NCVO Consultancy team

Our NCVO Consultancy team consists of skilled and experienced staff from across NCVO's work areas. They know the voluntary and community sector and understand the pressures organisations face.

Strategy and creating impact

Georgina Anstey (on maternity leave)

Georgina works on impact and evaluation. During her four years at NCVO she has conducted qualitative research and evaluations for a range of organisations, supported others to plan and evidence their impact and worked on a large-scale project to develop innovative tools to demonstrate the impact of sector support organisations. She co-authored the Organisation Dial, an organisational diagnosis tool.

Georgina also manages NCVO’s Working for a Charity Programme which provides advice and training to people who want to transfer their skills from the public or private sector to the voluntary sector.

Georgina is a founding trustee of English for Action, a language support charity. She holds a BA in Psychology.

Donald Ritchie - Strategy and creating impact lead

Donald Ritchie Donald leads NCVO’s work on strategy and planning. He is an experienced organisational development consultant and specialises in supporting organisations in managing change.

With over 20 years' involvement in the voluntary sector Donald has worked at every level from local volunteer groups to international networks. He has extensive experience of working with campaigning organisations in the UK and across Europe.
Donald was a director at Friends of the Earth, and he has an MSc in Voluntary Sector Organisation from the LSE.

Donald works with organisations in the development and implementation of their strategy and its impact. He is also a skilled trainer and facilitator.

James Barker - Impact, Organisation and Development

James works with organisations across the voluntary sector in the areas of impact, strategy, people, and organisational development. He sits on the Inspiring Impact Programme Board and is an experienced consultant, facilitator, trainer and coach.

James Barker James has worked as an organisational improvement consultant for several years and joined NCVO in January 2013 in order to focus on work with voluntary organisations, having previously worked across the private, public, and not-for-profit sectors in the UK and, in more recent years, with international organisations (UN Organisations and international NGOs). In addition to his consultancy experience, James has over 10 years of people and project management experience, he is a qualified project manager (PRINCE2) and has an MSc in Organisational Psychology.

James can help you with your strategy development work (facilitated away days and strategy development processes), in reviewing and improving your impact practice, on organisational development activities, and in developing teams and managers.

Recent clients have included: Oxfam GB, Three Valleys Housing Association, The Merchant Navy Welfare Board, The Centre for Strategy and Communication, Insightshare, The Sumatran Orangutan Society, The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), The International Labour Organisation (ILO), The Convention on Migratory Species (CMS), The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), The World Food Programme (WFP), The International Trade Centre (ITC), The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), The International Organization for Migration (IOM).

Trustees and governance

Emma Herbert - Trustees and governance lead

Emma Kirk photo Emma joined NCVO in 2008 and is a Senior Consultant within the Consultancy and Innovation team. Emma’s work focuses on the areas of governance and leadership and she has a wealth of experience having worked with a range of voluntary and community sector organisations, from large household name charities through to small, local community groups.

Prior to NCVO Emma worked as Business Development Manager at Daycare Trust and has also been a consultant to the Equal Opportunities Commission, specialising in issues of sex discrimination in the workplace.

Emma is a qualified employment solicitor (currently non-practising). As a solicitor, she worked with employers of all sizes around issues of strategic planning, change management, discrimination, workplace disputes and employment tribunal disputes.

Public and private sector engagement

James Allen Head of Public Services and Partnerships

James is Head of Partnerships and Public Services and Partnerships team. James joined NCVO as Policy Manager in May 2010 and led the organisation’s policy work on areas including voluntary sector funding, tax, fiscal and economic policy and public services reform.

He has worked previously in a number of policy, communications and public affairs advisory roles in both the private sector and the not-for-profit sector. He holds a Masters degree in Public Policy, is involved in a range of campaigns and projects on a pro bono basis and is a School Governor in the London Borough of Southwark.

Fiona Sheil – Public sector collaboration lead

Fiona runs NCVO’s engagement, advice and support work on public service commissioning and procurement. Fiona feeds this work with members and commissioner directly to central government policy makers.

Fiona is co-author of a 2011 King’s Fund report on the role of the voluntary sector in health, and is currently leading work on market development, payment by results modelling and developing models of proportionate procurement.

