The Institute of Fundraising has appointed a panel of experts to help improve diversity in the fundraising profession.
Fundraisers are overwhelmingly white and female, but with a disproportionate number of male leaders. The IoF says that little is known about disability, religion, sexual orientation or social class.
The IoF Expert Advisory Panel on Equality, Diversity and Inclusion will advise the IoF on how to improve its practices. It will look to act as an exemplar on diversity and inclusion, support the sector to recruit people from more diverse backgrounds, and support charities to fundraise from a wider range of potential supporters.
The panel, which met for the first time on Friday, is chaired by Sufina Ahmad, corporate strategy manager at the City of London Corporation. Its remit will run until the IoF Convention in July 2019.
Ahmad said: “There are so many challenges facing fundraisers and by acknowledging the importance of diversity as a tool to embrace them I hope the advisory panel and I can help the IoF shape the changes it wants to make as an institute to make the profession a more diverse one that truly reflects and understands the communities it serves.”
One of the panel’s members is Paul Amadi, executive director of fundraising at the MS Society, who recently wrote that the sector is failing on diversity because of “complacency and a lack of ambition”.
Another is Jaz Nannar, managing director of fundraising consultancy Burnett Works, who recently said that charities are “hiring clones of one another” and are not trying to raise funds from non-white people.
Panel members
- Sufina Ahmad, City of London Corporation (chair)
- Paul Amadi, MS Society
- Carol Akiwumi, Fundraising Training
- Lucy Caldicott, UpRising
- Emily Casson, Cats Protection
- Charlotte Fielder, Battersea Dogs and Cats
- Hayley Gullen, Tommy’s
- Alex Gwynne, Stonewall
- Tufail Hussain, Islamic Relief
- David Mbaziira, Home Fundraising
- Isobel Michael, Southside Family Project
- Jaz Nannar, Burnett Works
- Kunle Olulode, Voice4Change England
- Ruth Pitter, Voscur
- Stephen Rimmer, Barnardo’s
- Samir Savant, London Handel Festival
- James Taylor, Scope
- Anthony Earle Wilkes, Cancer Research UK
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