A developing theme for fundraising this year is how charities ensure that they have proper consent from their donors to communicate with them. After the annus horribilis of 2015 for UK fundraisers,there has never been more focus on whether charities are complying both with the law and donor expectations. Within a wider context where EU … Continue reading Winning the right to ask
Consultancy
Keeping donors. Part 3: The power of thank you
If you listen to charities talk about their donors, you'd be convinced we all love our supporters to bits. We use all the right words, we talk about how our charities wouldn't exist if it wasn't for our lovely supporters and we have lots of people with titles like "supporter care" or "donor services" in our … Continue reading Keeping donors. Part 3: The power of thank you
Keeping donors Part 1: Engagement
So how do we plug the leaky donor bucket? We know, actually, quite a bit about what the key drivers of donor loyalty. A good guide is here. In brief, they encompass a donor's beliefs and values (does the charity share them), experiences (how did they treat me) and emotions (what would happen if I stopped giving?). But … Continue reading Keeping donors Part 1: Engagement
The Year of Retaining Donors
You don't have to be Nostradamus to predict that 2016 is going to be a tough year for fundraising. In particular, as the impacts of greater regulation and a hostile press are gradually absorbed, it is almost certainly going to become even harder to recruit new supporters for the great majority of non profits. So we … Continue reading The Year of Retaining Donors
Does investing in fundraising work?
A look at the results of major UK charities to see if they can prove the case for investing in fundraising.
Fundraising lessons from Kids’ Company
If you were a cynical person you might wonder why we have yet another charity story in the media now. After all, the problems at Kids' Company have been around for a while, there seemed to be a perfectly sensible plan in place to deal with it (send charismatic but bit bonkers founder upstairs, find someone … Continue reading Fundraising lessons from Kids’ Company
And now for the plug..
With no end to the press onslaught on fundraisers in sight, it is more important than ever that charities' senior leadership are fully on top of their fundraising operations. So it seems like a good time to announce my new service, the Fundraising Audit. It's designed to give leaders of nonprofits of any size an understanding of how … Continue reading And now for the plug..
The Joy of Failure
I love failure. Fundraisers are in the changing the world business. Our job is to make extraordinary things happen. We are simply abdicating that responsibility if we don't take risks. Which means we must inevitably, from time to time, fail. If you haven't failed at something recently, you are not trying hard enough.
Stay tuned
A few friends and myself have been busy for the last couple of months. We're working on a new project. A new charity in fact. On Thursday 12 February we will be launching our new charity. And we will preview our first project. Which will be....interesting What we are aiming to achieve is ambitious enough. The charity … Continue reading Stay tuned
Coach for hire
One of the things that has struck me as an old fundraising director turned newly minted consultant is what charities spend their fundraising budget on. Overall , a lot of money goes to agencies and consultants of all kinds. Mostly to develop specific activities and campaigns but also to provide ideas and insight. A typical medium … Continue reading Coach for hire
Fundraising Fundamentals 