Vickie Chisholm, John Gulson Primary School

Just wanted to let you know that since your course I have received a £6,975 grant for an outdoor classroom and also the awards for all £10,000. Plus some other bits and pieces! Thanks for all the hints and tips.

Natalie Renford, Business Manager, Malmesbury Primary School

I am just emailing to say thanks to your bid writing workshop which I attended for a second time in July last year. Since then I have submit bids to Ernest Cook Trust, our local Authority, The Big Lottery Fund (upon your advice before the application form changed) and Kellogg's Breakfast Club. In the 6 months that I have been with my new employer I have raised £15k, I am so pleased and just wanted to touch base and thank you for making me look good and for delivering a great workshop!

Lorraine Hiller, Inclusion Development Manager, Bradstow School

PTP have trained a team of staff and enabled us to access funds for a variety of projects throughout the last 10 years. Without this training we doubt that we would have achieved, or had the confidence to achieve so much. Our most recent success has been another Big Lottery bid for our 'Poppy Proms in the Park project' for which we have been granted £9300.

Natalie Renford, Business Manager, Hackney New School

I attended your workshop in November 2014 and am thrilled to say that as soon as I came away from the workshop I was buzzing with excitement! I literally could not wait to write my first bid.
I just wanted to touch base to tell you that since your workshop I wrote a bid for £400 to help towards our breakfast club which we received and also I wrote a letter (how simple is that) and added the budget template you gave to us on the day. I wrote a bid for a specialist drama teacher to the Ernest Cook Trust for £4000 and today received a letter to say that we will receive £2500 next month. I am so pleased, thank you for a great day!

Karen Haines, Director of Just A Sec (Greater Manchester) Limited

'I attended both the Fundraising Masterclass and the Next Steps - Bidding Online Workshops. I found both the workshops and Bob very inspirational. Since attending the workshops, I have successfully secured £80,000 and now just venturing into a larger project to develop school wasteland into a useable community space. Thank you to Bob and to all at PTP Consultancy - I could't have done it without you!'

Carol Rogers, Inclusion Co-ordinator and Fundraiser, Beal High School, Redbridge, Essex

On 21st November I attended one of your bid writing courses. I am writing to inform you that I wrote my first bid to our SEN team and on Friday I received notification that I had been successful with my bid for £1500 to develop our sensory garden. As I am sure you know I was very pleased to receive this news. I am sure that I would not have been able to write a successful bid if I had not attended your course. So Thank you.

Nicola Matthews, Fundraising, PR and Marketing Manager, Birkenhead High School Academy

Our fundraising successes since I attended the Workshop in Manchester are as follows:
£5000 from HSBC for an electronics and robotics suite.
£12,800 from the John Thaw Trust for pupils to attend a week long writing for radio residential at Arvon in Shropshire.
£1300 from the British Heart Foundation towards 2 defibrillators.
£4500 from HSBC for a Fitness lab.
My fundraising work is not full time and also includes raising money for charity through other ways through fundraisers at school. I also do marketing and PR for the school.
I am presently completing a bid to the Heritage Lottery Fund for approximately £50,000. I will keep you updated as to how this goes.

Justin Smith Director of Enterprise and Community, Wymondham High Academy

I thought you might like to hear some good news. Not long after hosting your Fundraising Masterclass here at the academy I submitted a bid to the EFA Academies Capital Maintenance Fund for £166,541. The bid focused on replacement windows for our 1960’s teaching block. I’m delighted to report that my bid was accepted and that tendering is now underway with the work planned for the summer! The EFA announced that £1.1 billion was bid for from 1364 academies, far in excess of the £325 million that was available. I’m delighted we managed to secure a piece of that pie!!
There’s no doubt that your fundraising masterclass helped prepare me for that bid application, so thanks again for all your support and encouragement.
Let’s hope there's more to come!!

Carol Laister, School Manager, Woodhouse West Primary School

Having attended the Funding Masterclass with Bob Jennings I submitted my first funding application in January. I never really expected anything given the criteria but thought it would be a useful experience. Today I received a cheque for £400 plus £50 worth of Kelloggs vouchers - highly delighted!!!

