Cathy Elliott is the Chief Executive of the Community Foundations for Merseyside & Lancashire within the UK’s network of 58 community foundations, joining the organisation in 2007 and becoming Chief Executive in 2009. Cathy oversees the Community Foundations distribution of around £2 million of grants each year on behalf of 70 partners and donors. She specializes in advising families and individuals on their philanthropy, managing foundations on their behalf, including businessman, Sir Terry Leahy and footballer, Jamie Carragher.

Cathy is a Trustee of the Community Foundation Network, the national body for UK community foundations; a member of the Transatlantic Community Foundation Network; a Certificated Member of the UK’s Institute of Fundraising; an Alumni Member of the international Institute for Philanthropy and the Sheila McKechnie Foundation; a Senior International Fellow of the Centre for Philanthropy and Civil Society at the City University of New York and graduate of the University of Manchester.

Before joining the Community Foundations, Cathy worked within the UK’s charity sector for eight years, specialising in fundraising, marketing and campaigning in the UK hospice and disability movements and the arts.

Cathy is a Liverpool FC supporter, lives in Manchester, opposite Manchester United FC’s ground, was born in Torquay in Devon, is a quarter Welsh, has a Scottish family name and lived in Spain as a child.