Margaret Bolton | voluntary & community sector policy

Margaret Bolton is an independent consultant specialising in third sector policy. She has undertaken consultancy projects for a range of organisations including Arts Council England, Youth Music and the Cabinet Office.

Previously, Margaret was Communications Director at Arts Council England. She moved from this job to be Director of Policy and Research at the National Council of Voluntary Organisations. She led the organisation’s work on charity law reform and was subsequently seconded to the review of charities and the wider not-for-profit sector at the Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit.

As a consultant she specialises in work on social investment and third sector capacity building. Together with Meg Abdy she has undertaken a number of projects on third sector capacity building. She wrote Foundations and social investment – making money work harder for a group of foundations including Esmee Fairbairn. She also produced a study of European foundations and social investment for the European Foundation Centre. She co-authored with David Carrington the MMM report New and Alternative Financial Instruments.

She is a board member of Capacitybuilders. She has been a Visiting Scholar at Columbia University in New York, and a Senior Research Scholar at Yale Law School.

David Carrington | voluntary & community sector finance

David is an independent consultant working with charities, companies and the government on the funding and governance of charities and social enterprises. His clients have included the Treasury, the first Venture Philanthropy ‘pooled’ fund in the UK, The Big Lottery Fund, Arts Council England and the European Foundation Centre and many endowed and corporate foundations in the UK. David also works as a ‘mentor/adviser’ for senior staff of several charities and has a joint venture (‘On Board’) with the law firm Bates, Wells & Braithwaite on the governance of charities.

He has worked with the Mission, Models, Money (MMM) programme on ‘Towards a healthy arts and cultural ecology’, co-leading the work done on governance and contributing to papers and conferences on funding.

He has been Chief Executive of three foundations including The Baring Foundation (1992-8) and is a member of the Supervisory Board of Triodos Bank NV

He has been a Trustee of the National Foundation for Youth Music and the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain and was the Chair of engage (the association of people working in gallery education). He is also a member of the Social Investment Task Force and chairs the editorial group of the Philanthropy UK e-newsletter.

Nadine Andrews | organisational learning

Nadine Andrews works with the cultural sector across the North West region and nationally to support organisational and individual learning through creative research, evaluation, consultancy, training and coaching. Her method is informed by systems thinking and complexity theory.

Nadine spent the 90s working in various aspects of the black music industry as radio dj and club dj/promoter at the Haçienda; record label management, A&R, promotions and band management with Robs Records. This was followed by 4 years working with Arts About Manchester on cultural diversity, audience development and organisational development policy and practice with cultural organisations, funders and other agencies. During this time she also worked in event and festival management and as an evaluator of arts projects such as the 2002 Commonwealth Games cultural programme ‘Cultureshock’. Nadine was a fellow on the Clore Leadership Programme in 2005-06 with Greg Dyke as her mentor.

Nadine is chair of award winning theatre research and creation company Quarantine.

Hannah Rudman | digital & environment

Hannah Rudman has been working as a freelance consultant, delivering digital development through independent consultancy for the arts, cultural and charitable sectors in the UK since 2001. She is founder of Rudman Consulting and director of Envirodigital – a change agency that encourages organisations to become environmentally sustainable.

Following a background in contemporary theatre, Hannah’s fascination for exploring the cutting edge initiated an interest in scrutinising links between the arts and culture and emerging digital technologies. Hannah has ten years of experience working in arts and culture, aiming to increase the sector’s capabilities in e-business, IT, digital content creation and digital archiving. She has worked with large national arts organisations such as the Royal Opera House and the Royal Shakespeare Company, as well as with arts organisations of all sizes and art forms across UK. Environmental sustainability is Hannah’s latest area of research, interest and work.

She is a specialist advisor to the Scottish Arts Council, and has just written “Getting Digital” for them; advisor to Innovative Craft; project mentor to the £1m Edinburgh Portal Project Pilot; and she currently runs AmbITion, a change programme that utilises IT and digital developments to facilitate the longer-term sustainability of arts organisations.

Hannah is also Arts Professional’s “Essential IT” columnist; on the boards of Milk With 2 Sugars and New Media Scotland; and speaks regularly at UK cultural sector conferences.