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Mike Zywina, Director at Lime Green, explains how to create a strategy that's detailed and specific enough to be actionable, but clear and accessible enough to be quickly understood. When creating a strategy, it can feel hard to get the right balance in terms of length and detail. On the one hand, you want it to be detailed and specific enough to be actionable. You want your staff to use your strategy to guide and shape their work, and your leadership to use it to measure progress and determine whether things are on track. On the other hand, it needs to be clear and accessible enough to be quickly understood. You want anyone to be able to pick up your strategy and quickly understand what you’re aiming to do and why. This is vital if you want to build confidence in your work. There’s an inherent tension here that often isn't acknowledged. We’re trying to cater for multiple audiences, with different needs, at the same time. Your internal audiences (trustees, staff etc.) need detail. If the strategy can't serve as a compass for what they’re trying to achieve, what they should prioritise, and how they should approach difficult decisions, then it won’t feel relevant to them. They won’t refer to it. It’ll sit on a shelf gathering dust. Your external audiences (service users, supporters, funders etc.) need brevity. They want to understand your big-picture vision and approach – if the strategy can't communicate that in two minutes, or if they’re confronted by a wall of text, they’ll switch off. It’s a challenge that charity leaders are very familiar – how can you please everyone, when they all want different things? Fortunately, the strategy dilemma is one that I think can be solved... It’s time to smarten up your strategy with a bow tie The left side: the strategy processHere is everything that went into creating your strategy. It’s the hard work that made everything possible. The sweat and the tears (hopefully not any blood, though I’ve been in strategy meetings that have come close). Behind every bold vision and brilliant decision, there’s a whole lot of stakeholder consultation, analysis of the landscape, competitor research, and decision-making workshops. This is simultaneously the most important part of the strategy process, and the least interesting part once you’re done. But it does have ongoing value. It’s important to document your process, because this is the evidence base for all your big decisions – why you committed to certain objectives, why you decided not to do certain things. There are certain points when every organisation doubts their strategy. Perhaps circumstances have changed, new opportunities have arisen, new leadership have joined. You're wondering whether to change course. This is when it’s vital to remind people (or explain to them for the first time) the thinking that underpinned your approach. Recalling your key methods, observations and conclusions can provide the confidence needed to stick to your strategy, or the context needed to change it where necessary. When I’m working on a strategy, I’ll always make sure there’s a lengthy but clear report that documents all the work we did to lay the foundations for our decision-making. 95% of people will never read it again, and that’s ok. But when someone needs to reach for it, it's there. The central knot: your concise, published strategyThis part is centre stage for a reason. It’s the main event, and a thing of beauty when you get it right. Your published strategy is what everyone will read – it should be a summary of your main objectives and activities, your intended outcomes, and the big picture of why this is important. You should include your vision, mission and values, especially if you’ve updated them as part of your strategy*. It's also helpful to highlight any key internal objectives that underpin your strategy, such as improving collaborative working, refining impact measurement or investing in fundraising. This helps to make you accountable ands build trust in your organisation. But the key word here is summary. You want everyone to be able to understand it without getting confused or bored. Challenge yourself to keep this part to 1-2 pages if you can. I’m a big fan of presenting your published strategy as an infographic or chart, rather than paragraphs of text. Use clear, concise, action-orientated words. Avoid jargon and acronyms. Ask key people (staff, service users, partner organisations etc.) to provide honest feedback on whether they understand and feel excited by it. It may be helpful to create a longer version initially then edit it down across a few drafts. *I have some issues with the way that charities typically explain their mission and particularly values, but that’s a blog topic for another day. The right side: your full, internal strategyA 1-2 page strategy may look exciting. But on its own, it's unlikely to achieve much. Creating an internal strategy version will provide the full picture: detailed objectives, planned activities, timeline, key resources and infrastructure needed. This is the manual that helps your team to turn your strategy into reality: what they need to focus on doing, or changing. This will be longer and more practical than the published strategy, but still less detailed than an operational plan. It will probably detail a more prescriptive approach for Year 1, then a more high-level plan for future years – this ensures your strategy feels actionable but not too restrictive. You should still aim for clear and concise language, format it nicely, and avoid jargon. People must be able to find what they need, and feel clearer and better after reading it.  This full, internal version is actually what makes your 1-2 page published strategy possible. By putting all the important detail needed for internal use in a separate place, you can create a much clearer, more concise external version. Why use the strategy bow tie approach?This a great way to create a strategy that caters for multiple audiences with different needs, giving them varying levels of detail. It enables you to produce something that's easy to both understand and implement.
After all, what is the point of a strategy? We want something that holds us accountable, that we can measure progress against. We want it to serve as a guide for our team, helping them to understand what they’re aiming to achieve, what they should generally prioritise, and how they should approach tricky decisions along the way. We want to be able to retrace our steps in moments of crisis or doubt. We don't want a lengthy tome that nobody ever dares open, but neither do we want something that feels too flimsy to be relevant. The bow tie approach will help you to achieve what you need from a strategy, while removing this tension. Is your organisation about to develop a new strategy? I'd love to have a chat about your plans and explore how we could help.
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This blog is a joint effort by Rachel Cross and Mike Zywina, drawing on their combined 15 years' trusts fundraising experience. There are certain things we’d recommend that every trusts fundraiser has in place to boost their chances of success. Some are internally generated: a case for support, carefully considered budgets, frameworks for measuring outcomes, and so on. Some are external tools: funding databases, a working printer, etc. But if a neat spreadsheet, the Charity Commission website, and a friendly proofreading colleague are your bread, butter and milk essentials – there are also some unexpected items in our trusts & foundations bagging area that might surprise you. In our years of experience, these can sometimes bag you a significant advantage in your prospect research and bid writing. Consider them your slightly more refined condiments that, on their own, don’t form the basis of a successful trusts fundraising programme, but can add extra spice to your approach. In an extremely competitive funding environment where every detail matters, these little hacks might well be the difference between walking away with that funding partnership, or leaving with nothing. And, best of all, they're completely free (or at least have a free option)!  Unexpected item in the bagging area? Here are our top six... 1. Google Street View (Rachel)You’ve found a funder that appears to be well-aligned. It requests applications in writing, so you look for the address. It doesn’t appear to be a law firm or accountant at first glance, but it’s a mysterious P.O. Box, peculiarly named house, or simply ‘Unit 146’… How can you tell whether your application is going to land in the hands of a trustee, in a huge pile on a solicitor’s desk, or be left for weeks in a mailbox that may or may not be watertight? While a search engine can sometimes answer your question, often using Street View to examine the surroundings is a great extra level of digging. If you see a residential suburb, or detached cottage in the sticks, you can be fairly certain this is where a trustee or secretary resides. This provides at least some reassurance that your application will land directly in the hands of a relevant decision-maker. An office block with tinted windows in a commercial district? Most likely a professional gatekeeper – you might want to reconsider whether posting something without prior communication is really worth it. Picking a random funder address, I’ve immediately been able to identify that this does, in fact, belong to a Post Office – and is therefore likely to either be forwarded to another address, or routinely collected by a secretary:  In this case, an initial phone call might give you an opportunity to ask whether the address provided is really the best one to use. You might want to consider using signed-for delivery, especially for larger bids, or decide to first send an expression of interest before taking the plunge with a full application. It's a small detail, but could make the difference. Trusts fundraising really is like being a detective sometimes. 2. Visualping (Mike)“We are currently closed to new applications. Please check back here soon for details of our re-opening.” Have you ever read a statement like this and thought, ‘how soon is soon?!' Is it a ‘dinner will be ready soon’, or a Labour Government 'things will get better soon'? They mean VERY different things, apparently. In the current landscape, we're all waiting on tenterhooks for a favourite funder to reopen their programme or finally unveil big strategic changes. Manually checking websites takes time, and it's easy to miss a big announcement. Enter Visualping: a tool that enables you to monitor specific webpages. Just pop in the relevant URL and Visualping will notify you when the webpage is updated, so you can see what has changed. A great way to get yourself to the front of the queue when a funder wakes from their slumbers. 