Meet our Authors

Emma Beeston is an independent philanthropy advisor to philanthropists, families and foundations.

Her advice guides donors from exploring their values through to implementing their giving to achieve their philanthropic goals.

Emma specialises in supporting those new to philanthropy and facilitating multigenerational giving. Prior to her current role, Emma worked for grant-making organisations including BBC Children in Need, Lloyds Bank Foundation and Comic Relief.

Emma co-created with Beth Breeze the Advising Donors module for the Philanthropic Studies master’s degree programme at the University of Kent.

She is also a lecturer on the Philanthropy, Grantmaking and Social Investment master’s degree programme at Bayes Business School and a trainer with the Association of Charitable Foundations.

She wants philanthropy to be accessible to all and is co-founder of a giving circle, Bath Women’s Fund.

Dr Beth Breeze has an international profile as an academic expert on philanthropy.

She worked as a fundraiser and charity manager for a decade before co-founding the Centre for Philanthropy at the University of Kent in 2008, where she now leads a team conducting research and teaching courses on philanthropy and fundraising.

She has written several books, including The New Fundraisers and In Defence of Philanthropy, both of which won the Skystone Partners Prize for Research on Fundraising and Philanthropy.

She co-edited The Philanthropy Reader and co-authored Richer Lives: Why rich people give, published by the Directory of Social Change. She has also written numerous peer-reviewed journal articles and practitioner-facing reports on philanthropy, fundraising and volunteering, and regularly provides media comment and speaks at charity sector conferences.

Elaine is a chartered accountant with 25 years’ experience, and working solely with charities and other third sector organisations for over 15 years. She advises small to medium-sized charities on a wide range of finance and governance issues, including annual reporting and independent examination. She particularly enjoys working closely with trustees to support them in meeting their responsibilities by making charity finance more accessible.

Elaine is a Fellow of the Association of Charity Independent Examiners, holds the ICAEW Diploma in Charity Accounting and has an MSc in Charity Resource Management. In addition to running her accountancy practice, Elaine is the finance manager of a local charity supporting children and a trustee of a women’s charity, providing a well-rounded insight into charity financial management.

Gareth has recently retired as Senior Partner of the charity consultants The Kubernesis Partnership LLP, supporting a wide range of organisations in the areas of charity accounting, formation of new charities and other issues of charity regulation.

He is also Emeritus Professor of Charity Studies at Sheffeld Hallam University, where for many years he led the University’s MSc in Charity Resource Management and the inter-faculty Centre for Voluntary Sector Research.

He is the author or co-author of many research papers and articles and is author of two DSC books: The Charity Treasurer’s Handbook and Charitable Incorporated Organisations. He was active for many years in Association of Charity Independent Examiners, the Association of International Accountants, the Chartered Institute of Fundraising and the Charity Law Association. He served for six years each on the Charity Technical Committee of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW) and then on the Charity Expert Panel of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland (ICAS).

Jonathan is Director of Giving for the Church of England and is also a Lay Canon at St Edmundsbury Cathedral. He has held senior leadership, fundraising and governance roles within the charity sector for over 30 years. While at St Luke’s Hospice in Plymouth, his ‘Thanks a Million’ campaign won the Institute of Public Relations Gold Award for best community PR campaign in the country. He is a full member of the Chartered Institute of Fundraising, has a certificate in management and holds an MA in Applied Theology.

Jonathan speaks at events on fundraising, marketing and management. The Porcupine Principle, originally written in 2007, has quickly developed into a unique fundraising classic.

Nina is the lead author for The Complete Fundraising Handbook and has been for the four editions since 2002. Following a long career in fundraising which began in her native London in 1993 and continued after her move to Chicago in 2002, Nina is now living and working in Wisconsin. For part of the year she runs Jacobsen’s Museum on Washington Island, and also does fundraising consulting.

