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. 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 💚
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Many fundraisers and small charity leaders that I speak to are under pressure to close a significant funding gap or meet a daunting fundraising target this year. This feels natural, especially in the current climate. But it's also likely to be holding back your growth potential. What if I told you that raising less money this year might be the smartest thing your organisation could do? When we're under pressure to raise funds quickly, we turn to tried-and-tested tactics. Such as writing a few more funding applications. Or searching for opportunities to secure another local authority contract. These tactics, when successful, give trustees and management a sense of security and progress - an extra zero on a financial report, a new project launched, a new staff member recruited. But how much security and progress does this really bring? By the following year, you're back in the same position, needing to close the same funding gap to avoid scaling back. Running to stand still. Having to work just as hard to raise the same amount, if not harder given the ever-increasing competition for funding. No breathing room or flexibility to respond to unexpected events or costs. It doesn't always have to be like this. Some income streams offer you the prospect of a higher return on investment, more flexibility and more security further down the line, if you take action now and can get that far. When we’re working with a charity or social enterprise on their fundraising strategy, we always encourage them to cast the net a bit wider and consider the potential of other income streams that aren’t immediately on their radar. Two income streams in particular. Regular giving and legacy fundraising - what are the benefits?Regular giving can be tricky and slow to grow, and may require a culture change if you've only ever previously relied on grants. But long-term, the return on investment can be significant, and the benefits huge. It generates unrestricted income that you can spend as you wish. Also, dependable income: if you start a financial year with 100 direct debits, you can be pretty confident of broadly how much you’ll raise and when, which is great for cash flow and financial planning. Plus regular giving is a great springboard for other opportunities: people who donate regularly and are engaged in your work may shout about you to others, unlock corporate fundraising opportunities with their employer, or become future major donor or legacy prospects. Legacy fundraising, while similarly slow to develop, potentially has an enormous long-term return on investment, partly because there’s very little to actually spend money on - just a small up-front investment in some resources and strong messaging to drip-feed to your supporters via email, social media etc. A very small outlay may bring a game-changing windfall down the line. I’ll never forget visiting a family centre in Gloucestershire the day they’d been contacted by a solicitor to notify them of a forthcoming unrestricted donation of £150,000 - a former service user had sadly passed away and generously promised them a percentage of the proceeds of their house sale. A joyful moment and totally transformative for their future work. Given this potential, why don't more organisations take the plunge and invest in long-term income streams?Firstly, there are a couple of good reasons. Some organisations are fighting to keep their doors open in a thankless financial climate, and simply don’t have any possibility of waiting for a return a few years down the line. Others are operating in a disadvantaged local community where these income streams simply aren’t a good fit, because they have little or no opportunity to reach people with the ability to donate. However, other organisations have somewhat understandable, but much less justifiable, reasons for writing off these income streams:
This last point is a really crucial one. In trying to steer away from activities that risk not raising as much as hoped, many organisations steer into the greatest risk of all: becoming over-reliant on ‘safe’ income streams that gradually dry up over time, then hitting serious financial difficulties because it’s too late to react and try something new. I often use a plane analogy here. If you were flying a plane that you knew was steadily running out of fuel, the risk of attempting an emergency landing might feel daunting. In different circumstances, you wouldn’t dream of trying it. But the alternative option - carrying on flying and running out of fuel mid-air - is actually guaranteed to fail. So an emergency landing, while more drastic, is comparatively lower-risk. In conclusion - invest if you possibly canIt’s true that many organisations aren’t in a position to easily invest in high-potential, slow-burn activities like regular giving and legacy fundraising. But this isn't an issue with the income streams themselves. The problem might be that nobody took the plunge and invested in them ten years ago.
