About Me

Time for the first person singular, as I’m sure you knew it was me all along. 

For twelve years I worked for a range of organisations, on many different projects.  I raised lots of money and along the way I have written, organised and managed all aspects of making that happen.  I’m lucky that I enjoyed most of it.  I’m not embarrassed to say that I was, and continue to be, good at it. 

Charities are brilliant places, one minute you can be rattling a tin in a tube station, and the next at a fundraising dinner with royalty.  I’ve had a lot of fun.  I’ve worked on TV appeals, gala events, commercial events, sponsorship deals, clever corporate partnerships and everything in between.  For instance, I was the first fundraiser to work with a household FMCG brand, Fairy Non-Bio, on a truly integrated national brand alignment. 

I’ve earned my stripes in the over-worked and underpaid world of charities.  Years of creating documents, pitches, brochures, web content, adverts, project plans, strategies and the like means I can write pared-down, pithy copy too.  In both fundraising and copywriting the audience is king. 

So why did I give it all up to be a freelance fundraiser, project manager and copywriter?  After more than a decade of flat-out working I fancied a change and a rest from the nine to five.  I’d also been living in London since university and I was hankering for my Shropshire roots.

I was on the organising committee of a gala-dinner for a thousand city traders at Old Billingsgate Market – the SWAPS Ball – and I was in my element.  A year in the planning, the event raised £250,000 in one night.  I think winning the pitch for that event remains the highlight of my career to date.  I was also working hard fundraising with high level corporate contacts on behalf of BLISS – the premature baby charity, and whilst I loved every minute of it, I was starting to get burnt out.  By their very nature, charities attract people who care very much about what they do, who give everything 110%.  I needed to slow down.  I also learnt a very valuable lesson about being indispensible: I’m not.  Phew!  That’s a relief.

So here I am.  Becoming a freelancer is the best thing that ever happened to me.  I still do the same work but I choose my projects and I no longer run on adrenalin.  I file my big, daft dope of a dog under my desk and we break up the day with walks over the Shropshire fields.  I travel to London every week and, the best bit, I leave again.  

What I actually do for a living is tell stories.  Each piece of copy, each pitch, each application, each strategy is really just words - a story.  And for all of my life, I have been in love with words and stories.  I have always been able to write good stuff.  A ‘portfolio career’ I think they call it.  Cool job, huh?

So how did my Scribbler for Hire story start?  A post-graduation (University of London, Eng Lit) summer ended with me being packed off to Secretarial College by my parents.  The dreaded place had links with the International Management Group.  I was duly hired.  I worked as production secretary for the Hampton Court Palace Festival, and an open air Jose Carreras concert.  I moved around many different divisions as Exec PA - boot camp for the meticulous administration and planning skills needed for successful project management.

Over the next four years I made my first moves in charity fundraising, first with Enterprise Europe, bringing young East European entrepreneurs over to the UK on fully-funded business placements, and next as Corporate Fundraiser for the Muscular Dystrophy Campaign. 

From 2000 I spent six years with BLISS – the premature baby charity, initially as Corporate Fundraising Manager, then later developing special projects.  Starting from scratch I built up a corporate fundraising stream that went on to generate 33% of the charity’s income.  I raised over £1m cash, and £2m snazzy in-kind benefits.  I worked with great partners like GMTV, Fairy Non-Bio, Pampers, Thistle Hotels, Emap Magazines, and Tesco Baby Club on brand alignment, media appeals, staff fundraising and sponsorship.  The charity experienced 100% increase in its awareness ratings.  It was thrilling.

I started networking- once again proving the fundraising truism, ‘People give money because you ask them to’.  As a result, the Managing Director of a large City bank agreed to be our champion, later going on to host a gala dinner at the Emirates Stadium, raising over £200,000. 

Today, I speak to a lot of people who, faced with the task at hand, are adrift in a sea of confusion and lack of confidence.  The antidote, I’ve learnt, is ‘organised common sense’. 

My philosophy is if you feel yourself sinking beneath your workload, and you don’t know where to start – ask for help.  If you accept that something is beyond your expertise – find an expert and ask for help.  That’s where I come in.  I can help. 

Specialist skills aside, the bulk of my work is organisation and common sense.  For some clients I help with one-off special assignments – such as writing an Annual Report, or editing web-copy to optimise it for search engines.  I do the odd bit of over-flow fundraising, helping to ease deadline pressures.  For other clients, I work on open-ended contract – reviewing their current situation, and implementing the systems and approaches that will raise money now and smooth the way longer-term.  In a nutshell, I can plug a skills and resources gap, or I can help you to plan ways to plug it yourself.