Over the years, Nina has worked for a wide range of organisations starting as an account manager at Pell and Bales and gaining broader experience and knowledge with stints at Shelter, Amnesty International UK, and Tate. Nina served on the (now) Chartered Institute of Fundraising Standards Committee from 1999 to 2001, and was chair of the committee that drafted the first code of practice for legacy fundraising.

She was also a frequent speaker at fundraising conferences in the UK. Following her move to the US, Nina spent almost 12 years fundraising for the University of Chicago, and then went on to work for the National Trust for Historic Preservation and DePaul University.

She has a particular interest in architecture and the preservation of historic buildings and volunteered for two house museums while in Chicago giving tours of both and serving on the board of one of them.

Lianne is an experienced fundraiser with a specialism in community and events fundraising. She has written the chapters on these topics in The Complete Fundraising Handbook as well as collaborating with a number of fundraisers to update many of the case studies in the volume. She began her career as a hospice fundraiser and has worked for Depaul UK, RSBC and Christian Aid. Lianne is now working with a variety of organisations to help them make the most of their community fundraising and is particularly interested in innovation, stewardship and learning and development in the charity sector.

An MSc graduate of London South Bank University, Lianne self-published her master’s dissertation about community fundraising and has spoken at many conferences and events on the topic. Outside of work, Lianne is a life-long member of Girlguiding UK and enjoys crafting, cooking and the great outdoors (like any good Girl Guide!). She has also contributed two chapters to DSC’s Community Fundraising.

Dr Claire Routley has worked in fundraising for over fifteen years. In 2011, she completed a PhD looking at why people choose to leave legacies to charity. She has worked for Bible Society, Age UK, WRVS and a local hospice. She is now a fundraising consultant and a Post-Doctoral Research Associate at the University of Kent’s Centre for Philanthropy. She is also a member of fundraising think-tank Rogare’s international advisory panel and was named AFP’s emerging scholar 2017. She recently co-authored the DSC’s book on Fundraising Strategy.

Richard is Director of 3rd Sector Mission Control. He is an experienced senior manager having led the fundraising team at nine national charities including Girlguiding, Epilepsy Society and The National Literacy Trust. Richard specialises in income generation, strategic planning and charity governance.

Valerie’s career in the voluntary sector has spanned six decades and has included holding senior positions in charities including Help the Aged, RNIB and YMCA. ‘She now provides wide-ranging consultancy support to charities and champions best practice and strong governance.’

Valerie’s passion for the opportunities created by corporate–charity partnerships began at the NSPCC, where she secured and managed the first-ever UK £1 million adoption with Asda and launched the then newly created payroll giving scheme. Valerie has held numerous voluntary positions including membership of the Chartered Institute of Fundraising’s Standards Committee and its Policy Advisory Board and is honoured to have been awarded the position of Fellow of the Institute. She is a trustee of the NHS Confederation, the RNIB Retirement Benefit Scheme and also the chair of a small grant-making trust in the North East.

Caron is Chief Executive of Charity Finance Group. Previously she was Head of the Charity and Voluntary Sector at the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW). In addition to supporting a number of small charities and community organisations, Caron has been a member of the NCVO’s National Assembly and the Charities SORP Committee, has sat on a number of government working parties, is a non-executive director of the Lending Standards Board, a member of the Church of England Pension Board’s Audit and Risk Committee, and former chair of the board of the Directory of Social Change. She was also chair of her local hockey club. She was named in the top 30 UK social influencers in Risk, Compliance and Regtech 2017.

Caron is a trained barrister and has a wide array of experience across charity, regulation, law, policy, member support and professional ethics. In 2015 she was named Charity Principal of the Year at the Charity Times Awards. In 2016 she received the Association Excellence Award for Leadership. Caron is an avidly social CEO and has been named in the top 30 social CEOs in 2013, 2014 and 2015.

Caron was honoured with an OBE for her services to charity in the New Year’s Honours lists in 2021.

