LONDON FUNDERS - Key Persons
Andrew is a Senior Commissioning Officer at Southwark Council.
Andrew has worked in local government and the voluntary sector for many years. After starting work in market research, he has worked in homelessness assessment and estate management for Southwark Council. This was followed by advice work for Lambeth Council and delivering specialist welfare rights training and consultancy for Citizens Advice in their London Regional Office. Andrew returned to Southwark as a Community Legal Services Partnership Manager and now manages a team of commissioners in Community Engagement with responsibility for a range of funding programmes - Community Capacity grants, Tenant Fund, Advice Service contracts, CVS, Healthwatch, Black History Month, Joint Security Initiative and NHS Complaints Advocacy.
Andrew is a mentor and life coach. He was Chair of Brixton Housing Coop from 2007-2012 and was a longstanding volunteer on London Lesbian and Gay Switchboard.
Job Titles:
- Trustee
- London Funders' Associate Director for Research
Chris is London Funders' Associate Director for Research, supporting us with research and evidence gathering into issues affecting our members.
Chris is a social entrepreneur, having founded an LGBTQIA+ charity and leaving a role with a large consultancy to set up his own social enterprise consultancy.
A project manager by background, he has worked mainly in the health sector, in regulatory affairs and national strategy.
David is the Director and Chief Grants Officer at the City Bridge Trust
Prior to joining the City Bridge Trust, David trained as a lawyer, and practised as a solicitor. He then spent 12 years leading teams in the voluntary sector, including heading up the central London office of the Immigration Advisory Service and being CEO of Welsh Refugee Council. David spent five years directing the Refugee Programme at the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fund and also ran a consultancy working with leading charitable trusts and foundations committed to social justice.
Job Titles:
- Leader
- Trustee
- Head of Funding and Research at Metropolitan Thames Valley Housing
Dominic is Head of Funding and Research at Metropolitan Thames Valley Housing (MTVH) and is the accountable lead for the MTVH Migration Foundation.
Dominic is an experienced leader in the non-profit sector. He is a specialist in grant-making and impact management. His experience includes ten years with the British Red Cross where he held a series of management and leadership posts in the UK and overseas.
In MTVH Dominic leads all funding and research programmes for social housing residents and communities including the MTVH Migration Foundation. He is accountable for impact management and advises other grant-making trusts on strategy and grant management including the Chalkhill Community and West Hendon Community Trust Funds.
Outside of his professional roles, Dominic was a founding Trustee of ‘Reset' leading the refugee community sponsorship movement in the UK and he has completed graduate studies in Global Issues.
Dominic is on the ethical advisory committee of CCLA Investment Management and is a research advisor to Hilbert Investment Solutions.
Edith is Head of Change - People Programme at the London Borough of Waltham Forest.
Having begun her career in Local Government 15 years ago Edith has held roles working in community development and neighbourhood management, working with local communities to co design solutions to their priorities and provide a voice for the seldom heard, working in both Northamptonshire and LB Barking and Dagenham. Edith uses this as an essential foundation within her current role where she is the lead officer responsible for providing the Council with policy advice across a range of areas; driving innovation, improvement and a can do culture; overseeing the corporate community sector grants programme, building relationships to enhance and empower the local community and voluntary sector; ensuring that the Council meets all of its equality duties and has a positive and responsive relationship with its residents, voluntary groups and communities; delivers significant corporate programmes including, UNICEF Child Friendly Borough, Census, Climate Crisis and acting as the Council's statutory scrutiny officer to ensure an effective scrutiny service is run.
Emma is England Director (Programmes, Operations & Regions) at The National Lottery Community Fund and oversees programmes, operations and regions.
With over 20 years' experience in grant making, Emma was most recently the Head of Design and Delivery at BBC Children in Need, ensuring the successful delivery of the fund across the UK and leading multiple major change programmes for the charity. Prior to that she worked for a diverse range of funders, including Community Foundations and Housing Associations, gaining significant experience in charity governance and compliance.
Job Titles:
- Consultant
- Director of Collaboration and Development
Geraldine is the Director of Collaboration and Development at London Funders
Geraldine joined the team in 2016 as a consultant, securing a permanent role in 2018. In previous roles in frontline community work, Geraldine was Chief Executive of Community Links, a social action charity working alongside local people to tackle inequality in east London and Founder/Director of a social enterprise, GAP Research, which supported residents in diverse communities to undertake their own research and to work with public agencies to design effective solutions to long-standing problems. Bringing that experience into the funding sector, alongside her role at London Funders, Geraldine is the lead Trustee for Social Action at the John Ellerman Foundation and the Co-ordinator of the Trust for London's Citizenship and Integration Initiative.
