George Smith
A tribute to Terry A Murray
by George Smith
Terry Murray was a founder, former chairman and chief executive officer of Downes Murray International, the largest fundraising consultancy in South Africa. Terry started out in direct mail fundraising in 1962, building a company that went on to win international awards in the USA, Britain and Europe. The direct mail programmes run by DMI raise millions of rands each year not only from within South Africa but also from overseas donors.
Read moreHarold Sumption, Guy Stringer, CBE and Sir Leslie Kirkley, CBE
by George Smith
A profile of Britain’s founding fathers of modern fundraising
Read moreThe wit and wisdom of George Smith - Infantile musings
by George Smith
In a piece from 1997, George Smith reflects on how the joy of becoming a grandparent made him more altruistic, and why charities should tap into that well of happiness.
Read moreThe wit and wisdom of George Smith - Instead of Help the Aged, let the aged help
by George Smith
‘A good proportion of one fifth of the population is loaded and leisured, financially secure and has quality time on its hands’ said George Smith. How can fundraisers tap into that potential?
Read moreThe wit and wisdom of George Smith - Never sneer at an Oscar
by George Smith
Back in 1993, George Smith extolled the virtues of the now ubiquitous fundraising awards.
Read moreThe wit and wisdom of George Smith - Où est le chat?
by George Smith
Are you a chatty bleeder? The great George Smith certainly was and in this funny article he tells the truth about what the chattiest direct marketers have on the brain.
Read moreThe wit and wisdom of George Smith - Seriously, let’s be silly
by George Smith
When writing his regular article back in 1993, George Smith mused on how we use language, the dangers of taking opinions as gospel, and why it’s good to be silly.
Read moreAbout the author
The late George Smith (he/him) wrote his first fundraising ad for Oxfam in 1962. In his twenties he was appointed European coordinator for a major-league American advertising agency and, in contrast, was elected as a local councillor in an inner-London borough. He formed the Smith Bundy direct marketing agency in 1973 and served as chief executive for 20 years. During those two decades his copywriting skills were applied to many diverse commercial direct marketing clients, yet fundraising was always a specialism. In 1990 he was awarded the UK’s DMA Gold Award for work on Greenpeace.
Between 1987 and 1993 George was chief executive of the International Fund Raising Group, responsible for the celebrated Noordwijkerhout conference and a growing number of events around the world. He was also a director of Burnett Associates Limited. His monthly articles in Britain’s Direct Response magazine were published in 1987 as a collection called By George. He became chairman of the UK’s Institute of Direct Marketing (IDM) in 1997 and is an honorary fellow both of the IDM and the Chartered Institute of Fundraising.
George Smith also wrote Asking Properly, Tiny Essentials of Writing for Fundraising and Up Smith Creek.
A note from SOFII: These articles were first published in a different era. They may contain words or themes that today we find inappropriate. SOFII has preserved the copy in our archive, without editing, in order to offer a true representation of the author’s contributions at the time.