Elizabeth Gray-King describes herself as a ‘curly-headed combination of artist, project manager and theologian.’ She has more than 30 years’ experience of managing social benefit projects in churches, local communities, local authorities and national organisations. She has a BA in Fine Arts, an MEd/PGDip in Professional Development and a Certificate of Theology.

In 1988, Elizabeth was ordained as a United Reformed Church minister and, since 2004, has worked in a number of wider roles for central departments. Inside and outside of the church, she often acts an interim project manager, scoping new projects to pass on to permanent staff or giving shape to complex projects. Elizabeth’s voluntary sector experience spans far and wide and includes governance roles across the Midlands.

Since 1999, Elizabeth has been the Director for Gray-King & Gray Ltd (GKG), which she co-founded with her husband. GKG offers guidance, training, research and project management services to organisations within the social benefit sector. She is a long-established trainer for DSC.

Elizabeth has written on a wide range of subjects. Her published works include Speed Reads: Risk Management for DSC, When Loss is Liberation: Experiences of loss, and ‘Liturgies’ in A Lifetime of Blessings.

Throughout her career, Elizabeth has worked as a professional, commissioned artist and a visual theologian. You can see her art at www.elizabethgrayking.com.

James Brooke Turner has worked for charities with investments his entire career and has been a trustee of numerous others, including the Association of Charitable Foundations. He has been the Investment Director of the Nuffield Foundation for many years, where he has helped to deliver some of the best returns in the sector. James co-founded Yoke & Co., a consultancy supporting charities to take ownership of their investment strategy. He has written and spoken extensively about charity investing. James studied the History of European Art at the Courtauld Institute and later Medieval Insolvency at Birkbeck. He has numerous professional qualifications and was recognised by the Charity Finance Group as one of the inaugural Inspiring Leaders in Charity Finance.

Paul’s whole career has been in the voluntary sector, mostly as an independent consultant and trainer working with national and local organisations. After working for some years as a volunteer in Africa and then with the Campaign Against Arms Trade, his focus of interest became information management, including such areas as the use of information technology and the management of information services. This led to a considerable amount of work on the application of the Data Protection Act 1984 to voluntary organisations. He wrote the first edition of Data Protection for Voluntary Organisations in 2000 to coincide with the Data Protection Act 1998 coming into force. Since then, Paul has been a leading trainer and writer on data protection throughout the UK, and he has provided bespoke advice to many voluntary organisations, large and small. For many years he has been recognised as one of the sector’s go-to experts on data protection.

From Here to Diversity – a practical guide to recruiting Black and Asian charity trustees was created by Action for Trustee Racial Diversity (ATRD), a volunteer-led group founded in 2019 to campaign on increasing racial diversity on charity Boards. It works in partnership with Getting on Board, a charity that helps individuals, employers and members of professional networks become new leaders in communities through board-level volunteering. The guide was written by Malcolm John, the founder of ATRD and a trustee of the Association of Chairs, the support body for charity chairs in England and Wales. Malcolm has previously been a trustee of seven other charities varying in size over the last 20 years.

Author Mark A’Bear MBE, has been a school governor for 18 years at 5 different schools. He is a National Leader of Governance with the National College for Teaching and Leadership and coaches, mentors and supports Chairs of Governors. Mark was a Northern Europe Education Manager with Adobe for 4 years from 2010 and Education Strategic Partner Manager at Microsoft from 1997 – 2010.

Stephen Cook is a journalist and author with extensive experience in national newspapers and magazines, including 18 years at The Guardian and many years at the helm of Third Sector Magazine. He has published five novels and two non-fiction books.

Tania Mason is a journalist, copywriter, editor and events producer with more than 25 years’ experience across various industries, most recently charities and civil society. She currently edits Governance & Leadership magazine.

Mike Hudson is Director of Compass Partnership and has been working with Chairs, Chief Executives and leadership teams of civil society organisations and their funders for over 30 years. He has also worked for many government departments, helping to shape policy and funding programmes for the voluntary sector.

