Bishop Vesey’s Grammar School

Within my first few months as the Development Director at Bishop Vesey's Grammar School, I developed a Corporate Partnerships programme. This saw local businesses that were often owned by alumni or parents, pay a yearly fee to gain exposure in the school community through advertising, networking and fundraising events. As well as generating additional income for the school, a number of reciprocal arrangements were agreed that saw the school get video's produced, prospectuses printed and a website redeveloped free of charge. A yearly calendar of events was established for partners to interact with parents and alumni and other local business owners, in order to do more business and increase income, facilitated by the school.

There were additional benefits to the school in terms of increasing the quality and quantity of careers provision for students, by inviting former-students back to the school to share their learnings and journeys and inspire current students. This involved a jobs fair style event with 60 companies present being held alongside nine seminars focussed on industry specific areas such as construction and engineering, marketing and advertising and banking and finance. This proved very successful, with students gaining internships, work experience and full-time employment, as well as providing excellent opportunities to cultivate parents and alumni into becoming potential donors.