Whilst working in Wakefield, I devised a diocesan legacy initiative featuring Alan Titchmarsh and trained 60+ parish legacy advisors to help promote the idea of leaving a gift in your Will to congregation members. This scheme was later taken up by the Church of England nationally. 

In 2001 I moved to work for St. Gemma’s Hospice in Leeds, as the Senior Fundraiser for Donor Development. In this role I raised £9.7m for the work of St. Gemma’s, as well as developing a number of specialist areas of experience within Donor Development, including committed giving, Trust applications and Gift Aid. I also devised the St. Gemma’s Hospice website ,which went on to win the Highly Commended runner up in the regional E-Commerce Awards. The website has continued to flourish and is now a significant source of income for the Hospice, as well as a rich source of information for patients, their families and palliative care staff. 

During this time, I became aware that many smaller, more local, charities were not receiving the income many of them deserved. So I decided to transfer my experience, knowledge and attention into this area. It is here that my freelance fundraiser business is developing.   

A few years back, I launched the Northern Legacy Marketing Group with Allison Turner of Methodist Homes for the Aged (MHA). This is now one of the Institute of Fundraising’s Special Interests Groups. It serves as a useful forum for regionally-based legacy fundraisers to get together and share ideas, thoughts and problems to do with their work. Click here if you’d like to join the group’s mailing list

I am currently the regional Chair for the Yorkshire Institute of Fundraising and a regular speaker at regional and national fundraising conferences on my specialist area of Legacy Marketing in smaller organisations.

I live in deepest North Yorkshire amongst sheep, cows and a herd of teenagers.