Fundraising strategy: case studies

Making the most of it

Right now I’m working with a national educational charity that asked me to review the management of their fundraising resources to see whether their staffing budget is being spent in the most effective way.

Their plan is to invest a total of £57,000 pa on a Fundraising Director and Fundraising Assistant. However, because of the size and needs of the organization, I will recommend that they redistribute their salary budget to allow for a Fundraising Manager and a Trust Fundraiser instead, who would have a greater impact on the charitys income. Meanwhile, the administrative work can be taken on by a part-time Administration Assistant.

As good, affordable Trust Fundraisers are in great demand, I am suggesting that this person is recruited externally to be trained up by myself or another qualified training company.

The net result of these changes will mean that for the same salary bill the charity could have three people performing different, complementary functions that will help them fundraise more successfully.

Broadening the appeal

A medium-sized charity in the disability sector asked me to look at their fundraising strategy, which was built entirely on approaches to charitable trusts. This wasn’t a solid foundation for the future, as once all the trusts had been approached there wouldn’t be anywhere left to go.

We sat down and focussed on what the organisation wanted to achieve from its fundraising and whether there was a message that could appeal to other funding audiences. We also reviewed the skills that each of its three dedicated fundraisers could bring to the table, which included both corporate and community fund raising.

We then devised a new strategy that reduced the number of trust applications and changed the focus of two of the fundraisers to take advantage of their respective skills: corporate and community funding.

In the space of one month we’d risen to the challenge of rescuing the organisation’s waning income and diversifying its income streams to create a more secure financial future.