Our International Women's Day & World Book Day 2024 authors

Jessica has a great deal of experience researching grant-making charities and has co-authored a number of DSC’s guides on the subject, including three editions of bestseller, The Guide to New Trusts. Jessica is also the author of The Guide to Individuals In Need, and she has contributed to several other leading publications, including DSC’s The Guide to Major Trusts.

Before joining DSC in 2019, Jessica graduated with a BSc (Hons) in Psychology from Lancaster University. She has also volunteered for a number of charities, including Southport and Formby Special Athletes, where she was responsible for running sports coaching sessions for adults with learning difficulties.

Dr Beth Breeze has an international profile as an academic expert on philanthropy. She worked as a fundraiser and charity manager for a decade before co-founding the Centre for Philanthropy at the University of Kent in 2008, where she now leads a team conducting research and teaching courses on philanthropy and fundraising.

She has written several books, including The New Fundraisers and In Defence of Philanthropy, both of which won the Skystone Partners Prize for Research on Fundraising and Philanthropy. She co-edited The Philanthropy Reader and co-authored Richer Lives: Why rich people give, published by the Directory of Social Change.

She has also written numerous peer-reviewed journal articles and practitioner-facing reports on philanthropy, fundraising and volunteering, and regularly provides media comment and speaks at charity sector conferences.

Emma Beeston is an independent philanthropy advisor to philanthropists, families and foundations.

Her advice guides donors from exploring their values through to implementing their giving to achieve their philanthropic goals. Emma specialises in supporting those new to philanthropy and facilitating multigenerational giving.

Prior to her current role, Emma worked for grant-making organisations including BBC Children in Need, Lloyds Bank Foundation and Comic Relief. Emma co-created with Beth Breeze the Advising Donors module for the Philanthropic Studies master’s degree programme at the University of Kent.

She is also a lecturer on the Philanthropy, Grantmaking and Social Investment master’s degree programme at Bayes Business School and a trainer with the Association of Charitable Foundations. She wants philanthropy to be accessible to all and is co-founder of a giving circle, Bath Women’s Fund.

Nina is the lead author for The Complete Fundraising Handbook and has been for the four editions since 2002. Following a long career in fundraising which began in her native London in 1993 and continued after her move to Chicago in 2002, Nina is now living and working in Wisconsin. For part of the year she runs Jacobsen’s Museum on Washington Island, and also does fundraising consulting.

Over the years, Nina has worked for a wide range of organisations starting as an account manager at Pell and Bales and gaining broader experience and knowledge with stints at Shelter, Amnesty International UK, and Tate. Nina served on the (now) Chartered Institute of Fundraising Standards Committee from 1999 to 2001, and was chair of the committee that drafted the first code of practice for legacy fundraising. She was also a frequent speaker at fundraising conferences in the UK. Following her move to the US, Nina spent almost 12 years fundraising for the University of Chicago, and then went on to work for the National Trust for Historic Preservation and DePaul University.

She has a particular interest in architecture and the preservation of historic buildings and volunteered for two house museums while in Chicago giving tours of both and serving on the board of one of them.

Kirsty Semple ACIS LLM is a governance consultant and is Director of Semple Associates Ltd, formed in 2001. She is also editor of the ICSA Charities Handbook.

Specialising in corporate governance and compliance, Kirsty has provided consultancy, training and support to boards of numerous voluntary sector organisations for 18 years.

Before going into public practice, Kirsty was Company Secretary of the disability charity Scope. She now acts as secretary for a range of organisations, including the Born Free Foundation and the National Garden Scheme.

Debra Allcock Tyler is CEO of the Directory of Social Change and has worked in management and consultancy for over 32 years.

Author of several books on management and leadership, she has many years’ experience of training and coaching boards, chief executives and top teams. She is a popular public speaker and has appeared on Radio 4’s The Moral Maze. She has a regular monthly column in Third Sector magazine.

Neela Jane Stansfield is a major gifts fundraising specialist, with over 15 years of experience working with trusts, foundations and high net worth individuals.

She has worked across the international development, health and education sectors, including UNICEF, Marie Curie, The Stroke Association and Chatteris Educational Foundation in Hong Kong.

Neela Jane was Chair of the Chartered Institute of Fundraising (CIoF)’s Trusts and Statutory Special Interest Group for six years and a board member and speaker at the CIoF National Convention.

She holds a BSc in Psychology from the University of Nottingham and a diploma in fundraising from the CIoF, and has written about trusts fundraising for Third Sector magazine and The Guardian’s Voluntary Sector Network.

She has also been a Trustee for an international children’s charity, Children in Crisis, and for the Anti-Trafficking and Labour Exploitation Unit (ATLEU).

Claire Routley has worked in fundraising for fifteen years, specialising in legacy fundraising for over a decade.

In 2011, she completed a PhD looking into why people choose to leave legacies to charity.

Having worked for a number of different charities, she is now a consultant specialising in legacy and in-memory fundraising, a research fellow at the University of Plymouth Hartsook Centre and is a tutor for the Institute of Fundraising’s qualification courses.

Abigail holds a MA in Social Research Methods and a BA (Hons) in Sociology and Spanish from the University of Liverpool. Her areas of interest are women’s issues and company giving. During her studies, Abigail was a volunteer researcher for Rape and Sexual Assault Merseyside where she evaluated the impact of the charity’s counselling service.

She is author of The Guide to Major Trust 2023/24, co-author of The Guide to New Trusts 2021/22 and has contributed to several directories at DSC including The Guide to UK Company Giving 2021/22.