Mike has been a Visiting Fellow at the London School of Economics and he is currently a Visiting Fellow at the Cass Business School at City University. He is a member of the Editorial Board of Governance magazine.

His book Managing Without Profit has sold well over 23,000 copies, been translated into three languages and published in an Australian edition.

Mike Eastwood is currently Diocesan Secretary in the Diocese of Liverpool and Vice-Chair and Non-Executive Director at the Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen University Hospital Trust. As well as this, he is Director of the Renewal and Reform programme (Archbishops’ Council part-time secondment).

Mike was Chief Executive of the Directory of Social Change from 1995 to 2001, chair of trustees for the National Association for Voluntary and Community Action, a member of the Advisory Council to the Charities Aid Foundation and a trustee for the Liverpool Council for Social Service.

Jacqueline Williams is a governance and financial management consultant and trainer, and has extensive experience working with boards of directors (and trustees) across sectors internationally. Her most recent roles have included working with the Centre for Charity Effectiveness (part of Cass Business School) where she was involved in developing the Building Better Governance series. Another was with the International Finance Corporation (part of the World Bank Group), providing governing advice and related services in different parts of Africa.

Her earlier career included regulatory and compliance roles with PricewaterhouseCoopers, the United Friendly Group and Sea Containers Group in the UK. She has had extensive personal experience serving on boards of not-for-profit organisations, mainly in the role of treasurer. Jacqueline is a qualified accountant and lawyer and has a Masters in Corporate Governance and Ethics.

Alan Lawrie is a well-known and highly respected independent consultant and trainer. Before moving into consultancy he worked in management roles in the voluntary sector and the public sector. His specialises in strategy, business planning, commissioning and organisational development. He has written several books for DSC including the bestselling Business and Strategic Planningnow in its 4th edition and never out of print since it was first published in 1988, Collaborative Working, Creating and Managing New ProjectsandDeveloping Your Organisation.

Kate Sayer has specialised in charities since 1984. As a chartered accountant and partner in Sayer Vincent, she advises charities and social enterprises on a wide range of finance, tax, governance and management issues. Kate particularly enjoys training trustees and staff in charities to make finance and risk subjects more accessible. Kate teaches charity finance at Cass Business School and contributes to the leadership development programme for finance professionals.

Kate has authored or co-authored several popular books on charity finance, including A Practical Guide to Charity Accounting, A Practical Guide to Financial Management, A Practical Guide to Managing in a Downturn all for Directory of Social Change.

Kirsty Semple ACIS LLM is a governance consultant and is Director of Semple Associates Ltd, formed in 2001. She is also editor of the ICSA Charities Handbook. Specialising in corporate governance and compliance, Kirsty has provided consultancy, training and support to boards of numerous voluntary sector organisations for 18 years. Before going into public practice, Kirsty was Company Secretary of the disability charity Scope. She now acts as secretary for a range of organisations, including the Born Free Foundation and the National Garden Scheme.

Rob is an international speaker, trainer and consultant in volunteer leadership and management with over 25 years experience. He founded Rob Jackson Consulting Ltd in 2011 and has since worked with an extensive list of clients around the world. Rob was previously, Director of Innovation and Impact at Volunteering England, Head of Fundraising Strategy and Volunteering Development Manager at RNIB, and Regional Volunteering Development Manager at Barnado’s.

In 1997, Rob founded of UKVPMs, the UK’s first internet networking resource dedicated to British Volunteer Programme Managers, now the largest group of its kind in the world. He remains an active volunteer, both as moderator of the group, and as a member of the editorial team for e-volunteerism.com, an international journal on volunteering issues.

Mike Locke is Honorary Research Fellow with the Centre for Philanthropy, University of Kent, and has worked as a volunteer, researcher and writer, teacher and consultant with voluntary organisations since getting involved in community organisations in the North Kensington area of London in the 1970s.

At University of East London he developed teaching and research on voluntary organisations and volunteering, and was joint founder of the Insitute for Volunteering Research with Volunteering England.

