We are committed to social justice and pride ourselves on directly helping our clients to ensure the most disadvantaged people, both here in the UK and abroad, have improved opportunities and life chances.
Since we began in 2006, we have worked with over 100 organisations. We create lasting value; we generate an average of £25.37 for every £1 invested in us, allowing many of our clients to continue essential existing services, or develop new projects, to help more disadvantaged and vulnerable people. Due to the quality of our work, the vast majority of our clients come to us through word-of-mouth referrals.
We aim to increase our positive impact wherever possible. Every year, we donate 1% of our pre-tax profits to the organisations we work with, and undertake pro bono work with small charities.
Bright Ideas is led by Jo Ryan, an experienced fundraiser and evaluator.
Jo Ryan
Jo has extensive experience fundraising for charities working in areas such as criminal justice, community development, homelessness and international development.
She previously worked as the Fundraising and Development Manager for Victim Support Southwark. In this role, she was a sole fundraiser and as such understands the challenges and opportunities facing small charities with limited resources.
Jo was also previously chair of trustees of the charity Women in Prison, where she focused on embedding good fundraising and evaluation practice within the organisation and widening lived experience leadership opportunities. She has a Masters in Criminology and Forensic Psychology, which provided her with a theoretical and academic grounding in effectively analysing existing research, quantitative and qualitative research techniques and ethical research practices.
Jo is supported by a small, experienced team of associates, including:
Emily McFadyen
Emily is an experienced trust fundraiser and prospect researcher. She previously worked at Save the Children, where she managed a portfolio of trusts and foundations, built strong relationships with influential contacts in order to solicit new gifts and maintained regular contact with existing donors to secure ongoing funding. Her work included negotiating almost £1m of emergency grants in the week after the cyclone in Myanmar (Burma).
Emily has been an Associate of the Bright Ideas Partnership for over five years, writing trust applications and undertaking in-depth research for funding applications, evaluations and social value reports. In that time, she has undertaken work for minority-led charities, and charities working in the fields of homelessness, community development, youth violence and mental ill-health.