If your organisation does have a comfortable level of reserves, or can otherwise take action to create some breathing space, I’d strongly recommend exploring how you can diversify your fundraising activity and invest in long-term growth activities. In 5-10 years, you’ll likely be extremely grateful for it. Even if that means raising less money this year, it could be the best decision that you ever make. Our consultant Charlotte Chilvers shares her tips below on how small charities and social enterprises can increase their income from social media. Before joining Lime Green, Charlotte used to deliver social media training for small charities for Macc, Manchester’s voluntary sector infrastructure support organisation. With statutory and trusts funding becoming even more competitive post-pandemic and with the current cost-of-living headache, you may be revisiting your fundraising strategy and considering where else to find pots of money. Social media may seem to be an ambiguous source of income, but with over 84% of the UK population actively using social media, many organisations have found it to be a successful tool for fundraising. Although you’ll need to input some time (another precious resource) to research which methods would work best for your organisation, we’ve done some of the legwork for you below... First up, what can social media do over grant funding?Ignoring the endless number of cat videos, social media has some clear advantages over income from statutory or trusts & foundations funding: It's unrestricted income - this should light up pound signs in your eyes immediately. However your fundraising strategy incorporates social media, one of the clear benefits is that in most cases, the money raised is unrestricted and can be spread across your organisation’s projects and overheads. Despite a recent shift in that direction from some funders, grant funding is still rarely unrestricted. It’s a free resource - we’ll start with a caveat. Yes, you will need someone to set up social media accounts and manage them, which may be a paid staff member. However, with a bit of time and input at the start, such as establishing a social media strategy, and utilising free scheduling tools such as TweetDeck and Buffer, your online fundraising can build up nicely. Alongside this, you’re easily able to raise awareness and promote activities and events. Social media can support your grant applications - your content can help tell the story of your organisation, service users, and donors. Comments on your posts and events can also contribute to your grant applications - feedback from diverse networks (e.g. service users, community members, donors) are perfect for monitoring and evaluation and building your case for support. Now that’s swayed you, how can you fundraise on different social media platforms?One of the key benefits for not-for-profits is their ‘Fundraisers and donations’ dedicated section for charities looking to raise income through public donations. Whilst success can vary, organisations have been able to generate income through promoting events and ticket sales, ‘birthday appeal’ donations from users, sharing direct links to Fundraising pages, as well as launching poll-voting for donations (similar to community supermarket tokens). This can be done by a simple personal account in the organisation’s name, or by a ‘business page’ which gives a greater breakdown of traffic and interaction with your posts. The beauty of social media means your posts and activity promote your organisation and raise awareness, whilst requests for donations can then be shared by other online users. This external virality opens up opportunities for income from a wider audience, allowing you to (hopefully) sit back and see some pounds coming in with little time and effort. Alongside this, there are no limitations on character counts, which means you can really show off what your organisation does through storytelling and demonstrating your evidence of need. Funders will often request your social media links, so it’s worth very clearly demonstrating this through your account through photos, short videos, infographics, blogs, articles, events, etc. Depending on your privacy settings, publicly available posts can also be used for gathering data/quotes for impact. Top Tip: Go with the trends: so many viral fundraising activities have grown from Facebook (17 million posted an ‘Ice bucket challenge’ video in 2014 alone) so direct your fundraising posts to relevant trends, use hashtags, and share widely! Instagram: Unlike Facebook, Instagram pages need to be highly visual - content is primarily made up of photos and videos. In terms of generating income, like Facebook, there is the option to set up a business account to sell tickets, items, merchandise, and other products, as well as link to your fundraising page. As part of Zuckerberg’s Meta world, Instagram also has a non-profit fundraisers section, which outlines how best to maximise donations. For example, utilising hashtags, adding links to 24-hour ‘stories’, and live-streaming either from your organisation or from donors. Lastly, the group fundraiser option is a brilliant way to collaborate and raise money with people you may already be connected to, such as public figures and people who have successfully raised funds for you before. Due to the visual nature, Instagram is a great way to show off what you do and connect people with your work. This also offers a different route to storytelling. For example, live streaming videos during events, service user/staff/volunteer "takeovers" to show how your organisation benefits them, infographics with quotes, and photo/video posts all provide a very clear impression of what you do, and why users should donate. Top tip: Make your fundraising request post visually appealing, headline it with a catchy title, and use compelling images to show the impact of people’s donations. Twitter Twitter posts are limited to 280 characters, meaning you’ll need to be creative in how to fit information in short tweets and threads. This means your message or donation request has to be clear and to the point. Tweeting your donation links can build up momentum to your organisation’s fundraising needs, particularly when utilising hashtags and tagging relevant organisations/people/pages to start campaigns or conversations. Twitter is a brilliant way to connect, influence and build networks locally and nationally with other organisations, funders, local councillors etc. Your content can be easily shared through retweets, hopefully widening your reach to more potential donors. With Elon Musk's Twitter takeover, many organisations are reviewing their own standpoint on Twitter, as well as considering alternative platforms. If that's you too, here are a couple of articles by Charity Digital to help: Should charities stay on Elon Musk's Twitter? | Exploring the alternatives to Twitter Top tip: Keep your message brief but comprehensive, and use Bitly to keep your website links short and within the character limit! TikTok Look no further than our podcast episode with the brilliant Nana Crawford, talking about how the British Red Cross was one of the first charities to successfully start fundraising on TikTok, and how they made it work. This all sounds great, but how do I get started?
This is a guest blog by Rosie Oldham. Rosie has more than ten years' experience as a fundraiser, and is currently Head of Fundraising and Communications at London homelessness charity Thames Reach. She previously worked for arts and homelessness charity Streetwise Opera and London Wildlife Trust, and recently joined the Board of the Badger Trust.
We love most attempts to challenge established ways of thinking, so we asked Rosie if she'd be willing to write this blog off the back of her tweet below about charity anniversaries. She kindly agreed - thank you Rosie!
Back in March, I was prompted to tweet about this after reading yet another string of threads in a sector fundraising group about plans to fundraise off the back of a charity’s anniversary. I was honestly frustrated at the precious and incredibly limited staff and volunteer time that was going into thinking about, planning and executing whole campaigns around this topic.
I’m also mentally scarred from seeing a senior member of staff spend an entire day designing a ‘birthday logo’ complete with balloons for a charity very early on in my fundraising career; this has probably clouded my view of charity birthdays forever. The conversation my tweet generated was fascinating! Many agreed and many disagreed, presenting different points of view about why their organisations think it is important to celebrate an anniversary year. What's wrong with celebrating your anniversary?
All that said, when might celebrating an anniversary be appropriate?
My flippant statement about charity anniversaries is definitely not a blanket one, and there were so many good points made in the discussion that followed. I’ve explored some of them below.
