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IWITOT 2021 UK & Europe was a huge success.

IWITOT 2021 returned to your screens (to inspire your teams!) on July 15th 2021 – and we were com­plete­ly LIVE on Zoom. 

Twelve speak­ers from the UK and Europe – a range of hardy vet­er­ans and up-and-com­ing new­bies – spent sev­en min­utes cel­e­brat­ing a fundrais­ing idea they wish they’d thought of. But as always, there was a catch … all IWITOT 2021 speak­ers had to speak enthu­si­as­ti­cal­ly about some­one else’s idea, not their own. Egos were banned for the day!

Over 425 fundrais­ers from around the world joined us to be inspired and uplift­ed. And it was a tru­ly won­der­ful event.

You can still order a record­ing of IWITOT 2021 here!

An IWITOT 2021 record­ing is great val­ue at just £25/€29. 

Can’t buy online or need to use a pur­chase order num­ber? Email Joan­na and she will invoice you, no problem! 

Your hosts: 

SOFII’s Joe Bur­nett and IWITOT 2020 win­ner Megan Town­shend of Marie Curie UK

Your speak­ers:

Kevin Ampon­sah — Phil­an­thropy Offi­cer at The Children’s Soci­ety (UK)

Rebec­ka Winell — Head of Major Gifts at Barn­cancer­fonden — Swedish Child­hood Can­cer Fund (Swe­den)

Raquel Gutier­rez — Direc­tor at The Fundrais­ing Com­pa­ny S.L (Spain)

Fati­ma Tal­i­di-Mar­rero — Head of Indi­vid­ual Giv­ing & Mem­ber­ship at Parkin­son’s UK (UK)

Simona Bian­cu — Fundrais­ing and Phil­an­thropy Con­sul­tant at ENGAGEDin (Italy)

Gabriela Cervera — Phil­an­thropy and Fundrais­ing Advi­sor at IG Advi­sors (UK)

Emma Rowe — Head of High Val­ue Giv­ing at Ter­rence Hig­gins Trust (UK)

Dani Gon­za­lez — Founder and CEO at DGTL Fundrais­ing (Spain)

Lianne Howard-Dace — Fundrais­ing Strate­gist and Con­sul­tant (UK)

Tani­ta Mis­try — Cor­po­rate & Major Donor Fundrais­er at Zoë’s Place Hos­pice (UK)

Nik­ki Wrench — Com­mu­ni­ty Man­ag­er at RNLI (UK)

Rebec­ca Wil­son — Cor­po­rate Devel­op­ment Lead at Men­cap (UK)

Please scroll down for your speak­er bios.

Your men­tors:

Some of our new voic­es were being men­tored by expe­ri­enced IWITOT speak­ers sup­port­ed them through­out the expe­ri­ence and helped them devel­op their presentations.

Matt Smith (THINK Con­sult­ing Solutions)

Joshua Leigh (social social Berlin, Germany)

James Brig­gs (Open) 

Don’t for­get…

If you’ve been to IWITOT and loved it, or nev­er joined in before, you won’t want to miss the most fun fundrais­ing event on the con­fer­ence cal­en­dar. Buy your record­ing today and you’ll watch twelve speak­ers shar­ing twelve ideas that you can bor­row and adapt for your organisation. 

Right now every fundrais­er needs to soak up as much inno­va­tion, inspi­ra­tion, adapt­abil­i­ty and pos­i­tiv­i­ty as pos­si­ble. So let’s keep doing what fundrais­ers do best — shar­ing great ideas and rais­ing as much as we can for good causes. 

Thank you for your support 

As always, IWITOT is a run as a fundrais­ing event to raise vital funds for char­i­ty The SOFII Foun­da­tion. It is brought to you by SOFII and Open Cre­ates. 

If you have any ques­tions about IWITOT UK & Europe 2021 please email Nik­ki Bell at nikki.​bell@​opencreates.​com

If you would like to apply for a free record­ing (fur­loughed or out of work fundrais­ers), please email joanna@​sofii.​org

Find out more about your IWITOT 2021 speakers:

Kevin Amponsah

Philanthropy Officer at The Children’s Society (UK)

Raquel Gutiérrez Kuikman

Licensed in Psychology with further studies in business (MBA), Raquel has a mixed professional background coming from the private sector (publishing). She later moved on to the non-profit sector and for the last 12 years she has led The Fundraising Company, a leading provider in telephone fundraising in Spain. Raquel has developed multiple recruitment and stewardship campaigns that have allowed various organisations to grow successfully, maintain a steady flow of income, and keep an optimum quality donor base. 