At Volunteering England and the National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO), he led on policy and management for volunteering. His research has focused largely on policy analyses and evaluations concerning the voluntary and community organisations and has produced numerous research reports, articles and conference papers.

Dr Eddy Hogg is Lecturer in Social Policy at the University of Kent. His research looks at volunteering, charitable giving and public attitudes to the voluntary sector. Recently he has worked on research looking at volunteering across the lifecourse, on volunteering and charitable giving in schools, on youth volunteering, on the value of charity involvement in supporting young people, on attitudes towards charity regulation in England and Wales and, on charity engagement with the Fundraising Regulator. He teaches a range of courses at undergraduate and postgraduate levels on the voluntary sector and volunteering.

Eddy speaks regularly at events for volunteer manages, sharing the research findings and exploring how these can translate into volunteer management practice. These include events organised by the National Council of Voluntary Organisations, the Association of Volunteer Managers and the Sports Volunteering Research Network.

Rick is a Seattle-based management consultant and Principal Consultant of Lynch Associates with a variety of clients in the US, Canada, the UK, Australia, Singapore, Portugal, Russia and Brazil.

Each year Rick speaks at approximately 100 workshops, conventions and conferences across the world.

He is co-author of the Complete Volunteer Management Handbook and Keeping Volunteers.

Neela Jane Stansfield is a major gifts fundraising specialist, with over 15 years of experience working with trusts, foundations and high net worth individuals. She has worked across the international development, health and education sectors, including UNICEF, Marie Curie, The Stroke Association and Chatteris Educational Foundation in Hong Kong.

Neela Jane was Chair of the Chartered Institute of Fundraising (CIoF)’s Trusts and Statutory Special Interest Group for six years and a board member and speaker at the CIoF National Convention. She holds a BSc in Psychology from the University of Nottingham and a diploma in fundraising from the CIoF, and has written about trusts fundraising for Third Sector magazine and The Guardian’s Voluntary Sector Network. She has also been a Trustee for an international children’s charity, Children in Crisis, and for the Anti-Trafficking and Labour Exploitation Unit (ATLEU).

Bernard is co-founder of The Management Centre and has advised many of the world’s leading INGOs including UNICEF, IFRC, and MSF/DWB. He’s written a case for support for France’s oldest university; advised Europe’s largest scientific experiment on individual giving; sourced institutional donors to support the 750,000 people in Cox’s Bazaar, the world’s biggest refugee camp; secured finance to build an Argentinian museum for the largest dinosaur ever to walk the earth; and engaged celebrities and billionaires to save the last 800 great apes in Rwanda.

Meredith is an experienced charity professional. Most recently, she led the fundraising, marketing and public affairs directorate at Marie Curie, the UK’s leading terminal illness charity. Prior to this, she was Investment Director at the venture philanthropy fund Impetus Trust and Executive Director at Goldman Sachs. Meredith gives her time as a trustee of Plan International UK, the Trust for London and the SOFII Foundation.

Madeleine is an experienced practitioner and speaker in applied behavioural science, with a special interest in driving social good initiatives. She currently leads diverse behaviour change projects for global third sector organisations at Ogilvy Consulting’s Behavioural Science Practice. Most notably, she has boosted fundraising income for Christian Aid, helped improve donor retention for DKMS, and developed interventions to tackle malnutrition with The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Omar is a market researcher with more than 30 years’ experience in multinational corporations and INGOs. He’s held global, regional and local positions and worked on major brands including Pringles, Pampers, Pantene, Ariel, Always and UNICEF. His expertise includes Branding, Innovation, Insights, Advertising Research, Concept Development and Behavioural Economics. Omar taught at The International University in Geneva. He is a regular speaker at universities and international conferences, and his publications include articles and award-winning papers.

Sam Rider is editor of the new edition of Community Fundraising. She has over 25 years’ experience as a CEO and Fundraising Director for national, international and regional charities. Sam is a fundraising consultant and a tutor for the Institute of Fundraising’s Academy, as well as providing bespoke training for a range of organisations.

