Howard Hurd

BA Hons, PhD(Geog), MInstF(Cert)

Since joining the charity in 2001, Howard has been successful in substantially increasing the charity's charitable income from trusts, foundations and companies to support the organisation's recent development and growth.

Roles

• Director of Funding and Development

Responsibilities

Fundraising

As the charity's Director of Funding and Development, Howard has overall responsibility for the charity's fundraising activities.

Howard spends around half of his time on fundraising – his work includes identifying possible sources of funds, preparing applications for funding to send to companies and trusts, and supporting the charity's incredible volunteer fundraisers. In 2006, Howard passed an Open University exam to receive his Certificate in Fundraising Management from the Institute of Fundraising , the professional body of fundraisers in the UK.

Education

For the other half of his time, Howard contributes to the charity's wide range of publishing activities. He has day-to-day responsibility for updating and maintaining the content on the charity's websites, he has played a central role in filming, editing and producing the charity's new range of Down Syndrome in Practice DVD videos, he writes the charity's regular newsletter, helps write the Annual Report and Accounts and provides copy for the charity's other publicity materials.

As a member of the charity's senior management team, Howard also contributed to the recent 2007-2012 Strategy Review. 

Background

Howard has a long-standing interesting in the voluntary sector and fundraising. After completing a Geography degree at the University of Southampton , Howard stayed to complete a Doctoral thesis that investigated patterns in the charitable donations made by companies in the UK. During this time, Howard also worked as a volunteer at a local arts centre and in Oxfam's regional office.

He then spent several years in the early 1990s working as a researcher with the highly-regarded voluntary sector research team at The Directory of Social Change , where he contributed to publications on giving by grant-making trusts, the National Lottery and rich individuals. Howard has also worked in a range of positions in the private sector involving writing in various forms – including distance learning materials and user manuals.

Outside work, Howard is kept equally busy at home by his young family of two sons and identical twin girls. He also enjoys photography, cycling (off-road and on-road), a wide range of music and film, and he is currently learning to play the tenor saxophone.