Access Donorfest 2026
Speaker & Partner Information
Speakers
Eddie “The Eagle” Edwards
Michael Edwards, better known as Eddie 'the Eagle' Edwards, was the first competitor to represent Great Britain in Olympic Ski jumping. Despite not winning in his sport, Eddie's heroic failures won the hearts and minds of the public.
With a love of skiing and stunts from a young age, Eddie started out in downhill skiing but switched to ski jumping when he realised that this sport had no other UK competitors. Holding the record for stunt jumping but with only a small jump under his belt, two years before the Olympics he began training. After representing Great Britain at the 1987 World Championships, and ranking 55th, Eddie qualified as the sole British applicant for the 1988 Winter Olympics. He was working in difficult circumstances however - he had no financial support for training and had to
wear his glasses at all times, which fogged up to such an extent that he couldn’t see while he was jumping. Eddie came in last in both the 70m and 90m events but he succeeded in winning hearts around the world. He became a popular celebrity, appearing on talk shows around the world and gaining the affectionate nickname ‘Mr Magoo’ from the press.
An entertaining speaker, Eddie shares his journey with characteristic charm and humour. He talks of his willingness to take risks, the importance of pushing yourself outside of your comfort zone and allowing yourself to fail but also to get back up and try again. He reminds audiences that success isn’t always in the winning but in the trying. In the midst of his public glory, he released a book and several songs (including in Finnish). Since then, he has done a synchronised dive with Tom Daley on ITV’s Splash, taught celebrities to ski-jump on The Jump and danced as Rubber Chicken on The Masked Dancer. His story was made into a biographical film ‘Eddie the Eagle’ in which he was portrayed by Taron Egerton. He remains one of the best loved athletes today.
Helen McCartan - Head of Public Fundraising and Communications at Caring in Bristol
With over twenty years in the charity sector, Helen has built a reputation for genuinely connecting with people, thinking outside the box, and never losing sight of the bigger purpose behind every campaign.
Helen brings empathy, creativity, and a hands-on spirit to her role as Head of Public Fundraising and Communications at Caring in Bristol, Bristol’s local homelessness charity.
Day-to-day, Helen gets stuck in with every aspect of fundraising and communications, from inspiring individual givers and building partnerships with local businesses and community groups, to dreaming up events and telling the charity’s story in ways that move people to help.
Helen’s favourite part of the job is working alongside passionate colleagues and supporters. She believes that real change happens when communities pull together, and she’s constantly searching for new ideas and powerful stories to spark that sense of shared purpose.
https://www.caringinbristol.org.uk/
Dale Harrison - CRM Manager at St Martin-in-the-Fields Charity
Dale is CRM Manager at St Martin-in-the-Fields Charity, focused on ensuring clean, accurate data, efficient reporting, and making sure the charity gets the most out of Donorfy to grow income. Previously, he spent five years at Stamford School, wearing many hats across the Alumni Relations and Marketing departments, including fundraising and analytics, but data was always at the core. Dale focuses on using Donorfy to streamline processes, automate workflows and turn data into insight that drives better decisions.
Aysha Naziri - Supporter Care & Fundraising Manager at Sport in Mind
Aysha Naziri is the Supporter Care & Fundraising Manager at Sport in Mind, the UK’s leading mental health sports charity. With a strong background in building meaningful partnerships and community fundraising, Aysha plays a pivotal role in growing the charity’s supporter base and developing innovative opportunities to engage individuals, businesses, and community groups in Sport in Mind’s mission.
Passionate about the power of sport and physical activity to transform lives, Aysha works closely with fundraisers, partners, and stakeholders to ensure every supporter feels valued and inspired. She uses CRM systems to design personalised stewardship journeys, enabling tailored communications and ongoing engagement that strengthen relationships and maximise impact. She has led on a wide range of fundraising initiatives, from grassroots campaigns to large-scale sporting events, all with the aim of raising vital funds and awareness to support people experiencing mental health challenges.
At Sport in Mind, Aysha’s role combines creativity, relationship building, strategic fundraising, and data-driven stewardship to help the charity continue its impact nationwide. She is especially committed to championing supporter stories, fostering collaboration, and showcasing the positive role that physical activity can play in recovery and wellbeing.
Ying Wong - Growth and Partnerships Analyst at Sport in Mind
Ying began her career in the charity sector and is since building her skillset and experience across CRM management, business analysis, and operational delivery. Passionate about driving positive change, she brings a sharp analytical mindset to solving challenges and improving efficiency across charitable organisations.