Debra is author of It's a Battle on the Board, It's Murder in Management, It's Tough at the Top, The Pleasure and the Pain as well as a couple of Speed Reads.

Debra has worked in the charitable and voluntary sector for nearly 40 years with brief forays into the private sector.

Amongst numerous other roles, she is Co-Chair of the Soldiering on Awards. She is a Trustee of In Kind Direct, one of the Prince's Foundation Charities, a governor of the Berkshire NHS Community Foundation Trust, a Commissioner on the Local News Commission of the Public Interest News Foundation, and just recently stood down as trustee of the Berkshire Community Foundation.

She is also an Africa Advocacy Foundation Ambassador for women and girls at risk of or affected by Female Genital Mutilation (FGM).

Debra has served as a trustee of several charities including being the co-founder of the Small Charities Coalition and was its first Chair. She served on the Charity Commission's SORP committee for over 7 years and was the Vice-Chair of Governors of Whiteknights primary school for 6 years.

She is a renowned public speaker with many years' experience of training and coaching and is an internationally published author of several books on management and leadership including It's Tough at the Top; The Pleasure and the Pain; It's Murder in Management and It's a Battle on the Board. Debra has a regular monthly column in Third Sector magazine and has appeared on Radio 4's The Moral Maze.

Debra is an alumna of Windsor Leadership having participated on the Strategic Leaders Consultation.

Sebastian is a process analyst working as a consultant in the not-for-profit sector in New Zealand. With the aim of helping improve outputs, he works across governance and management systems including fundraising. Sebastian has been editor of this book since its first edition 21 years ago. At that time he was a legacy fundraiser for one of Britain’s biggest charities, RNIB, having previously worked as a solicitor specialising in trust and charity law. Since then he has been a legacy fundraising consultant to many not-for-profit organisations in New Zealand and also brings experience from the commercial sector having co-owned a multi-channel, consumer-focused business for eight years.

Claire Segal is co-founder of The Management Centre and co-author of Breakthrough for non-profit organisations which won the Terry McAdam Award for Best Non Profit Book in the USA 2004 and also The Influential Fundraiser.

Gemma was England Director and Funding Strategy Director for the UK’s largest community funder, The National Lottery Community Fund, which awards £600 million annually. Her responsibilities included building teams, leading hundreds of people and driving a major redesign of the whole organisation’s grantmaking. Previously she was Managing Director for Innovation and Enterprise at Leonard Cheshire Disability and Head of Innovation at Save the Children. She now specialises in supporting organisations to innovate, improve and collaborate.

Tom is a nonprofit CEO turned grantmaker. He founded civic tech pioneers mySociety and developed data and technology policy for the UK government before becoming a senior executive at two of the UK’s largest institutional funders. Tom is an Ashoka Fellow, a board member at the International Consortium of International Journalists, and the co-founder of an open access education project run out of the Harvard Kennedy School.

Ken Burnett is an internationally recognised author, consultant and inspirational speaker on fundraising, marketing and communications for nonprofit organisations worldwide. Ken was UK director of ActionAid and later director of fundraising and communications when in 1983, he founded the influential Burnett Associates agency, the first company of its type in Europe.

Ken has served on several non-profit boards and was chair of trustees of ActionAid International from 2012 to 2018 and former vice-chair of the UK’s Chartered Institute of Fundraising. He has been a trustee of BookAid International, the International Fund Raising Group (now The Resource Alliance) and an independent trustee of the UK Disasters Emergency Committee. He is co-founder and a trustee of SOFII, the Showcase of Fundraising Innovation and Inspiration and a trustee of the World Land Trust. In 2016 Ken Burnett co-founded the Commission on the Donor Experience with Giles Pegram CBE. Ken is a fellow of the Institute of Fundraising and an honorary fellow of the Institute of Direct Marketing.

