| FUNDRAISING
Thank you for your generous support Jeremy Payne, Director of Fundraising and Bruce Russell, Director Scotland
(Above) Guests enjoyed a virtual tour of the Englefield Estate, as enjoyed in previous years by the Cotswolds Grey Partridge Group. (Below) The New York Auction went online and raised a fantastic £133,000.
14 | GAME & WILDLIFE REVIEW 2020
England & Wales Major donor income of £1.14 million. £133,000 from the New York auction (subject to exchange rate). County committees projected at £477,000. London events at £105,000. The fundraising department has worked very hard to deliver the above numbers amidst a difficult year for so many in 2020. To have received our best ever response from major donors, is a testament to this group’s generosity and recognition of both our contribution and our need. The major donor total includes some acts of conspicuous generosity from key supporters, but also represents a widening and deepening of support for the GWCT, and the widening is crucial as it reflects our success in getting in front of more people. We asked for support for our Challenge Fund (a response to the headwinds that amassed in 2019), but also for our Special Appeal which was based on the impact of the virus on our wider income, and both were generously supported. The New York auction successfully went online thanks to hard work by Ron Beck and Robyn Hatch and the main limiting factor was the understandable reluctance of donors to give us days to auction amidst such uncertainty. County committees suffered from the end of normality in March by which time only a few events had taken place. The online auction was proof of everyone’s determination to do what they could despite the restrictions, and we are very grateful to auction lot donors and buyers alike. Northamptonshire also held our first ever online shoot walk which was a great success. The only London event we held was another excellent dinner at Le Gavroche dinner hosted by Michel Roux Jr. As with all the counties, everything else was first postponed and then cancelled, so we put a few special lots that would have been sold at the Ball into the online Big Auction. This auction, which was put together in less than a month, was a resounding success due to everyone who supported it. We would like to thank you all – we couldn’t do this without you. Finally, we didn’t allow lockdown to stop us from having our usual annual lecture, so more than 100 people were treated to a very insightful and highly personal talk from Richard Benyon in July.
www.gwct.org.uk