Grace is the Head of Programme Delivery at London Funders.
Grace joined the team in April 2019 as Executive Assistant and Office Manager having previously spent the time teaching English to elementary students in South Korea. Prior to this, Grace worked at several charities including the Royal Institution of Great Britain and Cardboard Citizens in roles varying from administration and marketing to facilities and operations.
Helen is the Director of Partnerships and Place at London Funders
Helen joined the team in November 2020. She started out her career in local community development, supporting collaborations with local partners to deliver adult learning programmes. She since spent over fifteen years in the homelessness sector, including at Homeless Link, the membership charity for the homelessness sector, where she led their policy, research and communications teams. Helen has continued her passion for local place based community action, most recently as Chair of the New Cross Gate Trust.
James is London Funders' Chief Executive
As our Chief Executive, James leads our work to bring funders together to build a better London by taking action on what matters to our city and our communities. Since joining the team in 2017 he has grown the reach and impact of the charity, enabling members from across the public, private and philanthropic sectors to work collaboratively to achieve positive change. Through covid-19 he led our work to bring over 400 funders together to sign the "We Stand With The Sector" pledges to support community action, and enabled the London Community Response collaboration (which saw 67 funders working together to give out £57.7m in grants to support London's diverse civil society responding to the pandemic). He was recognised by Charity Times for his leadership through covid-19 as one of the sector's 20 "Pandemic Pioneers", and was made an MBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours List 2022 for his services to charitable funding in London.
Immediately prior to joining the London Funders team, James was Chief Executive at Greater London Volunteering, the regional membership body for social action charities in the capital, where he worked alongside the Mayor's office to win the bid for London to be the European Capital of Volunteering in 2016. Previous roles have included Trustee and/or leadership roles in civil society support organisations in nine London boroughs, as well as being Chief Executive at the Royal Courts of Justice Advice Bureau in central London. James was the co-founder and Chair of the Volunteer Centre for Tower Hamlets, Chair of South West London Law Centres for ten years, and on the Trustee Board of his local Citizens Advice service for eight years, and continues to volunteer in his local community outside of work.
Jess is Team Coordinator at London Funders
Jess joined the team in January 2022 previously worked in the heritage sector as a front of house deputy manager at Imperial War Museums. After graduating in History, she interned at the National Trust and then worked in visitor services as a tour guide at Buckingham Palace.
Kamari is London Funders' Events and Administration Coordinator.
Kamari joined the team in 2023, supporting and evolving The Festival of Learning. He has since been supporting London Funders with a combination of online, in-person and hybrid events. In previous experience, Kamari graduated with distinction in MA Creative Producing at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, facilitating creative interventions for, with, and by communities facing structural disadvantage across the UK. Alongside producing, his creative background includes theatre, television, journalism, dance and consultancy.
Louise is London Funders' Programme Development Manager
Louise joined the team in February 2023 having worked as a Senior Grants Officer at Youth Music, managing over 150 grants, training young assessors and overseeing The Incubator Fund, responsible for creating over 800 entry-level music industry jobs. Prior to this, Louise led a number of community music programmes for young people across the country and assessed applications for funders such as PRSF, Help Musicians and The BFI. She's also worked as a bid writer, supporting artists and community music projects and organisations to raise vital funds.
Lynne is Chief Executive Officer at John Lyon's Charity.
Job Titles:
- Head of Communities at Clarion Futures
Matt is Head of Communities at Clarion Futures (the Charitable Foundation of Clarion Housing Group, the UK's largest Housing Association)/
Matt has been Head of Communities at Clarion Futures (the Charitable Foundation of Clarion Housing Group, the UK's largest Housing Association) for over a decade and is still busy trying to understand how best to engage effectively with diverse communities across the country. Overseeing a wide-reaching programme of community interventions and support, Matt is committed to bringing innovation, creativity and energy to the Housing Sector for the benefit of residents living in social housing. He is currently overseeing (amongst many things!) the ongoing roll-out of Clarion Future's Recovery & Resilience programme for the benefit of much-valued small and medium-sized community-based partners that made it through the pandemic.
Job Titles:
- Trustee
- London Funders' Associate Director
Pennylope is London Funders' Associate Director for Equity and Justice, supporting the work we do with our members to understand and embed approaches to grantmaking that centre equity and tackle injustice for London's communities.
Sally is Head of the Berkeley Foundation
The Berkeley Foundation works in partnership with frontline charities across London, Birmingham and the South of England to help young people and their communities to thrive, and distributes c.£3m in funding each year. Sally joined the Foundation as its first full-time employee in 2013, and became Head of Foundation in 2017, with a focus on creating change through long-term, collaborative partnerships with expert organisations.
