Ralph Bates is an accomplished executive and consultant with 20 years’ experience in driving financial and customer growth in large B2C enterprises. In recent year his focus has been on organisational transformation, innovation and growth.

Ralph has led several enterprise level transformation programmes at a number of iconic brands, including British Gas, Barclaycard, Alinta and most recently leading RAC’s brand and customer transformation program in WA.

Ralph has recently founded his own consultancy to focus on his passion of helping organisations design, develop and implement enterprise strategies that deliver growth.

Bianca Crocker, aka The Fish Chick, is the woman behind Fish Community Solutions; a business that works with small or emerging non-profit organisations to build sustainable funding models so they can create positive change in our world. 

In 2012 she was awarded FIA’s Young Fundraiser of the Year and was a finalist in the Global Fundraiser of the Year.

With over ten years’ experience in the charity sector, Bianca is a passionate and enthusiastic fundraiser who holds the Certified Fund Raising Executive (CFRE) accreditation. She loves sharing her knowledge with those working in the charity sector whenever possible. As such, in recent years she has taken on multiple guest speaking opportunities both in Australia and New Zealand, and has been a tutor for the FIA’s education Program for about five years.

Sarah has worked in human rights and environmental advocacy for the past seven years, and wrote her Master’s dissertation on communicating for progressive causes. 

She is the Community Engagement Lead at the Conservation Council of WA (CCWA), where she develops and delivers the communications and community engagement strategy for their audience of 50,000 people and 100 Member Groups. This includes past campaigns like protecting Beeliar Wetlands from Roe 8, and current campaigns like Frack Free Future, Nuclear Free WA, and Plastic Free WA. 

Sarah engages and empowers more than 20,000 people on CCWA’s Facebook page and 2,500 people on Twitter, by combining news and storytelling with opportunities to take action.

Kate’s background is in social services and communication – Kate decided some years ago to start a career which involved volunteering as a mechanism for community connection and capacity building, dealing with the vast diversity of people and their genuine human need for connection with one another and a desire to reach out and help. Kate was previously manager of membership and social outreach with the St Vincent de Paul Society.

Kate believes that although our society continues to develop and grow in sometimes unexpected ways and also in ways we think make us less connected from one another, human need for personal interaction with one another never goes away and volunteering in your community is a way to fulfill that need. Kate is always inspired by people who volunteer and inspired to find new and innovative ways for people to fulfill this need for themselves and community based groups who coordinate help to others.

Kate’s team, Volunteer Member Services was established at St John in 2011 in order to grow and support the organisations volunteer model. With consolidation and growth underway this team has now embarked on a program of diversifying the roles available to the community and the ways people can connect not only with each other but with St John Ambulance WA.

In 2012 and 2013 Kate led the way in organizational change and built a Volunteer portal called VIP. In June 2017 Volunteer Member Services just received its 10,000^th volunteer application since the launch of the system in December 2013.

St John Ambulance WA has a vision of growing its volunteer programme to 20000 volunteers by 2020.

Jo Garner is the Director of Strategic Grants and a founding member of Queensland's first women's giving circle, Women & Change.

Having worked with non-profits since 1994 and establishing Strategic Grants in 2009, Jo and the team work with peak bodies, funders and charities across Australia and New Zealand to help the non-profits increase their capacity to win grants and deliver vital community projects, while also encouraging effective philanthropic support.

Strategic Grants assists hundreds of organisations through training, education, advisory services, critiquing, application writing and board and strategic planning for an effective grants program.  The team has worked on successful philanthropic and government grants and tenders ranging from $5000 to $50M.

Strategic Grants is now also assisting a growing number of funders with defining their grant application guidelines and application processes.

Jo holds the international accreditation CFRE (Certified Fundraising Executive) and a degree in Commerce with majors in Marketing and IT and was made a Fellow of the Fundraising Institute Australia (FIA) in 2015. In 2017 she was awarded the 2017 Arthur Venn Fundraiser of the Year.  She is a regular conference presenter on best-practice processes at conferences and facilitates regular workshops for individual charities as well as the sector at large.

Jennie Loveridge is the Volunteer Development Manager for Cancer Council WA and is responsible for the strategic, cultural and economic framework for volunteer involvement across the organisation. In this role she developed and implemented a sustainable volunteer management model that has enabled innovation and growth, enhancing the organisation’s capacity to respond to community needs.

