The Community & Donor Relations team works to cultivate, manage and steward donors so that CLWR can expand its mission of challenging the causes and responding to the consequences of poverty and suffering. We maintain and enhance relationships with the organisation’s current donors, prospective donors and other key stakeholders to advance its fundraising goals. This is accomplished through a strategic approach to fundraising and donor relations that is aligned with communications and marketing, as well as with other aspects of CLWR’s work.

CLWR is a charitable not-for-profit organisation that challenges the causes and responds to the consequences of human suffering and poverty. Working closely with the Director and the Senior Manager of Communications & Marketing, my role was to develop and implement fundraising and stewardship strategies that grow total revenue and deepen relationships with current and prospective donors. I managed CLWR’s donor lifecycle and coordinate solicitation, gratitude and stewardship initiatives, along with developing CLWR’s major donor and legacy donor pipelines. • In the first year, we increased the number of donors by 32% and the number of individual gifts by 50%; multiple gift donors went up by 85%, retention rate by 74% and overall donation revenue by 63%. This was achieved, despite the difficult ‘COVID Year’, through assertive appeals and a comprehensive programme of regular impact reporting.• Formalised the Major and Mid Donor programmes, integrating them into the wider donor pipeline and managing volunteer Major Gift Officers.• Launched new monthly giving and legacy programmes.• Reviewed and refined the donation administration process; this has helped to free up administrative capacity for trialling and implementing new stewardship tactics.• Wrote the corporate partnership policy to prepare the organisation for new opportunities.• Through analysis of the past ten years of donation data, devised a four-point strategy for maintaining current donors and re-engaging lapsing and lapsed donors.

I returned to Cranfield to oversee the expansion of the regular giving programme across the wider university, devising and implementing strategies to increase regular giving through multiple channels that included direct mail, e-mail and social media. I worked with colleagues across the university to develop value propositions for key audience segments and to write the various cases for support. I also worked with my major gift fundraising colleagues to identify high net worth individuals among the regular donors, forming a pipeline for them to become major gift prospects.• Quicky got regular giving back on track following a period of decline, tripling the 2018/19 income in just one seasonal round of campaigns and appeals.• Led a team in rolling out the regular giving programme across Cranfield University by replicating my successful School of Management model. • Managed a successful campaign for the University’s ‘National Flying Laboratory Centre’ – the first campaign for Aerospace alumni – which included embedding the case for support in new literature and online content (and designing/writing the campaign’s webpages). I also led on devising the fundraising strategy for the different streams and laid the foundations for a corporate matched giving programme.• Developed value propositions and conducted data/statistical analysis to help write new strategies for fundraising and development.

Fixed Term Contract. My role was to create compelling value propositions for CMI membership. I began by exploring the key stages of the member journey and identified both current and new products and services that fulfilled the needs of existing and prospective members. I project-managed initiatives from inception through to launch, working closely with the marketing, product, data and partnership teams to ensure that the value propositions aligned with the organisation’s strategy and could be used effectively moving forward.• Developed value propositions for key audiences segments and managed their implementation which quickly led to: - a redesign of the education provider/partner inductions, enabling them to demonstrate the benefits of CMI membership to learners more effectively. - a fresh marketing campaign aimed at converting graduates into paying members. - a corporate membership package that appealed to both employers and employees. - a plan for the CMI’s ‘Companion’ membership scheme (aimed at CxOs and other industry leaders) to increase their engagement and to create reciprocal value.• Presented my work on value propositions to the CMI’s Board of Trustees, which gained strong endorsement and excellent feedback.• Created a comprehensive plan for the mentoring service to improve the platform, increase participation and position it as a key component of the membership offer.• Carried out an effective evaluation of all member services covering scope, quality, usage and integration, and then performed a thorough competitor analysis to measure aspects of our own membership offer and gather new ideas for products and services.• Worked with the Insights team to analyse the state of membership data and make recommendations for how to improve and use it going forward.• Collaborated on the development of a diagnostic tool to assess individuals against the Professional Standard and to support Continued Professional Development.

My job was to manage and develop sustainable corporate relationships in order to secure funding. I raised income through a programme of activities and communications to engage corporate supporters and their employees, and I also wrote funding applications to trusts and foundations. I managed and developed relationships with new and existing supporters to achieve optimum income generation, and I worked with colleagues to write and create promotional and educational literature and content, as well as writing articles for internal and external publications. I was also involved in engagement activities and gave talks to a range of groups and societies.• Developed the Trust’s corporate membership scheme by researching, identifying and approaching prospects whilst maintaining and developing relationships with existing supporters. I also helped to forge the Trusts’ relationships with the Chambers of Commerce.• Grew the Trust’s affinity schemes year-on-year to increase revenue and profile.• Worked with the communications team to produce relevant and creative communications; after writing content and successful articles I was given my own blog, and I contributed to a number of external publications. I also helped to manage the webpages and social media accounts.• Wrote funding applications and bids to a variety of corporate trusts and foundations (ranging from £1-10K grants), with a success rate of approximately 70%.• Represented the Trust through public engagement activities, such manning stalls at business fairs and giving talks and presentations, and at wider conservation and third sector forums and networks.• Performed risk-based analysis to focus effort upon the most appropriate fundraising activities with the highest chance of success and the optimum ROI.• Coordinated volunteers on a variety of projects.

My role was to manage regular giving, identifying the University’s fundraising priorities, forming strategies, managing budgets and communicating with alumni and prospective donors. I coordinated fundraising campaigns, managed diverse teams and oversaw the processing and auditing of donations. I also met alumni to discuss development opportunities.• Began role by reconceptualising how we delivered campaigns to our alumni, leading a new strategic design that incorporated bi-annual direct mail and e-mail campaigns, and developing online content.• Utilised student ambassadors in accordance with their nationality and/or language skills, to maximise the effectiveness and impact of our fundraising and communications campaigns.• In managing fundraising campaigns, I set targets and carried out performance reviews of employees and volunteers. I established the procedures for the recruitment and management of the fundraisers, and was able to delegate further responsibilities as they developed in their roles.• Conducted data and statistical analysis, which I used to develop strategies.• Formalised the university’s fundraising policies and procedures, which included codifying gift management (receiving, recording and reporting), auditing and donor stewardship processes.I came into this role to increase Annual Fund participation and met with different stakeholders to work out how best to achieve this. I proposed new ideas to the Director of Alumni Relations & Development and the Director of Finance for reducing vendors and increasing revenue, and formalised a new communications plan for our diverse alumni; with their backing I was able to quadruple the number alumni donating each year, and increased income five-fold.

My role covered the full range of alumni relations and development activities, including annual fundraising, face-to-face asks with high-net-worth alumni (including CxOs) and events. • Developed our brand and promoted our fundraising activities through various communications.• Coordinated and promoted numerous events, such as Cranfield’s annual ‘Female FTSE report’ launch events, and professional interest networks.• Brought our fundraising telephone campaigns fully in-house, building a project template for replication and implementation in future campaigns, as well as designing telephone campaign software that was integrated into our internal CRM system. These changes reduced the cost of our campaigns by 75%.