Fundraising

I’m Director of Development and Communications at the Education Endowment Foundation, a major grant-making charity where I’ve worked since 2012. Its mission is to break the link between family income and children’s attainment. I lead on the development of partnerships with like-minded organisations, ensuring the EEF achieves its fundraising goals, and manage its communications and media output.

Before joining the EEF, I worked on major campaigns for the University of Oxford for a dozen or more years. During that time, as associate and then acting director of development, I helped lead an 85-strong development office as the University passed the £1bn milestone in its ‘Oxford Thinking’ Campaign.

Here’s my fundraising career to date:

  • 2012 – present: Director of Development and Communications, Education Endowment Foundation;
  • 2010-12: Associate Director of Development, University of Oxford;
  • (Jun-Sept 2011 – Acting Director of Development, University of Oxford);
  • 2008-10: Director of Development, Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford;
  • 2002-08: Director of Strategy & Development, St Anne’s College, University of Oxford;
  • 1999-2001: Development Officer, Mansfield College, University of Oxford.

For full career details see my public profile at LinkedIn, and here’s some highlights…

  • Starting from scratch the EEF’s fundraising, helping raise over £35m within its first nine years of activity, including six £1m+ gifts and a £5m donation;
  • Implementing a digital-first communications strategy which has helped treble online reach, grown its email newsletter to 40,000 subscribers, and established the EEF as a major social media brand in five years;
  • Helping launch the largest educational fundraising campaign outside of North America – Oxford Thinking: The Campaign for the University of Oxford – and overseeing it surpass the £1bn milestone as Associate Director and then Acting Director of Development;
  • The largest ever gift to a British university library – £25 million from the Garfield Weston Foundation towards the renovation of the New Bodleian Library in Oxford;
  • Raising £1m in gifts and pledges through St Anne’s College annual giving programme, with over 2,000 alumni and friends – 25% of the College’s worldwide constituency – making a gift;
  • Overhauling the St Anne’s College website, introducing the first email newsletter and launching the first YouTube channel in Oxford;
  • Becoming the first Director of Development to be appointed Head of Strategy for an Oxford college.