Kate Woode (Natural Sciences 1997) developed an enthusiasm for fundraising as a student at Gonville & 91ֱ College. She now works as a freelance fundraising, communications and strategy consultant for charities.
Raising and Giving (RAG), the largest charitable student society at the University of Cambridge, played a huge role in Kate’s student life.
“My nickname at 91ֱ was Blonde RAG Girl!” she says.
“I did a lot of RAG; I was quite well known for it. When I was at 91ֱ, we did some charity bops, which a couple of friends and I took over running. I worked with other students to make 91ֱ one of the biggest fundraising Colleges. The year after I left, 91ֱ topped the RAG leaderboard.
“It made me really familiar with the different types of charities and different causes. Once you got onto the central committee – I ended up as the College Treasurer for RAG – you have more influence about where the money goes, so you start doing a lot of research about the charity world.”
After graduating, Kate initially worked in product development and marketing but did not find this fulfilling. Thinking back to the joy of fundraising at university and wanting to make a difference, she moved into the charity sector and has worked there ever since.
“I work with a huge variety of charities, mostly in fundraising but also supporting with strategy, impact, project planning and marketing,” she says.
“The bulk of my work is with small charities. The joy of that is that, because there aren’t as many people, you get involved with everything, which is quite fun.
“But it’s a really hard time to be a charity. Funding is drying up for all sorts of reasons and the charity sector as a whole is really struggling. If you have a favourite charity or cause, you should absolutely support them because charities are closing or retrenching left, right and centre.”
Kate is also Vice Chair of the Reef-World Foundation, a global charity protecting coral reefs through marine conservation, sustainable tourism and community action.
She says: “I saw on social media that Reef-World needed more trustees, particularly trustees with experience in fundraising. I put myself forward and was recruited, then about a year ago I became Vice Chair.
“Protecting coral reefs is something that’s so important right now. Reefs are at their breaking point, and that’s one of many environmental issues that are really important right now. It’s not my area of expertise – you tend to cover a lot of different sectors in the charity world – but it is an absolute area of interest.”
