About War Child

Music

War Child has an established, proud and unique relationship with music. Since our inception, music has been at the heart of what we do and continues to be the primary way we engage with the public and raise money.

Back in 1995 we released Help! - the charity album by which all others have seen judged ever since. Featuring the likes of Blur, Oasis, Radiohead, Paul McCartney, Stone Roses, Massive Attack - it was recorded, mixed and on sale within seven days.

To mark the album's 10th anniversary we released 'Help: A Day in the Life'. Recorded and sold online within 24 hours, it became the fastest recorded and downloaded album in music history.

Earlier this year we released 'Heroes' - a covers album featuring legendary artists who between them have sold more than 1.4 billion albums.

Gigs

As well as our famous albums, we also have a proud heritage of hosting gigs which have supported up and coming artists and also featured some of the biggest bands on the planet - most notably our recent concert with Coldplay, The Killers, Bono and Gary Barlow

Read more about the history of War Child and music here

Board of Trustees

Gill Avis

Chair
Gill Avis is Chair of War Child’s Board of Trustees. She has been a trustee for 11 years and assumed the post of Chair 5 years ago. She retired early but had worked for the Ministry of Defence for over 30 years, latterly as a deputy director in Whitehall. Her knowledge of, and involvement in, War Child has therefore been extensive, and contributed towards its focus and development. She has recruited six new trustees over the past 12 months who have already made a positive impact on the organisation.

Neil Fenton

Treasurer
Neil is currently the Finance Director at the large childcare charity and social enterprise, The London Early Years Foundation, where he has been for the last year. Prior to this role he had spent 20 years in the music industry, having worked in various financial positions at Polygram, Virgin, EMI and finally at Chrysalis Group plc, where he was COO of Chrysalis’ music division. In that role he oversaw significant growth of the music division, setting up and buying companies internationally and also developing strategy to make Chrysalis Music one of the foremost independent music companies in the world.
He was also responsible for raising £75m through a securitisation of Chrysalis’ music publishing catalogue.
When his role at Chrysalis came to an end he decided that he would follow his passions and work in the charity sector. He is a chartered accountant having qualified with KPMG and is a member of the Charity Finance Directors Group.

John MacAuslan

Secretary
John worked for nearly 20 years in Her Majesty's Treasury, including in a range of posts as a senior civil servant, and then for 13 years in the National Gallery leading the corporate service functions including finance and the Board secretariat. He has acted as Trustee in a small charity for seven years, including five years as chair of the Trustees. He is now a Civil Service Commissioner, and works on the governance of civil service departments among other topics.

Martin McCann

Trustee (programmes oversight)
Martin is the Chief Executive of the Disaster Relief charity RedR UK since 2007. Martin is also a trustee of People in Aid in the UK and a member of the Supervisory Board of the Porticus Foundation based in the Netherlands. Martin has 30 years experience of working on international development issues at a senior level.

Tom Davis

Trustee (marketing and general management oversight)
Tom has been at Action for Children for 3 years, first as their Head of Marketing and New Business, and latterly as Marketing Director. He served as a Trustee for the Consortium for Street Children for 4 years while chairing their Marketing & Fundraising Committee, in addition to roles advising the social enterprise MyBank and the new charity Solar Aid. He worked in the Commercial Sector, marketing in finance organisations for 20 years before joining the voluntary sector in 2004.

Richard Butler

Trustee (financial and business management oversight)
Richard has spent the last 18 months putting his financial and strategic understanding to use with a variety of social enterprises and charities. His current focus is on developing the capacity of the third sector through his work on 3SC. He has a decade of financial analysis and research expertise in Investment Banking and is qualified as a Chartered Financial Analyst. His prior experience is in buy-side equity research covering a range of sectors from media & telecommunications to insurance.