Meet the Team
Beckie Smith
Director
Edd Smith
Senior Fundraising Consultant
John Holmes
Senior Consultant
Sarah Glover
Data & Research Associate
Miri Birch
Social Media Associate
“I can’t thank you enough for recommending Flying Geese. We will definitely be using them again.”
ANNE MARIE POPE, ANDREW LOGAN – Museum of Sculpture
Beckie Smith
Director
Beckie Does:
- The big thinking – helping develop visions and brands for your organisation
- Realistic and practical plans to help put your vision into action
- Accessible and enjoyable training programmes
Beckie is Flying Geese’s Founder and Director. She has worked in arts marketing for many of South West England’s leading venues, including Bristol Old Vic, Exeter Northcott Theatre and Taunton Brewhouse.
She was Director of Marketing and Development at The Roses Theatre in Tewkesbury for five years, responsible for all lines of income and a successful capital campaign. Before founding Flying Geese she was Head of Global Marketing for International Theatre Interactive, working with some of the world’s most iconic venues including Sydney Opera House, Wales Millennium Centre and The Lowry.
Beckie particularly enjoys acting as matchmaker between marketing and fundraising, and bringing all departments in an organisation together to agree on a shared strategy.
She designed the Flying Geese Marketing & Audience Development Assessment Tool, and loves sharing knowledge and energising teams through her training programmes.
“I could write a book from everything I’ve learnt from you” – MENTEE
Beckie is most proud of:
- Working with Gloucester City Council, Gloucester Cultural Trust and other Gloucester organisations on individual and joint strategies, leading to Gloucester organisations receiving more than £800k additional Arts Council England NPO funding each year from 2023.
Edd Smith
Senior Fundraising Consultant
Edd Does:
- The building blocks – providing the platform needed to raise funds from a variety of sources.
- Using data and insight to help you understand your supporter base and whom to target with future campaigns and products.
- Helps you think big. Using data and insight, he provides the intelligence to enable you to take bold steps.
Edd is the fundraising and income generation expert in our team. An experienced fundraising leader, throughout his career, his innovative approach has seen him grow income at various charities from arts, heritage and culture to health care and homelessness charities. He has experience across a wide range of fundraising disciplines with a focus on Individual Giving and Corporate Development.
He specialises in small to medium-sized charities, helping shape the direction of travel, setting up processes and developing new income streams. A big-picture thinker, he likes to achieve the unexpected, developing ideas that often catapult a charity onto a larger platform.
His passion for bringing new products or income streams to market, across many income streams enables him to support organisations’ growth strategies. His love for the big picture, innovative thinking and data analysis brings a calculated approach to risk which brings great rewards.
He believes that it is vital for the donor journey and the audience/customer journey to be inextricably linked and as such he strives to build holistic and seamless processes that entwine the fundraising and marketing and communications departments.
Edd is most proud of:
- Caring in Bristol’s 80% increase in income over his two-year period as Director of Income Generation. This was achieved against the backdrop of the Covid-19 Pandemic.
- Achieving record annual income levels in Individual Giving for Family Holiday Charity whilst supporting their IG programme.
- His bold approach to raising funds created ‘Funny Bones’. A comedy night for Above & Beyond (now named Bristol and Weston Hospital Charity) which raised £100,000 for the Central Bristol hospitals.
John Holmes
Senior Consultant
John Does:
- The big picture – exploring Census and audience data to understand the political, economic, social and technological environment you are working in
- Using audience research to develop new ideas for your programme
- Backing that up with practical marketing strategies and digital content plans
John is the London-based member of our team. He has worked for innovative arts organisations there including Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment (Director of Marketing), English Touring Opera (Head of Marketing) and Spare Tyre (Joint CEO and Executive Director).
His experience across senior marketing and executive leadership roles gives him an instinctive understanding of an organisation’s context, including how it relates to Arts Council England’s Let’s Create Strategy.
Where marketing and programming meet, he was part of the team that developed the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment’s celebrated music and science concerts, Bach, the Universe and Everything, including creating the brand and curating the series of guest speakers.
John is most proud of:
- Spare Tyre’s successful application to remain a London-based Arts Council England NPO from 2023.
- Developing a content strategy for the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment’s YouTube channel, which now has 100,000 subscribers and several videos with more than one million views.
- His Flying Geese research for Culture in Common contributing to the creation of the first New Forest Comedy Festival in 2023.
Sarah Glover
Data and Research Associate
Sarah Does:
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Data analysis and interpretation
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Evaluation and research tool design
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Campaign delivery
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Design
Originally from South Africa, Sarah now lives in Portishead near Bristol. She comes from a chemistry and applied mathematics background but ultimately pursued a career in education and then a PhD in chemical education. A musician, she has played in orchestras and bands her whole life.
Sarah’s experience in mathematical modelling & machine learning and science background mean she’s a bit of a rarity in the arts field. But she uses her skills every day dealing with large data sets and crunching the numbers to get actionable insights you can use straight away. These academic research skills and education background give her unique expertise in reconciling and interpreting data of all kinds, both quantitative and qualitative, as well as understanding how people learn and think in their unique context.
Sarah is most proud of:
- Her two children, who amaze her every day
- Her PhD – it was a long hard slog but she gained skills, experience and connections that were and still are incredibly valuable. Academic research teaches you to keep going, push through the challenges, and be resilient in the face of problems!
- Her role as lead researcher on the Playhouse Project evaluation for Flying Geese – you can’t beat data which is the literal voices of children who are fired up, enthusiastic and living proof of the power of arts and culture to change lives (and the world!)
Miri Birch
Social Media Associate
Miri Does:
- Content Creation
- Digital Asset creation
- Copywriting
Miri is a Bristol based social media manager. Coming from a background of theatre and performance design she has years of experience working in a team to deliver a brief where critical and creative thinking is paramount.
Taking her design skills from the stage to “screen” in 2019, Miri made the career conversion into digital design and social media marketing. Along the way, she has developed working confidently with social media tools and applications to help businesses build their brand, create awareness and manage their customers through dedication to the client and committed team work.
Miri is most proud of:
- Her ability to create digital visual assets quickly and on brand
- Setting up social media accounts for charities and facilitating their growth
- Converting sales for clients through attentive and dedicated online community management