Well known for the worldwide best seller Relationship Fundraising, Ken has authored several other publications, including Friends for Life and The Zen of Fundraising. His more recent books are Storytelling can change the world (2014) and The essence of Campaigning Fundraising in 52 exhibits and 199 web links (2021).

When not travelling or giving seminars, Ken spends his time between London and rural Suffolk, where he’s discovered a new love for writing, directing and acting in

Theresa Lloyd is a philanthropy expert and leading consultant in strategic planning, fundraising and governance in the non-profit sector. She has also served on several boards and committees in the arts, health, higher education and international development sectors, including the European Association for Philanthropy and Giving.

Theresa was Founder Director of Philanthropy UK. She has published three books: A Guide to Giving, Cultural Giving and, with Beth Breeze, Richer lives: Why Rich People Give.

As a Senior Lecturer in Communication and Media and Associate Dean for Education of the School of the Arts at the University of Liverpool, Dr Kerry Traynor helps students develop understanding of communication and media industries and practices and forges sustainable partnerships between higher education and the creative and social economies. Kerry is trustee and chair of Safe Regeneration, a Bootle-based charity focussed on social, economic and environmental benefits for the local community.

Jay Kennedy is Director of Policy and Research at the Directory of Social Change (DSC), often representing DSC in the media and at various forums, networks and events. He also leads the team that researches funding information for DSC’s well-known funding guides and website.

Jay has held a number of different roles since joining DSC in 2003, including researching government funding for charities and project managing one of DSC’s fundraising websites.

For over a decade, Jay has led DSC’s campaigns and efforts to influence government policy to benefit the charity sector, often working with many other organisations and individuals to get results.

Chrissie Wright is a trainer and coach with over 30 years of experience in management development and communication skills. She was Head of Communication Skills at The Industrial Society for 20 years, Manager of the Communication Skills team at Capita and Training Manager at Directory of Social Change (DSC). She is now an independent training consultant.

Grainne is a business advisor and coach specialising in sales effectiveness and sales coaching. Since 2010 she has run Business Fit Club which offers high quality business training, practical tools and support to businesses. Prior to that she was, for nine years, a training consultant with All about Results and also Sales Training Manager with Mars for five years.

Grainne has written three titles in Directory of Social Change’s Speed Read Series: Time Management, Training Skills and Difficult Customers.

John Martin has been Publisher at the Directory of Social Change since 2005. He has been involved in the publishing industry since 1986 working for an arts magazine, a medical publisher and at BBC Books. In the voluntary sector, John has been a board member of national and local environmental charities and has done a stint as a school governor.

Heather was Senior Training Consultant and Performance Coach at Directory of Social Change between 2011 and 2017. Before that she was Business Change Analyst with Cancer Research UK among other roles. She was National Vic President of AIESEC, the world’s largest youth-led organisation.

George Knight is one of DSC’s established trainers who runs courses on a range of subjects from project management to leadership and well-being to productivity. George is often seen fronting DSC’s conferences and often runs sessions at them. He originated and is the host of our popular Charity Questions podcasts where he interviews a range of influential individuals from across the sector. George is a published author having written Managing Your Inbox for DSC and also a book on rewilding and wellbeing called Beyond Domestication for Hatherleigh Press in the US. Before moving into training, George ran busy sales and customer services teams.

Cathy Shimmin is the Senior Training Consultant at DSC where she designs and delivers training on management and leadership as well as personal development topics. She has worked in management for 30 years and has been managed for nearly 40.

Moi has worked as a communications consultant for over three decades and is a well-respected and widely-published author. She has written for a wide range of newspapers and magazines, from The Guardian to Nursing Times.

Moi’s publications for DSC include Speed Read: Media Relations and Speed Read: Writing for Work.

Helen is Chief Executive of Age UK West Sussex, Brighton & Hove. Previously, between 2008-2019 she was CEO of Advising London and before that was Director of Learning and Development at Directory of Social Change.

She has also been Director of Development with Community Matters, chair of the Women’s Resource Centre and also of Community Action Southwark.

