Volunteer Fundraiser of the Year

Howard Lake | 3 July 2007 | Blogs

This award recognises the enormous contribution made to fundraising throughout the UK by volunteers. The award is made to someone, ro a team of people, who by their hard work, dedication and example have made a difference to the charity or charities for whom they have worked.
Ken Deeks
In 1998 marketing consultant Ken Deeks laid the foundations for ByteNight, London’s annual IT industry ‘sleep-out’ raising funds for NCH’s work with youngsters leaving care and facing homelessness.
Since then, he has grown the event from an event with 35 sleepers raising £30,000 to 250 sleepers raising £250,000 in 2006. He jointly recruited and chairs a board of 40 top executives, including HP, Intel, Dell and Accenture representation. The board has provided pro-bono support and expertise and ensures quality marketing and PR camapigns at no cost to the charity. It has set up a new ByteNight website, used innovative direct marketing and extensive key media editorial and advertising.
Ken’s nominator says he is ‘a strategist and visionary’ and that his persuasion skills and tenactiy are well-known in the industry and contribute to ByteNight’s success. He is an inspiring leader and empowers staff and supporters while speaking at conferences. He attends numerous events to raise awareness and generate new support and makes time to visit NCH projects.
He looks for any opportunity to add value, recently making a huge contribution in helping to establish Childhood Champions – a new fundraising initiative helping to raise funds to support NCH’s work with Young Carers. He says he wants to ‘make a positive difference to young people that haven’t been given the opportunities in life that I’ve had’.
Peter and Margaret Long
Peter and Margaret set up the registered charity Children of Fiji in 2000 – and it is still just the two of them who run it. They personally deliver approximately three of goods and monitor the larger projects. As former teachers they both still mark A-level exams to earn the money for their transport to Fiji and accommodation.
Recent projects have included the building of two bridges, the purchase of two fibreglass boats/outboard motors, the provision of fresh water for nine schools, the provision of sanitation at a school, the construction of a library and dormitory.
Last year they raised £57,000 through trusts, talks, quizzes, sponsored walks, car boot sales and street collections. They sell charity merchandise and personalised memorabilia and organise concerts. They have improved the lives of thousands of children, mainly in terms of safety, health and education. In the nine schools where Peter and Margaret have provided fresh water facilities, the incidence of serious illness has been reduced dramatically.
Philip Milne
Philip Milne is a director at the Concerto Group, one of the UK’s leading event services companies. Two years ago his 12 year old daughter was diagnosed with the uncommon and incurable neurological condition Friedreich’s Ataxia (FA). Researching the condition put him in contact with Ataxia UK, and he has worked tirelessly for the charity since then.
Inspired by his daughter, who raised over £20,000 herself through a sponsored skydive, he has worked to raise funds to find a cure for FA, to raise awareness of the condition an the charity and to make the lives of FA sufferers more tolerable.
He successfully appealed to the October Club – an organisation of charitable City types that annually nominates a small charity to be the beneficairy of its fundraising activities and won a record £520,000 from the Club. He has persuaded his board at the Concerto Gorup to name Ataxia UK as its corporate charity of the year, and inspired his colleagues to take part in the London to Brighton bike ride, raising £20,000. He and the company held a Snow Ball in November, raising a further £25,000

About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale. He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.