Fundraising Consultants

Graham Parker
Director & Senior Consultant

Graham is the Director of Charity Fundraising Ltd, a business with a social purpose which he founded in 2000. Graham has been involved in voluntary sector work and fundraising for over 40 years, achieving specialist expertise and a track record of success in achieving grant and contract funding for a wide range of revenue and capital projects.

Following employment with a Charity in his early twenties, Graham went on to serve 25 years in the Governor Grade of the Prison Service. In this role Graham engaged serving inmates in activities supporting disabled people including chartering sailing ships and riding for the disabled. Inmates routinely worked with Graham to achieve funding for these activities from grant funding sources and fundraising events such as running the London Marathon.

On early retirement from the prison service, Graham founded and built a Charity and young people’s project working proactively with offenders, ex-offenders and those at risk of offending; engaging them in new and positive lifestyles. Through Graham’s leadership and skills as a professional fundraiser, the Charity grew substantially over five years.

From small beginnings, Graham has built Charity Fundraising Ltd into a major UK Fundraising Consultancy. He has worked directly with a huge range of voluntary sector organisations across the UK developing fundraising strategies, providing advice, guidance, planning, training, mentoring, research and bid writing; achieving £ Millions in grant funding for client organisations. Graham is a Director of the Association of Fundraising Consultants, an associate member of the Institute of Fundraising and has achieved NCVO approved consultant status for Charity Fundraising Ltd. Graham is supported by a team of experienced fundraising consultants and officers.

Paul Parker
Assistant Director

Paul has been involved in the voluntary sector since he was a teenager, first supporting fundraising efforts for his father’s charity. Paul started working with Charity Fundraising Ltd in 2001 and continued part-time while undertaking his Degree at the University of Derby. Following his Graduation Paul travelled around the world and then re-joined the Charity Fundraising Ltd team full-time in 2005.

Paul has undertaken work for a huge range of registered charities covering: research, strategic advice, mentoring, bid and tender writing, fundraising strategies and more. He has delivered training at Charity Fundraising Ltd events and also provides Fundraising and IT skills development in-house. Paul’s bid writing has achieved well in excess of £4 Million for Charity Fundraising Ltd clients.

Peter See
Senior Fundraising Consultant

Peter has a wide-ranging knowledge and experience of organisations across the Third Sector: from grant-funded charities to co-operatives and social firms with substantial trading income and from local enterprises to county, regional and national networks. A qualified Business Advisor, he specialises in business and financial planning, legal structures for enterprises and income generation.

Peter has worked in the voluntary sector since 2000, having previously been a Business Manager in the corporate sector. He was Project Manager for the creation and operation of Suffolk Community Enterprise, an advice and support service to the Third Sector in Suffolk, and Development Manager for Social Enterprise East of England, a regional promotional, support and brokerage network. He has spoken at a number of national and regional conferences, contributed feature articles to Charity Funding Report and now delivers our ‘Finding Funding’ training days as well as in-house sessions on business planning, risk management and many other topics.

Graham Sheath
Senior Fundraising Consultant

Graham has worked as a senior fundraising consultant for Charity Fundraising Ltd since 2004. As lead consultant for several of our major clients he has helped to guide strategic planning of major capital developments. His work producing major bids and tenders for clients both for capital and revenue projects has resulted in significant funding successes.

Graham came to Charity Fundraising Ltd after a long career in the NHS, his most recent role being Capital Development Manager for a large Hospital Trust. In this post he was responsible for preparing business cases, project managing capital building schemes, and managing the Trust's overall capital programme. He therefore brings a wealth of practical experience in relation to large public sector organisations, capital development projects, business planning and to his work with clients and our team.

Steph Prentis
Senior Fundraising Consultant

Steph has worked in community regeneration since 2006, with experience in tendering, fundraising as well as design and delivery, monitoring and evaluation for a range of projects. Steph knows what needs to happen to make projects work and has a proven track record of securing funds to get them started. Her experience is broad; drawing on work for the social housing sector, skills and employment, children and youth services, health and social care for older people, community cohesion and faith based regeneration. 

Committed to working with community organisations in order to help them make a difference to the lives of some of the most vulnerable in our society, Steph has secured over £1.5 million for the voluntary sector in the last 2 years alone from funders such as BLF, Henry Smith, Lloyds TSB Foundation, DCSF and the EHRC. In addition, she has direct experience of planning, developing, writing and submitting large and small tenders to local authorities, DWP and the Skills Funding Agency.

Rose Longhurst
Associate Fundraising Consultant

Rose first joined Charity Fundraising Ltd in 2005 after completing a Masters degree in International Communication Studies at the University of Leeds. Rose spent two years undertaking funder research and bid writing for Charity Fundraising Ltd’s clients before taking a role at an international development charity. She recently re-joined Charity Fundraising Ltd, and is currently working with clients on fundraising strategy, donor research and bid writing.

In the intervening years Rose worked in two international development charities, providing fundraising expertise and grant-management. In these roles she sourced funding from all the major international donors, as well as undertaking corporate and major donor support. Her most recent role was as a grant-maker at an international grant-making body, where she designed and managed application processes as well as assessing proposals and allocating funds. This combination of NGO and donor experience has provided Rose with a comprehensive perspective of the field of fundraising.

Kathryn McDonald
Fundraising Officer

Kathryn joined Charity Fundraising Ltd in November 2009 and has recently completed the Open University Course – Winning Resources and Support MInstF(Dip)which is run in conjunction with the Institute of Fundraising. Kathryn’s role has included funder research, bid writing and bid reviews, as well as providing mentoring support to organisations.

Kathryn has a BA (Hons) degree in Geography and Education and since graduation has worked in the public sector and for a social welfare charity. Her primary role at the charity was supporting children and young people with behavioural and emotional difficulties. Kathryn also undertook the fundraising for the charity which included assisting with events and bid writing.

Oscar Bingham
Fundraising Officer

Having graduated in Psychology, Oscar joined the team in 2010. His studies have equipped him with a well-rounded knowledge of research methods and data analysis and this is highly applicable to monitoring and evaluation in the voluntary sector. The behavioural sciences offer a unique perspective on the broad remit of health and social welfare and Oscar applies an evidence-based approach to fundraising.

Oscar’s interest in the charity sector was established when he volunteered in Nepalese orphanages in 2007. Since joining Charity Fundraising Ltd, his role has incorporated funder research, bid writing, bid review and the development of internal tracking, logging and evaluative systems.