3. A fountain pen (Rachel)Do they even still make these things?! Indeed, they do, and not everything in my toolbox requires an internet connection. In a digitalised age – especially as we're engulfed by AI – preserving human touches is more important than ever. Grantmaking trusts seem to have a tendency to move at a snail’s pace when it comes to modernisation. Many funders still only accept applications in writing. Yes, I mean snail mail. And, yes, the pun is intentional. Whilst inconvenient, this method does allow you to retain some humanity – if you’ll let it. Instead of inserting your e-signature before printing, sign your application by hand. Instead of printing the address, get out your nicest pen and write it by hand. It may take you a few extra minutes, but adding this personal touch and showing that extra level of care may well be the reason a funder picks up your application from the pile. (Disclaimer: ok, this tool technically isn't free. But you probably have a nice pen lying around somewhere. This blog does not condone or endorse the shoplifting of pens, fountain or otherwise.) 4. Hemingway (Mike)We've all been guilty of writing that knockout sentence that we're convinced is going to conquer a funder's heart and mind, only to read it back the next day and realise it's an impenetrable word salad. The truth is, it's all too easy to get bogged down in our writing, and too close to our work. One of our top application writing tips is to keep the reader’s interest. Your application will very likely be one of many reviewed that day. The stakes are high if you want them to read from start to finish, and not get bored half way through. And keeping your language balanced, clear and interesting is key to this. This is why I love Hemingway, an online tool that reviews your writing and suggests way to make it bolder and clearer. Just copy/paste written text into the box and it will flag sentences that are hard to read, and words that have a simpler alternative. This isn’t a perfect tool, because of course it doesn't know the recipient or the context in which you’re writing. However it’s still a great starting point for reviewing the first draft of a funding application or end of grant report. Here's an example of what Hemingway will tell you, based on this section of writing. The irony of my first sentence being flagged red is too good to change.  5. A thesaurus (Rachel)I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve reviewed a funding application, only to end up with my head in my hands after reading the word ‘important’ four times in two sentences. Other routine offenders: vital, support, difference, community, help, valuable, improve, affect, impact… All very topical words. All very clear and easy-to-understand. But all very quickly become redundant when used frequently in quick succession. I know how difficult I find trying to organically come up with alternative words that mean the same thing (synonyms). An online thesaurus has often been my lifeline to avoid giving the funder cognitive indigestion. ‘Important’ soon becomes key, major, significant, noteworthy, prominent, influential, central, leading…depending on the context of my sentence. There’s a crucial caveat, though. Don’t be tempted to use overly complex words to impress. Straightforward language that gets to the heart of your point will always be better received by a funder who’s grimacing at the number of applications still left on their desk for review before 5pm.  6. Read aloud software (Mike)The two tools immediately above can help you to refine your writing. But when it comes to basic proof reading – catching and correcting silly typos – we often rely on our brains and eyes.
But these are fallible, especially when we're tired and re-reading our application for the fifth time, half an hour before the deadline. It's too easy to end up reading what we think we've written, not what we actually put down. (Fun fact: my cat once walked across my keyboard while I was proof reading an application before sending it to a charity client, leading to a very confused conversation about the strange series of characters that appeared midway through my otherwise rousing grant request.) Read aloud software is great for spotting the mistakes that my eyes miss. When a voice reads your writing out loud, there's no hiding place. Microsoft Word and Google Docs have built-in read aloud tools. Or check out an online tool like NaturalReader, where you can choose from a wide range of different voices, accents and genders. Just make sure you check the privacy policy of any online tool that you use, especially if you're inputting sensitive information. Got any unexpectedly useful tools in your own trusts fundraising toolbox? Let us know in the comments ⬇️ Mike Zywina, Director at Lime Green, explores what the current funding landscape looks like for different types of organisation, and what you need to know if you're planning to focus more on trusts fundraising. Trusts and foundations fundraising is really difficult right now. We’ve said it, Alex Evans has said it, people like Jo Jeffery and Caroline Danks have done incredible work to track it. While it's hard to secure funding as a registered charity, it's even harder as a community interest company (CIC). And generally more difficult still if you’re neither of these things. Yet more and more non-charities are looking for a slice of that tasty but oh-so-elusive funding pie. In my experience, there are a couple of common reasons why. Firstly, lots of people have set up CICs in recent years in search of a lighter governance burden, a quicker and easier registration process, and more freedom to do activities such as campaigning. In different circumstances, they’d probably like to be a charity – but this feels daunting and restrictive, especially at a time when the Charity Commission is increasingly suffocating the sector in red tape. Secondly, there are lots of organisations that have traditionally been sustained by trading, and probably hoped to never need grant funding. However, their trading income is shrinking in the current economic landscape – so, perfectly understandably, they cast their eyes towards trusts and foundations instead, hoping that grants will enable them to subsidise the cost of what they charge people for activities or services. All sounds great in principle – but there are a few problems. This blog explores the funding challenges for different types of organisation that aren't registered charities. It's informed by the funder prospect research we've previously done for a range of CICs and other non-charities, to support their decision-making about long-term legal structure. However, I want to emphasise that this explores things purely from a grant funding perspective – I know there are myriad other factors that affect this decision, and I’d never advocate for picking your legal structure purely based on funding availability.  More and more organisations are searching for a slice of the funding pie - but getting it isn't easy "We're a CIC - generally speaking, how willing are trusts and foundations to fund us?"(TL;DR: somewhat, but not hugely) Over the years, more funders have gradually opened up their eligibility criteria. A decent number funders – particularly larger, more strategic and more relational ones – will fund CICs. Others that traditionally haven’t funded CICs, like Lloyds Bank Foundation, have recently started including CICs for specific funding programmes. More progressive funders often recognise that, for organisations focused on long-term systems change and campaigning, being a registered charity can be too restrictive. But this shift has always been very slow. As a whole, the funding world moves at a glacial pace. A significant proportion of funders, particularly the shy types that don’t have grantgiving staff and shelter behind a law firm or solicitor – including many sizeable family foundations – still have a blanket "charities only" policy. Jem Stein’s excellent LinkedIn post – and the discussion it prompted – covers some of the funding challenges for CICs. My gut feeling is that many funders simply haven’t got their head around what a CIC is – to them, “charity” is shorthand for “vaguely trustworthy” and anything else simply isn’t. And in the current climate, with funders overstretched by huge demand, there's not much incentive to open up eligibility. Restricting applications to charities is one quick way to reduce the number they receive. I worry that even funders that officially fund CICs will be thinking along these lines too. Just to complicate things further, there are funders in the opposite camp – they don't openly say they fund CICs, but will consider it if they know and like your work. This is where a relationship-driven approach or initial phone call can really help. In my experience, you’re more likely to persuade a funder to fund your CIC if you can give a good strategic reason for your choice. For example, if you have a clear, credible vision (even if long-term) to generate a significant portion of your income from trading, or you want to undertake activities that are problematic for a charity. If you’re a CIC simply because it enabled you to register more quickly and keep your governance simpler, then – rightly or wrongly – that’s less likely to wash with funders.  When applying to trusts and foundations as a CIC, you'll encounter a lot of locked doors "We've historically been sustained through trading income, but want to pivot to grants - how will we get on?"Regardless of legal structure, this can be problematic. Firstly, seeking grants primarily to subsidise the cost of your activities is rarely a compelling proposition for funders. I’ve seen organisations outline this very literally in applications, for example: “A grant of £10,000 will pay for X students to enrol in our course at half the personal cost.” I understand why organisations start off thinking along these lines, but funders want to enable social impact, not subsidise the cost of activities. They care about the Why, not the What. To get their attention, you’ll need to completely reframe your proposition. Secondly, if you’ve historically focused on trading, you may not be set up to measure and demonstrate your impact – because you haven't needed to. Even if you create a robust way of doing this from now, you may not have an existing track record of impact data, and you'll be competing against others that do. Finally, you’ll need to consider your wider communications materials beyond your application. Funders will search for these, whether you provide them or not. Even if you write a brilliant funding application outlining your future plans, if your website is geared around selling things to customers, and you don’t have things like an impact report, this might put off funders in an ultra-competitive landscape.  Organisations that have historically generated most of their income from trading face challenges when pivoting to trusts and foundations funding "What does this mean for us? Will Lime Green work with us if we’re not a registered charity?"I really don't want to discourage and demotivate people – it’s hard enough right now as it is. But, even more so, I don’t want to encourage organisations to spend time and money on things that are unlikely to yield a return.
