Follow the yellow brick road: why relationship-based trusts fundraising can still bring fairytale results

Ally Rea, our Associate Consultant, explains how playing the long game with trusts & foundations can still produce fairytale results in the current funding landscape. Here's how a true team effort with our brilliant charity client, 3Pillars Project, has yielded an expectation-defying return on investment of 23:1, and how you can emulate this approach in your own trusts fundraising...

There’s no denying we aren’t in Kansas any more, Toto, when it comes to the fundraising landscape right now. It might as well be Oz, with the occasional proverbial farmhouse or flying monkey shaped obstacle on the road, as funders we have known and loved shapeshift or disappear before our very eyes.

To survive this, we know we need to change our strategy: fewer applications, more relationships, better success rates. But this is easy to say and harder to put in practice, particularly as a smaller charity.

I want to reflect on the experience of one of our charity clients that seems to be bucking the current trusts fundraising trends. They've done it by playing to their strengths and focusing on building relationships with funders. But this takes trust – not only between the charity and its funders, but between the fundraiser and senior leadership.
​
3Pillars Project is a charity using rugby and sports-based mentoring to enable young men in the criminal justice system to develop skills and behaviours that break the cycle of reoffending. Their turnover is in the £500k-£750k bracket, so not tiny but not a large charity.

Their approach with beneficiaries, staff and freelancers is inclusive, open and direct. They are the first charity I’ve met that has said “we welcome challenge” and really meant it. Discussions and decisions happen in a flat hierarchy, and learning is expected. The project is a decade old (8 years as a charity), and they’re both nimble and confident.

So, how does this play out in fundraising?

An image from the 3Pillars Project website homepage

The courage: focusing on quality, not quantity

Good strategy means saying no to many possible paths in order to choose the best one.

In fundraising, this looks like researching many opportunities to seek out the probable, not just the possible. It means looking hard at the opportunity and being able to make the call to pursue an application or let it pass by.

When organisations are feeling insecure, or their management is, the pressure to run down every opportunity can be overwhelming, and lead to fundraisers stretching themselves too thin trying to churn out hundreds of applications to “get the numbers out”. But 3Pillars feels more confident.

Of course, there have been times when a concern about the financial bottom line increased focus on the pipeline, but we have been able to remind each other of the importance of prioritising the right applications.

​We've challenged each other to be more realistic about which applications are possible in the given timescale. This two-way discussion gets them much better value in the long run from their fundraisers.

Keep up a steady flow of applications, but make sure they’re the right ones. Which brings us to…

The brains: keeping focus and clarity

3Pillars know what they do, and why. They have focused very solidly on creating a shared understanding of how their approach – their GAMEPLAN pathway from custody to community – works, what it doesn’t do, what ‘good’ looks like, and how they can show this.

We’ve worked with 3Pillars to draw out from their detailed staff handbook, impact reports and previous applications just what it is that sets them apart from others. We’ve worked out granular budgets from project plans, and packaged up their work to appeal to funders.

That doesn’t mean they don’t change or evolve their offer – they do, and they are co-developing their work with their participants and graduates. Being able to talk about how they are doing so is hugely helpful.

What they *don’t* do is chase the money.

We’ve looked carefully at which funders have the biggest overlap with their project(s) and we’ve discussed and agreed which angle to take to make the best argument for why this funder would be making a wise investment. We’ve taken time to understand their impact and their (excellent) monitoring and evaluation.

We don’t, and they don’t, invent a project to become eligible for a funder’s grant round. To do so would be to pull the organisation out of shape when an authentic fit is everything.

You always had the power, my dear: don’t fear the invitation-only funder

3Pillars has such a brilliant can-do attitude, it’s sometimes a little unnerving.

When I say “I’ve found this funder. They look like they want to fund exactly what you do, but they say ‘no unsolicited applications’ so they’ll need a bit of work via your networks to get an introduction,” my expectation is it may take weeks or months to find a connection and have a considerate conversation. 3Pillars Project has been known to come back in less than half a day indicating that not only do they think they know someone who might know someone, but that the someone also plays rugby!

