I will admit I am personally a big fan of a what’s app message. It’s quick and easy, I can look at it when I’m ready, answer in my own time and think about my replies before I send them. If I want to book something, I am much more likely to email or complete an online booking than I am to pick up the phone, because I feel more in control, can look at my diary in my own time rather than responding to someone else’s timetable.

However, when it comes to fundraising, I am absolutely passionate about the power of the picking up the telephone and speaking to supporters. Relationships are so key to fundraising and you just can’t build the same kind of relationship with a donor by emailing them.

A perfect example of this comes from early on in my career, I was in a 1:1 with the boss and she asked how many of my schools had banked their money from the recent fundraiser we had run. I was a little bit intimidated and not wanting to admit I had not bought the right info to the meeting I just blagged it and said, ‘oh about half’. Well, it became really obvious really quickly that this was not the right figure to guess at, I had clearly overestimated big time as she turned to me looking amazed and said, ‘wow that is brilliant, how did you achieve this? We must get everyone to do the same!’ The panic was now starting to set in, I wasn’t sure if this was the time to confess or if I should just carry on, so in for a penny in for a pound, I breezily replied, ‘I just called them all and asked them to bank their money and they did’ and figured I would deal with it afterwards.

Walking out of that meeting I realised I needed to make a plan and quick as I needed that 50% banking rate before our next meeting as she was bound to check. There was only one thing for it and that was to hit the phones.

So I did, I called every single school on my list, spoke to everyone about how it had gone and asked them to bank their money, running through their options with how to do it and had a general chat. Thankfully by my next catch up I had gone well over the 50% bank rate – phew!

The two big lessons I learnt that fortnight were: 1. Call your donors if you want to develop your relationship and get a positive response and 2. Don’t blag in your meetings as you could be setting yourself up for a pretty stressful time!
To this day whenever I am training or advising fundraisers I always push them to ditch the emails and actually speak to their donors and supporters. I know many people don’t love to do this and get really worried and nervous, I admit I don’t exactly leap for joy when faced with a long list of phone calls to make myself, but it really does work and it will transform your fundraising.

This means so much to me I have partnered with Sanita Guddu at Persuasion to run ‘How to Use the Telephone to Transform your Fundraising’. A 2 hour online course where we discuss how the telephone can be your friend, creative ways to use it and tackle the fears that are stopping you from picking up the phone. Find out more and sign up here: https://persuasion.org.uk/events/

I’ve had conversations with charities in the past where they have questioned whether they should run a Festive fundraising campaign if they aren’t running any services over the Christmas period.
My answer to them is always YES, yes you should.
Firstly, I’m fairly certain that not every charity who raises money at this time of year is open on Christmas Day or Boxing Day and many of them won’t be doing anything different to their bread and butter work that serves their clients so well day in and day out throughout the rest of the year.
Secondly, a whopping 31% of annual donations happens in December, so if you aren’t asking now, you are potentially missing out on lots of money, and it might even look like you don’t really need it compared to other charities who are putting out their impassioned pleas. For many people giving to charities in December is a great way of balancing out a very commercial time of year. It is also a time where the differences between the haves and the have nots are highlighted more than ever and people like to feel they are doing something about this.
So how do you go about it if you have never organised a Christmas Campaign before?

1. How are you going to take the donations? You could do this on your website, or you could set up a campaign with a third-party website. You can set up campaigns with both Just Giving and Virgin Money Giving and both will give you a professional looking page with a % of target icon.
2. Get a good story, as I said, it doesn’t matter if you are running any special services over Xmas but you do need to get a quote from someone who uses your services about the challenges they face over Christmas/Winter (obviously if you are an animal charity you might need to use the vet for a quote as animals are notoriously reticent to give quotes!!)
3. Get a good photo – depending on your cause and your resources you may want to go for a photo of the person who is giving the quote. However there are times a photo of a client may be inappropriate, the person giving the quote who just poured their soul out to you about how difficult Christmas can be may not be keen to be photographed, or they might not have anything suitable and you might not be able to take one yourself. In this case turn to stock photos. You can find free images at www.pixabay.com, and www.pexels.com or you can get a free month trial at Adobe Stock
4. Use a shopping list – what could a £5 donation pay for? What about a £15 or £30 or £100 – have a few price points and make it clear this is what the donation COULD pay for not WILL pay for to avoid any problems with restricting donations.
5. Ask for donations! I would always start with an initial email out to your mailing list usually around mid-November (I think most people who don’t work in fundraising don’t start thinking about Christmas until after Bonfire Night). I would also launch on social media at this time and send something out to your local papers if you are a local/regional charity. I would then set up regular social media posts (ensure you are interspersing these with other posts so they aren’t all fundraising requests) and at least one more email.
6. Ensure your stakeholders are engaged. Have your trustees and volunteers all seen the email and social media posts? Can they share them amongst their contacts? What about any corporates you have had dealings with? Even if they have already fundraised for you, they might be interested in hearing about what you are doing at Christmas.
7. Mailing – if you have a mailing list and a budget to send letters, then this is a great way of picking up supporters who may not be following you on social media or on your email list. Depending on the size of your list you may be able to do this in house or you may want to use a mailing house. Use your quotes, images and shopping list from your email but remember to write differently for a mailing than an email.
8. Supplement your income with other activities. Can any businesses in the area support you? Could the local schools do a collection? Could you hold a bucket collection? Could the local choir do a concert for you? This is a time of year when many people’s generosity is overflowing and they are keen to find a great cause to support, so get out there and let them know what a difference it will make to the people your charity supports if they choose you.