You might think that the hardest part of being a fundraising consultancy right now is securing funding, or finding clients. But it’s actually having difficult conversations with people who need funding and want our help, but where we feel we're unlikely to achieve success together. If you’re a CIC, or organisation pivoting away from trading income, it’s worth thinking about the challenges above and how well-equipped you are to work through them. Putting in place the foundations for trusts fundraising takes time, and funders currently have little appetite for taking risks on unproven grantees. Now is a tough time to start securing grants. Don't get me wrong, some will succeed. But plenty more will not. We’re absolutely open to working with CICs and other forms of not-for-profit via our strategic support and training. And we’ll still explore providing trusts fundraising support too – but we’ll need to ask you plenty of questions. Because, when deciding whether we can help you, we'll always focus less on “How much do you need funding?”, and more on “Do we think you can achieve a positive return on investing in our support?” Mike Zywina, Director at Lime Green, shares some reflections on what we've discussed and learned so far about using AI... I know what you’re probably thinking…the last thing you want to read is something else about AI. But stay with me a minute. I think this is going to be helpful. At Lime Green, we've been slow off the mark to think seriously about Artificial Intelligence (AI) – partly due to limited capacity, but also to give us time to listen to people’s very varied views, and see how it’s being used by others. Because we know there’s great potential, but also great concerns. Recently we decided it was time to dip our toe in the water. Not by immediately using it in our consultancy work, but by thoughtfully exploring what a good AI strategy might look like. What we've learned has been helpful for us, but also highly relevant for charities and social enterprises too. We’ve been lucky to work with the fab Simon Allen, outgoing CEO of Age UK Bath & North East Somerset and co-founder of Level.ai, who aim to help charities, social enterprises, and ethical businesses use AI for good. Simon took our team through a series of reflection and planning workshops (it was nice to be on the other end of workshop facilitation for once!) Our starting question wasn’t: How can we use AI to save time? Or rather, it was much broader than that. More like: what should AI mean for an organisation looking for creative solutions to help a sector in crisis, but also wanting to maintain an ethical, values-led approach, all while being instinctively suspicious of any "next big thing"? In other words, how can we balance the potential benefits of AI against the known risks in terms of accuracy, authenticity, originality, data security and the environment? This starting point has led to some fascinating conversations. I'm still in learning mode and very much not an expert, but I wanted to share what we've learned so far:  There’s little sense in automating specialist tasks firstYes, there’s potential for AI to help us with tasks like writing funding applications and strategy reports. But this isn’t easy to do without compromising on quality and humanity. Plus writing is something our team feel very passionate about, and hugely enjoy. They want to be writers, not AI prompters. On the other hand, we do plenty of tasks that are less fun and require less specialist skill. Deciphering and writing up handwritten notes. Sifting through hundreds of post-its to group together ideas and remove duplicate points. Copying and pasting template application text into the right boxes on a form. Collating feedback after training courses. These tasks need to be done with care. We wouldn't automate them until we were sure we could do it reliably and accurately. But this is likely to be much easier than automating highly-skilled tasks where creativity and humanity are essential. So what would be the sense in starting with the problematic, complex bit? If you’re just starting out with AI, it’s so easy to be drawn to the eye-catching things you see other people doing. Yes, there’s still novelty and wonder in seemingly creating content out of nothing. But that doesn’t mean you should do it too. Start with automating the faffy tasks that nobody would cry about never doing again. The way forward is custom-built, paid-for tools and careful promptingAny of us can open ChatGPT today, feed it some text about our organisation, and ask it to draft an answer to a funding question. But what happens to the information we share? How is the answer crafted? Does it sound like us? There are many legitimate concerns with AI in terms of data security, accuracy and originality. But these often stem from people using the wrong tools and the wrong prompts for the job. Free tools seem attractive, but the real cost may be that the information you provide will be used to train the model, compromising your data. To quote a common tech world saying: if you're not paying for the product, you are the product. Better to find UK-based, GDPR-compliant platforms (read the privacy policy carefully) where you can pay a moderate subscription fee then untick the boxes that give permission to use your data to train the model. Also, make sure you’re using the right tool and the right prompts for the job. If you ask Microsoft Copilot to simply draft, for example, an expression of interest for Esmée Fairbairn, the answer will sound generic, because the text it produces is literally the average of millions of other people’s writing. And it can’t tailor the language to funding guidelines it doesn’t know about. But creating a tool specifically for funding applications, inputting lots of examples of your writing to ‘train’ it to sound like you, then giving a detailed prompt that reflects what you know about a funder and what they say they’re looking for? That's far more likely to produce a decent first draft you can work with. Taking a phased approach will maximise learning, maintain quality and minimise overwhelmWe initially identified dozens of tasks we could theoretically automate. But if we tried to do all that, we’d burn through time and money, and probably tear our hair out. So we’re planning a phased approach which starts by automating simpler, lower-risk tasks (see above). We’ll see how this works, what goes wrong, whether we actually save time. And we’ll make sure a human is always involved to meticulously check what is produced, knowing what problems to look out for. For example, we’re exploring whether we can create a tool that takes the content in a case for support and uses it to populate an extremely rough draft of a common funding application, such as for Reaching Communities or Garfield Weston. We know from experience which sections of a case for support we typically pop into which application questions, and what type of information is particularly relevant. AI can potentially speed up this initial process. Then a human can take over and do the highly skilled tailoring and editing. If this works well, we might eventually look at using AI more extensively in bid writing. But frankly, if AI can’t do a good job of creating a rough starting template, we’ll never trust it with more complex writing tasks. Moving slowly will allow us to maintain quality, use what we learn to create better tools, and avoid overwhelming the team with too many new platforms and processes at once.  Our team planning how we might use AI, in a workshop facilitated by Simon Allen of Level.ai AI has uncomfortable ethical and environmental implications, but that's nothing new for the charity sectorAs a team, we've had some challenging conversations about the environmental and ethical implications of using AI. Firstly, this as a good thing. It’s so important to create a space for these discussions. When people are honest yet open-minded about their concerns, this only strengthens your approach. We know that AI has a significant environmental impact, and big tech corporations have built tools that harvest and profit from people’s creative content in ways that are ethically very questionable. We also know that the charity sector is in crisis and would hugely benefit from any new approaches that save time and money. And we know that some AI tools – and some ways of using them – are better and worse than others. Finally, AI isn’t going away, and the environmental impact should decrease as technology improves and as more people understand how to use it responsibly. So, we can choose not to participate (honestly, we’ve considered it). Or we can explore it while being open about the negative impacts, learning and sharing everything we can, and advocating for a better approach. And we can moderate our own usage, for example by not using AI for things a conventional search engine can help with just as well, or for frivolous trend-chasing (AI action figures, I’m looking at you). When it comes to ethics, I've realised there are some parallels between AI and fundraising. Just as the AI industry is built on stolen data and environmental harm, so too are the fortunes of many funders and philanthropists built on stolen wealth and environmentally catastrophic business practices. Charities need their money, but don't