we had 150 or 200 e-mails: "Where are you?" The State Department was looking for us . . . We were fine.

Q: Did you go in to the affected areas after?

A: We went into Phuket because we had a friend there. She was fine but it did give us an opportunity to go and visit the area that was hit. We looked for opportunities to stay and help out but Thailand was very well organised. They had tons of people working, the Army as well.

And if you didn't speak Thai or Swedish ? those were the two groups that were hardest hit ? it was hard to actually help on the ground. So we went to a couple of fundraisers and helped our friend who had sort of been on the front line ? her school had been turned into a refugee centre. By the time we got there most of those people had been moved out but it was an interesting time to be there. Although we were fortunate not to be involved, we certainly met a lot of people afterwards who had been directly affected.

Q: You returned to the United States after that?

A: We got back in April of 2005. We hadn't seen our family for six-and-a-half months so we came to Bermuda for a month. My husband has family in Florida so we then went there and then went back to Boston.

I started looking (for job prospects) during the month of May. We weren't sure where we wanted to live but we decided we didn't have any ties to any one place. There were two things I had learned ? home was where we were as a couple, and that I wanted to find some place I could give back and make a difference. I wanted something more meaningful in my life.

So I talked to some people here and when we got back to Boston I actually started to do a fairly extensive search to figure out ways to join the non-profit sector. I had decided that that's what I wanted to do and my husband was very supportive of that. We kind of figured out the economic consequences of that but really wanted to do it.

Q: So how did you end up returning to Bermuda?

A: I met some great people but while I'd been here I'd run into several (Centre on Philanthropy) board members who had known me from the past and knew that I was out there searching. When they figured out I wasn't ready to go back to the Bank of Bermuda they said: "Well, maybe we have something else you might be interested in."

I spoke to Ralph Richardson and David Lang and Cummings Zuill, who started the Centre, and got very excited about potentially joining. They were early on in their process of searching for an executive director. They'd just finished their strategic study and decided they would move ahead, and Brian Duperreault had just been named chair of the Centre ? I was fortunate enough to be here in June to hear him speak about its direction.

I went back to Boston. I really wanted to reflect and think about that and look at other opportunities in Boston. I had a nice life there and had built up a great group of friends and support, but we did decide to go ahead and apply for this.

Q: And the two of you felt comfortable moving back to an island?

A: My husband's never lived here but he had been coming here since he was in high school. He's very interested in the environment in Bermuda and very actively engaged in helping with the (Bermuda Aquarium & Museum plan to map the island's underwater caves) and has been working with that group on cave education and cave conservation.

So he does have a love for Bermuda as well. It's been good for us. My mom is here. My brother is here. I have a niece and a nephew here. So I'm reconnecting with family, and friends that I went to Bermuda High School with. It's been great. It's been a challenge. The Centre has kept me really busy, busier than I probably have been in a long time, but it's exciting.

Q: Do charities still have problems finding volunteers?

A: There are a lot of areas where the Centre needs to further develop its support programmes Part of going through the strategic process involved developing a strategic plan and a business plan. We worked with focus groups.

We asked charities to name their best volunteer ? we had about 15 people come in and talk to us and they all expressed surprise that anyone had asked their opinion. There's a couple things involved in volunteering. One is getting the information.

Many charities ? ours as well ? don't have an efficient way to get out and tell volunteers about what we're doing. So individuals have to spend time calling the different charities, getting recommendations and finding ways to get involved. I think that works fine for the large charities. Everybody knows you can volunteer at the Aquarium or at Agape House ? the ones that I think are seen in the paper a lot, get those volunteers.

Q: Are you looking at ways of improving that?

A: Our old web site did have an opportunity for volunteers to register and for charities to put their volunteer positions on, but there was no way really to search them. It was good, because the information was there and people could see the information, but it wasn't the easiest mechanism through which to match people.

We're now looking at some proposals to move our web site forward. We're looking at a couple of stand-alone software products that are out there on the market rather than creating, because they can be quite expensive.

We're looking for an effective product that can allow people to register as interested volunteers and allow charities to advertise their volunteer positions ? and then they can search for each other. In one instance there is some automation that will provide the volunteer with feedback, saying for example, "There are these six positions that might interest you", as well as informing the charity: "There is somebody that matches your criteria. Would you like to contact them?"

The software also has a lot of privacy in it so that the individual doesn't end up getting 12 calls from charities saying, "Please can you help me?", but it will let the charities know that there are some people out there. They can send them information without actually seeing their e-mail and contact information so it's up to the individual to contact them back.

That's something that we really hope to have in place by fall. Barring that, the Centre is always reaching out to charities. People do call us, regularly now, to get direction on areas that they can volunteer in.

Deborah manages our help desk for everybody that calls in and we encourage people to call us. We can help walk them through what they're interested in. I think one thing that people might be concerned about is if they do call the charity directly, they might be roped into something that maybe they're not that comfortable with.

So we're happy to talk them through it, to discuss where their interests are and give them a list ? with contact information and stuff like that ? that they can think about. So it's a little more manual but we still have the information.

Q: I suppose then that tomorrow night's Fourth of July celebration is being welcomed equally for the hundreds of dollars it will give to local charities and the fact that the event will highlight the work they do?

A: I really applaud and celebrate the efforts of both the American Society and (US Consul General) Gregory Slayton in this event. I think Bermuda should be proud to have them as a partner. Gregory is so full of energy ? as is his whole team.

The American Society has really been galvanised by his focus. I can't take a lot of credit for it. They came up with the idea and we have tried to help and support it. Of course, the event really meets all of our criteria ? all of the pillars of our mission statement are in it. I think people need to be more aware of what charities are doing on the island.

This gives everybody an opportunity to meet and chat to the people involved with the charities, so it educates them. It's great advocacy on behalf of the charities. It's saying: "These are charities in good standing. They're doing good things on the island."

It facilitates new partnerships ? all the charities there will have the ability to have volunteer sign-up sheets that have information about their charity. Perhaps it will draw in some people they wouldn't have had the opportunity to otherwise meet. I think it always makes a difference when you're able to talk to somebody face to face.