Nicola Matthews, Fundraising, PR and Marketing Manager, Birkenhead High School Academy

I just thought I would give you an update on a bid we have just been successful with. I applied for funding to send a group of pupils on a residential to Arvon in Shropshire to take part in a writing for radio course. Unfortunately competition was very high and we were unsuccessful, however, a couple of weeks ago I got a phone call to say another school had applied for funding to the John Thaw Trust, had been successful and had then dropped out (??!). Our application form was passed to The John Thaw Trust by Arvon and we were successful and selected to take the other schools place.
'Set in the beautiful surroundings of Shropshire, in the playwright John Osborne's house, The Hurst, the sixteen students and two accompanying teachers from Birkenhead High School Academy will work as a group - they will be the only students on the course that week and therefore have the run of the place - embarking on a series of group writing tasks in the mornings, and they will then have one-to-one sessions in the afternoons with guest authors whose names will be confirmed as soon as possible. Arvon's philosophy is that all students and staff cook the evening meal together and share their writing in the evenings. The writing workshops in the mornings for this cohort of very able students will be designed for them to learn specifically about writing for radio, whilst a variety of other fiction will be explored in the afternoons.'
The funding also covers return transport to Arvon. The funding to cover the whole project is just under £13,000!!

Tier Abbass Thrapston Primary School

Last weekend, our PTA ran the Thrapston Winter Wonderland Experience. Alongside our annual school Christmas Fair, this year's event was extended over the whole weekend and included a temporary ice rink set up on the playground and a visit from two of Santa's reindeer. We opened up the school to the local community in a way that hasn't ever happened before and the feedback from children, parents and staff has been amazing.
Both the ice rink and the reindeer were funded by a £6k grant from National Lottery, which we would never have considered before attending the course.
Thanks for helping to point us in the right direction and raise the aspirations of what can be achieved.

Sue Parkin School Business Manager, Hampton Hill Primary School

I have had some fundraising successes:-

£600 - EMI - Musical Instrument purchase
£600 - Ernest Cook - Musical Instrument purchase
£1,600 - Ernest Cook - Hen project
£20,000 - awaiting a decision for an outside classroom (fingers crossed)

Carmen King School Business Manager, Camberwell Park Specialist Support School

Just to let you know we’ve been awarded a £8950 grant from Awards For All. I’m really pleased! It’s for a joint bid for my school and the extra care housing scheme next door to us. It is an over 55 place that, if needed, offers 24 hour care The bid is a “Seed to Feed” project which will incorporate growing and cooking! The money is for developing the growing area to include wheelchair access.

Andrea McMillan MAAT, Bursar, Knights Enham Junior School

I attended the Masterclass workshop recently in Andover and have been putting things into practice. Just to let you know we have just been awarded £10K from the National Lottery for a solardome for Endeavour!
We kept thinking about what you said on the course - beneficiaries, inspiring name, memorable images etc etc and it worked!!! We are so happy - thank you.

Janet Smith, Admin Officer, Brookwood Primary School

We are delighted to let you know that we have been given a £10,000 Awards for All - Lottery Grant for our "Brookwood Buddies Playground Project"
Your inspirational training days definitely assisted in this successful bid.
Our project will now go forward as soon as possible.
We now feel empowered for further bid writing!

Lorraine Hiller, Inclusion Development Manager, Bradstow School

Just a quick note to let you know that we had a major success in winning matched funding from The Jubilee People's Millions for a 5-a-side football pitch with an Interactive highway, we won £57,899!!!!
I've been on the telly twice and the radio 4 times and I can't tell you how many local papers. Project has started and has a projected build of 7 weeks.

Annie Millard, School Business Manager, Park School, Blackpool

Just wanted to say thank you very much!! Since attending your course back in March this year I have managed to secure an Awards For All full grant of £10k and also the Esme Fairburn Trust has donated £2,500 towards our Eco initiative. Not a bad start I thought!

Couldn’t have done it without you!!

Denise Crocker, Director of Finance & Administration, Thomas Alleyne's High School

We recently secured £30,000 from the Wolfson Foundation to help develop our delivery of Environmental and Land Based Science and Design Technology vocational qualifications. We had money from the LEA to build a Skills Centre which will be used to offer courses such as trowel trades, motor vehicle maintenance and tractor maintenance to both our own students and those from other providers. Wolfson awarded us the money to equip the Centre with tools, ramps, hoists and a variety of other resources. Your Masterclass gave me the confidence and knowledge to look for possible sources of funding and this was the first successful bid we had made - so thank you for all the valuable information and tips.