have to like or remain silent about where it comes from – and can have red lines about what is acceptable and not, aligned with their values. Similarly, we need the efficiency AI can bring, but we can be mindful and vocal about the ethical and environmental cost, and discerning about which tools we use. Saving time isn't your why – be purposeful about your end goalYes, AI can potentially save huge amounts of time, but that’s not guaranteed to be A Good Thing. After all, capitalism doesn’t have a great track record of translating technological progress into social gains. The loom, automated factory assembly lines, and the Internet have all been hailed as gamechangers that will transform people’s productivity and quality of life. But while the rich have got richer, everyday people have to work harder than ever. Today, for all our technology, our mental health is in crisis. So a good AI strategy should have an end goal that is about more than saving time. For us, we hope that finding significant AI efficiency savings would ultimately help us to achieve savings for charity clients and pay our team members better, as well as making a modest improvement to profit margins. In the current landscape, it is incredibly difficult as a small business to balance all these things, and perhaps AI can be part of the solution. For charities and social enterprises, using AI shouldn't just be about saving time and money, but relieving pressure and improving working conditions for staff where possible.  Saving time isn't guaranteed to be a positive, unless you have a clear end goal So, what happens next?Now we have a vision of how, when and why to use AI, we'll begin the process of creating our own custom-built tools. But we won’t start using these until we have created and published a transparent AI policy.
This will be underpinned by a few key principles:
These principles will help to ensure our use of AI is a net positive for our work. Whether you're currently an AI enthusiast or an AI sceptic, I hope they'll prove useful for you too. Rachel Cross, Trusts Fundraising Consultant at Lime Green, shares her thoughts on trusts fundraising tactics in the current crisis... "I just don’t get it; is there something wrong with me?" "Has something changed? Or was it something I said?" "Am I too big, too small, too boring, too complicated?" "Is it just me? Did they find someone better? Should I just give up?" I’ve spent some sleepless nights lying awake asking myself such questions over the years, faced with romantic rejections in my (rather unsavoury) dating life. But I’ve realised that these questions are similar to the ones that have recently been keeping many trusts fundraisers and charity leaders awake at night. We’re used to hearing a humbling amount of ‘no’s’ in trusts fundraising, but recently, we’re feeling much less humble and much more about to crumble. Trusts that have supported you reliably for years have suddenly changed tune. You pause an application for a couple of hours, suddenly the round has prematurely closed. You’re declined by a funder whose priorities couldn’t be more spot on. A promising lead on your pipeline this week has paused funding the next. Jo Jeffrey’s ‘the List’, keeping live track of all pauses, restructures and closures in UK trusts & foundations, is now the only grants database you never knew you’d need. Firstly, it’s not just you. We are in a charitable funding crisis. I don’t use ‘crisis’ lightly, though I’m aware we’ve been in some level of crisis since 2010. But it really is true – sector wide, the past year has been brutal like no other. Even charities and seasoned fundraisers who have never been too concerned over their grant income have noticed the shift – and they’re equally disturbed. The compounding effects of significant current affairs over the last decade have come to a drastic head – the state of the funding landscape just one major symptom. That said, this post isn’t intended to be all doom and gloom (though we’ve certainly done a lot of lamenting about the world recently). As fundraisers and charity leaders, we’re not the kind of people that accept defeat easily. Faced with flux, successful fundraising is always self-reflective, creative and forward-thinking. So, below we’ve collated our best insights to help you react strategically to rejection and to optimise your trusts and foundations fundraising in its current turmoil. Of course, we can’t guarantee success – there are always so many internal and external factors at play. But, at the very least, I hope these insights help you to sharpen your tools and broaden your shoulders as you face that next application! 1. Is your organisation really eligible for that grant? Be honest with yourself...I know the feeling: you come across a golden opportunity to apply for a five-figure grant that could transform your organisation. What’s more, the application is online, the window is open, and you’re ready for the taking. You’re sucked in by the offer and what it could achieve…so much that, upon reading the eligibility criteria, you begin doing a little ‘creative stretching’. You justify to yourself why and how your organisation meets the funder’s criteria: “they fund Welsh heritage, we’re an ocean conservation charity…so yeah, we’re both interested in saving the W(h)ales”. It’s a daft example, but you get my (longshore) drift.  Funders have objectives too, which they fulfil through selecting the charities or projects which align best with these. At times, it can be easy – even unconsciously – to start shoehorning your organisation’s mission into the opportunities you find. It’s even more tempting when you’re passionate about what you do and have seen the real impact of your work. Or, worse still, you begin creating new projects just to fit the funder’s criteria – risking mission drift and succumbing to philanthropic paternalism. Remember, even if you’re a volunteer – the organisation pays for every hour you spend on applications – in time, money or both. Sometimes it’s easy to fall into a lottery mindset when applying for grants: “well, if we don’t buy a ticket, we definitely won’t win”. But with limited resources and mounting pressure to secure funds, sometimes it’s better not to apply to that grant and to focus your efforts on funders whose objectives are clearly aligned with yours. This could mean turning away from some opportunities that appear lucrative, but if you’re really being honest – it’s not a £50k opportunity if you’re not really eligible. 2. Help the funder see whyWhich leads me nicely on to one of the most common reasons funders reject applications: not meeting their funding criteria. If your funder successfully passes tip #1, then show them explicitly how your organisation or project meets their specifications! Some applications make this easy by directly asking this question. For those that don’t – where possible and relevant within an application framework, tell them anyway! The key is to be as specific as you can, relating their priorities directly to your organisation’s activities and outcomes, and backing it up with evidence. Don’t just repeat their priorities back to them (they should really know these). Help them to understand why investing in your specific project or organisation will help them to achieve their goals, too. 3. Stay specific and local where possibleGenerally speaking, the wider the remit of a funder, the more applications it receives. Funders making grants throughout the UK to a broad range of purposes will receive far more applications (eligible and ineligible) than those granting in a specific geographical area or with very niche interests. It can be tempting to get your application count up by firing off applications to lots of generic funders, with vague priorities such as ‘relief of human suffering’ or ‘education’ – especially those that are open to charities of all shapes, sizes and locations. However, it’s important to remember that with great variety also comes great competition. With the exception of a few mega funders with very high capacities, such as Garfield Weston, most have tight limits on the number and size of grants they can make. Just because their interests are (seemingly) wide, sadly it doesn’t mean their funds stretch any further. In the current climate, your application to a generic funder is going to be one of hundreds – even thousands. Just like how remote jobs are more competitive than local ones, a lot of strong applications miss out. Unless you have limitless capacity for churning out well-written, tailored applications (and not unchecked AI-generated dribble), be wise and realistic when it comes to your prospect research and which applications to prioritise. If your organisation’s activities are based in a specific region – or if your aims are similarly niche – looking for funders whose giving is restricted to your certain area or set of priorities is likely going to generate better odds in your favour. Between a popular £20k grant offered nationally to a broad range of purposes and four or five £5k grants with more restricted parameters that are aligned with your own – contrary to popular belief, chasing the ‘big wins’ might not necessarily be strategic in the current context. 