Before joining the Berkeley Foundation, Sally worked at Oxfam and Volunteer Centre Southwark. She has a Masters in Grantmaking, Philanthropy and Social Investment from Bayes Business School.
Job Titles:
- Trustee
- Regional Manager With the Lloyds Bank Foundation for England
Sara Cooney is a Regional Manager with the Lloyds Bank Foundation for England and Wales
Sara Cooney is a regional manager with the Lloyds Bank Foundation for England and Wales, whose area of responsibility includes parts of London and Surrey. Before joining the Foundation in 2008, Sara held a number of local and regional roles in grant making and community development organisations including five years working at the Heritage Lottery Fund where she progressed to manage the East of England casework team as well as roles with Leaside Regeneration, a social and economic regeneration company working in Tower Hamlets and Amnesty International.
Her work at the Lloyds Bank Foundation enables her to support charities which are working locally in our communities who help and empower vulnerable and marginalised people experiencing complex social issues to move forward positively and to build stronger, healthier and cohesive communities.
Shabana is Grants Director at the Access to Justice Foundation
She manages the grant giving operations of the Foundation which provides funding to organisations offering legal advice to those most in need across the UK. She works with other funders and partners in the sector to support collaboration, development and innovation ensuring that the case is made for Advice across the UK, most recently through work on the Community Justice Fund recognising the importance of access to justice to address some of the key challenges being faced by society.
Prior to working at the Foundation, Shabana was the Community Partnerships Investment Lead at Islington Council managing grant programmes to the voluntary and community sector and working with civil society to review, design and deliver services across the borough. She has worked with communities across London to amplify voices, challenge inequality and co-design services and gained valuable experience while at Hackney Council as the Co-production lead in Adult Social Care, and as a Community Development officer working on the ground in areas of London most affected by inequality and poverty. She recognises the value of true partnership and collaboration to affect meaningful change.
Job Titles:
- Trustee
- Susan Is Director for Charities at the Haberdashers' Company
With over 20 years' experience in the charity sector, Susan has a wide range of experience, from all areas of fundraising to communications and regional charity work. Susan has recently joined the grant-making sector and places great emphasis on the role of collaboration and partnership in creating social impact and transformation.
Having spent eight years in various fundraising posts, Susan understands the issues facing charities as they seek to access funds. She is passionate about making the process and charity/donor relationships as accessible and transparent as possible.
Job Titles:
- Executive Director
- Trustee
Tunde is Executive Director, Communities and Skills at the GLA and has corporate responsibility for overseeing the Mayor's policies for strengthening communities; improving access to health and sporting activities; enhancing adult education and skills; strengthening civil life; supporting young people and tackling inequalities.
Tunde joined the GLA having previously worked in a variety of roles spanning local authorities, the third sector and the civil service. His last role, before joining the GLA, was as Kensington and Chelsea's Director for Communities. Here his brief included the Grenfell community recovery programme; establishing strategic relationships with the local voluntary sector and faith communities; community safety; and strengthening both civic and civil life.
Ugo is a Grants Manager at Trust for London
The lead for the Trust in certain identified London boroughs. Previously, he was Programme Director at The Fore Trust, which enables UK-based small charities and social enterprises to unlock sustainability, efficiency, scale, and impact by providing unrestricted funds. He managed the large volume of grants activity and helped to design The Fore's participatory place-based grants programme for the borough og Havering.
Before this, he spent six years working at The Social Investment Business (SIB) where he worked across several teams - Investment, Grants and Business Development. Ugo is currently Chair of the Alpha Grove Centre in Tower Hamlets London and a non-executive director of Do IT NOW NOW (DINN). He was previously Co-Chair for London+Acumen a volunteer-led chapter of Acumen, a non-profit global venture fund.
Job Titles:
- Strategy Director for London 's Communities at London Councils
Yolande is a Strategy Director (London's Communities) at London Councils.
Yolande is the Strategy Director for London's Communities at London Councils and is responsible for policy development and service delivery that impacts London and its residents.
Yolande's areas of responsibility affect Londoners of all ages, from early years to adulthood, and include children, education, and young people; health, care & wellbeing; community empowerment, resilience & safety; and innovation & improvement.
Yolande also oversees the delivery of projects supporting marginalised residents to reengage with learning and employment and the Pan-London Grants Programme that addresses homelessness and domestic & sexual abuse.
With 30 years of experience in public service, Yolande has developed expertise in strategic leadership, policy development, statistical analysis, and interpretation, commissioning, and programme leadership.