What does your role involve?

I advise people on their project ideas and applications for funding. A lot of my work involves getting out into the community, working with stakeholders, attending funding fairs and helping connect organisations and communities. My aim is to raise the profile of who we are and what we do and encourage grant applications. Meeting people face to face and explaining our processes can make applying for funding more accessible and less daunting, especially for under-served communities.

What do you enjoy about working here?

My colleagues are fantastic. There is so much internal knowledge. I feel that I’m part of a constant, progressive learning cycle, taking lessons from the past to improve future ways of working. We’re always evolving. Being out and working with communities is also really interesting, seeing how our funding can make such a huge difference to heritage and the communities that share it.

What’s the most rewarding part of your job?

When I get up in the morning the first thing I think is “right, time to help!”. I feel like I have a purpose in helping someone to get the grant they need, which translates into making communities stronger and, ultimately, conserving heritage now and for the future.

What motivates you at work?

The people that we engage with. I love hearing about all the brilliant project ideas and projects we fund and it’s the people that create and deliver these projects that are the real inspiration. I particularly like working on natural heritage and archaeology projects. I’ve found that archaeology can play a central role in protecting wildlife and nature and that’s a real motivation.

What’s the highlight of your time at the Heritage Fund?

It’s hard to choose one thing as my role is so varied. For example, today I started off by talking to a youth heritage group and this afternoon I will be speaking to a landscape project about protecting nature. There are lots of different skills needed and I love that about my job. A recent highlight was attending the National Landscapes Conference in Winchester with colleagues from the Heritage Fund; so many inspirational people and a great opportunity to link people and projects with our funding.

What’s your favourite type of heritage?

My passion is natural heritage and archaeology, so, landscape-scale projects. A project I really love is the Lower Ure Conservation Trust. They have used archaeology to inform their habitat recreation scheme, which has worked wonders for the site, and they’ve developed a real community around their nature reserve.