Dean was a senior researcher at Directory of Social Change (DSC) and worked on commissioned research. He was the lead for DSC’s Staff Forum and took an interest in developing its role within the organisation.

Prior to joining DSC, Dean worked in fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG), where he specialised in using consumer data in order to find out what products consumers liked and how they could be improved. Dean has a BSc (Hons) in psychology from the University of Sheffield.

Sarah Myers is a copywriter, editorial consultant and creative manager, with more than 20 years’ experience in the not-for-profit sector. Her previous roles include Senior Writer and Creative Services Manager at Macmillan Cancer Support and Managing Editor at a charity communications agency. Now freelance, she works with an extensive range of charities, social enterprises, professional bodies and specialist agencies.

Alastair is an author and advisor on charity taxation and accounting. After many years at the coalface of the voluntary sector running an organisation in North London, Alastair trained and qualified as a chartered accountant with Sayer Vincent. He helps charities to structure their affairs effectively for tax so that they can maximise their impact but also pay the right amount of tax.

Jessica has a great deal of experience researching grant-making charities and has co-authored a number of DSC’s guides on the subject, including three editions of bestseller, The Guide to New Trusts. Jessica is also the author of The Guide to Individuals In Need, and she has contributed to several other leading publications, including DSC’s The Guide to Major Trusts.

Before joining DSC in 2019, Jessica graduated with a BSc (Hons) in Psychology from Lancaster University. She has also volunteered for a number of charities, including Southport and Formby Special Athletes, where she was responsible for running sports coaching sessions for adults with learning difficulties.

Donna Day Lafferty is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Chichester, UK. She has worked as a professional fundraiser and project manager since 1997. She is the founder of the first undergraduate degree dedicated to non-profit fundraising, Charity Development BA (Hons.), launched in 2014.

Pamala Wiepking is the inaugural Stead Family Chair in International Philanthropy at the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy, where she teaches Principles and Practices of Fundraising in the online Master program. She is also the inaugural Professor of Societal Significance of Charity Lotteries at the Center for Philanthropic Studies at VU Amsterdam.

Ross joined DSC in July 2022 as a member of the research team and contributed to our funding guides and funding website. He was co-author of The Guide to New Trusts 2023/24. Before joining DSC, Ross worked on various research projects while studying at the University of Nottingham and as an editor for international relations think tank RAIA.

Ian joined DSC as a volunteer in April 2014 before becoming a full-time member of the team later that year. He has authored numerous publications including The Guide to Major Trusts, The Guide to New Trusts and The Directory of Grant Making Trusts. He has also been involved in a variety of other research projects including Sector Insight: UK Grant-making Trusts and Foundations and reports on armed forces charities.

He has a BA (Hons) in Politics and International Business from the University of Liverpool and has over five years’ experience working in the financial services industry. His current areas of interest are social investment and corporate foundations.

Muna joined DSC in May 2021. She assisted on two publications, including The Guide to New Trusts and The Directory of Grant Making Trusts. She has an MSc in Health Psychology from Liverpool John Moores University and has over three years’ experience in mental health research. Her current area of interest is social investment.

Kalli joined DSC in 2023 and is part of the research team. She studied Languages and Politics at the University of Nottingham, before doing a Masters in Gender and International Development at the University of Warwick. Outside DSC, she gets involved with Women Beyond Walls, a platform that aims to influence policymaking and discourse surrounding the incarceration of women and girls.

Maria has spent most of her working life with charities, large and small.

She was Director of Operations at Directory of Social Change for over ten years until 2014. Before that she worked for the Industrial Society for many years. She has also worked for RNIB, and Youth at Risk. She has experience off many different roles including operations management, fundraising, project management, business development and training. She is currently Chair of Trustees for CleanUp and a member of the Steering Committee of the Richmond Bridge Fellowship Project.

Maria is author of Presentations and co-author of Meetings in Directory of Social Change’s Speed Read series.