Sally Byng
Founder and Co-Director
Sally's career has been focused on building groups and organisations, shaping policy, and embedding values-led thinking, in service of collaboratively creating the conditions for people to flourish.
As Chief Executive of Barnwood Trust from 2008 to 2025, Sally steered a major transformation of a long-established charitable foundation, leading to redefining its vision and mission, modernising its governance, and keeping it relevant through a fast-changing social landscape. Under her watch, the Trust became a genuine catalyst for change across Gloucestershire's voluntary, community and public sectors, championing strengths-based, inclusive approaches for disabled people and those with mental health conditions. She also oversaw the strategy to maximise the social impact potential of the Trust's substantial endowment, and led a major post-pandemic funding drive to help stabilise the local VCSE sector.
Earlier in her career, Sally co-founded Connect, a pioneering charity supporting people with communication disabilities, where she helped build innovative, peer-led services. She also co-authored the first book on aphasia written collaboratively with people who live with it, bridging theory and lived experience.
Sally's career started in clinical and academic roles at the Joint Services Head Injury Rehabilitation Unit, then at Birkbeck College, where she gained a PhD in Psychology and Applied Linguistics, and University College London and City University, where she was Professor of Communication Disability, blending research, teaching and leadership. Alongside her executive roles, she's contributed widely through voluntary and professional positions across health, research and the charity sector.
Her work has been recognised with an OBE, a Fellowship of the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists, and her appointment as Deputy Lieutenant of Gloucestershire.
Claire Foote
Co-Director
Claire is a values-driven leader whose career spans UK government, the US defence industry and, latterly, the Gloucestershire charity sector. In mid-2023 she took a deliberate decision to pivot from an international position as Chief of Staff for Europe at defence giant Lockheed Martin to a community-grounded role running Gloucester-based food charity Wiggly, determined to apply her skills in strategy, communications, partnership-building and business focus to supporting her local community.
As leader of Wiggly, Claire led a rapid turnaround of the charity, re-establishing its governance foundations, re-aligning its mission, and building its profile and reputation across Gloucestershire. She secured a 100% increase in income within eighteen months, reduced operating costs by a quarter, and oversaw dozens of inclusive community meal and cookery projects each year, reaching over 3,000 people in 2025 and earning Wiggly the title of Glos Foodies' "Food Hero of the Year." She also partnered with local CIC Project Grow to launch Social Source, a social enterprise range of chutneys and sauces that created a sustainable income stream and employability opportunities for marginalised people.
Applying for funding at Wiggly gave Claire first-hand experience of the pressure small charities face juggling multiple funders with little ability to plan beyond a single year. This experience now drives her determination to change how funding works in Gloucestershire, so VCSE organisations can spend more time delivering impact and less time writing applications.
Before Wiggly, Claire provided strategic advice and support to the Chief Executive for Europe at Lockheed Martin, coordinated activity across ten offices in Europe, and held successive Private Secretary roles at GCHQ, supporting two Directors-General through the organisation's emergence into a more public arena.
Claire's strengths lie in combining a strategic perspective with close attention to detail, underpinned by a determination to collaborate and communicate. She holds a first-class degree in Arabic from the University of Leeds, volunteers at Cheltenham Festivals, and is married with two adult children.
Flo Jones-Jobst
Communications & Operations Manager
Flo is Communications and Operations Manager at Fund Gloucestershire, where she helps build the systems and messaging needed to support the charity's work. Since joining the organisation in its early stages, she has helped develop its operational infrastructure, communications strategy and digital platform. She is also our behind the scenes photographer!
After graduating from the University of Cambridge with a First Class degree in Human, Social and Political Sciences, Flo worked at Hawkwood Centre for Future Thinking and as a consultant for a range of Gloucestershire-based organisations. Her work has included project management, research, fundraising and communications, as well as helping to deliver grant-funded programmes and write funding applications.
Before returning to Gloucestershire, Flo represented the UK as a Youth Delegate to the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women, contributing to discussions with policymakers, civil servants and civil society organisations.
She's particularly interested in the role local organisations and funders can play in creating and supporting strong communities, and sees communication as a critical part of that.
Meet the Board
Paul Hooper
Founder and Chair
What drew you to Fund Gloucestershire, and why do you believe in the organisation?