4. Keep your case for support watertightWe’ve shared our in-depth case for support framework in a previous blog, so I won’t repeat the whys and hows here. Your case for support is an incredibly important internal tool that you can use as a springboard in your applications. It’s also a key resource for helping you identify and address any gaps or weaknesses in your organisation/projects. Like any policy or strategy you create, it’s important to keep revisiting your case for support and keeping it sharp. A good case for support is always a live document. As you evolve, find new evidence, collect more data, keep adding, tweaking, updating and strengthening your arguments.  A good, regularly updated case for support will be one of your most important fundraising tools 5. Give your organisation a health checkWith increased competition, funders are becoming more stringent with their due diligence and regulatory checks. Keep a close eye on all of your public material and any documents you’re providing funders, such as accounts, policies and annual reports – checking for any anomalies or discrepancies that might raise questions. Remember, funders will do their homework. They need to be confident that they’re investing wisely. Particularly for cold applications, funders are often coming blind to your organisation and will be looking out for potential risks that seed doubt. Something that makes perfect sense to you may come across completely differently to a trustee overwhelmed with applications and needing to make difficult shortlisting decisions. For example, is the messaging on our website consistent with our applications? Is there anything in our accounts that may raise eyebrows, and can we explain this? If we’ve rebranded, changed name or location, have we updated this everywhere? What appears when we Google our organisation? (Yes, Googling yourself is a perfectly reasonable form of evaluation). 6. Prioritise relationship-building with fundersWhere previously it may have been possible to rely more on generating income through cold appeals, this approach is now rarely sufficient to get noticed. Relationship-first fundraising and good funder stewardship – with a focus on quality, not quantity – is more important than ever. This means making human connection, picking up the phone, soliciting meetings, inviting funders to see your work, accompanying your applications with bespoke cover letters – even if the funder has an open application process. Being clear and consistent with your record-keeping, making sure that you’re meeting each of your funders’ requirements for reporting in a timely manner, is essential. There’s nothing worse than getting funders mixed up, or accidentally double-texting (okay, probably emailing). Go the extra mile to develop and maintain strong relationships, both with cold and existing funders. Click here for more tips on building relationships with invitation-only funders – these ideas can be applied to those important ‘open’ funders, too.  7. Share, communicate and educate your team – and adjust your expectations accordinglyI’ve spoken to many fundraisers recently feeling immense pressure from above – whether that's trustees, CEOs or senior management – struggling to hit targets, feeling isolated in their role, and faced with a lack of empathy and understanding. Communicating with leaders who aren’t experienced or recent fundraisers can be extremely discouraging when they just don’t understand the nuanced challenges facing the sector at present. There’s no one-size-fits-all approach for managing these, sometimes very challenging, team dynamics and professional relationships. However, sharing objective knowledge that comes from an outside source can be more effective in helping your team comprehend some of your contextual challenges. We have been blessed as a sector with many insightful resources produced by fundraising experts. Providing your team with ‘evidence’ is likely to be more informative and could help your organisation to adjust expectations, adapt and think creatively, and set more considered targets. Some of our reading recommendations can be found on this post by the Small Charity Friendly Collective. 8. Be gracious with yourselfThis is of utmost importance. With the best will in the world, there is no getting away from the reality: trusts funding is tougher than tough at the moment. You will get rejections; probably lots of them. After a while, it can be hard not to take it personally.
So, if you only take one thing away: give yourself grace. We know the current state of the sector is taking its toll on the mental health of fundraisers and charity leaders. Prioritise doing the things that keep you refreshed and well, whatever those may be. Seek support, take time out if you need to, and utilise the resources and support available. Remember, you are very much not in this alone.
You don't need me to tell you that things are very weird and very worrying right now.
My working days currently provide a strange contrast. I spend my mornings and afternoons speaking to charities and colleagues about how we can possibly navigate burnout, despair, funding scarcity and widening social inequality. Then, sandwiched in the middle, I'll often head for a lunchtime walk in the woods with a left-leaning politics podcast to decompress (yeah, not a healthy or effective habit I know). You'd think these two worlds would share a lot of common ground. And often the big picture concerns are the same. But the talking points, the detail, remarkably have almost nothing in common. I've listened to podcast episodes do a forensic deep-dive into the impact of National Insurance increases and never once mention the impact on the charity sector - despite constantly talking about how policy changes impact vulnerable people and social inequality. Similarly, the audio hand-wringing I listen to about the state of the world - why are right-wing movements and disinformation on the rise? how can we get more people to care and mobilise about the policies that impact them? - are all-too rarely reflected in my conversations with charity leaders and in strategy workshops. It feels like there are so many people whose hearts are in the right place, whose brains are working overtime to come up with the answers we need, but they're all working to a different set of questions. This feels dangerous - because I really don't like where we're heading
Summer 2024 and the cautious optimism brought by a change of UK government feels a million years ago already. Trump 2.0 has been everything we feared, but with more fascist salutes and chainsaw-wielding billionaires. In recent days, a far-right party has just come second in federal elections in Germany with ~20% of the vote.
Closer to home, Labour has been a very mixed bag (that's if we're being charitable) including a string of avoidable bad news stories, plunging approval ratings and some woeful performative nonsense on immigration. Suddenly, a Conservative or Reform government - possibly a monstrous merger of the two - in just four years time feels horrifyingly plausible. 2024 showed us that economic strife brings down governments, regardless of who is in power. And the likely economic shocks emanating from Trump - a Catherine wheel of erratic policy announcements and petulant tariffs - are likely to blow away whatever green shoots are slowly sprouting from this Labour Government (and there are undoubtedly some). And that's exactly what happened in the US last year - people lost faith with and rejected a long-term project that was bringing about steady economic improvement but not making enough people feel better-off in the short-term, then voted in something far worse. I know I'm not alone in these concerns - chocolate consumption by our friends over at LarkOwl is off the scale: This would still be worrying if we had reliable and accurate information sources, but without them it's a nightmare
So much of our media is explicitly right-leaning, billionaire-owned, riddled with vested interests. Online platforms are full of hatred, with designed-in toxicity. The interests, needs and voices of so many people simply aren't represented anywhere.
Many outlets simply aren’t fit for purpose. This is typified by the BBC, a once dignified old ship being battered by the waves of change. Reacting too slowly to one trend, as they continue to allow their entire news agenda to be dictated by a print media consumed by people who are increasingly older, politically homogenous and few in number. Overreacting to another trend, as they seemingly buy the myth that "nobody has much attention span any more” and dumb down proper debate and scrutiny into shorter, ever more meaningless soundbites. And we have a Labour government that seemingly can't muster a strategy to combat this and is instead flailing around throwing red meat to Reform voters. There's no nuance to our mainstream debates about the NHS, tax rises, winter fuel payments. Nobody in a position of authority seems capable of setting out a case for the benefits of things like immigration, or closer alignment with the EU. People are losing faith in the status quo, making them ripe for exploitation by those who will take their vote then do nothing to serve their interests. And there seems to be no coherent movement to combat this on the left, which is seemingly resigned to losing the argument and being unable to reach the people we need to. 
