Historic Environment Scotland protects and manages over 300 sites of national significance across Scotland as well as vital collections and archives telling the story of Scotland’s history. After a career in medical, social care, higher education and heritage organisations, Julie reflects on how she started out in fundraising.
As a graduate in Belfast in the 1990s options were often limited for work but throughout my university years I had worked. I was doing sales and merchandising work for Coca-Cola – one of the key employers in my area and a global brand that transcended the politics and religious disputes in the region. It was a time when community sponsorship and brand glamour was a useful combination. I was travelling to all communities throughout Northern Ireland and getting an understanding that poverty and social exclusion were the real issues.
A career in marketing was on the cards but there was something about counting people as profits and losses and leaving behind a human story that made me hesitant despite the necessity of such things. I got a job working for a small but significant charity called Action Cancer. The charity advocated for breast screening and had a mobile screening unit visiting all areas and tackling stigma and distrust as it went. Our small team delivered vibrant fundraising events and helped pioneer the pink ribbon campaigns to champion breast cancer awareness. I saw lives being saved. I saw a difference being made.
I found myself in Belgravia on a grey day. I was there on my own, off to see a well-known funder in their impressive offices to ask for £100,000 for a capital expansion to a breast screening clinic. I got grilled. As every fundraiser knows – you can’t be an expert in everything, and I felt I was wilting.
“Why doesn’t the NHS fund this?” was the key question. I positioned our request as an opportunity to prove the concept, to leverage future NHS investment. It worked and much to our celebration, a cheque arrived for the full amount (in those days cheques were king).
When I started working for Queen’s University Belfast, I was part of a super team during The Campaign for Queens. We were trying to attract millions of pounds of investment into education in Northern Ireland. One project was a new library. It is a beautiful building. It celebrates local heritage and is a visible (and practical) homage to the power of learning and the role of philanthropy.
Donations took this project from a functional thing to a beacon – an asset – a sign of hope and belief. That was the lesson: philanthropy takes things from ordinary to extraordinary.
The tackling of issues through education and community engagement became a theme in my career that extended to heritage. Our heritage (in all its forms) gives leverage to community development, learning, connections, aspirations, and understanding.
Fundraising is a change-making profession. Sometimes you don’t see the full change until decades later.
Fundraisers are often under-appreciated, and this may be because we are, by necessity, closely examining goals and causes in order to advocate for them. We champion new and often radical ideas, changing a workplace culture, changing public attitudes. Our work is never without risk. It is important for anyone getting into fundraising to ensure that the monetary goals are not the only measure of you, and your organisation’s fundraising success.