Dovetail Team

Andy Cawdell

Andy Cawdell is the Managing Director of Dovetail Management Consultancy. He has over 30 years experience in the voluntary and public sector with connections with community organisations beginning in Liverpool in the 1980's including work with Liverpool CVS and Liverpool Community Transport. He has been the Chief Executive or Deputy Chief Executive of local and national charities employing up to 200 staff..

Andy's own recent clients include Arthritis Care (donor development, financial regulations), Cricklewood Homeless Concern (development, fundraising), Save the Children (IT strategy, project management), Child Accident Prevention Trust (premises move, finance staff recruitment) and the Race Equality Foundation (VAT advice and audit matters) - and in the past Carers UK, Carers Lewisham and Princes Royal Trust for Carers..

On a voluntary basis, Andy is the Chair of Trustees of the London Cycling Campaign, a trustee of Otesha UK , active in the Institute of Fundraising London Region , and is active in his local community in Southwark. He has detailed understanding of local voluntary and community sector infrastructure both in London and elsewhere (e.g. from work in Leicestershire) and an understanding of the work in that sector. Andy is a member of the Institute of Fundraising , a member of the Charity Finance Directors Group, NCVO Consultants, NAVCA Consultants, member of ACEVO, a member of the Management Development Network and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA). He has an MBA from the London Business School . .

Sue Blackmore

Sue Blackmore is a consultant with Dovetail Management Consultancy being a researcher, evaluator and project manager. During the course of her employment career at Save the Children Fund, International Crisis Group and Charities Evaluation Services, she was involved in the management of a number of high-profile UK and internationally-based evaluation and research projects. From 2002 to the present, she has undertaken evaluations of a range of programmes in the UK, USA, Croatia and Romania. She has employed her research skills, from initial questionnaire design to data analysis in SPSS, Excel and NVIVO, and interviewing to final report writing. Sue has an MA in Evaluation and Social Research.

Recent evaluations and research projects include:

Siân Evans

Siân is a senior consultant with Dovetail Management Consultancy. She is a media and public relations professional with 20 year’s experience of working on social welfare issues in a range of not-for-profit organisations. She has operated as a freelance consultant for the past eight years.

Siân’s current experience providing media relations and project management support includes working with a range of organisations in the health and social housing field. This includes the Department of Health where she recently advised, developed and wrote a web-based toolkit on good practice in complaints, the King’s Fund, charity TB Alert, and the National Consumer Council. She successfully managed the media relations strategy that launched the new charity Housing Justice with the Archbishop of Canterbury and Cardinal Cormac. Her client base includes a number of long established relationships with organisations such as the Royal College of Nursing and Stonham Housing Association, where she provides project management support for media relations, publications and campaigns.

Before becoming a consultant, Siân had headed up the media relations department for the drink and drugs charity Turning Point, and had overseen change as Housing Today’s Deputy Editor.

Susan Field

Susan is a senior consultant with Dovetail Management Consultancy and a chartered accountant (FCA) who has been practising in South East London for over twenty five years. Her practice, which employs five staff, acts for a wide variety of clients with the main thrust of the audit work being directed at charities and voluntary organisations. Amongst her clients are several organisations who work with people with learning difficulties/mental health problems including one which runs a community café. In the past she has acted for a horticultural training scheme for such persons and a variety of other social enterprises. The organisations concerned have a assortment of legal structures including companies limited by guarantee, industrial and provident societies, registered charities and unincorporated associations.Her experience is not however, limited to the not for profit sector. She also acts for about 200 commercial businesses of varying size and complexity, this is valuable dual experience for our clients.

As well as consulting with Dovetail Management Consultancy and running her practice, Susan has served on various committees concerned with commenting on proposed legislation or guidance affecting charities. Most recently she was asked to join the standing committee on Charities of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW) whose first task was to prepare the Institutes response to the PIU consultation document on the Charity and not for profit sector published at the end of last year.

She is involved in various other committees and working parties of her professional body (ICAEW) including being a Support Member, a group of volunteers who are available to counsel and advise other members who feel they need such support. She recently took over as Chair of the Support Members steering committee.

Ken Hoffman

Kenneth (Ken) Hoffman is associated with Dovetail Management Consultancy. He is an American citizen and the founder and principal of the fundraising consulting firm Hoffman & Associates, formed in 1986 and located in Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

Ken is a specialist in designing and implementing fundraising programmes drawing on private US sources (foundation, individual, and corporation) for non-US NGOs and for US NGOs that work internationally.

In this capacity, he has advised the following UK-based international charities: Action for Disability and Development, FARM-Africa, International Centre for the Legal Protection of Human Rights (Interights), Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), and South Georgia Heritage Trust.

He has also worked with the following European and North American international charities: Fondation Québec-Labrador du Canada, DePaul Trust (IE and UK), International Polar Foundation (BE), King Baudouin Foundation (BE and US), National Botanic Garden of Belgium (BE, for central African programmes), Prince Bernhard Cultuurfonds (NL), and World Population Foundation (NL).

Ken’s pro bono commitments include the presidency of The American Fund for Charities, which makes grants in the millions of dollars p.a. to non-US NGOs.

Ken has an undergraduate degree from Harvard College and a law degree from the University of Maine. He is admitted to legal practice in Massachusetts. He is a Certified Fund Raising Executive since 1997 by the (North American) Association of Fundraising Professionals.

Robin Jones

Robin is a senior consultant with Dovetail Management Consultancy. He has worked in research and fundraising for 15 years, and specialised in prospect research at The Factary, Europe’s leading prospect research agency for 8 years, where he became managing director.