Stormy times ahead for the BBC and other media outlets battered by the seas of change
But there has to be a way of engaging people - we can't give up
There's something about the current landscape that doesn't add up to me.
People supposedly don't care for detail and have little attention span, yet Joe Rogan's podcast with its mammoth three-hour episodes consistently tops the charts. And we know people do care deeply about their wellbeing - they spend a high proportion of whatever disposable income they have on it, and social media is saturated with wellness advice and products. But the number one determinant of health and wellbeing – a functioning society that provides good healthcare, social care and housing – is precisely what's under threat. In these contradictions lie a glimmer of hope, if we can figure out a way forward. The charity sector, which has lost so much in recent years, still has the benefit of connection. In a world where we descend deeper into our echo chambers, charities reach across the divide to support, bring together and engage people. Vulnerable people with zero interest in the news, and zero faith in politics, trust us and interact with us on a daily basis. Of course we mustn't abuse that trust by preaching to people, treating them like children, or inducing them to make specific decisions. But could we find ways to make politics more relevant to them and shine a light on those who will ultimately do them harm? Could we support them to mobilise, advocate for themselves and see the power of their decisions? Because forget the criticism - charities must be prepared to be political
In all honesty, I'm tired of this argument that our sector has to stay out of politics.
Most people acknowledge we're not just here to deal with symptoms and dole out sticking plasters. We have to identify root causes, challenge oppression, seek systemic solutions. Perhaps, until recently, it's been just about ok to be passive and cautious in this role. But, increasingly, those root causes and that oppression take the form of fascist governments that ally racist leaders with chainsaw-wielding billionaires. When the game changes, the rules of engagement must too. There's a difference between being political and party political. Nobody is asking you to put Green Party stickers in your office window or an inflatable Keir Starmer in your meeting room. But having tricky conversations about the rise of the far right, and how it impacts your cause and the people you support, shouldn't be off limits. Righto, but how should we actually respond as a sector?
I'd be lying if I said I had the answers.
Simply having the conversation as a Board or leadership team is a helpful starting point. Also, thinking how and where you might reflect this in your organisational strategy. I shared some short-term tips in this previous blog, focused on the upcoming 2024 General Election. Many of these tips still stand: encouraging people to register to vote at the appropriate point, amplifying relevant policy issues, combatting disinformation. This is a start, but it won't be enough. We need new ways to engage people, connect social issues with their lives, and challenge the lies and liars that dominate our news agenda. We need our sector, and our issues, to be part of the discussion on politics podcasts and beyond. I don't know how, but I didn’t want to not write something because of that. If this can’t be a blog full of practical advice, it can be a cry for help. Or, at the very least, a cry of pain. Because, make no mistake, finding solutions over the next four years could be one of the most important things we ever do. Like Trump 2.0, future right-wing Governments will be bolder, better organised, more enabled by the elite. They'll continue to tear up our social and political norms, erode the checks and balances of democracy, and slash funding for social causes. If we can’t act now, the path back could become almost impossible to navigate. So if you don't know the answers either, let's start by at least talking about the issue, sharing ideas, building a movement. If you have suggestions, we're all ears. Even better, add them as comments below. Just don’t be silent and complacent. We simply can’t afford to.
“Essential to the far right's advance is the narrative of inevitability. Essential to resistance is [...] an acknowledgement that we are not the passive recipients of history, but active agents within it. Nothing is foretold. The history is being written collectively by all of us.”
A quote from Alex Andreou on the most recent episode of Quiet Riot, one of those aforementioned politics podcasts This is a guest blog by the brilliant Cassie Edmiston, who is both Head of Fundraising and External Affairs and Wellbeing Lead at Prisoners' Education Trust, and a Mental Health First Aider. In late 2024, Cassie asked us if we knew of any good mental health resources available specifically for fundraisers, based on a hunch that this might be a gap for the sector. We agreed - and Cassie very kindly offered to write this blog as a way of starting a conversation about the topic. Over to Cassie... I’ve never been one for New Year’s resolutions. I know they work for some people, but for me January is not a month to reinvent myself. It’s a month to watch The Traitors and eat slightly stale Christmas cake. It’s a month to be kind to myself about what’s possible with so few hours of natural light. Of course the reality is often a bit different despite my best intentions. The funding application and reporting deadlines are stacking up. There are donors to thank. Events to organise. Teams to support. Board papers to draft. Depending on where you are in your financial year, you’re either at the bottom of Fundraising Target Mountain looking up with dismay, or part way up and wondering how on earth you’re going to reach the summit. It can feel like a lot. And that’s the thing, “how it feels”. At this time of year it’s easy to deflect and talk about the woes of January. It’s cold, wet and dark. But it’s much harder when it comes to talking about how we actually are and how we feel. It’s hard to know who to talk to and how to talk about it. We don’t want to seem silly or unprofessional, or worse, unable to do our jobs. People are counting on us. We’re fine. It’s fine. I’m fine. What the numbers sayBut we’re not fine. 1 in 4 people will experience a mental health issue of some kind each year in England, and the overall number of people reporting mental health problems has been going up in recent years. In early 2024, Mental Health UK published the first annual Burnout Report. It found that 9 in 10 adults in the UK had experienced high to extreme levels of stress. Almost a quarter (24%) of UK adults felt unable to manage their daily stress levels, and 1 in 5 workers (20%) had taken mental health leave from work. In our sector, I don’t think we really know the true scale of the issue. Ecclesiastical’s 2023 Charity Risk Barometer showed that 70% of charity leaders they interviewed were more concerned about employee burnout than they had been 12 months previously. A survey by Unite showed that concern is justified, with 69% of not-for-profit and charity workers suffering from anxiety as a result of working excessive hours. Just this month, Fair Collective shared some of their findings from research looking at the mental health of small charity leaders. Over 85% said their role had negatively affected their mental health.  The Burnout Report, by Mental Health UK, found that 9 in 10 adults had experienced high to extreme levels of stress The particular challenges of fundraisingEveryone in the sector faces challenges particular to their role. For fundraisers, the weight of responsibility for securing funding for services and colleagues is a heavy one. We live in challenging times for all strands of fundraising (The List, created and maintained by Jo Jeffery, demonstrates this most effectively for trust fundraising) and fundraisers are often being asked to raise more with fewer resources, as organisations strive to cut costs. Fundraisers are endlessly second guessing themselves, questioning whether they should have made a different approach or framed the ask another way. Did they do enough? For those where fundraising is just part of their role, there are additional pressures, particularly for small charity leaders who have to fundraise alongside everything else. And of course the challenges are even greater for fundraisers from groups more likely to experience mental health issues, for example Black people or people who are LGBTQIA+. I’ve struggled to find statistics about the mental health of fundraisers specifically, though research by Claire Warner in 2019 showed that only 30% of fundraisers agreed that “my organisation has a great health and wellbeing culture”. A quick look at LinkedIn or fundraising groups on social media reveals the pressure fundraisers feel, and in some cases the very real distress and fear they experience if they can’t find the funds needed. What can you do at your organisation?It’s important to remember that people find it difficult to open up, so the more opportunities there are for having these conversations across your organisation, the better. At Prisoners’ Education Trust (PET), we encourage people to speak to their peers in and outside the organisation and in some instances have set up more structured buddying systems. We are fortunate to have a number of people trained as Mental Health First Aiders and have an Employee Assistance Programme (EAP), which provides access to services such as counselling. Both of these require investment, but for organisations who can find it in their budget, I can say that we have found them really worthwhile. We make sure wellbeing is on our monthly staff meeting agenda too, even if sometimes it’s just one of our Mental Health First Aiders reminding people to take a break and have some lunch. Our supervisions start with “how are you?”, not “what have you done since we last met?”. We have flexible working and home working so people can manage caring responsibilities or personal appointments without feeling pressured. Equally we are conscious that working from home can be isolating for some, so we have a range of online and face to face check-ins in place. We have also collated various resources - including podcasts, book recommendations and articles - in our shared space. Creating an environment where people feel able to talk takes time, so don’t expect immediate results. People need to trust the approach and the culture, so whatever you put in place, stick with it and show commitment. If you have people on the team willing to share their experiences, that can be helpful. It’s particularly powerful if senior people feel willing to do this as it can really change the culture. At PET I’ve been open about accessing counselling via EAP and shared my experience of when I first called the service. I know taking that first step added to my anxiety (who will I speak to? what will they ask?) so demystifying it for others can be hugely helpful.  Encouraging people to speak openly about their mental health - and support each other - is an important first step to building a more positive culture Some mental health resources that might be helpful for fundraisersThere are relatively few resources aimed at fundraisers specifically, though the following could be helpful:
What are we missing for fundraisers?These are all pretty broad and I'm certain fundraisers could benefit from some more targeted support, particularly in the current uncertain climate.
