Donna Day Lafferty

About

Donna Day Lafferty has worked as a professional fundraiser and project manager since 1997. She currently teaches fundraising at the University and supports students in research practice. Many fundraising graduates are already working for leading UK charities, including: Guide Dogs for the Blind; Water Aid: WWF-UK; The Children’s Society; Girls Friendly Society; Maggie’s (Southampton).

Previously she raised over €22 million in funding as Development Director of the Better Cotton Initiative (2010-2012). As Director of Co-funding for the Tropical Forest Trust (2000-2006), she secured over €14 million in funding and managed an international project to help end the trade in illegal timber from tropical forests. At WWF she secured their first Comic Relief grant, £600,000, and was their millennium political campaigns coordinator.

Donna designed and authored the how2fundrase.org website, the Chartered Institute of Fundraising (IoF), coordinated the CIoF’s first online learning module and established a fundraising training programme for local charity volunteers in partnership with Chichester District Council (2007-2009) and then VAAC.

She leads the MA Fundraising programme.

Learning and Teaching Interests

Donna is interested in the interface between professional skills and the emerging academy of fundraising, exploring the way in which ‘learners’ at the forefront of professional development are both students, pioneers and influencers. 

Building on her previous experience of online learning, she intends to develop the Charity Development course for a wider international audience through blended learning. 

She is also a member of the founding team for the University’s pioneering Bridging Module that has successfully supported a wide range of mature learners into higher education, including individuals experiencing homelessness. 

Research

She is currently researching the Science of Fundraising.

Key Consultancy Work and Publications:

• Co-author, with Beth Breeze and Pamala Wiepking, The Fundraising Reader, Routledge (publication due 2023).
• Contribution to the Bridging Module Toolkit 2021. 
• Presentation of the Better Cotton Initiative, Africa Strategy, at the European Commission Sustainable Agriculture. Conference, Bamako Mali, November 2012. 
• Presentation of the Better Cotton Initiative, Global Strategy, at the IDH International Sustainability Conference, Utrecht Netherlands, 2012. 
• Presentation of the European Timber Trade Action Plan at Chatham House, Sustainable Trade Forum 2005.
• Timber Trade Action Plan, strategy paper for the European Commission, 2004”.
• Breeze, B., Day Lafferty, D, & Wiepking, P. (Eds.). (2023). The Fundraising Reader. Taylor & Francis.