A year of challenges and opportunities
As many charities are now a month or so into a new financial year, this is often a valuable moment to reflect on both the opportunities and challenges ahead. Across the sector, organisations continue to face increasing demand for services, rising operational costs and ongoing uncertainty around public funding. At the same time, we are […]
The Latest Trends in Individual Giving – Part Two
In our previous article on Individual Giving (IG), we explored current trends in donor behaviour, the growing role of technology and the importance of adapting approaches when engaging younger audiences. Here, we turn our attention to the ongoing challenges of donor recruitment and retention. The Recruitment Challenge Maintaining – and ideally growing – a healthy […]
The Latest Trends in Individual Giving – Part One
For many charities, Individual Giving (IG) in its various forms represents the largest share of voluntary income. Even where this is not the case, it remains a critical funding stream. So what are the emerging trends within this area of fundraising and how can organisations stay ahead? In this first of two articles, we explore […]
Writing a Compelling Case for Support
The most fundamental tool in fundraising and one which underpins all your activities (or should do) is your case for support. So what is this and what should it include? Your case is the document that pulls together all the information you need to raise funds. It is the starting point of all your fundraising […]
Maximising the Legacy Opportunity
For most established charities, legacies are an important foundation of their income, providing a relatively steady funding stream from year to year. While it can fluctuate, legacy income is seen as a key part of the long term fundraising strategy and one which can be relied on with relatively little input from year to year. […]
Attracting Major Gifts
For many charities seeking funds, major gift fundraising is often one of the last areas to be developed or fully exploited. For some, it is a bit of a mystery or is seen as windfall fundraising, where luck plays more of a role than judgement. In fact, where it is properly planned and consistently executed, […]
Running a Successful Church Building Appeal
Running a major appeal to buy, build or refurbish a church building can seem a daunting task. Many churches struggle to cover their running costs as it is, without the additional work of funding a capital programme. It requires specialist knowledge, as well as additional resources and a lot of commitment to plan and run […]
Trust Fundraising Latest
For many charities, raising funds from trusts is a core part of their fundraising strategy, whether for revenue, capital funding or both. It is an important source of income with a good ratio of return and one well worth investing in. In recent years, however, the trust fundraising environment has become ever tougher. A perfect […]
Preparing for a Capital Appeal
For a fundraising team, a capital appeal can seem a daunting task. Whether it is to pay for equipment or to purchase a new building, it often involves a significant target to be raised over many years, while all the time you are still raising revenue to run your operations. Capital appeals are therefore a […]
Finding New Donors
Every year, charities lose supporters through natural attrition and therefore need to replace them just to stand still. If they wish to grow their income, the number of new prospects obviously needs to exceed those being lost and so becomes a larger task. The way to find new donors is via prospect research, which can […]