fundraising, evaluation and strategic change

I help charities, arts organisations, CICs and other social-purpose projects secure funding, demonstrate their impact and make better strategic decisions.

I bring 20 years’ experience across fundraising, grant-making, organisational development and the cultural and charitable sectors - my services range from a quick second opinion on a live funding application to longer-term strategy, evaluation and organisational change.

Talk to me about your project

Evaluation & impact

Evaluation should help you to understand and improve your work rather than simply satisfying reporting requirements.

I help organisations to clarify what they’re trying to change, develop proportionate ways of measuring it and communicate their impact convincingly.

This can include support with:

  • Theory of Change

  • logic models

  • evaluation frameworks

  • outcomes development

  • impact reporting

  • qualitative research

  • learning and reflection

  • communicating impact to funders and stakeholders

Using AI for fundraising?

AI can make it substantially quicker to produce a first draft.

But, crucially, where AI falls short, is reliably assessing whether you’re applying to the right funder, whether the project itself is convincing, whether your evidence stands up, and most importantly, whether the person assessing your application will be convinced enough by your case to say ‘yes’.

The work of putting a coherent case together and conveying the human story, creativity and impact behind it, requires experienced human input.

My approach is to support people to effectively utilise AI for more of the labour and less of the creativity and judgement that often disadvantages those forced to lean on it.

I can review AI-assisted applications, help organisations develop better, safer AI-supported fundraising workflows, and identify the language, unsupported claims and strategic weaknesses that fluent AI-generated copy can convincingly disguise.


Fundraising

Good fundraising is about much more than writing a persuasive application.

I help organisations work out where their current fundraising strengths and opportunities lie, where to focus limited time and capacity, and how to make a clear, evidence-based case for support.

Services can include:

  • fundraising strategy and planning

  • trusts and foundations

  • funder research and prospect development

  • funding applications and bid development

  • application review and troubleshooting

  • cases for support

  • Arts Council and other institutional funding

  • project development

  • Theory of Change, outcomes and evidence

  • guidance and support in using AI effectively and responsibly in fundraising

Strategy & organisational development

I work with organisations at moments of growth, uncertainty and change.

That might mean developing a new strategy, reviewing a programme or business model, facilitating difficult conversations or helping a team get clear about where existing resources will have the greatest effect.

Support can include:

  • organisational and business strategy

  • programme development

  • organisational reviews

  • facilitation and away days

  • business models

  • change and transition projects

  • interim strategic capacity

  • support around organisational pivots and new directions

I favour useful thinking over consultancy layer cakes, providing just enough structure to get beneath the problem, without making the process more complicated than it needs to be.