Philly Graham

My areas of expertise

• communication skills – from presenting/pitching for funding to influencing skills
• management development
• coaching skills – including 1:1 coaching & action learning set facilitation
• fundraising development

At the moment

This year, I have had the great pleasure of working with numerous organisations to support and develop their first line and senior managers. This has seen me work closely with Arthritis Research UK to design and deliver the launch of their new management development programme, Essential Management Skills for first line managers, which they are now looking to roll out to further cohorts next year. I also led the facilitation of action learning sets, to support leaders and managers at both City University and Evolve Housing.

A lot of my time over the past six months, has involved me developing the communication skills of individuals from organisations such as UNICEF UK and Fairtrade Foundation, to Cambridge Assessment and MS Society – whether that be to help them present the work of their organisations with more impact or to develop their own personal presence with their colleagues and supporters – a topic I spoke on at this year’s IOF Convention.

I have worked in partnership with The Prince’s Trust, to design and deliver the Fundraising with Impact programme, which aims to support the development of key fundraising skills across their fundraising directorate. Two pilot cohorts have been delivered successfully, with a roll out to a further three cohorts planned over the next six months.

And I am also currently working on some exciting new projects with Marie Curie, looking at best practice stewardship strategy and with the RNIB’s Telemarketing team to support their telephone fundraisers with skills development.

Finally, I been delighted to continue to support the development of more effective internal facilitators and trainers across the sector, working with organisations such as WWF and Hall Aitken, through our facilitation and train the trainer programmes.

Before =mc

I began my career in the private sector, working for international training company Lane4, specialising in leadership development and coaching. Initially I was responsible for internal communications between their global offices, but soon moved into the commercial team, launching new customer relationship initiatives across the business. During this time I became an accredited coach and enjoyed delivering internal learning sessions on personal brand and coaching.

Following this time I moved into the not-for-profit sector and had the honour of being involved in some integral projects – from carrying out research for the Royal British Legion, to helping develop a new volunteer fundraising strategy for Alzheimer’s Society. For four years after this, I focused on fundraising from organisations, where I led numerous teams, both virtual and cross-departmental. Most recently I recruited and led the team that launched Alzheimer’s Society’s multi-million partnership with Home Retail Group.