| Speakers |
| Amel Bendeddouche Principal Ask2 After spending many years in the music industry, Amel decided that fundraising was the new Rock’n Roll and never looked back. She worked in a variety of direct marketing roles for the British Red Cross, Save the Children UK, and Paul Newman’s Hole in the Wall Gang before moving to Australia to change the fortunes of Seeing Eye Dogs Australia through a mix of direct mail, telemarketing and face to face fundraising. In 2008, Amel founded cutting-edge direct marketing agency Ask² with fellow innovator Derek Glass. Today, Ask² continues to push the boundaries of direct mail for Australian charities. | |
| Ian Cox MFIA Chief Executive Officer Hutt St Centre Ian is Chief Executive Officer of Hutt St Centre, a frontline service for people experiencing homelessness and disadvantage in inner city Adelaide. Ian has been with Hutt St Centre for just over 24 years and took over the CEO’s role in 2003. Hutt St Centre is one of the leaders in the inner city welfare sector and the organisation has a strong and progressive vision to both continue offering quality services to its client group, whilst ending people’s homelessness. Hutt St Centre is now working on the first homelessness Social Impact Bond in Australia partnering with Social Ventures Australia, Unity Housing and Common Ground Adelaide. Ian has previously served as the Chair of Unity Housing Company, has served on numerous homelessness working parties and is currently a member of the SA FIA Committee. Ian has a Bachelor of Arts Degree, a Bachelor of Social Administration Degree and is a fellow of the Governors Leadership Program. | |
| Geoff Day OAM Director Day Family Foundation Geoff Day is Chair of the Day Family Foundation, Chair of Impact 100 SA, and has an extensive background in investment and securities markets. Geoff is passionate about promoting more and better philanthropy in South Australia. In 2016 Geoff received an OAM Medal for service to the community through a range of charitable organisations. The Day Family Foundation private ancillary fund (PAF) was established in 2011. The motivation for Geoff to establish a PAF was clear from the beginning: He wanted the capacity to continue to make donations in his retirement, and he also wanted to encourage his family to engage in philanthropy. The grants committee includes every member of the Day family. Our children our actively involved in fund raising for their preferred charities and have participated in the 10 by 10 collective giving circle. We are also engaged as members of Philanthropy Australia, which provides opportunities to network and seek co funding for selective programs. Promoting philanthropy is an important part of Geoff’s philosophy, but not something that he’s always comfortable with. “Going about our business quietly and privately sits much better with us, but if all donors did that, from where would we draw inspiration? If by telling our story I inspire at least one person to establish a family foundation or take a stronger leadership role in philanthropy – then it has been very worthwhile.” | |
| Ms Meredith Dwyer FFIA CFRE Director Homemade Australia Meredith has worked with leading non-profit organisations across Australia as a fundraiser, consultant and event producer for over 20 years. A leader in the development of cause related marketing in Australia, she established multi-million dollar, award winning partnerships for Kids Help Line that were showcased and published internationally as examples of best practice. Her internationally recognised, award winning peer to peer online fundraising campaigns for the Royal Children’s grew their digital revenue from $250,000 to $1 million in just 12 months. In 2011, Meredith joined CauseForce as Managing Director Australia/New Zealand, leading the growth of their blockbusting fundraising events in the region. In six years The Ride to Conquer Cancer, Weekend to End Women’s Cancers and OneDay to Conquer Cancer have raised over $111 million for cancer charities in Australia and New Zealand. She is now expanding her role in the sector with leading global digital agency, HomeMade, helping charities raise more money online. | |
| Tracey Finlay EMFIA CFRE Fundraising and Philanthropy Manager Lincoln College “I love being a professional fundraiser’, is a statement Tracey Finlay can often be heard saying. She is passionate about the industry she has been part of for 16 years. A member of the FIA since 2002, past Committee member, President of the South Australian Chapter and speaker for the Certificate she was proud to be made a Fellow of the FIA in 2013. She has worked with some amazing charities, to name a few, Flinders Medical Centre Foundation, The Queen Elizabeth Research Foundation, Time for Kids, RDNS, St Vincent de Paul and Lincoln College. “Fundraising for organisations that make a real difference has been my privilege and I really enjoy motivating others, sharing what I have learned from some of the best in the business and my own experiences’. | |
