Multibank co-founder steps down
The co-founder of a UK-wide charity which began in Fife with former Prime Minister Gordon Brown is stepping down after five years.
Angus Hogg was contacted by the the former PM and Kirkcaldy MP after a chance encounter at a Fife warehouse in 2021.
He said: “Gordon was in Purvis warehouse in Lochgelly and a truck came in full of stuff from Amazon. And Gordon being Gordon asked where it came from, where it was going and was told it was going to landfill.
“It was returned goods from Amazon and landfill was the only place it could go. Gordon took a look and thought there must be something we can do with this stuff.”
Angus and Mr Brown had previously worked together on a number of projects through Angus's role as Chairman of the Carnegie UK Trust and the pair began hatching a plan.
“The main purpose was to get these goods out to families who fundamentally were living in poverty,” Angus says.
“Gordon is the honorary patron of the Cottage Family Centre in Kirkcaldy so we looked at a model whereby we could base a charity on the Cottage.
“Pauline Buchan who runs the centre could see the need for this, because by and large all the goods coming in were things that families could use.
“So my role initially was to build a business case, to see if we could raise the money and then operate a warehouse out of Lochgelly.
“Gordon had persuaded Amazon to help us. Slowly but surely from the end of 2021 into 2022 we started to get the operation working.”
With the help of Bill Purvis who generously donated a warehouse in Lochgelly free of charge, Multibank was born and the goods started to get to families in need quickly, initially through referrals from the Cottage centre.
“It's really very simple,” Angus says, “it's a classic business model, but instead of selling the goods we were giving them away to people who needed help.
“The volume of goods that was coming from Amazon was significant, and very useful. And very quickly we were able to circulate.
“So then it was a case of sophisticating the processes and building from there. Such as, we could put the information out as to what we had, and that would match with a social worker who knew of a family in need of a particular item or items.”
Since its beginnings Multibank has grown and now stretches out further than Fife to reach across the UK.
Angus says: “Over the period of these last five years, we have built this hugely sophisticated operation. And as we have grown this with the help of the funding that we have found, we are now putting goods out to Dundee, Edinburgh and Perth, and in the last two or three months we've been looking at an area in Glasgow to trial a Multibank model there.
“It's spread across the UK and is always close to a big Amazon warehouse because we rely on them for the goods. So Multibank is in Manchester, Newcastle, Swansea and London. And by and large that expansion has been based on what we did in Fife.
“We started the process, we made the mistakes and corrected them. And then we started looking at other suppliers beyond Amazon.
“We're also dealing with an environmental issue, because none of these goods will now go into landfill. That's hugely important.
“We send nothing to landfill. One way or another we distribute it back out.”
Whilst keeping on his role as Vice-Chairman at the Cottage Centre, after five years with Multibank, Angus has taken the decision to resign from the board, says he looks back with pride.
“I've reached the five year but stage, but more importantly I've got a big birthday coming up, I'll be 80 next month, and I just felt that it was time to let some of the younger guys get on.
“It needs that surge of energy and we've got some great board members who are involved.
“I've been 30 years with the Carnegie Trust and seen some amazing projects, but this is the most amazing charitable project I've ever seen.
“There's nothing beats it.”