Simone is a fundraising practitioner with over ten years’ experience in prospect research, database management and fundraising in the charity and higher education sector. Simone is also an academic researcher having recently completed her doctoral research on government policy making and philanthropy in higher education at the Centre for Philanthropy at the University of Kent. Simone is a keen advocate for bridging the gap between academic research and practitioner work in the non-profit sector to advance fundraising knowledge and practice.