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I have a few questions I want to ask fundraisers. And conveniently, I’m going to be in Glasgow for four days with a lot of you! I’ll be there from Tuesday 22nd to Friday 25th September for the Scottish IoF conference, where I’m presenting two sessions. The first is about why companies give to charities in their own words. Because corporate fundraising is still, in many ways, swimming in a sea of assumptions. So we'll talk about We talk about what companies want. What makes a

I can’t believe we’re heading towards the end of the summer already, it feels like it’s going as quickly as it came. I hope that the start of September starts to bring some normality back - or at least some great TV to look forward to! For us, September means back to school - including for us at Fireside Fundraising. That's why we can't wait to share our learnings from 18,000 corporate partnerships with you. Other than that, there's plenty from the summer to remind you of.

I don’t know about you, but these heat waves have really caught me off guard - I expected the first one, but the more recent waves have caught me emotionally unprepared. I’m trying to get important work done while my entire body is sweating. My poor tower fan is working overtime - no annual leave for that thing in sight.If you have any tips for keeping cool, I’d love to hear them. In exchange, I thought I’d send you the free webinars we’ve taken part in this year that you mig

A few weeks ago, a client came to me and said they were stuck. They'd finished interviewing for a fundraising role and had narrowed it down to two candidates. One had years of experience. They knew the sector inside out, had built partnerships, understood the jargon and would probably hit the ground running.The other had less experience. But every answer they gave had energy behind it. They asked brilliant questions. They'd clearly done their homework. They had that look abou

Last week I spoke at Pizza for Losers - an event that encourages vulnerability, authenticity and joy. It’s almost the opposite of a conference. Rather than talking about ways we’ve succeeded, speakers talk about ways they’ve failed. I spoke about the time in September 2022, I found myself in A&E in serious bodily pain from a condition doctors were very clear was due to stress... and all I wanted was to get back to my work inbox. A particular corporate engagement event was at

I have to admit. Pride groups used to really frustrate me. I remember at one of the first fundraising conferences I ever went to, there was a session on pride in fundraising. I had assumed it was a session about being proud of being a fundraiser, rather than a fundraising LGBT+ pride group. The fact that the panellists were from Stonewall and a few other queer charities passed me by, until I was in the room… But we’ll ignore that for now. I found the text I sent my best fri

This year is racing away from me. I took a week out of sick leave recently, and came back to find out that it’s June!? We really need to speak to someone about slowing down the clock. With the advent of summer, there’s a lot of things I’m looking forward to that I wanted to share with you: AI masterclass - on Tuesday 16th June, our friends at Ziptrix will be collaborating with ethical good to give a London based, in-person masterclass on how to use AI in fundraising. Based on

One of our favourite resources for corporate fundraisers just dropped. The charity business awards have announced their winners, giving us a huge range of partnership examples to pull from when we’re trying to be creative. And when we’re in a space of creativity, we come to one of the biggest challenges fundraisers bring to us… how to get their foot in the door with a company. So we wanted to share some of our favourite examples of how it happened… A health charity wanted to

There are three kinds of people in May. People who ignore Eurovision entirely. People who casually “stick Eurovision on in the background”. And people who have opinions on stage lighting, pyrotechnics and whether Graham Norton was being “a bit harsh actually”. At Fireside, most of us fall into that third category. Because Eurovision isn’t really about music. It’s about moments. It’s about emotion. It’s about the group WhatsApp suddenly coming back to life after three quiet mo

Can you believe we're already a quarter into the year? It feels like it's flown by, so we thought we'd have a look back on our highlights from the start of 2026. We started the year with maybe the toughest job of all... learning how to say no. An article from The Management Centre gives us ways of how to say no, and mean it, without saying no. We then looked at how to put this in terms of framing objections in fundraising, and you can read the full blog here. How to say no

I have to say, I’m a huge fan of a new years’ moment. I’ve been known to celebrate academic new year with school friends, financial new year with colleagues and the ‘real’ new year with family all in the same 12 month period. Something about that opportunity to breathe out and reflect on how far you’ve come, as well as set an intention for the year ahead, is so welcome. So… Happy new financial year to everyone who celebrates! Whether you’re taking the time to set an intentio

I don't know about you, but there are certain partnership examples that the Fireside team keep coming back to in conversation. You know the ones. Someone mentions them in a meeting and suddenly everyone is nodding along because it’s just such a neat example of how corporate partnerships should work. For us, one of those examples is the partnership between Mamas & Papas and Tommy's. At first glance it might seem like a fairly classic fit: a baby brand partnering with a baby-re

February is full of excitement for Fireside - and for me personally. We’re working on an incredible range of clients from Scottish Opera, Women for Women International and Avon Wildlife Trust… and my little bear of a nephew just turned one! I’ve been in workshops and petting zoos alike this week. A lot of our conversations recently have been focussed on how to build a pipeline, and I wanted to give our two cents on why some prospects just won’t work: 1. You only think they’re

We did it! We made it to February! The days are getting longer and we’re only a week or two away from the sun setting after work, rather than during . I don’t know about you, but I’ve definitely felt this winter more than the usual - and I’ve started to really plan my calendar with things to look forward to help me get through it. I thought it’d be nice to share some of those things I’m looking forward to in the next few months: Know your offer On the 18th of March at 10am,

I don't know about you, but the last few weeks the Fireside team have been obsessed with The Traitors. When I say that I've personally been obsessed, I mean obsessed . I mean reading clickbait articles such as 'Why Claudia Winkleman always wears fingerless gloves on The Traitors' level obsessed . Lisa was even obsessed enough to break her ‘no screen time before school’ rule with her kids to catch up on a particular episode. Through conversation with our research lead, Lucy Mi

This was the first year in a long time that I felt real resistance coming back to work. I absolutely love my job, but I also love not setting an alarm in the morning, and the change of pace feels particularly hard coming into 2026. It’s not that I don’t want to work. It’s that I don’t want to overwork… again. It feels like there’s an expectation in the fundraising world to bite off more than you can chew and… chew it. This year can’t be like that. Our bodies, minds and our lo

I recently caught up with an old client for the first time in over a year, and they mentioned in passing that they’d used our work together to land a major partnership. We’re talking a seven-figure, national campaign partnership. They mentioned it like it was just another update, and I nearly fell off my chair. When I asked them how long they’d had it confirmed, they said three months. I was STOKED for them, but also couldn’t believe they hadn’t told me: I’d have thrown them

Last week, we shared Rachel Holborow’s research into the reality of what it’s like to be a corporate fundraiser . The research showed us how much potential there is for corporate fundraising, but also how hard it can be, so we wanted to share three things to look forward to: 1. Christmas. The John Lewis and Coca-Cola adverts are out, meaning Mariah Carey has thawed and… 🎶 It’s Time. 🎶 If there’s one thing the sector needs right now, it’s a break: I hope you get the chance t

It was Fireside’s third anniversary last week, and we held one of our first proper team away days to mark the moment. We spoke about our favourite and least favourite things about the year. What we were proud of, and what we’d like to change. The team had one primary complaint… …that there used to be an employee of the month programme. Until there were actual employees. The employee of the month hallway would just be a line of pictures of me until it actually mattered. So we

1,095 days ago I sat alone in a co-working space that used to be a Tesco and opened my ‘Fireside Fundraising’ laptop for the first time. I had a virtual coffee with a couple of friends, made a website that looked like a GCSE art project, and got to work. Three years later, Fireside is an actual corporate fundraising consultancy. We’re a team of three (myself, Lisa Clavering and Lucy Mitchell ), sometimes four (when we rope in Laura Swan ) who’ve worked with 40 clients this y