An example of an anniversary campaign that I love:
This is great because it’s actually a ‘non-campaign’ and ties this concept directly to the need for the charity’s work:
Cystic Fibrosis Trust ‘No Party’ - We won’t celebrate being 50 until everyone can In summary...has my opinion changed, and what should you do about your charity's anniversary?
Generally I still think that celebrating your charity’s anniversary is not a good use of time, and expecting people to give you money just because it’s your organisation’s birthday isn’t realistic.
This mostly applies to external audiences and especially to those who aren’t that close to your work. However I recognise I’m coming at this with a ‘fundraising hat’ on, and there are other reasons to celebrate a charity’s birthday than to increase support. So when you're next thinking about an anniversary campaign, or this conversation next comes up at your charity, what should you do?
So you're getting started with public fundraising...but do people even know you're a charity?16/6/2022
We do a lot of strategy work with organisations that need to make a major change in how they raise money, and become a true “fundraising charity” for the very first time.
They're often very established organisations with a significant turnover, who have been delivering successful services for a long time. But they're coming at public fundraising from a standing start, often prompted by an unexpected development like the loss of a key statutory contract, or the realisation that grant funding alone is no longer enough to sustain them. For organisations like these, helping them with everyday fundraising tactics is only part of the focus. Yes, they may need to decide when to run appeals, whether to set up a regular giving scheme, what suggested donation amounts to use. But they also face a more fundamental challenge - they need to make people aware of the simple fact that they're a charity in need of public support. We live in a world where everybody loves to have an opinion on charities - what they do, how they fundraise, how much they’re allowed to pay for things - but most people have little sense of what a charity is. They certainly don’t realise that it includes a vast range of organisations that they use every day - including schools, hospitals, community centres - or the extent to which these organisations are increasingly reliant on public support to stay afloat. Tinkering with fundraising tactics won’t achieve very much unless you can address this fundamental issue. So this blog is all about some ways to communicate the fact that you’re a fundraising charity at all. 1. Be open about why you need support
There's no shame in not being able to accomplish everything you want with just statutory or grant funding, particularly in the current climate. But if people don’t see you as a fundraising charity, and haven’t heard you ask before, they're going to need educating about what you need, and why now.
Be honest and matter-of-fact about your funding realities, and be prepared to debunk myths. People might be surprised to know that you don’t receive local authority funding, or a lot less than you used to. And focus on the positive side of your fundraising - identify things that you’d love to be able to do or provide for your service users, that you know they want and need, and explain how donations will enable these things to happen. Discussing this internally will enable you to craft a concise, convincing fundraising message that gives motivation and confidence to your organisation, staff and volunteers. You can then deploy this message in all kinds of ways, as we've outlined below. 2. Put the basics in place
Successful fundraising charities all have one very obvious thing in common - they openly ask for money. But it’s amazing how many organisations starting out with public fundraising don't do this clearly.
Make sure you have a prominent donate button on your website homepage and navigation bar. Include basic fundraising messages regularly on social media and in your newsletter. These shouldn’t be too pushy or intrusive, but they need to be there. And they don’t even need to be particularly-well crafted at this stage to have an impact. Taking these steps won’t raise much money on their own, but they will ensure that people who interact with your organisation become aware that you’re trying to raise money from the public, which is the first way to shift perceptions. 3. Place fundraising messages everywhere that people interact with you
But people don’t just engage with your organisation via your website, newsletter and social media. If you're a community-based organisation, there will be plenty of other opportunities - perhaps you run a local café, a community centre, or deliver services or events in your community.
This is where the magic happens. People will see your organisation in its best light - helping people, providing work or volunteering opportunities, building grassroots relationships. Visitors will be feeling warmth and goodwill towards you - so not having a fundraising poster on the wall, or a ‘donate now’ message on a till, is a missed opportunity. Again, don’t expect these things to raise loads of money initially, and be mindful that many people won’t be a in a position to donate. But you're still changing how your organisation is seen, and introducing timely messaging that some people will act on. 4. Celebrate every success
When you're first starting out, fundraising success stories may be limited, and the financial numbers small - but you still have something to shout about.
If somebody makes a modest donation, thank them publicly (ask their permission first, or do it without mentioning their name or details). If somebody does a fundraiser for you, write a short news article or social media post about it. If you have a loyal supporter, consider interviewing them and sharing their story about what they do and why they donate. This achieves three things. Firstly, it's another way of communicating that you're an active fundraising charity, offering more variety than just a financial ask. Secondly, it shows that you value donations and fundraising support, and that even modest contributions are important to you. Finally, it's 'social proof' - seeing that people are supporting you will inspire and encourage others to do the same. 5. Talk about fundraising with your whole team
When you make the shift to being a fundraising charity, you need to bring everyone along with you. There's a common saying that “everybody is a fundraiser” - that’s not quite true, but certainly every staff member or volunteer can be an ambassador for you.
