About Us
How we do fundraising differently
At Cornucopia, cause-driven fundraising forms the very foundation of our work. We’re not just fundraisers – we’re advocates. That’s our point of difference.
Our genuine approach to face to face, telefundraising and social media fundraising puts our charities’ missions at the forefront.
We’re present on the street, at shopping centres, in workplaces and in homes, igniting and inspiring the passion of the public through meaningful conversations around charitable giving.
And what we’re doing works. Our inspirational and committed fundraisers recruit long-term regular givers for a range of charities and organisations.
All of this is achieved through our unique “Ben Don” chain of fundraising.
The Ben Don Chain
Cause-driven fundraising works through a particular chain of relationships.
This chain links each donor (“Don”) to the beneficiary (“Ben”) of their donation, and includes the campaigner who talks to the donor, Cornucopia, our client, not-for-profit organisations, and the beneficiary.
We believe every person in this chain is important. As soon as someone in the chain ceases to benefit, the chain breaks, the donation stops, and the beneficiary suffers.
When everyone wins, we help create a better world, with many happy Dons and Bens.
Our Ben Don theory is at the heart of everything we do at Cornucopia.
Our History
Cornucopia was born out of a charity, so doing good has been part of our DNA since the beginning.
In 2000, founder Gregor Drugowitsch, an experienced fundraiser for the German and Austrian Red Cross, introduced the face to face fundraising method here in Australia, to recruit new monthly donors for Amnesty International Australia.
After much success, Gregor outsourced this program to found Cornucopia – now one of the largest fundraising agencies across multiple countries.
In recent years, we’ve worked with more than 100 charity partners to secure over 700,000 regular givers to date.
Our Leadership
Ross Howe
Managing Director
Ross is all about helping charities do their best work, from small ones down the road in Brisbane to some of the world’s biggest non-profits.
In over 20 years at Cornucopia Ross has helped many charities supercharge their support base. He’s driven business and strategic initiatives from the top, and got his hands dirty in the field with fundraising teams in Australia, New Zealand and USA.
Starting his fundraising career in face to face fundraising in Sydney in 2002, Ross has been the Managing Director at Cornucopia since 2008. Since 2019, he’s sat on the PFRA Australia board.
Away from Cornucopia, Ross and his wife Karen are Co-Founders of Oasis Africa Australia – supporting slum-based children in Kenya into high school and tertiary education. Ross is also Chairman at ChaplainWatch, which supports Queenslanders during times of crisis at various entertainment precincts across the state.
Liam Malcolm
Head of Operations
Unlike most, Liam moved into fundraising by accident. But in the years since, he’s never looked back, and couldn’t be happier working with some of the biggest organisations in the non-profit sector.
Liam has over 16 years’ worth of call centre experience from his time in banking, overseeing campaigns, leading call centres, and coordinating teams.
He started his fundraising career in early 2015 at Pareto Phone, joining Cornucopia in 2016 to lead the telefundraising team. More recently, Liam’s focus has been to strengthen the relationship between our calling teams and our incredible charity partners.
Paul Twomey
Head of Client & Technology Services
Paul has a passion for technology, innovation, and bringing out the best in people. As Head of Client & Technology Services, he drives a culture of constant improvement and 10/10 customer service through teamwork, superior systems, and innovative solutions.
Starting his early career as a Programmer, Paul has diverse experience – across game development, education, and maintenance industries. During his 12 years at Cornucopia he has transitioned into customer service and leadership.
Paul has driven Cornucopia’s technology transition into the modern cloud-age which has allowed us to provide our services and hire staff anywhere in the world.
Shavbjon Puletiu
Senior Team Leader
Shevy’s favourite thing about Cornucopia is seeing the people she’s training make a real impact for those who need help the most. Moving into fundraising wasn’t meant to be long term, but seeing her impact at work means she hasn’t looked back.
Shevy’s had over 11 years’ worth of call centre experience in the charity sector. She’s run campaigns, overseen training and recruitment of new and current telefundraisers, and now helps manage day-to-day operations.
Starting in fundraising at the early age of 17 at Pareto Phone, Shevy then fundraised for Amnesty International and finally joined Cornucopia in 2020. She joined the leadership team as a Senior Team Leader in 2021.