Fatima Talidi-Marrero

Fatima is Head of Individual Giving & Membership at Parkinson's UK. Fatima has over 20 years’ experience in the voluntary sector, having started her career at creative agencies WWAV Rapp Collins and Whitewater.  Fatima also worked for two charities before coming to Parkinson's UK - Leonard Cheshire Disability and Save the Children, as part of their individual giving teams. Fatima is a passionate fundraiser and leader. Her broad fundraising experience includes individual giving, membership, legacy marketing and supporter care.

Gabriela Cervera

Gabriela is a development expert with a special interest in turning philanthropic visions into effective strategic giving. As an Advisor at I.G. Advisors, she has developed fundraising strategies from the ground up for complex multilateral organisations; supported clients to develop effective, fair and impactful funding approaches; and worked with corporate clients to conduct rigorous impact evaluations. Prior to I.G., she consulted for the Mexican Public Sector and led major gifts fundraising at international development charities ActionAid and IRC. Gabriela relishes opportunities to understand people’s interests, causes and passions, and values critical thinking, adaptability & communication.

Emma Rowe

Emma calls herself a fundraiser, feminist, and music geek. She is Head of High Value Giving for Terrence Higgins Trust, having started her charity career as a telephone fundraiser before moving into major gifts. Emma has nearly 15 years’ experience across human rights and health organisations including Amnesty International UK, Freedom From Torture and Moorfields Eye Charity. She is passionate about LGBT issues, women's rights, and social justice. Emma is part of Pride in St Neots CIC and is working to put on her town’s first ever Pride festival next year. Her non fundraising interests include guitar, birdwatching, lego, roller derby, hockey and walking borrowed doggy Bonnie.

Dani Gonzalez

Dani directed an Online Marketing and Communications agency before joining Save the Children Spain to lead their Digital team. He then moved on to be the European Director of Business Development at Change.org. Five years ago, he founded dgtl fundraising, an agency working in direct donor acquisition online. They currently have offices in Madrid and Rome.

Tanita Mistry

Tanita has been working in the charity sector for eight years, after finding her love of fundraising while volunteering for a local hospice. Working with a range of different supporters, Tania has met some amazing people and worked on great campaigns! She loves helping supporters reach their fundraising goals and celebrating their successes with them. Being able to be a part of the charity world and helping to make change in any way possible is something that fills her soul. Tanita believes that one step at a time, together, we can all change the world and she is proud to be a part of that.

Rebecka Winell

Rebecka has worked in fundraising for 11 years, specialising for ten of those years in legacy fundraising. She started her career at the National Trust for Scotland and is currently working with major donors at the Swedish Childhood Cancer Fund. She has experience from the heritage (NTS), university (University of Oxford) and healthcare (the Swedish Childhood Cancer Fund) charitable sectors giving her a breadth of experience of the different challenges and opportunities these areas present to fundraisers.

Simona Biancu

Simona is a fundraising and strategic philanthropy consultant and trainer, as well as the founder and CEO of ENGAGEDin – an international consultancy. With more than 10 years of experience across the fundraising mix, Simona works with non-profit organisations both in Italy, where she currently lives, and abroad. She speaks at conferences, seminars and training at an international level. Simona is Vice-president of the Italian Association of fundraisers (ASSIF) and a member of both the European Fundraising Association (EFA) and European Lung Foundation. She is the co-author of the book Board in prima fila (2020), focussed on Board development, and the blog Welcome on Board, focussed on experiences in consulting with non-profits governance and development.

Nikki Wrench

Nikki Wrench is a Community Manager at RNLI. She has been passionate about fundraising since setting up her own support group after being diagnosed with Leukaemia at the age of 15. Last year Nikki created the Facebook group ‘Furloughed Fundraisers Chat’ which has over 2500 members. The group provides opportunities for fundraisers to share skills and help desperate charities during the COVID pandemic. Training, peer support and recruitment advice is also provided for those who were sadly made redundant. The group was featured on SOFII in August 2020 and Nikki won a ‘Special Contribution’ award at the CIOF Chilterns Awards later that year.

Rebecca Wilson

‘Fundraising isn’t what I do, it’s who I am.’

Rebecca cut her teeth in the charity sector 10 years ago as a community fundraiser. She now leads the Corporate Partnership team at Mencap and is passionate about making the UK the best place in the world for people with a learning disability live. In 2016, Rebecca volunteered for an NGO in Brazil’s largest favela, and was inspired to set up a UK charity to continue to support the communities where she lived and worked. Non fundraising interests include travel (when restrictions allow), music and festivals, Salsa dancing, learning Spanish. Fun Fact: She has been to Clown School.