Crafting your central fundraising message (see above) is also an internal exercise – it's important that everyone understands why you're stepping up your fundraising, and what you can achieve if successful. Some staff will need help to overcome any misconceptions they have about fundraising, and identify small ways in which they can personally help. Keep fundraising on the agenda by literally making it a regular agenda item in staff meetings, even for project staff. Every day, they'll be interacting with service users who might consider doing small-scale fundraising activities, or family members who might be in a position to donate. So this provides an ongoing mechanism to identify new fundraising opportunities and ideas, as well as addressing any barriers or teething problems. Statistically, events fundraising has never been one of the more profitable forms of fundraising. While both special events (e.g. a gala dinner or concert) and challenge events (e.g. a marathon or sporting challenge) can sometimes raise a lot, promotion costs are often high and a lot of staff time is required. For example, while you might expect a return on investment of 10:1 (£10 raised for every £1 spent) from trusts fundraising, or 5:1 from corporate fundraising, events are often closer to 2:1 or 3:1. Even this figure is decreasing as fundraising events are hit by the current financial climate, market saturation and supporter fatigue (the challenge of keeping on going back to the same limited pool of supporters). If you have a small fundraising team, you’d be forgiven for wondering whether it’s worth your time committing to new fundraising events at all. So in what circumstances are events still worth your time, and how do you decide whether they’re right for you? Despite the challenges, events provide plenty of advantages, not all of them related to short-term income: To capitalise on these advantages, you need to be crystal clear what you’re looking to achieve from your fundraising events, and plan accordingly MAXIMISING THE BENEFITS OF SPECIAL EVENTSSpecial events are excellent for engaging corporate and major donor prospects, encouraging existing supporters to introduce people from their own network, and recognising the contributions of key supporters. Particularly when your event features stories and speeches from the people you support, or creates an inspiring and celebratory atmosphere, or when senior staff and trustees are on hand to mingle with people. When planning an event, liaise with people across your organisation to map out who should be invited. Then invite them well in advance, warmly, and with a personal message. Depending on how much you want them to be there, you can consider offering discounted or free tickets where appropriate, particularly if the long-term benefits outweigh the short-term cost. On the night, make sure key prospects get plenty of time and attention, and take every opportunity to educate and inspire them about your organisation’s work. If you have a long-term plan about how you ideally want them to support your cause, you might be able to cunningly sow some seeds on the night. Carry on the personal touch after the event, by thanking people and sending any follow-up material promptly, personally and creatively (for example with a handwritten card or colourful social media image). This often requires some advance planning, particularly if staff plan to take some much-needed time off after your event. Bear in mind that high-value prospects expect ‘senior’ attention, so you need to enlist support from management and trustees at every stage - before, during and after your event. Particularly for corporate and major donor fundraising, it's rare to be successful without senior level buy-in. MAXIMISING THE BENEFITS OF challenge EVENTSBuilding long-term relationships with challenge event participants is typically much harder, but not impossible. Firstly, you need to consider whether this is a realistic goal at all. This will depend on the nature of your event. If it's a big brand in its own right, or if it has no natural link to your cause, people are more likely to be participating in the event on its own merits, and have less natural interest in supporting you further. If your event has a high fundraising target - or, perhaps more importantly, involves a bigger fundraising effort - this provides greater scope to engage people further. If you're trying to keep people engaged for the long term, a few things can really help:
If 'converting' participants into long-term supporters feels unlikely, it could be better to focus on maximising short-term profit instead. This can be achieved through: STAYING FOCUSED ON THE BIGGER PICTUREMany events potentially bring broad benefits, but often fundraisers only give this serious thought once it’s too late. When we take part in events, we’re often told it’s not the winning that counts, but the taking part. However, with a successful fundraising event, perhaps it’s not (just) the taking part that counts, but what happens next.
You need to think about this bigger picture from the very beginning, as soon as you start the planning process. It should dictate how you design your event, how you communicate with participants and which of your colleagues you ask to be involved. If you do decide that your event has a higher purpose, make sure this is reflected in the evaluation process too. I’ve seen fundraisers get persuaded by colleagues to do an event because it has awareness-raising potential as well as income potential – but when push comes to shove, management lose sight of these objectives and only measure the return in hard cash. This can result in giving up on events early, or sacrificing the long-term benefits. It sounds obvious, but if your event is primarily about long-term value, you need to find ways of actually measuring that value, and convincing people that results will take time to become visible. The charity sector isn’t short of excellent blogs about the importance of thanking your donors – including this guest blog from our associate Gemma and this article about SUPER thank yous. Most fundraisers are well aware that thank yous are key to building a relationship with donors, and that increasing support from existing donors tends to be easier and more cost-effective than recruiting new ones. But how many charities are actually putting this into practice, particularly when faced with the realities of lack of time and competing priorities? I’ve been doing a little experiment to find out, making 10 modest donations to different charities over 10 weeks. Professional curiosity wasn’t my only motivation – we work with so many fantastic charities, and since moving to Bristol I’ve found out about many worthy local causes. Every year I have to calculate my charitable donations for my tax return – and although I support a few charities regularly, this always reminds me that I could do more. 10 donations later, here’s how I got on and what I think you need to know – about thank yous, conversation-starters and payment platforms... The methodology Each donation was a one-off online gift of £20 – this felt significant enough to have a genuine impact, but small enough to perhaps fly under the radar for charities who don’t routinely thank their donors. I suspect many £20 donors could be persuaded to give again – maybe regularly – if treated well enough. I’d never supported any of these charities before. Although I have contacts at a couple, I didn’t tell them I was going to donate. My passion lies with smaller charities, so