Shevy couldn’t be prouder to be working alongside some of the biggest charity names across Australia, NZ, the USA and more, while leading and guiding the new fundraisers daily.
Johnny Nguyen-Boase
Call Centre Manager
Johnny has over 15 years of call centre experience across multiple industries, leading successful teams since 2005.
Johnny started his fundraising career in 2013 at Pareto Phone and for 5 years enjoyed the challenge of growing connections between organisations, fundraisers, and donors. He joined Cornucopia in 2019 as a Senior Team Leader and has enjoyed his time since.
He’s passionate about our ethical approach that gives back to those in need daily, and he loves working with all his clients across their wide range of missions.
Elizabeth Baarsoe
Client Relationship Manager
Elizabeth has been in the non-profit sector since 2016, with extensive experience in customer & client focused roles over the past 15 years.
Liz began at Cornucopia in February 2020 where she initially started in the face to face team and has since transitioned to the Outbound Calling Account Management Team. As Client Relationship Manager, Liz loves working with international and local charities to make the world a better place and will go above and beyond for her clients.
Lisa Cory
Managing Director’s Assistant
Lisa is the compliance queen and wearer of many hats – from HR to fundraising legislation and compliance and everything in between. If in doubt, ask Lisa!
Lisa started at Cornucopia in July 2002 when the company was very young, doing pledge form (back in the olden days of paper) data entry and locations booking for the face to face fundraisers (including a certain young Ross Howe). She is now Ross’ assistant and has a very, very varied role.
Outside of work Lisa enjoys travelling – anywhere, anytime – as well as hanging out with family and friends, eating good food, and drinking good whiskey.
Dominique Galetto
Recruitment and Onboarding Manager
After working for a large med-tech organisation as a recruitment assistant, Dominique moved into Candidate Care, looking after candidates throughout their journey from application to hire, and beyond.
Prior to joining Cornucopia, Dom was involved in HR Operations, overseeing everything from recruitment through to onboarding, employee management, and retention strategies.
Outside of her passion for Recruitment and HR, Dom love to start her morning bright and early with a long run in the park followed by coffee. She moved from Sydney at the end of 2022 to be closer to family and enjoy more sunshine, and is proud to now call Brisbane home!
Mathew Hunt
Face to Face Operations Manager
Mathew is driven by problem solving and creating solutions for charity clients and campaign partners to get the best possible outcomes with face to face fundraising.
For 9 years he has been at the forefront of training new staff on systems and processes to aid the growth of Cornucopia across Australia and New Zealand.
His fundraising career began with Cornucopia in 2013 as a Location Assistant and has moved through the ranks to become an Operations Manager in 2019.
Mathew strives to build Cornucopia into the leading fundraising agency in Australia, New Zealand and the world!
Mike Stewart
Face to Face Fundraising Manager
Mike has always understood that to be exceptional in F2F Fundraising you have to be passionate and hold high moral values to guide your decision making. His first foray into the charity world was in 1998 in Rio De Janeiro, helping dwellers in the favellas access free health care providers and service professionals.
Following some additional developmental work in Ecuador for a worldwide NGO, Mike started his fundraising career as a D2D fundraiser in Southampton UK, in 2007. Since then he has never looked back, working in both the UK and Australia for many different fundraising agencies and charities leading from the front acquiring Regular Givers via events, streets and D2D and developing fundraisers into expert donor recruiters.
Since April 2022 Mike has joined Cornucopia to use his comprehensive experience and skills to create a fundraising development program to enhance and grow its face to face operations.
Nicole Blake
Client Services Assistant Manager
Nicole is the Client Services Assistant Manager and Operations Scheduler in the Client Services department and loves knowing the work we do with our charity clients is making a difference in the lives of others.
An animal lover with a passion for animal welfare and helping others her favourite part about working with Cornucopia is seeing the benefits our clients receive from the work we do. Nicole comes from an accounting background and has also spent time volunteering with RSPCA and studying Vet Nursing. She loves to be organised and works with clients to ensure their campaign set ups run smoothly and they receive a positive experience working with our team.
In her free time Nicole enjoys spending time with her dog, camping with friends and listening to crime podcasts.