About



Experienced small charity folk

 

Who are we?


Dedicated change makers, finance is our superpower



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History


Embrace Finance was established in 2018 to provide small charities with access to good, affordable training and resources to support them to build long-term financial resilience. 


Since then, we have worked with 100s of social leaders every year, supporting them through growth, stability and difficulty. We work with sector leading bodies such as NCVO, a range of funders such as the School for Social Entrepreneurs, The Fore Trust and Lloyds Bank Foundation, and we work directly with many, many smaller charities.


In our experience, the biggest barrier to confident financial decision taking is not technical, it is attitudinal. Leaders often tell us that they find finance difficult, anxiety provoking, boring. We get it. Charity finance is heavily regulated and our ecosystem has made it very, very difficult to build financial sustainability. 


Everything we do at Embrace Finance is focused on supporting you to navigate financial opportunity, uncertainty and difficulty with confidence. We adopt a mentoring approach in all our work. We meet you where you are. We take time to explain. We never judge. And we work hard to make finance a positive, empowering experience. 

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A few years ago you supported me with financial mentoring and I knew at the time that it revolutionised the way I view finance. It has helped GYROS hugely.


We have since grown and developed and its taken a while to bed a few things in but we continue to evolve this essential activity.


Thank you, thank you, thank you for inspiring us about finance – and giving us practical tips and tools to constantly improve.

Louise Humphries

CEO, GYROS


Meet the team


Liz Pepler MIAB FRSA | Founder and Lead Associate


Liz is a charity resilience specialist, founder of Embrace Finance and co-founder of the Small Charity Friendly Collective.


Liz is co-author of Lloyds Bank Foundation’s Organisational Resilience framework, co-author of the Association of Chair's Financial Leadership in Small Charities and finance trainer for NCVO.


Liz is a practicing member at the Institute of Accountants and Bookkeepers, holds a Masters in Charity Accounting and Financial Management (Dist) and a PG Certificate in Charity Administration. Liz is a fellow of the RSA.

Rachel Cooper FCA | Associate 


Director of Welbeck, an established accountancy and financial management practice providing services to the third sector.


Rachel is a qualified chartered accountant and member of the ICAEW, professional trainer and Treasurer of Hampshire and Isle of Wight Community Foundation.


Key projects include developing and leading Charity Finance Group’s small charities training programme and writing NCVO’s financial management website resources. Rachel is finance trainer for the Association of Independent Examiners.

Kemi Olafare ACMA | Associate 


Kemi is a qualified management accountant with over 20 years experience in the not for profit sector in both paid and voluntary roles.


Kemi is an experienced finance business partner in the charity, university, international development and healthcare sectors.


Kemi is currently Director of Finance at UCLPartners, an Advisory Board member at Charterpath and Trustee at the Charles Russell Speechlys Foundation. Kemi has been a panel member with Getting On Board.

Yasmin Glover | Associate 


Yasmin is a small charity organisational development specialist with expertise spanning strategy formation, project planning, staff development, impact measurement, and change management.


Using her experience as a highly skilled facilitator, trainer, and consultant, Yasmin founded the The Olive Training and Consultancy agency in 2019, a social enterprise dedicated to helping small charities and social enterprises become more efficient, mission-focused, and impactful.


Yasmin is co-founder of the The Small Charity Friendly Collective —a self-organising, volunteer collective of small charity secialists - and a Strategy and Planning Associate Consultant at NCVO.

Fiona Young FCA DChA | Associate

 

Fiona works with charities and voluntary sector organisations supporting financial reporting reviews, accounts preparation, governance reviews, strategic planning and social investment.


Fiona has been internal and external examiner on the Charity Finance Masters at Bayes Business School and also co-authored the NCVO Good Financial Management Guide.


Fiona is a qualified chartered accountant (ICAEW), holder of the ICAEW’s Diploma in Charity Accounting and has a Masters in Charity Accounting and Financial Management (Dist). 


She initially specialised in charity audit working at BDO before moving into the sector as Director of Finance and Resources at Crisis UK and The Tudor Trust. For the last four years she has been working as a consultant Fiona Young Priest and has held a number of trustee roles and is a volunteer at the Cranfield Trust.

How we use AI

We are a small team with big ambitions. We like AI, and think that used wisely, AI has the potential to turbocharge small charities - and therefore social change - for the better.


We also believe that in an age of deepfakes, honesty and transparency are important.


When we asked ChatGPT which wise character from history it might be - Hypatia of Alexandria was the answer.

Hypatia of Alexandria | AI


Hypatia of Alexandria (c. 350–415 CE) was a renowned philosopher, mathematician, and astronomer in late antiquity. One of the earliest recorded female scholars in Western history and a symbol of intellectual achievement and free thought.


Hypatia helps us brainstorm how to support small charities better and she is often a guest contributor to our blog.

Amsel Page von Spreckelsen (they/them)

Associate  

Amsel is a freelance finance and governance consultant with 15 years experience in the charity sector. Amsel provides specialist trouble shooting support.

They have spent most of their career working across all aspects of the finance department, before specialising in management accounting. They have worked across arts, LGBTQ+, disability and youth charities, public sector (NHS) and international development. 

They work as BCF Consulting now, providing a mix of strategic and technical support to a range of clients. Specialities include deep-dive analysis of financial data, support on budgets and forecasts, and systems building, as well as problem fixing and advice. 

Alongside finance, Amsel can support on governance and trusteeship, supporting boards to understand their role and senior teams to get to grips with the specifics of charity leadership responsibilities.

They have a CIMA Diploma in Management Accounting (Level 4).

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