OUR STORY
We love working with people and organisations who are full of bright ideas about creating social change, but need some support to be more strategic, become more sustainable or access new funding.
We love working with people and organisations who are full of bright ideas about creating social change, but need some support to be more strategic, become more sustainable or access new funding.
We were set up in 2014 by Mike Zywina, an experienced fundraiser, consultant, senior manager and trustee. Mike was previously Fundraising Manager and part of the senior leadership team at an international development charity in London.
In this role, Mike came across many familiar challenges - the pressure to sustain income in a tough funding climate, the need for a really focused strategy to make sense of the many opportunities and ideas out there, and the challenge of delivering results with a limited budget, risk-averse Board and small supporter base.
Lime Green Consulting was born in response to these challenges. We specialise in working with ambitious charities and social enterprises that are trying to achieve a step-change in their strategic development, fundraising or broader income generation. We help such organisations to work smarter, raise more money and stand out from the crowd in a challenging and competitive landscape.
We do this by providing a mix of strategic consultancy, facilitated workshops, trusts fundraising support, fundraising training and mentoring. We deliver online and face-to-face training courses throughout the year, including in partnership with the School for Social Entrepreneurs and a wide range of local and national infrastructure organisations.
To date, we've provided strategic support and fundraising consultancy to hundreds of charities and social enterprises across the UK. We most commonly work with organisations with an annual income of under £1million, but we've worked with tiny start-ups, large established charities and everyone in between.
Our team have been working in the charity sector for 15+ years - and we like to think that our knowledge, expertise and enthusiasm shine through in everything we do.
In this role, Mike came across many familiar challenges - the pressure to sustain income in a tough funding climate, the need for a really focused strategy to make sense of the many opportunities and ideas out there, and the challenge of delivering results with a limited budget, risk-averse Board and small supporter base.
Lime Green Consulting was born in response to these challenges. We specialise in working with ambitious charities and social enterprises that are trying to achieve a step-change in their strategic development, fundraising or broader income generation. We help such organisations to work smarter, raise more money and stand out from the crowd in a challenging and competitive landscape.
We do this by providing a mix of strategic consultancy, facilitated workshops, trusts fundraising support, fundraising training and mentoring. We deliver online and face-to-face training courses throughout the year, including in partnership with the School for Social Entrepreneurs and a wide range of local and national infrastructure organisations.
To date, we've provided strategic support and fundraising consultancy to hundreds of charities and social enterprises across the UK. We most commonly work with organisations with an annual income of under £1million, but we've worked with tiny start-ups, large established charities and everyone in between.
Our team have been working in the charity sector for 15+ years - and we like to think that our knowledge, expertise and enthusiasm shine through in everything we do.
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Why work with us?
We've got a proven track record of providing the results you need if you're looking to:
- Bring together your leadership team to debate difficult decisions and/or create a new strategy
- Get a fresh and impartial perspective on your strategic direction or fundraising performance
- Bring in additional expertise to unlock potential in your staff team
- Secure grant funding quickly, without the hidden costs of bringing in a new member of staff
- Explore, develop and launch new income-generation activities without tying up existing resources
Our values
We get a kick out of delighting clients and exceeding expectations. We pride ourselves on providing genuinely excellent support to charities and social enterprises. This is an easy promise to make but not everyone delivers on it - we do, and we have the feedback and testimonials to back it up.
We strive to be kind, flexible and accessible. We know it's a tough time to be working in the charity sector, and we're used to working with smaller organisations that are juggling many challenges and commitments. The least we can do is be friendly and supportive. For us, this means being as flexible as possible around meeting dates and deadlines, providing feedback in a constructive and respectful manner, and designing workshops and training courses to be as accessible as possible, so everyone can participate comfortably and enthusiastically.
We use our expertise in the right way. Specialist expertise can solve problems, empower organisations and build confidence - but used incorrectly, it can also overcomplicate things and demoralise people. We aim to do all of the former and none of the latter. We sometimes use specialist tools and frameworks - some we’ve designed ourselves, and some borrowed from the business world - but only if they genuinely solve a problem, and if we can explain how to use them and why we do. We loathe jargon - please call us out if you see us using it!
We're an ally and advocate for the charity sector, not just a consultancy. We've dedicated loads of time to creating a regular fundraising and strategy blog, a fundraising podcast and a set of fundraising helpsheets - these resources are all free for everyone to access, even if you're not currently in a position to access consultancy support. We try to use our platform to highlight important issues, including problematic philanthropy, the importance of infrastructure funding for small organisations and the need for more responsible grantmaking.
We aim to always have a net positive impact on the sector. Sometimes, this means turning away a piece of work if we don’t think that we're the right people to help, doubt that we can provide good value for money, or think you might have unrealistic expectations about what can be achieved. We're a small team and we're lucky to have plenty of work opportunities - so we're not under any pressure to "chase the money".
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We're also proud to be a founding member of the Small Charity Friendly Collective, an informal collective of small charity specialists who have come together to provide dedicated and trusted support to small charities, and commit to a shared set of small charity friendly values, following the closure of the Small Charities Coalition in 2022.
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All sounds great - what should I do next?
If you're looking for consultancy support, we'd love to have an initial chat with you. This will help us to understand your needs, explore whether we're the right people to help, and identify who in our team is best placed to work with you. If everyone is keen to move forward, we'll then send you a proposal outlining our approach, services, fees and timescale. It goes without saying that we'll never charge you for any initial conversation, or without confirming a fee in writing in advance.
If you're not in a position to work with us at the moment, please do make use of our free resources and join our mailing list to keep in touch.