The story of an £18m gift – how Barnardos secured it’s largest donation ever

In this presentation, João Silva intends to tell the tale of how he helped to bring in the largest single grant in Barnardo’s 159-year history.

This session will highlight the key ingredients that came together at the right time to facilitate this transformational philanthropic gift, while making it clear that this was something João worked on for three years, on and off, before the gift landed.

In particular, the presentation will focus on the historical relationship between the donor, the Katherine Martin Charitable Trust, and Barnardo’s, as an important backdrop to the process. In addition, João intends to demonstrate how having a big and ambitious project in the pipeline, something commensurate with the donor’s own vision, was indispensable in helping Barnardo’s achieve the desired outcome.

Key learnings from the session:

The session emphasises that transformational opportunities like this one, which Joãoe was fortunate enough to identify, work on, and be closely associated with, are few and far between. In any case, as fundraisers and development/advancement professionals, they must be ready to seize those opportunities when they do come. João’s recent experience has taught him that the following things are required:

• A ‘big ticket’, ambitious transformational project in the back pocket (including being prepared to put personal investment into it).
• Having the inhouse expertise to deliver such an ambitious project.
• Involvement from senior corporate leadership, trustees, and all the different specialisms required (senior project planning, legal, media) so that everyone gives this the attention it needs and pulls together in the same direction.