Strategic funding and financial sustainability

Olof Williamson - Strategic funding lead

Olof joined NCVO in November 2008 and is now Sustainable Funding Manager.

He supports organisations to review their income strategy and earn income through public service delivery and trading activity. This includes bespoke advice, running training events and preparing tools and resources for frontline and infrastructure
organisations. He also supports the NCVO Public Service Delivery Network’s programme of work.

Olof has experience of advising charities on sustainable income and strategy, both in the UK and internationally. He has helped to set up a social enterprise in Sri Lanka and he is involved in grassroots sports in London.

Olof previously worked for the Scottish Government on strategic health and environmental policy, and studied Politics and Economic History at Edinburgh University.

Rosaline Jenkins

Ros Jenkins Ros works in NCVO’s Sustainable Funding Project specialising in strategic income diversification and income management – particularly fundraising, relationships and marketing. She wrote or commissioned many of NCVO’s web resources on the gift economy, co-wrote NCVO’s Make It Happen training course and edited the publication, The Art of Raising Money.

She has worked for frontline organisations including the youth charity Fairbridge, older people’s charity, Independent Age and The Adolescent and Children’s Trust. Ros is also an active volunteer in her local community.

Ros holds an MA in Social and Political Sciences from Cambridge University and the Institute of Fundraising’s Certificate in Fundraising Management.

Assessing impact

David Kane

David leads the quantitative analysis of data for NCVO’s work on the size and scope of civil society, and is an author of the UK Civil Society Almanac 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2012 and the UK Voluntary Sector Almanac 2007.

David leads NCVO’s research to classify voluntary sector organisations and on its work on the opportunities that open data presents. He specialises in data manipulation, data analysis and visualisation, working particularly with large datasets. He has worked on bespoke research projects for the Northern Rock Foundation and NCB.

David has a degree in Geography from the University of Exeter. David is a trustee of the Voluntary Sector Studies Network.

Veronique Jochum

Véronique is Research Manager and leads NCVO’s qualitative research programme. Véronique specialises in the areas of voluntary action and charitable giving. She is the lead author for the recent publication Participation: trends, facts and figures and co-authored UK Giving 2011, and was the project manager for the recently completed Pathways through Participation project.

Véronique has managed numerous research projects about the voluntary and community sector that have informed NCVO’s policy work including research on social capital, faith-based voluntary action and community resilience. She sits on the advisory group of the Institute for Volunteering Research, and volunteers for two local charities.

Getting your message across to Government

Chloe Stables, Parliamentary and Media Manager

Photo of Chloe Stables Chloe is the Parliamentary and Media Manager at NCVO and has extensive knowledge of the UK political system. She is responsible for building relationships with decision makers on behalf of NCVO and co-ordinating our media work. Chloe leads on NCVO’s work on the regulation of lobbying and in 2009 gave evidence to the House of Lords Information Committee inquiry into improving public engagement with Parliament.

Before moving over to the charity sector, she worked as a researcher for an MP, before taking up a position as an Account Executive in a large public affairs consultancy, DLA Piper. Chloe helped establish the public affairs team at St Mungo's, a London-based homelessness charity, before moving to NCVO.

Campaign Effectiveness

Sarah Shimmin-Gilbert - Campaign Effectiveness Lead

Sarah Shimmin photo Sarah is the Senior Strategy and Impact Adviser at NCVO where she works with a diverse range of organisations to help them better achieve their missions. Sarah is currently co-delivering a two-year training and mentoring programme for people working with organisations in the BME sector to develop effective strategies for the future, and has designed and delivers the evaluation module for Certificate in Campaigning.

Previously, Sarah played a leading role in NCVO’s work on campaigning effectiveness, conducting and managing research into key areas in campaigning and advocacy to support organisations on this topic. She has authored and contributed to several publications on campaigning.

Before joining NCVO, Sarah worked in policy and campaigns in the voluntary and community sector. She has completed an in-depth learning programme on consulting run by The Tavistock Institute based on its MA in Advanced Organisational Consulting, holds an MSc in European Social Policy from the London School of Economics and Political Science, and a BSc in Social Policy and Sociology from the University of Bristol. She has volunteered in India and the UK.