Wootton George Consulting marks 20 years of fundraising consultancy
Howard Lake | 2 March 2018 | News
Wootton George Consulting is marking 20 years of fundraising consultancy with a 20 mile sponsored swim for charity.
The fundraising agency was founded in March 1998 by Gill Wootton and Simon George.
Both experienced fundraisers, Gill and Simon had started their fundraising careers raising funds for a
range of charities in the 1980’s and 1990’s.
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Having met via the Institute of Fundraising, they set up the company to help those charities that needed external advice and support to grow their income. They grew rapidly and took on additional consultants to meet the demand and the range of experience and expertise sought. It currently has a network of 20 consultants.
A popular early offering was the Trust Service, which helps charities to raise funds from trusts and foundations. This is still operating today and has raised many millions of pounds for client charities,
many of which have stayed with the agency for ten or more years. The longest client relationship is 18 years.
The company then developed diagnostic and strategic services, including fundraising audits, feasibility studies and strategy development, all of which remain popular. In more recent years, they have developed specialisms in further areas, such as National Lottery applications, project evaluations and legacy campaign planning.
In the early years, 70% of their work came to them by recommendation or as repeat business and this still holds true today. They do very little advertising as a result, “which also helps to keep fees affordable for clients”.
Simon and Gill also put a lot of volunteer time into supporting the IoF, both in chairing the Midlands (later the West Midlands) region and in setting up the IoF’s Trusts and Statutory Special Interest Group in 1999, which continues to operate today.
Gill Wootton retired in 2011 and died in 2016, after a long period of ill health. However, much of what she helped to build lives on in the company.
To celebrate the 20th anniversary of the company, Simon will be swimming 20 miles throughout 2018, in support of the charity Climate Stewards. This builds on the company’s six years of support for the charity.
Simon commented: “I’m not a great swimmer and 20 miles will take me months to achieve, a bit at a time, but the work of Climate Stewards is so important in raising awareness of climate change and in finding practical ways to tackle it, that I felt I had to do my bit to help. So I’m hoping that lots of people will get behind me and support Climate Stewards’ fantastic work in 2018.”
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.