I've been consulting now for just over three years, on my own and now with Astarita Aldrich & Ward,  and I've just finished my fiftieth project. It's been quite a journey, I've worked with non-profits with incomes from £200,000 to £2bn across a dozen or more countries and covering a huge range of issues and … Continue reading A half century

With the recent Oxfam "scandal" (don't get me started - I think the scandal is the media onslaught on one of our best charities) concentrating attention of the UK aid and development sector, it seems like a good time to review how the fundraising of the international development NGOs has been doing recently. As anyone … Continue reading Tough times for the Aid Agencies

One of the mild curiosities of working in the charity sector is the comparative neglect of legacies. Despite their enormous value to charities, the promotion of legacies frequently seems the forgotten area of fundraising. The value is indisputable.  Legacy Foresight’s report, Legacy Giving 2016, shows that charitable legacy giving is worth £2.24bn. Around 20% of … Continue reading 5 Steps to Drive Legacy Giving

It’s been a tumultuous couple of years in fundraising. Just about every aspect of our industry has been put under the microscope and in many cases the results haven’t been pretty. Press outrage and an inadequate or supine response from sector leaders has resulted in a combination of increased donor distrust and additional burdensome regulation. … Continue reading A New Fundraising Year

For a very long time it seems, we have been waiting for major giving in the UK to grow to the levels of the US. Or even Canada. Much ink has been spilt on the subject by sector commentators. A series of reviews, think tanks and roundtables have discussed the subject in all its permutations. … Continue reading How do we engage our board in major giving? Lessons from North America

One of the minor mysteries of the third sector is the vast disparity between the resources and attention devoted to acquiring new supporters compared to those focused on developing existing relationships. As a consequence we see an enormous issue of donor churn. According to the US Association of Fundraising Professionals*, only 26% of donors making … Continue reading The Ten Principles of Donor Engagement

With charities’ fundraising practices under increasing scrutiny there’s more and more  focus on ensuring that campaigns to bring in new supporters don’t bring a charity into disrepute. So we shouldn’t be surprised to find that major charities are increasingly using more positive messaging in activities aimed at recruiting new donors. For example both WaterAid and … Continue reading Does good news sell?

We have never been more in need of good fundraising leadership than we are now. At Astarita Aldrich & Ward we work every day with charities who are trying to achieve transformational change in their fundraising performance in a market that’s never been harder. There are a long list of challenges that these charities face … Continue reading 5 characteristics of great fundraising leaders

As a fundraising consultant you see a lot of strategies as well as frequently being involved in developing new ones for charities. It's a sad truth that very many of the strategy documents that I see describe strategies that were either mostly unsuccessful or never implemented in the first place. It's depressing to think how … Continue reading What makes a good fundraising strategy?

It's been almost a year now since Imogen Ward and I set up Aldrich & Ward, our leadership consulting and search practice. It's been a whirlwind since then, we've done a whole bunch of projects with a wide range of fabulous organisations and basically had a blast. And now we are moving to a new … Continue reading And then there were three