most donations were to small, local causes that I personally feel passionate about – including youth, homelessness, refugees, food banks and city farms. As a 'control', I also donated to two large charities who really should have the resources to thank donors properly – including one spontaneous donation for Cyclone Idai, which has been scandalously under-reported in the British media. When given the option, I always included a message explaining my reasons for giving, and opted in to further contact by post, email or both – these are causes I’m naturally interested in after all. I haven’t named any of the charities in this blog, unless to show examples of amazing things they did – this is about general lessons learned, not naming and shaming. The headline results I don’t know who first said ‘silence is golden’, but I doubt it was a donor It was disappointing to never hear back from two charities, and wait weeks for a reply from two others. I’m realistic enough to know that a £20 donation isn’t going to change the world, but making a contribution definitely feels good. There’s plenty of research to suggest this feeling can be an addictive buzz for donors, and a nice thank you – and some further information about the cause – is a great way to nurture that buzz. I know that I’ll support several of these charities again, based on my interactions so far. On the other hand, doing nothing is a sure-fire buzz-kill. More than being rude, it’s a missed opportunity. There are so many worthy causes out there, and if someone has chosen yours then that’s an opportunity worth investing in – because if you don’t make them feel good about their support, another charity will. Sure, thanking a donor isn’t guaranteed to lead to further support. But think of all the other fundraising activities you willingly do which don’t guarantee success – grant applications, corporate pitches, mass appeals. My gut feeling is that a memorable thank you takes much less time and has a better chance of paying off. Don’t miss an easy opportunity to start a conversation For most donations, I was given the opportunity to add a message, which I used to explain why I’d decided to donate, and which aspect of the charity’s work particularly interested me. None of the 10 charities referenced this in their thank yous. Maybe they didn’t see the message, or just didn’t think it was important. This surprised me, as I’ve already considered this one of the simplest and most natural ways to personalise your reply and start building a relationship. Phrases like ‘Since you expressed an interested in X, I thought I’d tell you…’ or ‘Is there anything else you’d like to know about Y?’ show donors that you’re listening, and encourage them to open up about their motivations and interests. It only takes 30 seconds to start a conversation – and you can potentially use this information to make future asks more personal and relevant, therefore more successful. Great thank yous go the extra mile – but you need to follow through So that’s the bad news – but did I receive any mind-blowing thank yous that you can learn from? I received this lovely handwritten thank you card and annual report from Bristol-based Bridges For Communities, who connect people of different cultures and faiths through events and activities, in order to increase tolerance and understanding: The card emphasised how much they rely on and feel motivated by donations, and the report really emphasised the impact they’re having locally. Some people might query the cost of buying and posting a thank you card in exchange for a £20 donation, but it’s worth considering the bigger picture – isn’t a new donor who feels valued, welcomed and engaged likely to contribute more in future? This lovely personal reply from a local food bank also made a splash: Wow – this was a lovely idea! I replied saying I’d love to pop in – anxious about not wanting to waste their time, but sure I’d donate again once I found out more. I felt excited, both personally to understand a local organisation better, and professionally to be able to share the story of a brilliant thank you.
The only problem? Five weeks later, I haven’t received another reply. I'm still hoping I'll get a chance to speak to them again about their work. The lesson here is that if you’re going to thank your donors in a way which genuinely stands out, make sure you’re ready to keep up the conversation. You’re only as good as your third party systems Many charities use payment platforms like PayPal, Justgiving or Localgiving to handle their online donations, as the cost of building your own system can be prohibitive. Most charities that I donated to had clearly invested time in placing a prominent donate button on their homepage and writing a convincing message about why you should donate. But frustratingly – and sometimes amusingly – things often went wrong when I left their site:
Ok, some of these are minor issues, but that’s over 50% of my donations which had something that went wrong or made donating difficult. A smooth donor experience is important – and it’s not possible if your third party platform isn’t up to the job or not configured properly. A less patient donor could well have given up a few times, particularly someone less confident with technology. The moral of the story? No matter how good your own website, your third party payment platform can make or break the experience. Choose your platform carefully, and test how it works from a donor’s perspective before going live. Then keep testing it periodically, in case something breaks over time. In the world of fundraising, has there ever been a more anticipated and talked-about date than 25 May 2018? It feels like the countdown to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) coming into place has been going on forever, but now we're barely two weeks away from the big day. Don't worry - this isn't another blog telling you how to get ready for GDPR. There are plenty of them already. I'm interested in the longer-term view - will public fundraising fundamentally change as a result of GDPR, and what should charities be doing now to stay ahead of the curve? A friend of mine, who works in fundraising compliance at one of the big charities, set me the challenge of writing a blog about 'Public Fundraising 2.0' in the brave new world after GDPR. So I've dusted off my crystal ball and shared a few ideas... Successful charities will focus on better relationships with fewer donors There's no getting away from it - opt-in consent will make it harder to capture usable donor data and mean fewer contacts on your database. Gone are the days of adding big batches of contacts to your newsletter list gathered through business card drops, event contact lists and via your supporters' own fundraising efforts (arguably many of these methods weren't compliant pre-GDPR anyway, but many charities are only now clarifying their obligations in relation to existing Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR)). It's easy to see reduced data capture and fewer contacts as 'A Bad Thing'. After all, the traditional donor pyramid approach is very clear - capture enough new contacts at the bottom end and do a few clever things to nurture them, and you'll eventually have more high-value donors and legacy givers at the other end: Although this approach is often accused of being outdated and fundamentally flawed, I think it has its merits (but that's a topic for another day). However, there's no doubt it's been working pretty badly for most charities. There's too much focus