One of my key drivers for all my voluntary work is to make Gloucestershire a better place to live for everyone and ensure communities have the resources they need to improve their lives. A lot of this can only be done by having sector wide infrastructure which is fit for purpose and sustainable, both now and in the future. I hear all the time of the many issues in the funding environment for the VSCE sector and funders wanting to do place-based funding. Fund Gloucestershire is different because it is an independent, equality focused, place-based, not for profit financial intermediary to alleviate and solve some of these issues with regard to the processing of funding transactions. We started the organisation with a blank page and consulted across the sector to ensure we have developed services and processes on a new digital platform that were needed.
What experience do you bring to the role?
I'm a retired chartered accountant and seasoned executive with over three decades in financial leadership. Since retiring I've wanted to use that experience, along with my time and energy to giving back to the community. My passion for Gloucestershire, where all my family and I live, drives my desire to make a significant difference supporting place-based community centric organisations. I am particularly focused on becoming a trustee where I can personally contribute to their sustainability and community impact. I bring with me a wealth of experience in strategic leadership, business development and growth, governance, and financial oversight.
When you're not a Trustee what can you be found doing?
When I'm at home I have a garden and allotment to maintain and a working cocker spaniel to walk in the Cotswold Hills. I'm an avid sports fan and enjoying travelling the world, combining the two whenever possible.
Kari Gerstheimer
Board Member
What drew you to Fund Gloucestershire, and why do you believe in the organisation?
As a proud Gloucestershire resident, it matters deeply to me that we have a thriving and effective VSCE sector. As a charity founder and CEO, and as former chair of Allsorts – a local VSCE organisation - I understand the vital role that funders and funding infrastructure play in enabling the VSCE sector to provide support to all communities, particularly those that have been historically underserved.
When Sally asked me if I would be interested in being a Founding Trustee of Fund Gloucestershire, it was a brilliant opportunity to play my part in supporting the VSCE sector.
I am passionate about the mission and vision of Fund Gloucestershire and am committed to doing what I can to support the success of the organisation.
The product being developed by the team at Fund Gloucestershire has the potential to drive up efficiency and effectiveness of funding in the county, and beyond. I am proud to play a small part in that journey.
What experience do you bring to the role?
I qualified as a Solicitor specialising in human rights and community care law in 2003, before starting work in the charitable sector in 2006. I have since held a range of C-suite and non-executive roles.
Driven by a belief that we should all be able to access the social care we have a right to, I founded Access Social Care in 2019. This has led to the development of a formidable specialist community care legal team, an online legal information service called AccessAva, and a communities team working with underserved communities and public bodies to reduce inequalities and improve social care outcomes.
My experience ranges from working in large complex organisation to start-up and scale-up environments. I bring experience of working on a tech product and working with underserved communities with experience of marginalisation/discrimination including health inequalities. I also contribute experience of applying for funds, and working with trusts, foundations, and public sector funders in Gloucestershire as a grantee.
When you're not a Trustee what can you be found doing?
Driving my kids around the county or riding my bike.
Will Mansell
Board Member
What drew you to Fund Gloucestershire, and why do you believe in the organisation?
I have spent years building community enterprises in Gloucestershire both as a member of my own organisation and as a non-exec trustee and director elsewhere, which means I have also spent years on the wrong side of a funding application. What drew me to Fund Gloucestershire is its wager that money is a servant, not a master: that patient, well-placed capital lets communities do what they already know how to do. The county does not lack ideas or goodwill. It lacks money that trusts local people. That is worth stewarding well, and it is a different discipline from running the enterprises I usually run.
What experience do you bring to the role?
I am a founding director and Executive Chair of The Grace Network, a family of community interest companies and Family Hubs in Gloucestershire and Bristol, built around food, repair and belonging, underpinned by university degrees in theology and public policy. I bring practical experience of starting and sustaining charities and enterprises on modest means, and the applicant’s-eye view of what money helps and what quietly smothers. Having spent years on the receiving end of grants and social investment, I know the difference between funding that builds a thing and funding that merely keeps it anxious. I want to help the fund do the former.
When you’re not a Trustee, what can you be found doing?
Talking to anyone about anything, on the working theory that everyone is an expert in something worth learning. Otherwise: gardening for a future season at home and in public spaces, old books for problems that aren’t new, and, lately, learning to climb at Brimscombe.
