Sean Triner discusses why the traditional commercial approach to branding is fundamentally flawed when it comes to fundraising.
I think any money spent on brand awareness by a charity with a view to increasing fundraising income is absolutely and completely wasted.
I emphasise with a view to increasing fundraising income because I can imagine a scenario where a charity wants awareness for its mission, not for fundraising. (more…)
It started for me with direct mail. See, today, my clients do not segment for gender. They send the very same appeal letter to men and women. But, you have to wonder, could we attract Read more…
Right now I feel like throwing a bucket of ice over the sector we fundraisers work in and shouting “wake up!”.
Years ago I knew something had changed in fundraising. I didn’t know what. Like us all I could see the symptoms such as rising acquisition costs, and falling response rates. I could certainly feel the pressure. So in between jobs I sat and read and read – books like Sticky Marketing, The Networked Non Profit and The New Rules of Marketing and PR. Surfacing from these fantastic reads I knew the rules of fundraising had changed. Over the last three years at SolarAid I have been learning how and doing by best to apply them.
This blog summarises my learning. (more…)
How many Fundraising Directors of national charities that have international programmes have been challenged by their CEO or board member to go out and raise funds in countries where their non-profit spends its money? How Read more…
Where do most non-profits tend to start when it comes to telling their story? They start with themselves. “Who We Are”, or on their website “About Us”. And then they move on to “What We Read more…
We’re not in a competition, nobody’s shouting who is the most important asset inside a nonprofit organization. No one should do this. Because deep down we all know it. A nonprofit cannot exist, cannot reach Read more…
Seven Scarily-common Mistakes that Harm your Chances of Winning Valuable Partnerships
When several years ago, Alix Wooding and her then team at Alzheimer’s Society won the partnership (worth £7.5 million) with UK retailer Tesco, it was the second time her charity had won the Tesco partnership in a decade. For the same charity to be selected again so soon was unprecedented. And it was not through luck.
Though the pitch included some fabulous touches, more importantly, they did not make the fundamental errors of pitch design that happen in 95% of corporate fundraising pitches.
I’ve spent 14 years as a fundraiser, pitch coach and trainer to fundraisers. And after conducting interviews with some of the most successful pitchers on the planet, I have noticed fascinating patterns in how the regular winners approach pitch design. Their habits are different from those who work hard but usually fail to get through. (more…)
It’s the dream of any fundraiser: something just magically raises millions in a few days. Like Nomakeupselfie in the UK, and the cold water challenge that suddenly swept Norway. Literally millions suddenly flowed to unsuspecting Read more…
In the UK 2014 maybe the year that we finally come out of recession, but like all economic changes it will take at least two years truly to filter through to fundraising results and impacts. Read more…
Major gift fundraising at its best can transform an organization. When an inspired potential donor says, “We have to make that happen,” “It’s critical that we solve this societal problem,” “How can I help?” incredible Read more…
When I say I am 60 (only just) I wonder what your reaction is? He bloody looks it? He should retire? Richard you still have one third of your life ahead do not stop now! Poor guy? Or, go for it Richard the best part of your life has only just started?
Perhaps your reaction might be: I must read this blog: his life experiences and his fundraising experience must be AWESOME. Who could know more?
So, make your mind up. Your attitudes to ageing can make or break your performance: average gift values, loyalty, donor happiness and most importantly the final gift – the legacy.
Are you ageist? Or an Age Ambassador?
Do you think Old is cold or Old is gold? (more…)
It was 1993 and our most important holiday mail pack of the year. I opened the seed pack to discover the return address on the business reply envelope was wrong. Really wrong. Every generous donor Read more…
Have you ever noticed that no matter how hard you work, no matter how you segment your file, and no matter what ‘story’ you tell nothing ever changes? It doesn’t matter what agency you use or what you test, year in year out net result is predictably and depressingly, the same. Yes, there are shining exceptions, but they’re exactly that. On the whole our sector hasn’t seen real mission impacting growth since the 1970’s (in other words since before many of us were born!)
If you are a fundraiser, you just gotta love older people. Fundraisers, on average are pretty young. Donors, on average are pretty old. So we have an interesting gap to overcome in communication these fundraisers and Read more…
How ‘the pope of advertising’ helped lay the foundations of my professional life.
by Ken Burnett
When the advertising and communications agency that I founded in 1982 opened its doors for business, its proprietor
– me – would most likely be found sitting on the front doorstep of the terraced Victorian house that was its first office with his nose buried in a book by David Ogilvy, Confessions of an Advertising Man. It was my bible, though equally likely at that time, or perhaps a bit later, I’d be found engrossed in his second classic, Ogilvy on Advertising (see here). I never met the great man and I’m fairly sure I wouldn’t have liked him if I had (he was famously authoritarian and right wing), but to say Ogilvy influenced me would be a bit like saying that Scotsmen are occasionally affected by whisky. To call this a massive understatement is, in itself, a massive understatement. Back then I was so immersed in the wisdom of what he was saying that I would have highlighted at least three paragraphs on every page. Truth is, I modelled the best years of my business life on the sayings of this man. And I prospered as a direct result. (more…)
Morning in Oslo, Norway. My favorite part of the day is in the morning at my kitchen table, when I read the papers and tune in. Of course, I can’t resist checking social media. Here’s Read more…
Nothing sharpens your decision-making prowess quite like establishing a new fundraising operation, with the heart-thumping expectation of growing income quickly. Opportunities abound but how do you make the best of them? Anita de Ruijter outlines four scenarios. What would you do? Comments please! (more…)
For readers in the northern hemisphere, spring special event season is just around the corner. And they can be deadly. Back-to-back events, exhausting staff and volunteers, not netting enough, no time for follow-up from one Read more…
When we asked Helen Upperton to fundraise for MSF Canada, we also offered her the support and guidance of our fundraising and communications teams. I figured the two-time bobsleigh Olympian and silver medalist could learn Read more…
Philanthropy as we have known it is changing. And while donors continue to focus their time and money on the causes to which they have the most personal connection, our understanding of ‘community’ has evolved so fundamentally in the wake of globalisation that one may have just as much tangible experience of a starving child a hemisphere away as of the patrons of a breadline around the corner. And yet, despite the increasing sophistication of our donor communications and marketing strategies, the security of our success as Western fundraisers is irrevocable gone. (more…)
How many hours a week do you spend in meetings? Can you hold your hand up and say that for the majority of those precious hours ‘that was an excellent use of everyone’s time’? (more…)
If I told you that you could double your digital fundraising quite easily, wouldn’t be stupid of you not to? I think everyone would agree. Yet the sorry state of affairs is this- donation forms suck, and people are not fixing them.
There is this stubborn belief in fundraising, that if someone has decided to support a charity, surely they will do so even if the donation form is a bit heavy. This is simply not true. (more…)
The closing of a year is often a reflective time, and an article that recently appeared in my Twitter feed definitely inspired me to take a step back. The piece, entitled “How Many People Died Read more…
2013 was full of negative press about wasteful charities. Much as we refute the claim the fact is we are wasteful; just not of the things we are accused of. 
Real waste is the money we spent on PR and strategists who had us cowering rather than robustly defending ourselves. How many potential donations have we wasted by obfuscating instead of standing up? Why did we accept the premise of the accusations and whimper rather than reject it and fight? When did we decide people were too stupid to understand it would take more than a £3 donation to save the world? (more…)
“For last year’s words belong to last year’s language and next year’s words await another voice.” – T.S Eliot After presenting an eight part blog series this autumn through 101fundraising, Tony Elischer has brought all his Read more…