However, it wasn’t always this straightforward.

Although early in our work together we identified that they were good at getting grants stewarded via a personal connection, we couldn’t always translate that to new opportunities we’d identified. We had some difficult conversations about the initially low ROI and took some time to build trust. We encouraged 3Pillars to see their strengths in building networks and connections, while we focused on writing compelling applications. We acknowledged the fact that good relationship-based fundraising requires a leap of faith, and time.

If at this point, you’re thinking that rugby charities with an "old boys’ network" advantage, that’s understandable, rugby does have that reputation. Having several team members who served in the Armed Forces doesn’t hurt either. But they still needed to do the work. You don’t automatically score from a good position on the pitch; someone still needs to carry the ball over the line.

I don’t hear “we don’t know anyone”, instead I hear “leave it with me”.

Often we don’t get anywhere (or at least it remains a work in progress) and that’s OK. But other times we’re invited to submit a proposal. Being willing to try to solve problems, and being prepared to seek and build links over months or years, makes fundraising so much easier. But it needs everyone to play their part...

Courage, brains and heart: all needed to follow the yellow brick road of successful trusts fundraising | Photo credit: Akshay Nanavati, Unsplash

The heart: taking a whole team approach

Rather than their success being down to brilliant individual fundraisers (although we like to think we’re pretty good), 3Pillars has always recognised and harnessed the power of all their team to contribute to their fundraising goals.

The Chair and trustees’ contacts and networks, and those of every staff member, are valued. People are empowered to make connections and introductions where there’s a mutual interest.

We put in a smallish application to Matchroom Charitable Foundation, but around the same time a frontline staff member approached a personal contact there. The application was unsuccessful, but Matchroom Boxing came on board as a significant in-kind supporter offering valuable profile-raising opportunities. Through them, former British and Commonwealth Super Welterweight Champion, Ishmael Davis, has become an Ambassador and mentor to current 3Pillars participants.

The frontline team have daily contact with participants, and actively seek and share success stories, picking up snippets of testimonials and solid feedback from beneficiaries and partners. Listening out for comments and compliments, and proactively sending those round the team is a huge boost, and of course it’s vital for fundraising, marketing and social media.
​
The CEO personally connects and contacts people, even hand-writing a personal cover letter accompanying their impact report, tailored to the recipient. The organisational culture is friendly to fundraising, with clear targets and expectations, dedicated resources, celebration of successes and learning, not blaming, where things haven’t gone well. 

Enough about the approach. What about the results?

3Pillars has enjoyed more trusts fundraising success than most charities, with an ROI of 23:1, close to three times the sector average (as per LarkOwl's excellent 2026 benchmarking report). This isn't based on a single big win, but consistent results over a two-year period.

Our work with them has brought in over £600,000 in grants, the majority from new funders.

And it’s not luck. Nor is it just because they are well-connected, well-resourced, or because Glinda’s on their side. It's because their fundraising is right for them.

They are following the advice we give to all charities – get in front of the right funders, send fewer, higher-quality applications – and they are doing it well. Their confidence is based on the quality of their work and impact. Funders trust that their grants will generate the intended social impact.

Lessons for other charities: so what does this mean for you?

​If you’re feeling inspired, take a look at their website. They do great work and the content is thought-provoking. Maybe you know someone who’d like to know about their work in prisons and Young Offender Institutions.

If you’re feeling slightly despondent, don’t see the whole journey. Have a think about which one of the elements listed here you could see as the next step to take:

• Perhaps bring a frontline colleague a coffee and ask for some good stories.
• Maybe revisit your prospect research – how well do you really know what any funder on your pipeline would be prepared to fund? What makes an application actually worth a punt?
• Do you need to refresh your content, project plans and your budgets? Does everything look suspiciously like it did last year, and the year before? Or are you constantly chasing novelty and losing the focus and clarity on what your organisation is for?

Fundraising isn’t getting any easier, but with a bit of thought, and team effort, it can feel a whole lot less like you need some ruby slippers to get you on your way.

​Good luck!