Businesswoman’s words of advice for Cameron

In the case of Kate Hardcastle that is definitely the case.

The 35-year-old businesswoman is also founder and chairwoman of the highly successful Charity Dreamgirls, which raises the profile and money for small charities across Yorkshire. She is a business mentor, mother to a young daughter and daily struggles with the painful condition endometriosis.

And yet Kate Hardcastle has time for everyone. It is this type of person that Prime Minister David Cameron’s vision of a Big Society relies upon to be a success.

Although, in principle, Kate is a believer in the Big Society, she says that the plan has to be well thought out before it is implemented.

“For the last three years I have been trying to get a meeting with my MP about the challenges I am facing in running a team of volunteers and helping charities,” she says.“If the Big Society is to work then the Government has to talk to people like me who are already working at the sharp end.”

Kate, from Huddersfield, set up Charity Dreamgirls five years ago after discovering there are 169,000 different charities in England and Wales alone.

“My grandma suffered a stroke and we all took it in turns to look after her.”

“She wanted to go out and about but people didn’t know how to talk to her. We got in touch with the Stroke Club, which offers respite care. They were doing an incredible job but not that many people seemed to know about them.”

Kate thought that she could use her background in marketing to help the charity raise its profile.

“Naturally a charity, cause or organisation will gain support from those who have been affected by its subject, and the potential to reach out to gain awareness with the community is a huge challenge,” explains Kate.

“When I looked into it and found that there were 169,000 charities I was amazed. We all know the big ones, but I had no idea there were so many all vying for people’s precious pounds.”

So in 2007, Kate established The Charity Dreamgirls and Friends. This new organisation – believed because of its structure to be the first of its kind – creates awareness and support from the community for selected charities and trusts each year.

In the few short years since it was founded this entirely voluntary community organisation has made a real difference and helped more than 15 Yorkshire charities or the northern branches of national charities.

The Charity Dreamgirls has also achieved additional benefits that were not realised at the outset. Members of the Charity Dreamgirls and Friends have gained a wealth of experience in fields previously unknown to them – such as event organisation, marketing, music, fund-raising – and even encouraged to “get sporty” at the organisaton’s active events.

“The enthusiasm the team portrays at events is infectious and encourages many more of the general public to get involved with the organisation and the supported charities. It generates ‘if you can do it, I can do it attitude’,” explains Kate. “What some charities struggle to understand is that we are not just about fund-raising. We are about raising the profile of their charity for the future.”

As well as bringing her business acumen to Charity Dreamgirls, Kate also brings her other talent, music, into play.

Kate started her singing career at an early age, and loved nothing more than performing with her grandfather, a semi-professional singer.

She sang in a band at school and now holds charity gigs with her friends Jenny Smith and Kate Peters. They have succeeded in getting support from singing greats such as Martha Reeve and Alexander O’Neal – all in the name of the charities supported by the Dreamgirls.

Kate, who co-owns Insight with Passion, puts about £10,000 of her own money into Charity Dreamgirls a year. “I have decided that I want to support this rather than have a posh car. But not everyone is in that fortunate position,” says Kate.

“Because we aren’t an actual charity it is very hard trying to get any funding and I find it very difficult to get businesses to understand what we do. If I want to book a venue for a charity gig I cannot get a reduced rate, just because we aren’t a registered charity. We would be financially better of if we were a charity, but I would feel like a hypocrite as we are saying there are already too many charities. This is something that Mr Cameron is going to have to look at very hard indeed. He wants voluntary organisations to take a bigger part, but it is easier said than done.

“All these voluntary groups will have to have lots of support and that costs money. There is a huge benefit to the volunteers of being involved with something like Charity Dreamgirls. We give our volunteers training which in turn gives them the confidence to do different things. One of our volunteers joined us when she was 19 and just didn’t have any idea where she was going and was unambitious. A year on she has launched her own business.”

Kate has a ingrained sense of social conscience which she believes was instilled in her by her upbringing. “I was brought up by my parents and grandparents who were disabled. My grandfather was a campaigner for disabled rights and my parents are charity workers. They always stressed that you had to do your bit for your local community.”

Twenty per cent of Kate’s time is dedicated to charity and David Cameron is keen for people like her to become role models for his Big Society. Her dedication to Charity Dreamgirls and also her own business is even more commendable as she suffer from the painful and often debilitating condition endometriosis which she developed when she was 21.

She suffered severe stomach and back pains and bouts of extreme fatigue for three years before being diagnosed.

Endometriosis usually affects women aged between 25 and 40 and is caused by the cells that normally line the womb being found elsewhere in the body. During the monthly cycle, these cells act like those in the womb, but there is nowhere for them to go causing excruciating pain.

She was told that she would never have children, but now has a 17-month-old daughter to add to her workload. Having a child has made her reassess to some extent what she is doing with her life.

“I always say this will be the last year but in reality I would feel absolutely devastated to walk away from it. Having come this far and made it a success I am not going to walk away now.”