Michael Norton is the Honorary Director and a Trustee of CIVA.His early career was in merchant banking (Samuel Montagu), where he invented the split capital investment trust and in publishing, where he helped establish the book club and mail order publishing division of BPC Publishing (part of the British Printing Corporation) which he became Managing Director of in 1970.

In 1966, on an entirely voluntary basis, he set up the country’ s first language teaching programme for non-English speaking immigrants in London which involved over 200 volunteer tutors, plus a separate 7-day a week supplementary school and youth programme for young Bangladeshis based at Toynbee Hall, which involved a further 50 volunteers.

In 1971 he decided to pursue a career in the voluntary sector. Here are some of the other organisations he has been involved with:

He founded the Directory of Social Change in 1975 and was its Director until 1995. DSC is the UK’s leading agency providing information, training and support to voluntary organisations. www.dsc.org.uk

He co-founded Changemakers in 1994 to find new ways of engaging young people in social action, and was its Executive Chair until 2001. www.changemakers.org.uk

He founded YouthBank UK in 1998 to enable young people to act as grant-makers, supporting local projects run by other young people. www.youthbank.org.uk

He co-founded UnLtd, the foundation for social entrepreneurs, which received the £100 million Millennium Legacy as an endowment. UnLtd makes awards of up to £15,000 to individuals in the UK who wish to create change in their communities. www.unltd.org.uk

He chaired the International Year of Volunteers 2001 youth programme for England. He received an OBE in 1998 for services to the voluntary sector.

In 2011, he was made an Adjunct Professor at the Graduate School of Business at the University of Cape Town to assist in the creation of the Bertha Centre for Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship. He was also made Philanthropy Instructor at Beijing Normal University.

He is the author of numerous books on fundraising and charitable status including ‘Writing Better Fundraising Applications’ , ‘The WorldWide Fundraiser’s Handbook’ , and ‘The Complete Fundraising Handbook’ , all published by Directory of Social Change.