Making Moves: Interviews and career-related conversations

A Partnership Professional's Path To Purpose

Everyone's route to finding fulfillment is unique, and some even inspire the next generation..

Nov 01, 2024

This month I sat down with Daniel Nicholls who recently joined the environmental and community-driven food redistribution charity City Harvest, as their Senior Corporate Development Manager.

Daniel’s worked across a range of sector-focused agencies in relationship-centered roles that generate income for social causes, and the last decade has seen him secure and develop many meaningful partnerships while residing in-house within charities, including another well-known anti-food waste NGO... 🍎

Read on to learn of Daniel’s trajectory and how he found his purpose, and uncover the reflections that revealed themselves along the way.

Louis: Let’s go right back to the beginning - Your first role with ‘purpose’ was as a Business Development Executive at StC Payroll Giving, although you started your first income generating role seven years prior?

Daniel: Fresh out of Uni, my first job came at a legal publishing company, who were, at the time, developing a digital version of their extensive library of forms for the legal profession and local authorities. My role was to develop the product, the packaging, research the target market and get selling! It really was an ‘in at the deep end’ first role, which gave me great exposure to presenting, relationship management and meeting skills early on in my career. Unfortunately, after 6 years or so, the part of the company I had had responsibility for building up was sold to another company and I took voluntary redundancy.

Q1. Louis: Post redundancy, what prompted the decision to go on to join a professional Fundraising organisation?

Daniel: Actually, the redundancy provided a period of reflection that I otherwise wouldn’t have taken.

I undertook some voluntary work with a solicitor friend of the family, but there was also a desire not to work for an organisation again that put profit over people or purpose.

Through friends, I found about ‘Sharing the Caring’, yes, a twee name, but the fact they were helping companies and their employees give to charities across the UK was something that was new to me and something I was keen to explore. I soon worked my way up, from the booking team to managing relationships with companies promoting the scheme to their colleagues. This was the start of my education in the voluntary sector. After a while, Charities Aid Foundation bought Sharing the Caring and I was able to secure a role in CAF’s corporate team in London. Working with institutions like Sainsbury’s, BT, Britvic, O2 and others gave me an amazing insight into what companies want from their relationships with charities.

Tempted back into payroll giving by a former colleague, I continued to establish working relationships with companies like Tesco, B&Q, Michelin and many others, while having a better appreciation of how Payroll Giving fitted into their broader CSR programmes and ambitions around philanthropic giving.

Q2. Louis: Looking back at your 12-year stretch working within agencies that were fueled by both purpose and profit, how did your time agency side help sharpen your skillset across relationship development and account management?

Daniel: For me, it has always been about relationships. I am proud to say, I maintain relationships from every workplace I have been a part of.

My job is about people.

About giving people the opportunity to contribute to causes they care about.

In my earlier roles, I learned that I value this far above making money for people or organisations who don’t.

Another thing I have learned is to always make the cause you work for and represent matter on a human level. Take the time to really get to know who you are speaking to and engaging with. What matters to them personally, as well as to their company? Always adapt your approach to your audience. It really makes a difference.

Above all, listen more than you talk. It’s an age old thing, but you can talk and talk about how brilliant your charity is, but until you stop and consider what your prospective partner wants to achieve and what matters to them, it’s almost just a speaking advert!

Q.4 Louis: Let’s talk about your move directly into the sector where you started at FareShare UK as their Corporate Partnerships Officer, before progressing into a management role.

What inspired the shift out of agency into working in-house, was the transition as expected (were there any unexpected realisations), and why FareShare UK?

Daniel: In 2014, I had a bit of a light bulb moment. Having helped to raise thousands, if not millions through payroll giving, I realised I rarely got to see the true impact of my work, beyond figures for us or our clients. I wanted some tangibility around the work I undertook. It became clear in my interview (including warehouse tour) with FareShare, that I would get just that, so was excited to take on my first pure Corporate Fundraising role, which started two weeks after the birth of my son (I often wonder how I got through those first few weeks...)

I also think, becoming a father at the same time really sharpened my focus, in that, I wanted to do something that would make him proud of his Dad.

I am proud to say, that he is growing up to be a very kind and philanthropically minded young man!

Q.3. Louis: Amazing, the power of osmosis (and a father that’s driven by purpose)!

Can you describe any professional ‘leaps’ in your development or progression that set the stage for you to succeed within your proactive CPM roles that had a focus on ‘new business?

Daniel: My first CPM role at FareShare was really the leap. I worked with a brilliant group of people, who were as much part of my development and growth as I was. I was thrown into amazing projects like being part of the team that won Charity of the Year with Credit Suisse (which at the time was quite the achievement), it really did widen my professional and personal sphere of influence significantly. The biggest education since my days at Uni!

My fundraising career has since taken in the incredible charity, Speech and Language UK (or I CAN as they were known then), a communication charity for children, The Aspinall Foundation, a world-renowned animal conservation charity, and before my current role, Frontline, an inspiring charity which trains around 1 in 10 new child protection social workers in England.

My passion though, first ignited at FareShare, is in fighting food poverty and food waste, so I was beyond excited when I found out I had landed the role of Senior Corporate Development Manager at City Harvest.

I am four months into the job, and I so am inspired by the community feel of the place, but more by the energy and commitment which everyone shares. I have taken part in our Harvest Festival service at Southwark Cathedral, been part of the team which hosted a fine dining fundraising event for 180 guests in our Acton depot, hosted scores of volunteers from our corporate partners, visited our other sites at New Spitalfields and New Covent Garden Market, met hundreds of new people and honestly, I haven’t been this excited about going to work in a long time.

What any fundraising manager needs is a supportive and courageous CEO, a brilliant Head of Fundraising, committed and talented colleagues, an award-winning and patient comms and marketing team and a wider team which comes to work every day with a mindset to achieve. I am so, so lucky to have all of those at City Harvest and we will do all we can to rescue food, people and planet, starting in the Capital.

Q.5. Louis: Any final words of wisdom for aspiring, or experienced Fundraisers in the partnerships arena who are hungry to evolve or are striving to find their purpose?

Daniel: To sum up a few things:

Listen! The most important skill of all. You can’t make a true partnership if you don’t know what the other party needs and wants to achieve.
Make it human. Always make what you are talking about relatable. I can reel off stats upon stats about how many people are hungry, but what hits home are the true and often heart-rending stories about the people in our own communities who, through no fault of their own, depend on our food.
Be authentic. Don’t work for a cause you don’t relate to, or that doesn’t really matter to you. I have a ten-year-old son, it would devastate me to know he was going hungry, and I couldn’t do anything about it. Especially when so much food is going to waste every single day. I also grew up in Greenwich before it became nice! I saw a lot of poverty in my early years, and it’s these things that drive me. The more you relate and understand your cause on a human level, the more you will be able to convey this to your audience.
Take time to enjoy successes. They are hard won, so make sure you celebrate when the wins happen. You are connecting people and businesses with a cause they want to be a part of and enabling your charity to do the work it’s designed for. You did that!
Never stop learning. I might be (mumbles age) but I learn something new every day at work, so always be open to new ideas and ways of doing things.