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.