About Us

Meet the team

John Grain has worked in fundraising for more than 16 years, and has held senior fundraising roles within a number of major charities including Oxfam, Practical Action and Habitat for Humanity International.

An expert direct marketeer, John is widely recognised as a leading authority on donor retention strategy, stewardship and In-Memoriam giving. He is also less usefully an authority on horror films - the gorier the better. John now has a blog on the UK Fundraising website. To read his latest thoughts on relationship fundraising, donor charters and more, please visit www.fundraising.co.uk

Claire Newton has been an independent copywriter since 1999. Previously she worked for Oxfam and the YWCA, successfully writing and producing direct marketing and legacy materials, and trust proposals. Many years' experience as a fundraiser and a copywriter means she is able to contribute a wealth of additional expertise and knowledge into her relationships with clients, rather than just produce copy to a brief. Many more years as a died-in-the-wool Sunderland fan means she is adept at treating Kipling's imposters of triumph and especially disaster the same!

Senior Consultant Barry Floyd is a supporter care and individual fundraising expert, with more than 15 years experience of hands-on fundraising. He has regularly achieved direct mail response rates of in excess of 20% through exceptional donor understanding and brilliant segmentation as well as some outstanding big gift results. He is a lovely bloke too - not always the case of course - we've known him since that long, hot summer of 1976, when he spent most of the school holidays with a magnifying glass burning stuff. It was a good job there were no ASBOs then. He has since got better.

Polly Symondson joins us as a Senior Consultant. She has worked as a fundraiser for both Macmillan Cancer Support and FARM-Africa where she has specialised in community and event fundraising, and also spent time with marketing agency Cascaid working with a variety of international and UK charities. She will be leading our new recruitment service as well as working on some of our existing projects with current clients. Encouragingly, she lowers the average age of the office by at least a decade, but best of all, she genuinely has a cousin called Suki.

Letty Woodd is our Office Manager. Letty manages the day-to-day work of our clients ensuring briefs are met, timetables adhered to, and that our suppliers deliver on time and to budget. A long career in customer services means an instinctive empathy for what clients want and need. Any spare weekends will usually find her by the sea in Lyme Regis expanding her world class fossil collection.

Sarah de Buriatte is a talented project manager who also brings to the table considerable previous experience in market research, personnel and training. She also has a wealth of ideas just waiting to be aired on the Dragon's Den and a secret desire to run an alpaca farm!

John

Barry

Polly