Best up and coming fundraiser

Howard Lake | 24 May 2013 | Blogs

For any fundraiser who, in the last two years, has shown aptitude, ability and success beyond their experience.

The shortlisted entries are:

• Jane Bardsley, Battersea Dogs and Cats Home
• Susie Smith, Cornwall Air Ambulance Trust
• Rachel Waldron, Elephant Family

Jane Bardsley

Corporate fundraising for BDCH in 2010 amounted to just £16,000. Jane joined the team in 2011 after BDCH has launched an ambitious strategy that included developing mutually beneficial partnerships with companies.

Animal charities are not a natural partner for many companies, so traditional COTY routes are not always an option. Jane had a background in media partnerships and understood partners’ needs and objectives. Since mid-2011, she has held 300+ meetings with current and potential partners and secured 34 significant relationships with companies including Pets at Home, Orvis, Churchill, MetroBank, Thomson Airways and Pedigree.

Corporate fundraising now accounts for more than 4% of all giving at BDCH and Jane achieved £230,000 in donations in 2012, with an estimated £435,000 due in 2013, increasing the income stream by 2,600% in over just three years. Colleagues describe Jane as ‘an inspiration to us all’ an ‘creative, determined, positive’ and say that ‘her sense of humour never lets us down’.

Susie Smith

Susie joined Cornwall Air Ambulance in 2011, initially as senior fundraiser. In her first year she introduced new fundraising streams with an emphasis on trusts and foundations. She recruited a small fundraising team to project manage the new events programme and launch challenge event fundraising for the first time. She also recruited and trained four volunteers to provide back administration skills to the team.

In 2012 she was promoted to head of fundraising, joining the senior management team, and fundraising grew by 28% on the previous year, with gifts-in-kind and goods and services donated to the charity has grown by over £150,000. She has achieved all this in less than two years, and has developed a highly motivated, passionate and committed team of fundraisers, all a reflection of her own self-commitment and people-friendly personality.

Rachel Waldron

Since turning from youth work to fundraising Rachel has raised £1 million for Action for Children and Elephant Family. Two years ago she set about creating a fundraising event to raise vital funds and bring colour and joy to the streets of cities across the UK and the world.

Last year saw the launch of the Big Egg Hunt, a public art exhibition made up of more than 200 brightly coloured giant eggs designed by artists, designers and architects and scattering through London. The event culminated in the auctioning of the eggs, and the breaking of two Guinness World Record titles.

Rachel has tenacity, a wicked sense of humour and a heartfelt determination to ‘do good’. Those around her attribute her success to ‘…always asking for more than she expects, accompanied by a huge beaming smile and a twinkle in her eye. Invariably she gets what she came for, whether that be money, contacts or those crucial extra volunteer hours. People just say yes.’

She built a team of 100 volunteers in two months and created a bespoke team from across two vastly different charities. Her strength is in engineering a sense of being ‘part of something big’, and she continually inspires and has an innate ability to spot and develop talent and build the right team around her.

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.