Have you seen anything out there that you’ve found helpful? Are you working on something at the moment? I’m keen to know and even keener to share. Please share a comment on the blog - we’ll collate any responses that people share and add them here, so others can benefit too. Just before this blog was published, we heard that Claire Warner (mentioned earlier) has launched Charity Well 2025 - a new research project that aims to look at the wellbeing of people working in charities and to help organisations better support their teams. We'd encourage you to share your experiences via this project. Even for those of us who try to seek out the positives, 2025 is likely to be a challenging year. If you're struggling, please do talk to someone - it's hard but it will help. If you’d prefer to put your thoughts on paper, Samaritans have a freepost address or an email you can use. Please do reach out. And whatever you’re going through, even if things are feeling really tough, you’re here and you’re doing a brilliant job. Some festive thoughts from Rachel Cross, our Trusts Fundraising Consultant, on why you shouldn't put too much pressure on yourself to bring in every last pound before the Big Ben chimes usher in 2025... You’ll be seeing a lot of content related to Christmas fundraising at the moment. The December effect is in full swing, with end of year appeals, Big Give and Giving Tuesday plugs, and the words “help” and “support” featured in every other sentence between now and the end of the year. Fundraising professionals are posting their top tips, which you always read just when it’s too late. You’re watching your own campaign page with baited breath, whilst glancing over at other organisations’ campaigns thinking only one of two things: a fateful “Oh wow, they’ve done a much better job than us”, or a smug “I’m so glad we don’t employ their marketing people.” It's true, individual giving peaks at this time of year, with donating to charity much higher on the general public’s agenda compared to the rest of the year. It’s also true that this month is a peak time for unsolicited gifts, larger one-off donations and new donors. But the December frenzy puts enormous amounts of completely unsustainable pressure on fundraising staff. Our quest for year-end target hitting can also often be so heavily inflated that we fail to see the wood for the trees. Whether you’re feeling elated or deflated by your Big Give results, proud or panicked by your progress – we can probably guarantee you’re feeling pretty worn out. However the festive fundraising season is treating your team, we want to encourage you that, as important as this season is, the world doesn’t end on 31st December. People don’t close their wallets on 1st January. If you’ve ever gotten to midnight on New Year’s Eve and been met with anticlimactic disappointment, you’ll know what I mean.  Don't forget that donors - just like dogs - are for life, not just for Christmas All is not lost: here's why your fundraising potential won't simply evaporate to the tune of Auld Lang SyneHere are seven reasons why you shouldn't despair if this month isn’t turning out to be as fruitful as you’d hoped:
Good luck for your festive fundraising push, but don't be too hard on yourself, and remember that all is not lost if your December doesn't go to plan 💚 With trusts and statutory funding ever more squeezed, it’s clear that many organisations will need to find alternative income sources to survive. It’s not fair, it’s not good for society, but sadly it feels unavoidable. But other forms of fundraising (corporates, major donors, legacies etc.) are rarely a quick fix. They too can be oversubscribed, require specialist expertise and/or take time to bear fruit. So is there an alternative? In recent years, we've increasingly focused on supporting charities to generate earned income by monetising their skills and expertise. For many charities, their talents are more valuable and highly-sought than they realise, and can unlock income with the right approach. However, they may have to overcome some common barriers:
But I know these barriers can be overcome – and I'm hoping to convince you with a case study from a small charity that we recently worked with, called Social Action for Health. About Social Action for Health (SAfH)SAfH is a community-based health charity providing services and support to people most affected by health inequalities in east London. Since their inception, meaningful community engagement has been a core part of their work, to ensure the voices of people most at risk of health disadvantage are front and centre of health services and research. As a small charity deeply embedded and trusted in their community, employing local staff who understand local people’s priorities, they are uniquely positioned to facilitate better quality community research that is mutually beneficial for both researchers and the community. They often have the opportunity to collaborate with research institutions and individual researchers, and potentially to charge for their expertise. But, like many, they previously lacked the time and commercial knowledge to articulate a clear offer and proposition, and develop the pricing structure and processes to compete with the bigger fish (often commercial providers) in the community research space. They were also concerned about risking their reputation, if people perceived that they were being led by the money and financial gain, rather than the community. Many in the SAfH team felt uncomfortable with the concept of profit and its negative connotations – money ending up in somebody’s pocket for personal gain.  A cancer awareness project in Hackney, run by Social Action For Health Working with SAfH to develop their community research offerThe opportunity to scale up SAfH’s community research first came up when we facilitated a series of income generation strategy workshops for them in early 2023. Three things we did proved especially insightful:
Informed by this, we encouraged the team to come up with a shortlist of income generation ideas, with “wild card” ideas welcome and encouraged! We then shortlisted the best ideas – including community research – and scoped them out using the lean business canvas: a tool we recommend for sketching out an outline business plan for a new product idea, with all the key components on a single page. This showed clear potential to increase income from community research, but more work was needed. So we worked with the SAfH team as follows:
A key breakthrough came when we shifted from talking about profit to surplus. As mentioned earlier, "profit" can come with negative connotations. But surplus felt positive and healthier – giving SAfH confidence and permission to talk about reinvesting income into community projects and services for local people. This shift enabled SAfH to position itself as the “Fairtrade” option for community research: an ethical choice that enables researchers to achieve their own objectives while making research more relevant and accessible for local communities, and supporting a vital local charity at the same time. Armed with this growing confidence and clarity, we worked with SAfH to create a few key things to support their community research strategy:
One key challenge has been SAfH's capacity to implement all these new tools – some are still making their way into action on their website etc. But actually, this has been part of their learning curve – try not to worry too much about doing everything and making it perfect, just start somewhere and make incremental changes to develop the offer.  Reframing your thinking to focus on surplus rather than profit can make people feel comfortable about generating income from your skills and expertise Increasing confidence to generate income from your skills and expertise - why does this matter?For SAfH, this was a pretty involved process, and the work is still ongoing. But it’s had a positive impact.
