Congratulations to friend of SOFII Lyndall Stein!
We are delighted that the great Lyndall Stein, fundraiser and activist — and frequent contributor to SOFII — won the Lifetime Contribution Award at last month’s National Fundraising Awards. Thank you to the Institute of Fundraising for letting us share this piece, and to photographer Laurie Sparham.
- Written by
- Joe Burnett
- Added
- August 31, 2017
South African anti-apartheid activist and fundraising expert Lyndall Stein is rightly a legend across the sector, which is why SOFII has always seen it as a privilege that she has written for us. It was with joy therefore that we saw her awarded the Lifetime Contribution Award at the 2017 National Fundraising Awards.
Lyndall has been a star in the sector for more than three decades both in the UK and with an impact internationally. She has never been shy to express her point of view to make a difference on an issue she cares passionately for. And she is very passionate about her causes.
A leading authority on campaigning, income generation and communications, she has worked for a wide range of organisations, including Care International, Bond, Concern UK, ActionAid International, the Terrence Higgins Trust, the Big Issue Foundation, the African National Congress. In the 1980s she chaired Votes for Freedom, the initiative that raised several million for South Africa’s first democratic election.
Lyndall is a trustee of Reprieve and chair of the Sheila McKechnie Foundation and is also founding editor of Positive Lives, a photographic project showing the global human response to HIV/AIDS, an exhibition seen by over two million people worldwide.
A kiss as a young child with her best friend in Soweto, South Africa was published on the front page of Drum, Sylvester Stein’s, her father, renowned cultural magazine; it meant her family had to flee apartheid South Africa. Lyndall is white. Her best friend was black. Her family, thereafter, were political exiles and refugees. Thus, began her lifelong commitment to the causes of the underdog.
In Lyndall’s own words,
The most important thing I have learned is that it is a privilege to be a fundraiser. When you are working on the toughest issues in the hardest times, you know that your blood, sweat and tears will be turned to gold, that your work will be meaningful, relevant and will matter, that you will be able to look back and say, along with Edith Piaf, ‘non, je ne regrette rien’. Of course there are other benefits... like getting kissed by George Michael and Nelson Mandela!
