finding those perfect 50 words to fit on an application form!
I've been a fundraiser for 19 years. After graduating with a first-class honours degree in English Language and Literature, I worked for a national drug and alcohol treatment charity for nearly four years. I then spent a decade at an international development organisation, where I quadrupled income from trusts and foundations. Managing a team of fundraisers and collaborating with programme colleagues, I was responsible for raising £7 million from UK, US and European trusts and foundations, as well as bilateral and multilateral donors.
I've raised funds from small family trusts, livery companies, global corporate foundations, lotteries, overseas aid trusts, regeneration funders and European governments. I've written everything from two-page letters for core funding to glossy proposals for corporate boards and I've filled in application forms that required me to summarise everything in 100 words, as well as others as thick as any bestseller.
An acute attention to detail coupled with an instinctive flair for crafting stories and summarising complex information has seen me raise funds for a variety of projects: from music in prisons to forest conservation, women's microcredit to young people's mental health, agricultural marketing to children with learning difficulties.
If there's any aspect of trust fundraising I can help you with, please do get in touch.