The team feel more confident about ensuring full cost recovery and generating surplus from community research, and more purposeful about describing their expertise and working with researchers to agree appropriate costings. They also find it easier to say no to opportunities that will not cover costs and have the necessary social impact. As a result, the community research projects they commission not only generate vital income, but boost their social impact too - both directly through ensuring better quality and more accessible research, and indirectly through increasing funds to invest in their other services. There are lessons here for charities in a similar position, with the potential to sell something to the private sector. This isn’t about putting things behind a paywall, but valuing and capitalising on your unique skills and expertise. In so many areas, charities have as much to offer, if not more, compared with profit-making companies. They solve problems and create value for those who have the ability, and willingness, to pay for it. The question isn’t why you should consider doing this, but why not? Because there’s a bigger picture at play. If you don’t sell your expertise, then somebody else will fill the gap – quite possibly someone without the same social impact, ethical approach and community-centred ethos as you. If you undersell your expertise, at best you’ll put pressure on your team to cut corners and do a sub-standard job. At worst, you’ll look like a budget option and, counterintuitively, put people off by being too cheap. If you rely fully on grant, contract and fundraising income, you’ll unavoidably be under more financial pressure in a thanklessly difficult climate. Every organisation will be competing for that local tender, or oversubscribed funding pot. But not every organisation has the skills or confidence to sell their expertise. Doing this well not only generates new income, it builds confidence internally and externally – including with donors and funders – that you’re a more financially resilient, sustainable organisation. I appreciate that not every charity is well-placed to do this. And, as with everything, it’s not without its challenges and risks. But I think more organisations should have the confidence to try, or at least scope it out. It takes time, and a clear process, but it can really pay off. Profit doesn’t have to be a dirty word in the charity sector (especially when reframed as surplus to reinvest). More than ever, for some it could be a vital solution. Huge thanks to Social Action for Health, and their CEO Ceri Durham, for helping us to develop this blog and kindly giving permission to share their story. If you'd like to explore how we can help you to develop income in this way, get in touch. Huge thanks to Ally Rea for writing this blog. Ally is one of our fundraising consultants and has drawn on her extensive experience of supporting charities and social enterprises with trusts fundraising to tackle the tricky topic of impact measurement. Demonstrating the difference you make in the wider community, with vulnerable people, or with people facing language or communication barriers, can feel like a huge ask for any organisation, particularly in smaller organisations without dedicated roles covering impact reporting. As fundraisers, we can feel caught between funders’ expectations and our delivery teams’ realities, all while our service users are suffering from survey fatigue. It’s the classic fundraising Catch-22: without impact data, funders are less likely to trust their investment will change lives, but without funding, how will you make a difference, let alone demonstrate it? And how on earth will you get your busy frontline colleagues to help you gather the data? Don’t panic! If you’ve ever found yourself staring at a funder’s well-intentioned “tell us about the impact of your work” and drawn a blank on all the impact you think you could or should be showing because all your organisation has been tracking to date is the activity outputs, you’re not alone. Luckily, you do not need to employ a whole new impact person, or incur the wrath of your Service Delivery Manager. Nor do you need to panic-create a Google Form and email it to your entire database (there is a time and a place for a form, just not a panicky one, and not to your whole list). And you definitely shouldn’t halt all fundraising pending academic research analysis. While I'm not an impact measurement expert, I am a thoughtful fundraiser and I like to creatively problem-solve while hopefully allowing everyone to get home on time. Here are a few tips and techniques I’ve seen work well for charities looking to demonstrate impact in very particular, or very general, populations... 1. Take stock of what you're already doing - it's probably more than you thinkYou may already have the start of a good impact measure somewhere already. When did you last bring coffee and biscuits to your service delivery team and have a proper chat through what records they already keep, and see what you could be working with? A charity I know, working intensively with extremely vulnerable people, thought they had no ‘change over time’ measures of wellbeing, until we looked at their Client Support Plan and its table of five wellbeing measures that they had been completing with each new client for 18 months. They hadn’t considered that this could be useful to fundraising, so hadn’t mentioned it. One or two follow-up calls each week as each client got to their one-year anniversary is now producing the necessary data on impact. 2. Some is better than noneIf you really are starting from scratch, that’s OK. You don’t have to have all the measures - even a snapshot is helpful. Be thoughtful about the difference your work can directly make. What would your delivery team say would be "a success" for the work they are doing? One charity we work with recently tweaked how their team ended their calls, asking “do you know what you need to do next?”. This is not only a simple metric of empowerment, but also a chance to check understanding on behalf of vulnerable service users. Another charity, which intentionally keeps its helpline completely anonymous, asks one targeted question per quarter, thus building a databank of useful data on a range of issues without adding to the length of the call or risking identifying a caller. 3. Keep it simple to make it accessibleThe simpler the impact measurement, the more accessible it is. Focus on what you actually need to demonstrate. Trying to ask everyone every question, every time, can create barriers to people engaging with your impact reporting. Perhaps asking less, but tactically, can help you find out more. I know a performance and live arts company working with adults with a learning disability that places a postcard with large, clear print on each seat in the house. You tear the card at a smiling, neutral or frowning face to indicate whether you’ve enjoyed the show. They’ve removed so many barriers to giving feedback - you don’t need to read English or even have a pen (although there’s space to write if you want). Focus on what you need to demonstrate. Counting the smiles makes the Marketing Manager’s job much nicer, too.  Gathering non-verbal feedback, for example by using smiley faces, can be a more inclusive way of gathering impact data (AI-generated image) 4. Don't create new work for people“Great! Another form to fill in,” said no service delivery team ever, except with a side order of heavy sarcasm. So, what are you already doing that you can adjust? We worked with a team that added two quick questions to a form they already required all their sessional delivery staff to complete. Within a few months they had a decent, and growing, databank and a series of participant quotes. Making the new task part of an existing process or habit makes it far more likely to stick, and far less likely to cause friction. 5. Make it appeallingYou want to find out some things from the wider community at an event, but you also want them to like you when they go home. So don’t hand them a flappy printout or a QR code hiding a lengthy form! I saw a brilliantly inviting feedback survey at a public event in London. Participants were placing sticky dots along five colourful bars set out like an asterisk, to rate the event on 5 measures. The interactivity was part of the appeal: who doesn’t enjoy playing a game? The next time you need to get a general sense from a large group of people, try going a bit Blue Peter, and ask people to show, not tell, you what they thought.  A poster used to gather feedback from attendees at the Exhibition Road Festival, led by Imperial College London 6. Monitor impact by celebrating successIf there is confusion about activity outputs (the numbers of people reached or things you did), outcomes (the differences those activities made) and impact (what changed longer-term for people as a result), some gentle coaching may be in order. Do you have a team meeting or a place where you can share successes? Stories can quickly move us from a "sessions offered" to "lives changed" headspace. For example, asking everyone in a team meeting “Tell us about a win from this week” provides a regular reminder that small moments are big changes. Every participant quote, feedback from a partner organisation, or observation from an activity is an opportunity to boost morale - and gives your fundraiser(s) a steady stream of new information to work with. Hopefully I've brought together some helpful ideas from some brilliant small charities, and replicable ideas from a couple of big ones. If you’ve seen something else work well without adding lots of work, we’re always keen to hear fresh ideas. Let us know in the comments! ⬇️
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