Michelle Charlton, Schools' Business Director, Fishburn Cluster of Schools

I attended your bid wrting masterclass in May at Sedgefield. Thanks for the best training course I've been on in a long time. I've just found out today, the three £10,000 bids to Awards for All for three of my four schools - I got them! So, on a roll now. Your enthusiasm is infectious.

Dawn Price, School Business Manager, Manor Green School

Good news we have just had £9500 from the Lottery Community Wildlife Fund. We have had £10k from the main Big Lottery, £4k from Lord's Taverners and £28k from the Peter Harrison Foundation! So your wise words have helped us get money! I continue to point people in your direction!

Sue Blyth, Assistant Head Teacher, Monks Abbey Primary School

I just thought I'd let you know that I have had my first successful bid and am very proud of myself!!
Towards the end of the school year I placed a bid for £25 000 to the Police Force for our 'Global Cafe'. We have 20 languages in school and aim to bring cultures and the community together through global healthy eating workshops both in school and after school.
So.. I asked for the money to build a kitchen and set up the club and I got the full amount!!
Thank you for you help. Can't wait to start the next one!!

Carrie Bate, Claverley CofE Primary School

I attended your course on Tuesday 13th October at Shrewsbury.
I just thought I'd let you know that less than 24 hours later I applied for a grant for £2,500 from 'Let's Get Cooking' (a Lottery Funded Association) and received instant confirmation from them that we had been successful! There were only ten allocations of this money available. So we consider ourselves to be extremely fortunate.
The allocation also includes teacher training. So we are all absolutely delighted and excited!
Thanks for all your great advice on Tuesday, I really enjoyed your seminar and look forward to attending the next one!

Carol Clark, Bursar's Assistant, Hedingham School, Essex

I attended your Fundraising Masterclass at Prested Hall 16 June this year. I found it extremely useful as I was a novice bidwriter and did not know where to start.
By 23rd June I had bid for a total of £1900 on two separate bids and received letters today with confirmation of £1400 allocated to my school!! Thank you so much for showing me how easy it is!!
I was a little timid to overbid but next time I shall ask for more!!
Looking forward to the next masterclass.

Kieron Underhill, Strategic Finance Manager, Dudley Schools Consortium

Just as an update from me - £20,500 and counting since June, thanks to the lottery funding a breakfast club and an outdoor area revamp at a couple of my schools, football foundation kit grant and a couple of local charities !!
Just waiting for a decision on a further £12,000 of bids submitted too

Benta Hickley, Extended School Coordinator, Datchet Cluster

UPDATE
Through what I learnt from you, the bid we submitted last December to Youth Music ("one of an unpresidented number of applications received") was awarded today at just under 80% of the amount applied for - we aren't complaining, £23540 will do very nicely thank you!!! Brings 'my' total to £35440, and another £14000 submitted as two applications to Awards for All under consideration - this could get addictive!
----------------------------

Following the RBWM training last week I just wanted to let you know the grant successes that I have had since the first course back in October 2008.
I got the football foundation football kit for one of my schools (the other two had already applied) I also got £100 from Family Learning at the borough towards a dads & lads rocket workshop.
I helped an after school drama club get £8400 from Youth Capital Fund to refurbish the school stage (sound lights & curtains).
I got £3000 from Creative Junction to fund a tutor for a computer based music club.
We are waiting for a decision from Youth Music for a £30000 (!) grant for software and hardware for the computer based music club and we are waiting for the new financial year to request £6500 from Youth Capital Fund for graphics software to complement the computer based music club.
Outside of schools, I got £1400 from Youth Opportunity Fund for a residentail trip for the Church Youth Club.
Thanks so much for giving me the knowledge and the ability, and most of all the confidence to apply.

Cheryl Taylor Ladybridge Primary School

Just a quick note re the course I attended in November. I sent the football foundation grant before Christmas and this week we received the voucher for £400. So thats the cost of the course covered! I've now completed another bid for a larger amount so it's a case of fingers crossed!