Since 2003 Robin’s clients include UK charities, cultural organisations, European and US organisations.

Robin is an experienced trainer and has provided tailor made courses for a number of clients. He has spoken on prospect research at many fundraising conferences organised by such bodies as the Institute of Fundraising, Directory of Social Change and, in the United States for APRA (Association of Professional Researchers for Advancement). He is was chair of the Institute of Fundraising's special interest group - Researchers in Fundraising from 2002 to 2007 and where he remains a committee member.

Robin is a trustee of the Bristol-based recycling charity, The Sofa Project, and a committee member of the Institute of Fundraising's special interest group - Researchers in Fundraising.

Adrian Lanning

Adrian is a senior consultant with Dovetail Management Consultancy. He started working in management and information technology consultancy in 1984 and has since worked with a wide range of voluntary sector, labour movement and public sector organisations.

Before working as a consultant Adrian worked for councils of voluntary service as a development officer and General Secretary and led a national demonstration Social Planning Project for NCVO, with councils of voluntary service in the West Midlands . Adrian was also the editor of the Association of Community Workers (ACW) first Community Workers manual.

His experience includes major projects linking headquarters to regional and branches structures, creation of new information services using the Internet, developing applications for networks of organisations, development of information systems for management and monitoring service provision and the development of training strategies. His specialist areas are the strategic use of information technology in 'not for profit' organisations, training provision and the strategic use of the Internet.

Adrian has recently run a series of workshops for the London Voluntary Service Council on the strategic use of information technology and is presently working on the production of a guidance on best practice in Local Community Partnerships.

Michael Ney

Michael Ney, a senior consultant with Dovetail Management Consultancy, has over 30 years’ experience of the alteration of existing buildings for new or varied purposes, the application of Planning and Building Regulation criteria to the altered building that may have been built under former control, the identification of use patterns through and within the building to identify how sub-division might best be effected. He has wide experience in neighbourly matters such as Party Wall legislation and in matters such as obtaining landlord’s consent for alterations and listed building consents. He is a member of the Association of Planning Supervisors and is used to preparing Safety Plans and Safety Files under the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations, he is also used to preparing fire risk assessments. As a member of the Chartered Institute of Building Services Engineers as well as being a Chartered Building Surveyor, he is used to preparing schemes for mechanical and electrical services as well as the building fabric.

He has wide experience in the public sector, in voluntary organisations and in industry and has worked on a wide range of building types including churches, offices, farm buildings, factories, courthouses, hotels, a City livery hall, schools, nurseries, sheltered accommodation and residential buildings. Michael carries out numerous condition and dilapidations surveys every year and frequently prepares schedules of works for remedial and alteration works. In acting for public bodies and non-governmental organisations, both charitable and non-charitable in status he has acted for the Child Accident Prevention Trust (CAPT), Womankind, the Church of England and the Baptist Union, and Womankind.

One specialism of Michael's is helping agencies co-locate, Michael has worked on several projects, the largest being the co-location of Druglink and Alcohol Concern.

Jean-Michel Piedagnel

Jean-Michel Piedagnel is based in Malaysia and is associated with Dovetail Management Consultancy.

His career started in France 23 years ago, working for the world’s largest sailing boat manufacturer Beneteau (www.beneteau.com) in sales, marketing and as export manager. That followed his graduation from the ESCE, an international business school in Paris (http://www.esce.fr/web_gb/ ).

In 1995, he joined Medecins Sans Frontieres (www.msf.org) to run some of their most challenging relief projects. After working in the headquarters in Paris, he moved to London as the Executive Director for seven years and oversaw a period of unprecedented growth and enhanced reputation for MSF in the UK.

Under his leadership, MSF UK was voted to be the most admired British charity in 2004 and 2005. Private income grew from £3.8million in 2001 to £20million in 2008. Although Jean-Michel is not a professional fundraiser his management philosophy is that an organization cannot have any ambitions without money.

Based on his sales and marketing experience in the private sector, he has always had a hands on approach to fundraising and brought fundraising to the heart of his organization. This in part explains the success that MSF UK experienced in fundraising during his tenure. As an acknowledgement of this achievement, Jean-Michel was asked to be the speaker at the opening plenary of the National Convention of the Institute of Fundraising in July 2006.

Jean-Michel is an associate member of the Institute of Fundraising (www.institute-of-fundraising.org.uk) and international member of ACEVO (www.acevo.org.uk ) as well as a member of MFCCI (Franco-Malaysian Chamber of commerce) (http://www.mfcci.com). He works on a voluntary basis for Malaysian HIV prevention NGO, PT Foundation (http://www.ptfmalaysia.org/index.html).

Clare Roberts

Clare Roberts is a member of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. She has worked as a consultant in the not for profit sector for twenty years and has developed considerable expertise in assisting organisations in managing changes through consultation with staff and changing the HR framework. She also has significant experience in recruitment, training and assisting organisations with managing difficult situations in respect of both disciplinary and grievance procedures as well as carrying out detailed compensation and Benefit reviews. This is all carried out within a framework of Diversity and Equality. Her work encompasses a wide range of organisations from very small to large.

Jeanie Taylor

Jeanie is the Administrative Director of Dovetail Management Consultancy. She has more than 30 years of general administrative experience, gained in veterinary surgeries, publishing companies, Dovetail and more recently the NHS. As well as being Dovetail’s administrator, over the past 12 years, she has;

Jeanie has experience of using a range of software packages including Access, Word, WordPerfect, Excel, Quattro Pro, and QuickBooks and holds the ECDL qualification. She is an experienced editor and proofreader.