I joined the charity sector in 2017, after a career in events and project management. I started my fundraising career as an Events Fundraiser, before working my way up to Events Fundraising Manager in early 2020 – just in time for a global pandemic and a series of country-wide lockdowns. During my time leading fundraising events, I managed the charity’s annual in-memory mass participation walk, which is where my interest in in-memory fundraising began.

But it was in March 2020 when I attended a conference and saw Dr Claire Routley speak on legacies -that my career goals changed. Inspired by Claire’s talk, and with some in-memory experience under my belt, I decided to pursue a career in legacy and in-memory fundraising.

I quickly started working to realise my career goals and sought out as many opportunities as possible to gain experience in legacies by supporting and shadowing colleagues with related projects, attending webinars and online conferences, and reaching out to the wider fundraising community. In November 2020, I started my career in Individual Giving, firstly as a Senior Fundraiser and then in May 2022 as an Individual Giving Manager.

In May 2021 I was awarded the Future Legacy Leader Award for my work in growing in-memory income and developing in-memory stewardship, as part of that award, I was mentored by the Legacy Futures team helping to grow my knowledge and develop my skillset across in-memory and legacy fundraising.