Liz Elworthy School Business Manager, Radford Primary School

You kindly directed and supported me with our Awards for All bid for ICT funding (ICTalent application) following my attendance at your Fundraising Courses organised through Coventry City Council.
I placed our bid for £9,455.50 and am delighted to report back that I have been advised that we have been awarded £9,455.00.
I just wanted to thank you for your time and support which helped me persevere with my first major bid (it’s a big one to me) which has given me the confidence and enthusiasm to continue with this much needed type of funding for our school going forward. This award will make a tremendous difference to our children and offer.

Eleanor Delday Gartree High School

I thoroughly enjoyed day one of the fund writing workshop you held in Birmingham. I came back the next day and sent off a bid for the junior football kit. Today I had a phone call to say that my bid had been successful and I would shortly be receiving a pack with all the information!!! I have also purchased the book about who gives what to whom for the Midlands. I now feel that I can at least attempt to make bids for larger items and hopefully might be successful in these, too. Thanks again for the workshop which has paid for itself.

Tanya Collins Drapers Mils Primary School, Margate

I came to one of your fundraising masterclasses back in June and you asked us to let you know when we received the £400.00 from the football foundation. It came this morning , Thank you for your help I'm not a natural go getter rather a quiet person really so am pleased with this result and am looking forward to bigger things in the future.

Rhian Thomas Clydach Junior School

Following my attendance at one of your funding courses I was successful in getting a grant of £5500 from the Coalfields Regeneration Trust. This funded additional staging for our school hall and an interactive system – projector & electric screen.
We were fortunate to be in an old mining community and so were eligible to bid.

Bernadette Ince Admin Officer Cotmanhay Infant School

Attached is a light heared report on my experience so far! Hope you like it

  Read the whole story

Janet Coleman Office Manager - Shortstown Lower

Just thought I would let you know I have just received the voucher for £400 from the Football Foundation. Hoorah!!!!!!!
It was soooooo easy !!!!

Catherine Bianco School Business Manager, Bedfordshire

Just to let you know that I applied for the football kit from the Football Foundation on 18 October, following the Fundraising Masterclass I attended on 17 October, and the voucher for £400 arrived today!
Thank you!

Jacqui Lincoln - Senior Administrator, Diss High School, Norfolk

I realise it's a while since the bid on-line workshop, but I just wanted to share a success story with you.
After I completed the first workshop at Aspire, I went back to my school buzzing with ideas and thought the sports kit would be a good start. It met a brick wall from my PE department and to help things along I filled most of the form in for them. I think I must have made them feel a little guilty because since then they have successfully become afilliated to the FA, they have sent the kit form off and the girls' football team are getting new kit and working with the schools sports co-ordinator, we have managed to get £3,500 from Awards for All to start up an after school netball club.
So thank you VERY much!

Linda Marshall - Extended Schools Co-ordinator Commercial and Financial, Kibworth Cluster of Schools Leicestershire

I attended The Fundraising Masterclass and Next Steps Workshops in Manchester in June 2007 and came away truly inspired by Bob's advice regarding branding and marketing ideas, securing support and funding for projects.
Although on a relatively small scale, I have successfully gained sponsorship from a local company for the production of a booklet signposting families, parents, carers to a wide range of non-commercial support and advice as part of our group of schools' extended services.
The sponsorship made a huge difference and means we will be able to provide every family (2000+) with a booklet this term. In addtion to the financial support, I have also networked with the editor of a local magazine who has supported the project with practical help to get the document into pre-publishing format - all free of charge - and all because I picked up the phone to ask him where they had their magazine printed! He also secured an excellent print price me.
The success of my bid for funds and support was dependent on finding the right organisations with a shared community and family focus and using Bob's tips on presentation and style.....and it worked! All the people who have supported us needed in return was a credit in the booklet, which promotes their business in the community. Bob told us all that we would be able to cover the schools' investment in the cost of the workshops by the end of the year. I am pleased to tell you in my case that he was absolutely right.
Thank you Bob for changing the way I approach this type of work and fundraising - it does make a difference.

