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 Burnett Associates, 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. He now works closely with communications and marketing agencies in the UK, Australia, North America and India. He is a director of The White Lion Press Limited and is currently working with fundraisers worldwide to build and develop SOFII, the Showcase of Fundraising Innovation and Inspiration. (http://www.sofii.org).

Ken has served on several non-profit boards and continues to be 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, 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. Until recently Ken Burnett contributed articles from time to time for parts of Guardian Newspapers Group, including Guardian Weekly, The Guardian Unlimited/Society Guardian website (http://society.guardian.co.uk) and also other magazines and websites. He is a regular contributor to the US journal Contributions (http://www.contributionsmagazine.com).

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 on http://www.whitelionpress.com. 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.

In 2007 he 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 (see http://www.thirdsector.co.uk/Channels/Fundraising/login/670039/

When not travelling for ActionAid, for seminars or on behalf of clients Ken Burnett spends his time between France and the UK. So he's easiest to contact by email, at ken@kenburnett.com.

September 2008

That was all a long, long time ago and a lot has happened since. For an up-to-date biography see here.