Ceris Jones
Ceris has been involved with the Alliance’s effectiveness and learning programme for more than five years, and has mentored several organisation in that time and experienced a variety of situations where mentoring has helped organisations to develop. Ceris has had ‘hands on’ experience in international development mainly in Nepal and India, and worked with a small Scottish and Nepali NGO both in Nepal and in the UK, initially on the ground level helping to co-ordinate community development projects, and years later in the UK as a fundraising and UK operations director. Her work in India involved running a youth exchange programme for a large NGO. Some of her other work has included working in France to set up partnership projects between a multinational company, French NGOs and public sector bodies. She has worked to support people with learning disabilities into employment. In summary her direct experience has had a particular emphasis on partnerships, volunteering & fundraising, and her mentoring experience has involved a significant amount of work on monitoring and evaluation.
Ceris holds a MA in Anthropology from the University of Edinburgh.
“I am ready to do all I can in my role as a mentor to help organisations to develop and grow. I enjoy the role of supporting people to discover and experience things for the first time, and in particular being a neutral outsider who can spot things that are hard to see when you are working so hard to keep your organisation going from day to day.”
Emily Balls
Emily Balls has around 10 years experience working across the public and charity sector. She has worked in both international development and humanitarian response for organisations such as the British Red Cross, Fairtrade International, the Scottish Government and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Her speciality is in monitoring and evaluation and she also has expertise in accountability and learning, project management and stakeholder engagement . Her experience includes working on the West Africa Ebola outbreak as well as leading on MEL for a £16 million DFID funded sanitation and hygiene research programme in East and Southern Africa. Emily holds a MA in English and Social Anthropology from the University of St Andrews and a MA in Education and International Development from University College London. She is currently based in Moray, Scotland and works as a freelance consultant supporting community and international development organisations with monitoring and evaluation, and more recently with fundraising. More information about Emily’s background including publications can be found on LinkedIn.
“I enjoy working with organisations to help improve systems and tools and to build upon the existing expertise and skills of staff. My passion is monitoring and evaluation and helping organisations manage and use data in order to better achieve their goals.”
Grace Ommer
Grace has been working in international Development for the last 20 years. She initially worked with small NGOs in Bangladesh as an Organisational Development Adviser, helping them to develop and grow. Since 2004 she has worked for Oxfam International in various roles, mainly Country Director, in country programmes in Africa, Asia and the Middle East. The Country Director role is mainly about strategic leadership however involves working with many partners from small Community Based Organisations to large INGOs in consortiums so has plenty to share from her work in leading and managing teams, partnership management and strategy development. Now more than ever is localisation a high priority as is safe programming so she is experienced with these approaches. Her experience is broad based across humanitarian, development and influencing programmes and working on small funded innovative projects to large multimillion funded ones.
Grace is also a trained workplace coach and has worked with many colleagues using these skills. She has experience as a change manager and has led various initiatives including merging two Asia regions and working with a team that focussed on transformational change with country leadership teams.
Grace has an MBA from Strathclyde university and has attended numerous learning and development courses over the past 20 years.
My passion is working with people and organisations focussing on transformational change and supporting others to grow and make a difference in theirs and others lives.
Kay Farmer
Kay has been successfully supporting organisational and network effectiveness and sustainability for many years. She has practical experience of establishing and managing environmental management projects and programmes in Africa for international NGO’s and the United Nations. Kay supported the development and management of membership based networks in Africa and Europe, and has seen first-hand the value of shared learning. Having worked with donors on designing application and review systems, and project evaluation, Kay understands donor requirements. Her work focuses on supporting organisations to make a lasting difference through a range of bespoke services including capacity building; partnership development and stakeholder engagement; desk based research for evidence based decision-making; and monitoring, evaluation and learning.
Kay holds a PhD from the University of Stirling, and a MSc from the University of Edinburgh.
“I am passionate about helping people to explore ways of increasing their organisational effectiveness. I look forward to working with the Alliance’s members, enabling them to continue to do great work both now and into the future.”
Lindsay Graham
Lindsay has been working in international development for over 15 years. She is co-founder of a small charity, working to support women into higher education in Malawi. As Director of this charity, Lindsay has been involved with all aspects of organisational management, fundraising and grant applications, monitoring and evaluation, as well as project management. Lindsay was also the Project Director of an education programme for people with learning disabilities in the UK for over eight years. She has worked in India and Malawi on educational projects for women and for those with learning disabilities. In all her work, she has taken on the development and management of different projects and has been involved in funding applications ranging from small trusts, corporate funding, Scottish Government, to the Big Lottery and DFID.
Lindsay holds an MA in International Development and Education Management from Leeds University, and an undergraduate MA in Philosophy and Literature from University of Edinburgh. Find out more about Lindsay’s experience, qualifications and projects on her LinkedIn profile.
“I enjoy working with people and organisations in developing their ideas and seeing these flourish. So many organisations are doing important and interesting things, it is great to be involved in helping them to demonstrate, and increase, the impact of their work”
Marie McQuade
Marie is an Associate Senior Consultant with THINK Consulting Solutions who work with 500 charities across 80 countries. She specialises in fundraising and communications with an emphasis on sustainable strategic growth and having the beneficiaries of the cause at the heart of the charity.
Marie has been dedicated to the charity sector since she was at university when she spent three months in India volunteering at Raphael a Ryder-Cheshire Home in Dehra Dun. Upon graduation she landed her first job with Mencap. Subsequent roles over the last 25 years have included Senior Fundraising Lead at Dublin Simon Community and Fundraising, Communications and Innovation Director at Maggie’s Cancer Caring Centres and diverse array of national and international charities as a consultant. More information is on Marie’s LinkedIn profile.
Marie holds an MA Arts degree and two PG Diplomas in Charity Marketing & Management & Organisational Development
“I love the opportunity to support different charities to more powerfully articulate their passion and impact so as to grow their engagement of hearts and minds and increase the quality and quantity of their supporter relationships”.
Michael Daly
Having originally started his professional career as a Senior Auditor with a leading global firm, Michael is now immersed in the international development arena with a variety of skills suited to enhancing financial performance, reporting and management. His years of experience operating within the Third Sector for organisations such as the British Red Cross and SCIAF, has provided him with a grounded knowledge of the keys issues surrounding charities in what continues to be a challenging economic environment.
Co-Founder and Treasurer of the small Scottish charity, Classrooms for Malawi, Michael has been involved in all aspects of organisational management, strategic development and financial management, enabling structured growth and organisational insight. Michael also has over 14 years of voluntary experience in assisting children and young people with additional needs through the global organisation, HCPT.
Michael holds a BAcc in Accountancy with International Accounting from the University of Glasgow. You can find out more about Michael’s experience and qualification on his LinkedIn profile.
“Having been the recipient of the Mentoring programme, I have witnessed first-hand how an external, objective voice can enable an organisation to flourish to create positive, sustainable social change. As a Mentor, I will do all that I can to offer organisations within the Third Sector my insight and many years of experience in varying roles to help them get to where they want to be”