Ensuring you are successful at fundraising
Great fundraising practices are essential to a charity’s success and, most importantly, the cause it is fighting to support. I feel it is fair to say that some members of the public are ill-informed on what fundraisers do. I can recall being asked many times whether I am "one of those annoying people who stops me in the street or rings me badgering for money?"
The answer, in short, is yes. I follow questions like these with an explanation of why it is my job is to convince people to donate money. Transparency is essential in fundraising, and I always point people towards why we do our jobs – the charity’s cause.
For me, good charitable fundraising comes from a mixture of being extremely thorough in your methods and truly engaging with your donors. After nine years of working for charities, here are a few things I’ve learnt about how to ensure that you are successful:
Do the simple things well
It may seem obvious, but being highly organised and having clear processes are the foundation of successful fundraising. It can be easy for small things to get overlooked, yet these can be vital to ensuring that things run smoothly further down the line.
I started my career as a charity administrator in a very small team, where everybody had to get involved in every aspect of the fundraising process. This taught me the importance of taking the smaller things seriously. When a supporter calls to tell you that they have moved, make sure the address is updated immediately across all relevant documents. Ensure that the member of your team who answers the phone knows who everyone in the charity is and what they do, so you appear professional and well-organised from the start.
All of these things seem like little details, but they have a knock-on effect on the impression people get of your charity and the confidence your donors have in you.
Be amazing at supporter care
Charities cannot exist without donors, therefore treating them well is of huge importance. Always say thank you, say it promptly, say it sincerely and say it more than once. Then keep in touch; make sure they know what they have helped you to achieve. By taking care of your donors, you build a bond with them, which can lead to a lifetime of loyal support. If fundraisers build a strong relationship with their donors, they are also much more likely to spread the word to other potential donors.
One of my proudest moments as a fundraiser was working with a donor named Anne Hughes, who had lost her husband and was donating two automated external defibrillators to St John Cymru Wales in his memory. I felt honoured to be a part of something so personal to Anne, and something that would also help so many people. I became friends with Anne, helping her to learn more about the charity and thanking her for her support. We remain good friends and she has gone on to do a great deal for the charity.
Test, test, test
The money that we raise isn’t ours, so it goes without saying that we need to be really careful with it. This being said, sometimes you do need to take risks in order to run a campaign that will make a big difference to your charity’s funds. Rigorously testing a campaign means that you can be careful with funds by only taking risks you are sure will work.
The first time I worked on a direct mail campaign, I almost made a big mistake. The team and I had devised what we thought to be a strong campaign, but in the test phase it underperformed significantly. We realised that the campaign wasn’t strong enough just in the nick of time and as a result saved the charity from wasting a lot of money.
I now make the test phase a big part of any campaign. I make sure to work closely with creative agencies to target a campaign correctly, getting a focus group’s view, and then testing the campaign on 5-10% of the total campaign recipients, leaving plenty of time to analyse the response. If a campaign underperforms, a telephone survey of recipients is essential to find out why it didn’t work. Don’t ever discard the campaign as a ‘failure’ and forget about it, you might just need a few small changes to make it a success.
Trust your data
Much of good fundraising is about passion, but gut feelings can be wrong. You need to make your decisions based on what you know, not what you think.
As fundraisers, we are always surrounded by the cause that we work for. It can be hard to remove ourselves from the situation and see things in the way that a member of the public does. The best way to do this is through thorough testing combined with strong data analysis.
This is where your database is vital. Look at your donors' giving habits, your key donor demographics, and your response rates for previous campaigns. Having these facts in front of you means that you can remove any preconceived ideas from the equation, focusing on what is shown to be true.
Keep training your staff
Training your staff properly is incredibly important. Regular training keeps staff fresh, gives them new ideas and helps them to see what can be achieved.
I have really benefited from fundraising courses and networking with other fundraisers. The Institute of Fundraising and Directory of Social Change run excellent courses, and there are plenty of networking groups across the UK. It really is worth going the extra mile when it comes to educating both yourself and your staff.
Looking to the future
There are still so many avenues of fundraising that are yet to reach their full potential. One of the biggest of these is legacy giving. Fundraisers need to sensitively educate donors on how they can give a gift in a will, and make the most of the public becoming more aware of tax effective giving. Only 7% of the UK population currently leave gifts to charities in their wills, so this is something that needs to be explored further with dedicated donors.
Always looking to the future, whilst being thorough and ensuring that the basics are covered, is the key to successful charitable fundraising.