on quantity over quality - why keep building a database of passive contacts who rarely or never engage with your charity, when you're not investing in the capacity to communicate with people on a personal level or the analytics to evaluate what approaches are actually working? Soon you'll find it much harder to build up your mailing list - or maybe you won't even have much of a mailing list at all, if you've been seeking fresh consent for GDPR - so you may as well start focusing on quality instead. This means taking the time to use the data you have to personalise your communications as much as possible and segment your contact list more intelligently, making your mailings more relevant and targeted. You're only allowed to store personal data that you use anyway - so if you're collecting it, you ought to be acting on it. Smaller charities may finally unlock the potential of major donors and legacy fundraising A smaller contact list means two things - more time to focus on the supporters you do have, and fewer opportunities to get things wrong. Retaining donors will become even more important, so charities have to be able to delight and inspire their donors. This should mean better thank you letters, more personalised follow-ups after events, and CEOs and trustees dedicating more time to meeting and cultivating high-value prospects. Major donor fundraising and legacy fundraising have long been undervalued by smaller charities, who are often put off by the lead time and initial legwork involved. Now this might start to seem like a more obvious route, as high-volume individual giving starts to feel like a more difficult and less profitable pipe dream. If smaller charities start to realise the benefits of investing more time (and senior management time) in cultivating donors, I suspect we'll start to see an increased focus on major donor and legacy fundraising. The value and popularity of communication channels will gradually change If you do still want to focus on mass marketing, you may need to reconsider which channels work best. The high bar set for the level of consent you need means that email marketing could become a fading force - mailing lists are shrinking, people unsubscribe at the touch of a button, and emails are increasingly being caught in intelligent spam filters. Meanwhile, unaddressed mail requires much less in the way of consent - so while this is a blunt instrument and the precise opposite of a personalised approach, it's likely to become more popular. It won't become an effective tool overnight, but could start to look more attractive to charities struggling with email marketing. As a result, more cost-effective and creative approaches to unaddressed mail will start to emerge over time. Social media fundraising will also finally start to take off. Successful charities will focus less on trying to capture email marketing consent from followers, and more on engaging with these people meaningfully within that platform. The new Facebook fundraising tools mean that people don't need to be on your mailing list or even visit your website to spontaneously donate. So why spend time on your dwindling mailing list when you could be mastering these tools or making sure you reply to every single follower quickly and personally? These changes will happen gradually, so you'll need to keep your ear to the ground and not assume that what worked best yesterday will still be the best option tomorrow. Which brings me to... Charities will have to collaborate more to make sense of a tricky new world With the whole sector taking a battering for its fundraising methods, charities need to work together to find the best way forward. Of course there's naturally competition between charities, but we'll all raise more if we help each other to win back the trust of an increasingly sceptical public and deal with the challenges of GDPR. Large charities have access to more supporters - and therefore more meaningful test data - than smaller charities. Charity A might be more experienced with a specific audience than Charity B. One of your fundraising campaigns may have backfired spectacularly in a way that other organisations could learn from. Some fundraisers are already collaborating to great effect - the immensely useful Fundraising Chat group on Facebook has topped 6,000 helpful members, but that's the tip of the iceberg for the sector as a whole. Choosing the right third party platforms will be vital Your Data Protection compliance and data capture methods are only as good as the third party platforms you use - whether that's Facebook, Mailchimp, Justgiving or any other system. So when choosing between third party platforms, savvy managers and trustees should be asking 'What's their privacy policy like?' or 'How do they assist us to capture supporter consent?' rather than 'How much does it cost?' With data security high on the news agenda, people are becoming more cautious about sharing their data online - so platforms that are trustworthy and creative in how they gather data will be worth their weight in gold. Choosing the cheapest option may be a false economy, and free platforms are often free for a reason. I recently worked with a charity running their first ever crowdfunding campaign. Despite setting an achievable fundraising target, they knew a lot of work would be involved - so the true value of the campaign would come through the long-term value of the donor relationships they built, more than the short-term income. They successfully hit their target, but their crowdfunding platform was tricky to use and hadn't given much thought to donor consent. As a result, the charity felt unable to add the donors to their database, or even email them again to seek consent. A different platform, even with higher fees, would've resulted in a much more valuable campaign. More fundraising will become product-based, and maybe not really fundraising at all
Without a sizeable supporter database, we'll become more reliant on profitable one-off interactions than repeated asks - but maybe that's no bad thing. With charities increasingly picking up the slack for spending cuts and social inequality, an increased number of appeals feels inevitable. But fundraising is arguably reaching saturation point in terms of how much it interrupts our daily lives - in the streets, at our doors, on TV and through our letterboxes. One way to address this is to make fundraising a more welcome part of people's lives - through gamification, collaboration with retailers or social media stars, or events that are profitable based solely on selling people a good experience rather than capturing their data for long-term fundraising. This focuses on the product instead of the ask. It blurs the boundary between fundraising and broader income-generation, and sometimes isn't really fundraising at all. We recently published this blog on the need for more non-disruptive fundraising, which is only going to become more important after the introduction of GDPR. Have a read now to get some inspiration if you haven't already. ![]() It’s tempting to think that the recent fundraising crisis came out of nowhere – that public resentment was just whipped up by the media and a few horror stories – but the reality is different. Frustration and dissatisfaction had actually been simmering away for a long time. In 2016, nfpSynergy reported that the charity sector had one of the lowest complaint rates across seven sectors, but the highest level of people wanting to complain but not doing so. Given that the other sectors included