About the author

Ken Burnett is an author, lecturer and consultant on fundraising, marketing and communications for nonprofit organisations worldwide. In the early 1980s he founded the influential Burnett Associates agency, the first company of its type in Europe. Burnett Associates produced some of the most original, donor-focused and effective communications campaigns to be found anywhere. This tradition continues with the Burnett Works agency, though Ken is no longer connected. He now works closely with several communications and marketing agencies in the UK, Australia, North America and India. He is a director of specialist publishers The White Lion Press Limited and is currently working with fundraisers worldwide to build and develop SOFII, the Showcase of Fundraising Innovation and Inspiration.

Ken has served on several non-profit boards. He recently stepped down after completing 13 years (with a one year break) as trustee of the international anti-poverty NGO ActionAid, ultimately as an independent trustee of ActionAid International, of which he is a founding board member. Ken was chairman of ActionAid from 1998 to 2003, is a former vice chair of The UK’s Institute of Fundraising and is a former trustee of BookAid International and the International Fund Raising Group (now The Resource Alliance). Ken is a fellow of the Institute of Fundraising and an honorary fellow of the Institute of Direct Marketing. In the recent past he has contributed numerous articles for parts of Guardian Newspapers Group, including Guardian Weekly, The Guardian Unlimited/Society Guardian website and also other magazines and websites, and for many years he was a regular contributor to the US journal Contributions. Ken is author of the worldwide best seller Relationship Fundraising, its sequel Friends for Life: Relationship Fundraising in Practice, How to Produce Inspiring Annual Reports, Tiny Essentials of an Effective Volunteer Board and The Zen of Fundraising. All of his books can be found here, or on the White Lion Press website. Ken’s first non-fundraising book, The Field by the River, was published in July 2008 by Portico books, an imprint of Anova, to high critical acclaim. A paperback edition of this book was published in 2009.

Ken is a member of the editoral advisory group of The Raiser’s Ask magazine in South Asia (from Bangalore, India) and he’s recently accepted an invitation to join the Editorial Advisory Council for Advancing Philanthropy Magazine, the journal of the Association of Fundraising Professionals, in the United States.

In 2007 Ken Burnett was recipient of Professional Fundraising magazine’s ‘Outstanding Contribution’ award (click here to download PDF) and the UK Institute of Fundraising’s ‘Lifetime Contribution’ award.

When not travelling for development charities, for seminars or on behalf of clients Ken spends his time between France and the UK. So he’s easiest to contact by email, at ken@kenburnett.com. You can follow Ken on Twitter @kenburnett1

August 2009