At Sport in Mind, Ying has played a key role in implementing Donorfy as the charity’s central CRM system. She’s developed a streamlined grant pipeline for the growth team and is crafting automated processes to personalise their stewardship communications with fundraising runners. As she continues to deepen her expertise in Donorfy, Ying is helping bring her colleagues’ visions to life—integrating cross-team systems, refining workflow processes, and building insightful dashboards to support data-driven decisions.
Ying is excited to share her insights on how CRM can empower charities to work smarter, connect better, and grow impactfully.
Jackie Colby - Donorfy Team Leader at Mast
Jackie is Donorfy Team Leader at Mast, who specialise in data migrations, integrations and Power BI reporting for Donorfy clients. Having started in IT and then switched career to roles in charity fundraising teams, Jackie now helps users get the most out of Donorfy and is particularly passionate about helping users to streamline everyday data tasks in order to do more of what matters.
Graham Dunn - Customer Success Team Leader at Donorfy
With 10 years' experience managing Scripture Union's database, outdoors enthusiast Graham is a knowledge powerhouse.
Whether he's assisting with technical challenges or helping users maximise Donorfy, he's amazing at making our community feel supported.
Gizem Fowler - Account Executive at Donorfy
Gizem, our super-smiler, has extensive fundraising experience from roles at the British Heart Foundation and The Yard. She knows what makes a CRM great, and that's why she's so good at showcasing Donorfy.
A self-described "marathon plodder", Gizem hails from Turkey and now calls Scotland home.
Shaf Mansour - Charity Solutions Expert at The Access Group
Meet Shaf, Senior Product Manager and charity technology expert who has dedicated the past 20 years to working with charities in pursuit of a better world. Shaf has experience both in-house at international NGOs such as The Elders and Unicef, as well as UK based charities including Barnardo's, Action for Blind People, and Mind.
Whilst predominantly working in digital roles, Shaf's approach was to throw himself into the services to fully understand the challenges facing those working with beneficiaries. Shaf seamlessly integrates his extensive experience with a critical and analytical foundation in legal studies to adeptly address intricate challenges such as complex data flows, compliance, and GDPR - all while prioritising a user-centric approach.
In addition, Shaf balances a pragmatic mindset with an innovative edge, ensuring that solutions are not only realistic and suitable for diverse audiences but also push the boundaries of what is achievable in the rapidly advancing landscape of technology.
https://www.theaccessgroup.com/en-gb/not-for-profit/meet-our-experts/
Partners
Dotdigital
Dotdigital are the UK’s leading email marketing automation provider currently serving over 4,000 brands and 20,000+ active users across 150+ countries. Their technology allows users to drive more ROI from their marketing campaigns and turn data into results through personalisation, automation, segmentation, AI, and much more. They have a broad knowledgebase and sector expertise to help supply the right solution.
https://dotdigital.com/
https://dotdigital.com/contact/
Andi Best
Andi is a longstanding Donorfy Partner, often working with Donorfy clients to enhance their website for users and find creative and beautiful ways to move data from their website and integrated systems into Donorfy. Andi also supports clients with stand-alone web pages as well as full website redesign.
https://andib.co.uk/charity-services/
Mast
Mast are heavy hitters in the CRM department. If you want something gloriously integrated with every other system that you use that sings, dances and brings you a cuppa in the morning (ok, maybe they can’t build that bit) then these are the ones for you. As founding Partners of Donorfy, they have implemented lots of Donorfy databases and exciting add-ons for our clients and migrated huge data sets.
https://mastcrm.com/crm/donorfy/
Enthuse
Enthuse is a fundraising, donations and events registration technology provider that has helped thousands of charities raise hundreds of millions. Enthuse’s solutions are customised under a cause’s own brand and put the organisation in control of the data. This allows charities to build and nurture a loyal supporter base, raise more and ultimately have more impact.
Enthuse was founded in 2012 and is headquartered in London, with operations in Scotland, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. Enthuse is also the official online fundraising partner for London Marathon Events and Great Run.
Dataro
Dataro is a global technology company providing state-of-the-art fundraising analytics and AI donor predictions to help nonprofits raise more for their cause. Their software solutions are used by more than 100 nonprofits globally to improve fundraising performance across appeals, recurring giving, mid-major giving, donor retention, upgrades, reactivations, legacies and more. The Dataro team are passionate about helping nonprofits, both small and large, to harness the power of their data so they can do more good in the world.
https://dataro.io/
hello@dataro.io
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