pensions, mortgages and broadband providers, that’s a sobering statistic. So why have people been growing increasingly unhappy with charities? Specific cases of bad practice haven’t helped, but I think there’s a broader issue. Most of our public fundraising methods seem to rely on interrupting – rather than complementing – our everyday lives. We get stopped in the street. People knock on our doors. Charity appeals pop up on TV and through our letterboxes. In a world marred by spending cuts and growing inequality, this may feel inevitable. More and more people are being denied happy and healthy lives, and charities are stepping in to pick up the slack. Desperate times call for desperate measures, and if these fundraising methods work and people have the money to donate, what’s the problem? Unfortunately, many fundraising methods seem incompatible with a changing society. Digital technology has given people an unprecedented level of choice and flexibility. We stream music that we want to listen to, instead of sitting through songs we don’t like on the radio. We watch our favourite programmes on catch up TV, rather than 'seeing what’s on'. We increasingly live in our own bubble where we do things on our own terms. So when we perceive that we’re being interrupted unnecessarily – whether by a company, a charity or an individual – we often feel harassed or angry. So street, door-to-door and television fundraising – while hugely successful financially, particularly for household name charities – are often negative experiences for the public, stirring up feelings of pressure and guilt. I’m not saying that 'traditional' forms of fundraising are fundamentally wrong, or that negative media coverage is always justified. However, in these tough times, many charities need to raise increasing amounts from the public to keep supporting their beneficiaries. For this to be sustainable, we need to be more creative and varied in our fundraising efforts. A popular buzzword today is ‘disruption’ – the concept (originating in Silicon Valley) of smaller companies unseating market leaders in an industry with an innovative or simpler solution. But when it comes to fundraising, perhaps the most effective form of ‘disruption' is actually to be as non-disruptive as possible. We need to find more ways to fundraise that fit in with or add value to people’s lives, rather than interrupting them. I’ve seen a few great examples recently – and while many are being implemented by large charities, there’s plenty that the whole sector can learn: 1. Rounding up in shops Recently, staff in my local Tesco in Bristol were fundraising for Diabetes UK and the British Heart Foundation. To support their efforts, Tesco added a prompt to their self-service machines asking customers to make a small donation to round up their bills: Over about a month, I must have donated ten times (I’m not a very strategic shopper, and Tesco is a one-minute walk around the corner). Never more than 10p – but with so many customers and transactions, you can imagine how this small but frequent giving can add up. While this did involve adding an extra screen to the self-service process, I could choose to donate or decline within two seconds. It didn’t feel obtrusive at all, and there was no awkwardness in saying no. Many people will have supported two charities that they might not have thought of giving to before. Smaller charities may find it near-impossible to forge a partnership with a major supermarket. However that doesn’t stop you approaching local shops or restaurants about a similar arrangement, or applying to supermarket community schemes like Waitrose’s green token scheme. You can also look at joining nationwide schemes like Pennies. 2. Good old-fashioned community fundraising Community fundraising is brilliant because it performs a social function as well as raising money. It's something positive to do and provides an opportunity to meet new people, which can be really important for some. While most people immediately think of the Macmillan Coffee Morning – which raises almost £30million annually – personally I love Mind’s Crafternoon fundraiser. This promotes mental health and mindfulness, while encouraging people to come together and focus on making something. Any charity – no matter what size – can design an attractive community fundraising idea for their own supporters, whether that means a database of a thousand people or a small group of friends and family. The key is to develop your idea in consultation with your target audience, start small, gather feedback and gradually scale it up. Ultimately, community fundraising works best when it's led by volunteers, with minimal input and support from paid staff. 3. Social media collaboration Building an audience for fundraising is tough for smaller charities, so getting a leg-up makes a huge difference. I’ve always loved this example of how the popular Humans of New York photoblog raised over $100,000 in less than an hour, by combining a powerful ask for a local cause with an inspiring story. Founder Brandon Stanton had already built a huge audience that enjoyed glimpsing other people’s lives and hearing their stories, so appealing for help was a logical next step. Winning the trust of an audience that are already passionate about something, and making a related ask on the platform they already use, is another great way of weaving fundraising into the fabric of everyday life. Building a relationship with - for example - a blogger or YouTube star isn’t easy, but might be a better bet than approaching major companies, particularly if there’s a reason why they’d support your cause. Try looking out for rising stars and make contact with them before they hit the big time. 4. Gamification Ever been through Stockholm Airport and seen these charity arcade machines? I love this for two reasons. Firstly, it takes something that’s already popular and adds a fundraising twist. If people like arcade machines in airports, why wouldn’t they love using them for a good cause? Secondly, this is a brilliant example of the gamification of fundraising. This increasing trend uses games, challenges and adventures to give people an added incentive to support a cause – and it really works. You’ll probably struggle to get arcade machines placed in major airports. However, you can still use this as inspiration: can you ‘gamify’ any of your existing fundraising efforts, or add a fundraising twist to something your local supporters already enjoy doing? 5. Making donating easy When people decide they want to donate to you – no matter how or where – it’s not the end of the story. The physical act of donating has to be intuitive and convenient – if it’s too complicated, you’ll lose donors. As technology moves on, people expect the organisations they interact with to keep pace. The use of contactless cards is booming – contactless payments now account for a third of all card purchases, up from 10% just two years ago. Cash is a fading force, and charities are losing out by still relying too much on it – by as much as £80million per year, according to this report. It’s worth exploring options now for taking card and contactless payments, as the cost and barriers to entry will continue to come down for smaller charities. Also, make sure your donation and registration forms (both online and paper) are as simple as possible. This blog is based on a version that was first published on Localgiving in January 2018. If you've enjoyed reading it, please sign up to our mailing list for more blogs and advice.
