Graham Allen is a partner in Marriott Gibbs Rees Wallis, Chartered Certified Accountants, in Sheffield. Graham trained as a Chartered Accountant with a ‘big four’ accountancy firm after university, where he read law, and has since had wide experience of working in industry and in private practice.

His career has brought him into close contact with a very wide variety of commercial, industrial and charitable organisations. Graham was born in Chingola, Zambia. He came to live in England as a teenager and subsequently went to Sheffield University. His family originally came from Sheffield and his grandfather emigrated to South Africa in 1904. Graham has spent his career working in South and West Yorkshire and, in particular, in Sheffield. He is a keen gardener and hill walker and a life-long supporter of Sheffield Wednesday Football Club, his family connections with Sheffield Wednesday going back more than one hundred years. He is married, with a son and daughter.

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Born in Jerusalem Avinoam Armoni is a graduate of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem Faculty of Law and has an MPA from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University where he studied as a Wexner Fellow.

Avi has had a lifelong impact on many organisations throughout the world. He was the founder and Chairman of Yedid, Israel’s largest democracy and empowerment programme, he has served as Chairman on the Boards of The Technological College of Beer Sheva and the B’nai B’rith Residential Treatment Centre in Jerusalem and was also a Board Member of Matan (United Way of Israel). He is an immediate past Vice President for external relations at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. As well as the above he has been a strategic consultant and advisor to a number of organisations, mainly in the academic and voluntary sector. As Executive Director in Israel of the New Israel Fund from 1991 to 1997 he managed and developed its programmes in Israel, oversaw grant making activities, fundraised and represented the organization internationally. During his period at The New Israel Fund the Fund grew from being a $5 million to a $17 million a year organisation.

Avi has lectured extensively in Israel and abroad on strategic planning for resource development, Israeli civil society and the development of social responsibility within the business sector in Israel. Over the years he has developed an extensive network of contacts throughout the world and specifically in the USA where he has frequently been invited to speak.

Avinoam Armoni is currently serving as an adviser to the Edmond J Safra Philanthropic Foundation.

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Pauline Broomhead is the founding CEO of the FSI, a charity she set up with Emma Harrison focused on arming small charities with the best learning opportunities to secure a sustainable future.

Pauline’s career has seen her work on campaigns with many of the most high-profile charities in the UK and abroad. She has garnered a reputation for outstanding commitment to the sector, bringing strategic planning, fundraising and relationship-management skills to all the work she undertakes.

Today, Pauline uses this experience to deliver training, development and consultancy services to the small charity sector through her work at the FSI. Since its inception, the FSI has helped thousands of small charities to improve their operations and maximise fundraising opportunities in order to deliver and diversify the services offered to their communities. It is this spirit of building better communities that drives Pauline and all of the team at the FSI.

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Jessica is an International Development graduate with a passion for challenging inequality at all levels.

Through her work with non-governmental organisations in Ethiopia and West Africa, she has gained a sound understanding of the vital role played and barriers faced by small organisations compared with large charities, whilst developing event management and research skills.

Jessica’s commitment is driven by her conviction that effective support to build the capacity of small organisations is an essential element of long term sustainability.

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John Grounds is director of communications for the NSPCC. His responsibilities cover all aspects of the society's PR, advertising, new media, marketing communications and internal communications.

John's career has taken in both commercial and charity roles. Prior to the NSPCC he was director of campaigns and communications at medical charity Action Medical Research. His last task at Action Research was to launch the charity's 50th anniversary year, with the help of its long-time mascot, Paddington Bear.

Past roles include responsibility for Communications at Barnardo's, five years at The Body Shop as international PR manager and a PR and campaigning role alongside Bruce Kent at the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. John is also the author of a book, London: A Living Guide

Born in Braintree, Essex, John went to university in Cambridge and Reading before moving to London, where he lived until moving to his current home in Horsham, West Sussex, after the birth of his son, Tom in 1990.

Outside work, music is a consuming passion, as well as a love of film, art and literature and a 40-year devotion to Arsenal FC.