Ian Gauntlett - Sports Development Officer, Park High School Specialist Sports College

Success story! Having attended the Fundraising for Schools and Next Steps workshops with Bob, I am delighted to say that my knowledge of bid writing has become much better.
It is not easy trying to secure funding, however the workshops have helped us to write bids to sustain a number of projects that have been so successful that we did want them to finish but we had run out of funding for. I am pleased to say the extra funds have enabled us to keep these projects running including a community family night and provision for early years. I am delighted that we have now also achieved charitable status so that we can run community projects separate from the school. This has certainly opened up new channels of attempting to secure funding.
With the help of the new online forum, I hope it will enable us all to contact each other so that we can share our thoughts, ideas and visions and help each other to meet our goals of what we all want to achieve and that is securing funding to fulfil our ambitions.

Kate Usher - Office Manager, Lydiate Primary School

Since attending Bob's Fundraising Masterclass in December I have successfully secured the following for our school:-
* £400 - football kit from the football foundation.
* Kwik Cricket Equipment from Lord Taverners.
* £350 music equipment grant from EMI.
* 30 free trees from the woodlands trust.
Although these are small in comparison to some of the projects they have all made a huge difference within the school. The football kit for example is the first kit we have had in the school for over ten years and both the boys and the girls are delighted with it!
The Masterclass highlighted the many different avenues of funding available and I am sure this won't be the end of my fundraising ventures.

Peter Smith - Charity Director/Extended Services Manager, Babington Community Technology College

My funding success story £300,000 plus - over 3 years.

  Read the whole story

Denise Richardson - Assistant Headteacher, Aston Comprehensive School

I was with you on training at Cent Magna in Sheffield - I made the bid to the sports council for kit for our girl's team - got the £400 thanks to you. I've got the bit between my teeth now.

Harry Blackwood - Extended School Manager, Wellfield Community School

Naturally, I've saved the best until last. I've just got £5,250 (with high hopes of the same amount again) to implement an Indoor Rowing Academy at the school. Thanks to this successful bid and a few other bits of money from various partners, I have been able to order eight £1,000 rowing machines.

  Read the whole story

Tori Pearson - Community Arts Coordinator Friern Barnet School

The PTP course enabled me to create small bid applications successfully and achieve an impact on the schools performing arts status, outreach focus into the community and to generate new sources of revenue and profit for the school.
The main capital build bidding process is proving slow and hard but step by step we are reaching towards our £1 million goal!

  Read the whole story

Helen Duncan - Strategic Financial Manager St Joseph's Catholic Primary School (Stourbridge)

I thought you would be pleased to know that one of the schools I work for has been successful in obtaining a Football Foundation Grant.
They are an EBD Special School for Secondary age boys, and already hold the FA Charter Standard. I gave them the guidance to complete the application form that you had given us, left them to it, and they heard within 2-3 wks!

Judith Elias - Fundraiser, Little Heath School Romford Essex

Following the Masterclass I can tell you that we have received funding of £26,000 and our multi-sensory room was built and equipped during the summer holiday.

Linda Grounds - Bursar, Thatto Heath Primary School, Merseyside

Since attending the Masterclass we have been very successful at school raising funds from Regional Grants in Merseyside - Local Network and Arts and Culture etc. We have also had money from Awards For All.
The major success has been from the Heritage Lottery. I have been very fortunate in securing a partnership with an Arts and Dance Specialist and we have been very successful in raising money to promote the arts in school. The lady in question has had lottery money before and we have secured a large bid for children to study social dance from 1930 to 1970. Again, I have been fortunate in that my school is situated in an area which suffers social and economic deprivation and our PTFA has charitable status which I think opens certain doors for us.

John Gibson - Beddaus Buddies! Rhondda Cynon Taff, Wales

We have from this September started an after school club concentrating on children from within our feeder schools It has been running for 5 weeks so we are claiming that the project has been successful.
The school transports the kids using our school mini buses to the club, which helps us build an even closer link to the feeder schools. Our bid to NOF was successful in obtaining funding to the tune of £7,500.

Kate Usher - Office Manager, Lydiate Primary School, Liverpool

Just thought I would let you know that following my successful bid for £400 from the football foundation I now have bids in for cricket equipment, musical equipment and a science award. I will let you know if I am successful.
I am also working on funding for new playground equipment and a possible refurb of the community room to encourage more community use.
Many thanks for a really informative couple of days, I am sure this will not be the last of my fundraising attempts!