How do you ‘sell’ your cause to people? If you find yourself talking to someone about your charity in the pub or at the school gates, what do you tell them? Do you trot out your vision and mission statement, and those inevitable bullet points describing your main services? Is there a particular story you always tell? I’ve been involved with many charities as a fundraiser, consultant, mentor and trustee. If you work for one of these organisations then you might want to look away now. Sorry, but when I tell someone about what your charity does, I rarely use your carefully crafted marketing language. The unavoidable reality is that many causes are hard to explain, particularly in these times of austerity. Multiple disadvantage, multiple services for one beneficiary group, or one particular issue that affects multiple groups. It’s often tricky to distil this into one concise, meaningful description. That bullet point list might sound ok on paper but it’s instantly forgettable when recited verbally. Staying 'on brand' can sound a bit…bland. I think there’s a better way to engage people in what you do. Stop trying to tell them everything, and instead look for your ‘diamond in the detail’. All the charities I really ‘click’ with and enjoy talking about have something in common. Amidst all their services, statistics and slogans, I’ve found a particular thing that for me really captures why they do what they do. Often this is a beneficiary story, but it could just be a concept or an idea that’s easy to understand and memorise. I’ll give you a couple of examples. I spent five years at Link Community Development, a charity working to ensure children in sub-Saharan Africa receive a meaningful education. Link provides teacher training, quality assessments of schools and helps headteachers and district authorities to run schools better. The Millennium Development Goals focused on getting children into school but not what happened when they were there. So Link’s work was vital, but not very ‘sexy’. Over time, by speaking to teachers and parents in South Africa and Malawi, I understood things better. Children growing up in countries ravaged by HIV/AIDS don’t miss school because they don’t want to be there. They stay at home to look after sick relatives, or work the land to earn money for their family because their parents are no longer with them. Many people see children not attending school as the biggest problem. But for me, the burning injustice is encouraging children to walk five miles to school because it’s ‘the right thing to do’, meaning they can't perform a critical role in their families, then failing to provide them with an education that makes any difference when they get there. This was my ‘diamond’ for explaining why Link’s work was so important. As a problem that urgently needed fixing, it meant so much more than saying ‘Link works in five countries in sub-Saharan Africa doing X, Y and Z to improve the quality of education in schools.’ I’m currently working with a very different charity called The Camden Society, who provide a range of services to people with a learning disability. Among other things, this includes supported living, employment and health and wellbeing.
But if you ask me about The Camden Society, this isn’t what I’ll tell you. Instead I’ll talk about their amazing apprenticeship programme, helping to arrange job trials for people who would otherwise lack the core skills to secure a role in the catering industry. I’ll tell you about the apprentice I heard speak who knew he would never shine in a formal interview, but proved in a trial that he could prepare food more quickly than any of the regular staff. He secured a job where he could thrive and feel proud of his skills, and he’s not looked back since. This is just one aspect of the charity's work, but it's the one I feel most comfortable and passionate talking about. You don’t need to talk about the whole of what your charity does, or even focus on your main project. By finding your own ‘diamond in the detail’, you'll be able to explain things with more belief and passion. Crucially, this diamond may be different for every staff member or volunteer. I've heard people find their own engaging ways to talk about their charity, only to be told that it's not on brand - which I think is a real shame. It can be helpful to think of your charity as a cube. There are many sides to what you do. People can only see one or two sides at any one time, but those sides are still part of the whole shape. Ultimately, is it better to give someone a concise and complete summary of what you do and hope they remember it? Or tell them one specific memorable thing that can be a ‘hook’ for finding out more later? You might be willing to try this approach when talking to family and friends, but I’m convinced it can be just as effective with donors, funders or companies. So isn’t it time you found your diamond in the detail? What particular diamond works best for your cause? Do you have some different advice for engaging people? We’d love to hear from you – please leave a comment below. |
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