| Mr Craige Gravestein FFIA CFRE Chief Big Gifts Xponential Philanthropy For 26 years Craige has worked as a big gifts fundraiser. Co-founder of Xponential Philanthropy, his firm has run successful big gift campaigns raising more than $600m across New Zealand and Australia since 2002. He has acquired an extensive knowledge of Australia’s not-for-profit community, having been involved in campaigns with clients in most states and regions. This breadth of experience has helped make Craige a sought after presenter at professional conferences and seminars in Australia, New Zealand and Africa. He has been a Faculty member of Madison Down Under, which was Australia’s premier fundraising forum where he lectured in the five day intensive course on Major and Capital Gift Programs. Craige is co-author of the Wheel of Philanthropy, a unique tool for diagnosing major gift asking opportunities, as well as numerous published articles on big gifts fundraising. He regularly publishes articles for fundraising magazines. His clients have included NPO brands big and small across most sectors including social services, medical research, religious, health care, education and international aid. His sector expertise is obtaining big gifts for his client, including: • Identifying where an organisation’s big gift networks may lie; • Plotting the pathway from name on paper to big gift donor; • Crafting the NPO’s vision so it is compelling enough to command a big gift; • Planning and making the big gift ask; • Enlisting influential campaign advocates; • Training of campaign personnel in how to ask for a big gift, and • Profiling big gift prospects to understand their prospect pond and propensity for giving. Craige’s personal life practises what he preaches in various volunteer and philanthropic roles both at governance level and at the hands on community work level. His greatest thrill is in seeing the practice of personal philanthropy unlocked in someone’s own experience. He believes altruistic philanthropy is counter-cultural, yet so Australian. | |
| Samuel Johnson OAM Love Your Sister Samuel Johnson OAM has been working in the entertainment industry for over 20 years as an actor, radio presenter, voiceover artist and philanthropist. Until recently, he was best known for his role in cult hit The Secret Life of Us, for which he won the AFI Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role in a Television Drama Series. More recently he graced our screens as Ian ‘Molly’ Meldrum in Seven’s ratings smash Molly for which he won the 2017 Gold Logie for Most Popular Personality on Television, Silver Logie Award for Best Actor and the 2016 AACTA Award for Best Lead Actor. Other television credits include The Secret River, Paper Giants 2 Magazine Wars, Small Time Gangsters, Underbelly II, Rush, the HBO mini-series The Pacific, Wilfred and After the Deluge which earned him his second AFI nomination, this time for Best Actor in a Supporting Role. Samuel has also appeared in several popular Australian films, including the lead role of Dave in Crackerjack and as an accomplished voiceover artist, has narrated talking books, including Tim Winton's Scission, numerous television series and has voiced several commercial campaigns for various products, companies and organisations. In 2001 Samuel was awarded the Australian Centenary Medal, Queen's New Years Honours List, for his services to Australian society and Australian film production. He has held the title for GQ Magazine’s Social Force of the Year, received the 2015 Research Australia Advocacy Award which he shares with his sister Connie and in 2016 he was awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) for his services to cancer research. In addition to acting, 2003 saw Samuel ride his unicycle 1003.4 kilometres between Sydney and Melbourne to raise $500,000 for CanTeen and initiated a film making program for 'at risk' teens through Open Family, as featured in ABC's 'Australian Story'. In 2013, Sam decided to ride the unicycle again. This time he would ride around the whole of Australia, raising close to $2 million dollars for cancer research, setting a new Guinness World Record for most distance travelled on a unicycle and more importantly, keeping his promise to his sister Connie that he would complete the ride and spread her message of breast cancer awareness. In October 2014, Sam, along with his sister Connie, became a published author releasing their first book titled Love Your Sister with the book receiving a nomination for Best Biography at the ABIA Awards. Four years after hoping off the unicycle for the second time, the Love Your Sister organisation is going strong. Having achieved all the goals they set out to achieve and so many more, Samuel continues to raise the bar. The current challenge being to raise $10million for research. Well on his way having already raised over $4million dollars, Samuel won’t stop raising awareness until cancer is vanquished. www.loveyoursister.org | |
| Martin Paul FFIA Director More Strategic As a fundraiser with over 25 year experience across Australia and the UK Martin has, in the past 6 years helped many charities make the case for additional investment in fundraising. Martin loves a good spreadsheet but also knows the importance of engaging everyone in decision making. Martin has worked with more than 100 NFP’s to develop effective marketing and fundraising strategies with organisation wide buy in. | |
| Andrew Sabatino MFIA Co-founder & Director Donor Republic Andrew has over 13 years’ fundraising experience both in Australia and the UK, specialising in direct mail, tele-fundraising, digital, face2face and bequests. Before joining Guide Dogs SA.NT Andrew worked with charities such as The Cancer Council NSW, Multiple Sclerosis Society UK, RSPCA UK, Bernardo's UK and the NSPCC UK. | |
| Elyse Sainty Director Social Ventures Australia Elyse leads Social Venture Australia’s (SVA) Social Impact Bond (SIB) practice area. She has worked on the development of four of the five SIBs that have been launched in Australia, and has provided technical and advisory support to several Governments as they seek to pilot the SIB concept. Prior to joining SVA in 2011, Elyse had two decades of experience within the financial services industry, principally with MLC and National Australia Bank, where she held senior positions in strategy and distribution. Elyse qualified as a Fellow of the Institute of Actuaries of Australia, and holds a BEc from Macquarie University and Graduate Management Qualification from the Australian Graduate School of Management. | |
| Stacey Thomas Chief Executive Officer Fay Fuller Foundation | |
