A RECENT event organised by Mr Mulder raised more than £130,000 for charities fronted by names such as Channel 4 presenter Jon Snow and writer Nick Hornby.

Six organisations each bid for a £5,000 grant, but members of Mr Mulder's The Funding Network instead donated a total of £130,657. Actress Amanda Mealing, fashion designer Katharine Hamnett and songwriter and musician Richard Stilgoe made successful bids for donations to their charitable projects.

Stilgoe runs The Orpheus Centre, which specialises in performing arts for young people with physical and learning disabilities. One regular visitor, Lorna, had hoped go to university but was unable to pass her English GCSEs or A-levels because of her dyslexia and cerebral palsy. He said: "During her three years, Lorna was supported to get the necessary qualifications and was accepted at Coventry University to study Dance and Professional Practice.

"She graduated last year and is now teaching dance and drama to children with learning difficulties." The charity received a grant of £15,000.

Snow was awarded £40,000 for his project, the New Horizon Youth Centre, which works with vulnerable young people. Founded in 1968, it is based between Euston and St Pancras and is open seven days a week helping more than 50 people a day.

The money means it can now employ a literacy and numeracy tutor to give one-to-one and group coaching. Snow said everyone involved was "completely overwhelmed" by the generosity of The Funding Network members.

"(It) was an absolutely amazing event for us at New Horizon," he said. "Uplifting and a hugely generous financial boost to our work."

• 

  Sex, lies and the Stasi

  On this day in 1989 the Berlin Wall was finally breached, ending the reign of East Germany’s feared security service. Here Anne McElvoy, who spent much of the Eighties in the city, recalls her encounters with the spooks

  ---

• 

  The geeky-girl solo artists descending on the music scene

  Kookiness is what sells music these days and these opinionated artists have it in spades, says Jasmine Gardner

  ---

Why Sam's in the clear over that M&S dress

At last the truth about the M&S spotted dress that Sam Cam wore to the Conservative Party Conference

All stories