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Emma Harrison is founding Chairman of Trustees and a well-known, charismatic and respected entrepreneur. Emma has a unique approach to leadership, seeing her role as being to 'inspire, encourage and elevate'. It is this philosophy along with her principle of 'doing well by doing good' to improve people's lives that has seen her turn a small regional training provider, A4e, into an international, multi award winning company and her reason behind creating The FSI.

Emma has supported charitable causes for many years through her businesses such as Novantia, which sponsors schools in Southern India and through her role as Chairman of the NSPCC’s Regional Full Stop Appeal where Emma played a prominent role in helping them reach the fund raising target of £50m.

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Mark is the Executive Chairman of A4e. Having started with the organisation as a graduate of Warwick University in 1991, Mark is now an expert in business diversification and excels at identifying solutions for failing markets and niche opportunities for innovative ways of tackling difficult public service agendas. His focus is building effective business models with private, public and voluntary/community organisations to create customer driven services which assist Government’s in delivering social change.

Outside of A4e, Mark is a board member of his Local Strategic Partnership in Sheffield, a Non Executive Director of Sheffield Primary Care Trust (PCT), a member of the CBI's Public Services Strategy Board and a member of the CBI's Yorkshire and Humberside Regional Council.

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I worked in Capital Radio and Virgin Radio in Community Services, before moving to the voluntary sector where I worked as Public Fundraising Manager for the NSPCC's Full Stop Campaign until I relocated to Sussex where I was Head of Fundraising for St Barnabas House Hospice and Chestnut Tree House Children's Hospice.

I spent three years living abroad and teaching before returning to the UK to return to fundraising, believing passionately in the FSI's values of empathy, respect, energy, excellence and persistence.

My daily motivation is that I want as many small charities as possible to benefit from the increased confidence and skills that our training programme offers them, sharing the best (and improving on that) helps more beneficiaries find the support they need. Seeing a fundraiser at the end of a training course fired up with enthusiasm to improve lives is just the best buzz there is.

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Michael qualified as a lawyer in 1986 and has practised in London since 1988. Michael specialises in all aspects of commercial property with substantial experience of high-end investment property work and landlord and tenant matters in the commercial and retail sectors.

He is highly experienced in dealing with the Not for Profit Sector having for many years advised NHS Trusts, housing associations, charitable organisations and religious denominations, as well as government organisations, on the acquisition, disposal and management of their property assets. Michael is a trustee of the FSI.

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Garreth grew up in New Zealand, and has worked both there and in the UK with a range of organisations on campaigns that maximise engagement with audiences. His previous roles have covered the full marcomms and PR mix with charities in health and the arts.

Garreth enjoys the diversity and dynamism of working with charities to ensure they get noticed in a hectic media world.

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Kim’s background is in Psychology and has been working in the social care sector for the past 16 years. The last 8 years of her career have been devoted to the charity sector with Action for Children (previously NCH), Holborn Community Association and School-Home Support.

She brings with her skills and experience in project management, fundraising, relationship management and new business development and is extremely excited about using these skills for the benefit of hundred’s of small charities across the UK and abroad.

Kim’s driving motivation: “Feeling fulfilled by devoting my daily life to worthy causes that I feel truly passionate about - the FSI and small charities definitely meet this need.”

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Jemina brings to the FSI an academic background in Sociology, Social Anthropology and Gender Studies. She also has a diploma in International Development Studies and a keen interest in human rights and global development issues.

Jemina has extensive international experience in Events and Project Management in both commercial and not-for-profit sectors and she has taken part in research and fundraising projects for small charities in Europe and Asia.

As a strong believer in sustainable change and development thriving in, and growing from, the grassroot level, Jemina feels that the work of the FSI is invaluable in empowering small charities and giving them the platform and tools for fulfilling their maximum potential and making a difference in local and global communities and individual lives.

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Having travelled extensively and spent much of her childhood growing up in the Middle East, Sophie is passionate about appreciating the diversity of the world around us. Sophie's degree in geography allowed her to align these interests with her academic studies and then move forward with a career within the third sector.

Sophie spent time working with a sport and international development charity where she gained a greater understanding the issues facing charities at the moment. This has led Sophie to the FSI where she hopes she can work with the lovely team to provide the vital support to small charities and the unique causes that they champion.

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