And the most influential person in fundraising is… the donor
Howard Lake | 8 June 2009 | Blogs
And quite right too, I suppose. This year’s Professional Fundraising magazine 50 Most Influential poll has been topped by a new entrant, never before seen in the poll. The Donor, without whom fundraising and charity work would not happen, is top of this year’s poll, knocking nfpSynergy’s Joe Saxton off the top spot he has achieved for the past four years in a row.
I’m delighted to see the appearance of The Donor there, not least because the idea for it and resulting debate was first published here on UK Fundraising by Derek Humphries in his blog post Most influential? The Donor needs your vote…” in April. So congratulations to Derek.
Indeed, congratulations to Stephen George, chair of Remember a Charity and director of development and head of legacies at NSPCC, who was achieved the number two spot. Stephen blogs on UK Fundraising too.
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This year the top 10 features three practising fundraisers: Stephen George is joined by a new entry, Iain McAndrew, head of legacies at Save the Children, and Alan Gosschalk, Director of Fundraising and Communications at AMREF UK, and chair of the ImpACT Coalition.
But the list is still dominated by consultants and suppliers: this year’s 19 is an increase on last year’s 15. Still, there are nine fundraisers in the top 20 this year, three more than last year.
New entries this year include two from Justgiving: MD Anne Marie Huby was voted #23 and founder Zarine Kharas #5.
Other new entries include Lucy Harvey, editor of Professional Fundraising magazine (#36), Alistair McLean, FRSB (#26), and Gill Raikes, The National Trust (#44).
The vote was open to readers of Professional Fundraising magazine.
I was voted number 25, so thank you to everyone who considers me influential, or just likes to boost my ego.
Image: Top 50 by Mile Atanasov on Shutterstock.com
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.