As a founding member of Volunteering WA’s Volunteer Leadership Network, she also works in State sector development and worked on the 2015 National Standards Review Project commissioned by Volunteering Australia.

Jennie is a cause-driven episodic volunteer and also advises small, volunteer-lead groups on risk management and effective volunteer involvement.

For 10 years, Ashlie has been working in the NFP sector in Perth with some of the state’s largest and most respected charities. Ashlie is experienced in an array of fundraising disciplines and her work in regular giving was recently acknowledged as Winner of FIA National Awards for Excellence in Fundraising for donor renewal – under $5M.

Ashlie's achievements and contribution to fundraising was also acknowledged in 2014 when she was awarded as the National Young Fundraiser of the Year. This FIA National Award for Excellence was awarded because of her consistent excellence and best practice through actions, leadership and intellect.

Ashlie has been awarded three scholarships to further her education and has since completed Certificate in Fundraising, Madison Down Under - Capital Campaigns & Major Gifts and most recently Fundraising Change Leadership as the Arthur Venn Fundraising Leadership Scholar.

Respected throughout the industry, Ashlie has been actively involved with the FIA as a member of the State Executive for five years. Ashlie is passionate about connecting new fundraisers within the industry and encouraging career development and longevity within the sector.

For over 20 years Vicki has been working in the not-for-profit sector in across Australia with some of the largest and most respected charities including the Cancer Council WA, Mission Australia, The Heart Foundation WA Division and The Salvation Army.

Over her career, Vicki has been personally responsible for several multimillion dollar campaigns. She has first-hand experience working with leading philanthropists, business leaders and campaign advocates, ensuring their journey is successful and impactful. This coupled with her experience across all areas of fundraising provide her with a strong analytical and strategic approach to tasks.

Vicki is a Fellow of FIA and a past State Chair.

She also is accredited as a Certified Fund Raising Executive (CFRE). In 2005 Vicki was awarded the inaugural Mary Clarke Tribute Award that recognised a young female fundraiser for their services to the fundraising sector. 

Wendy leads an experienced team that delivers research, teaching and sector impacts, ranging from cutting red tape to opening up topics like evaluation and accountability in grantmaking. She is National Project Director of Giving Australia - the nation’s largest ever research into giving and volunteering in partnership with CSI Swinburne and the Centre for Corporate Public Affairs. Wendy facilitates Queensland’s Social Investor’s Network; serves on government bodies, philanthropic grants committees and international research boards; chairs a community organisation and was previously CEO of a health nonprofit. Last year her work was recognised with a QUT Vice-Chancellor’s Performance Award.

Rikki has over 6 years Fundraising and Event Management experience and brings a diverse set of skills and knowledge to her work. Her passion for the not for profit sector began with volunteering in her local charity op-shop as a teenager. As a young university student, she co-founded and ran an all-volunteer fashion initiative dedicated to reducing the stigma associated with depression and mental illness. Whilst running this program for over six years, she also established her own event styling business and managed numerous corporate events and weddings. In that time, she has also been involved in various other charity events and programs.

Now with an extensive business and entrepreneurial studies background, a passion for personal development and a dream of making a difference in the world, she has joined the team at Red Nose as the WA Fundraising Coordinator. Over the last year she has significantly increased volunteer engagement, has grown Red Nose Day and other existing fundraising activities and has introduced several new events and fundraising initiatives.

Simone's passion for the not for profit sector began over six years ago, when she took the position of Events Coordinator at Princess Margaret Hospital (PMH) Foundation. For two years she coordinated a number of high profile PMH Foundation fundraising events, such as the Bear by Night Ball and Urban Descent.

Until recent weeks, Simone had been Development Coordinator and Annual Giving Coordinator at Curtin University. At Curtin, she was responsible for managing the University's annual appeal programs, coordinating the major gifts program, and developing a range of fundraising projects.

During her time, she also implemented Curtin's first crowdfunding campaign, as well as its inaugural staff giving program, which has raised almost $500,000 to date for Curtin students and projects. Most recently, Simone has successfully secured funding to implement Curtin's first alumni annual appeal, which will begin in 2017.

Simone has recently commenced a new role as Faculty Development Officer at the University of Western Australia and looks forward to developing her career further.

Simone is also passionate about engaging the younger generation in philanthropy and empowering them to give back and make a difference to their communities.