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Applications open for free year-long leadership mentoring programme for legacy fundraisers

Melanie May | 7 November 2023 | News

People at a laptop in a meeting, one touches the keys while another points at the screen. By Mimi Thian on Unsplash

The programme to help legacy fundraisers develop into senior leadership roles has been launched through a partnership between Legacy Futures and The Elischer Foundation (previously The Tony Elischer Foundation). 

The organisations say the initiative is a response to the current gap in legacy knowledge among senior leadership roles. It offers a year-long development pathway alongside additional benefits including quarterly ‘lunch and learn’ webinars and an annual leadership day. 

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Ashley Rowthorn, CEO of Legacy Futures, said: 

“The recruitment and retention of legacy fundraisers is a pressing challenge for the sector. A key issue is that there is no clear pathway for legacy and in-memory fundraisers to progress into more senior positions, and many feel they need to move away from legacies to further their careers. This means many organisations are lacking a good understanding of legacy fundraising in their leadership teams, which can hinder an organisation’s growth.”

Applications are open now and close on 23 January 2024. Successful applicants will be notified by 19 February 2024 with the programme beginning at the end of March 2024.   

The collaboration supersedes Legacy Futures’ previous Future Leaders Bursary Award, which provided six months of free mentoring. It will also see additional placements offered on The Elischer Foundation’s existing mentoring programme, which will now include mentors from Legacy Futures. A minimum of two placements in the new (2024) cohort for this programme will be reserved for applicants within the legacy fundraising sector. 

Laura Swan, Interim Director, The Elischer Foundation, commented: 

“Partnering with Legacy Futures means that even more professional fundraisers looking to develop their leadership skills will benefit from the mentorship programme, and in turn more organisations will benefit too. The ripple effect of investing in fundraisers is considerable for the charity sector, which gains not just financially from highly skilled fundraisers, but also in terms of raising awareness, reaching more service users and helping to tell the story of their impact.”

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