At the end of the campaign don’t forget to thank everyone who supported you as it is the best way to keep them coming back to your charity. I once received a £1k donation following a thank you to the mailing list to everyone who donated! It is also always worth doing some analysis about where the main sources of income for the campaign came from and what didn’t work so well. If you leave it until the planning stages for the following year you will definitely have forgotten!
If you would like any help with planning a Christmas campaign or analysing your campaign in January, then please feel free to get in touch.

If being a fundraiser is like being on a rollercoaster with highs and lows, then being a sole fundraiser is like being on The Big One at Blackpool pleasure beach!  The highs are ultrahigh as you know that everything that has been achieved is down to you alone, but the lows can be a very lonely place as you question whether you are doing the right thing, and what you should be focusing your time on.

Since I turned to freelancing I have been working as the sole fundraiser for some very small organisations.  I’m perfectly comfortable making decisions and working out a fundraising strategy and simply getting on with things, but if I’m honest the thing I really really want is to occasionally turn to the person next to me and say “I’m doing this now, what do you think??”

Whilst you can’t magic up colleagues for a bit of reassurance when you need it, there are plenty of places to meet other fundraisers and develop your own support network. Check out my list below for some great places to start:

• Institute of Fundraising Sole Fundraisers special interest group – this group have a forum on Linked In where you can post questions and chat to other fundraisers, most of whom are in a similar situation to you.
• Fundraising networking meetings – many regional branches of the Institute of Fundraising organise networking meetings and within special interest groups there will be even more.  Networking can be hard and doesn’t come naturally to most people, but the more you practice the better you will be at it. Be brave, get out there and chat to other fundraisers.  Remember to follow up with people after the event in order to keep in touch and build relationships.
• Online fundraising forums and linked in groups – if you don’t have any networking meetings nearby or can’t get out to them, then reach out to other fundraisers online.  There are loads of fundraising groups on linked in, some are used more regularly than others, my I personally like: Charity UK, Institute of Fundraising (there are also a whole host of special interest IOF groups) and UK Fundraising.I am also a huge fan of the new Facebook group ‘Fundraising Chat’ (if it isn’t clear you are a fundraiser from your Facebook profile you will need to message the owners of the page in order to join)
• Other networking groups in your local area – whilst it’s great to meet up with those in the same industry, you can still feel inspired and energized by networking with people from other industries, and there is a benefit for your work as well as you make great connections which could be profitable in the future.  A quick Google search should give you a range of networking groups in your area.
• Institute of Fundraising – I have mentioned them several times already, but I genuinely think they are a great source of support and information for fundraisers from every size of organisation.  Having discovered just how many small organisations there are in Scotland, IOF Scotland have responded with events aimed at small charities and even a sole fundraisers day in Edinburgh.  They are planning more events in the future so keep your eyes peeled if you are north of the border.
• Mentoring/buddying – Having a mentor or buddy can be a great way to understand your own needs as a fundraiser, develop yourself and grow your career.  There are schemes run by IOF East Midlands, IOF London, IOF North East, IOF North West, IOF SW, IOF W Midlands, and the Small Charities Coalition, you can also look into special interest groups for mentoring schemes and there are individuals who offer mentoring as well (myself included!)
• Training courses – many training courses not only help to facilitate networking with ‘breaking the ice’ activities, they also offer an opportunity to ask questions and share your own experiences which can be an eye opener when you realise many fundraisers have the same issues as you. Remember to exchange contact details with those on the course to help carry on the friendships/working relationships that you have made on the day.

Being a sole fundraiser does not have to mean being an alone fundraiser so get networking and meet some other people in the same boat as yourselves.  Remember a problem shared is a problem halved and with over 130,000 charities listed on the charity commission making less than £100k and nearly 77,000 of them making less than £10k there will be plenty of other fundraisers in a similar situation to yourself.

I have always believed that to be a great fundraiser that you need to be passionate about the cause and I have made my job choices based on this in the past, but is it essential to love your charity in order to do a good job? And if you don't start with a great passion, can this be developed?

Now I'm sure most people would believe that they are good at their job because they work hard and have developed a skill, perhaps you have a qualification or been on a training course, perhaps you have a lifetime of experience and can turn your hand to any cause. There are of course many fundraisers who work for multiple organisations, street fundraiser and agency call staff for example.  They surely can't love every cause and yet I'm sure those fundraisers are professional and effective and still work to the best of their abilities.  As a freelancer/consultant I now work for different organisations all the time.  I have been lucky that I have not been put in the position of whether to take a job or not based on how passionate I feel about their cause, but I think I would do a good job either way.

Yet despite knowing this, I still can't shake the feeling that passion is behind every good ask.  If it were not, why do we involve service users and personal case studies in applications for funding? Why do charities spend time creating in depth briefs for the agency staff they use and why does a charity with centres across the UK send their new staff for a week immersing themselves in the experience their patients receive?

So, I'm going to assume at this point that we have all reached the conclusion together that yes, passion for your cause is important, but how can we fill our staff with it to get the very best out of them?
Here are my top tips for stirring passion in your staff:

1. Start before you employ someone - depending on your cause and how easy/difficult it is to feel passionate about, you may want to start thinking about this before you advertise for a role. Ensure your recruitment consultant knows all about your charity and what is great about it.  If you are advertising on a website , ensure you include information about your charity and why people would want to support it, perhaps include a link to an inspiring video if you have one.

2. During induction - instead of sitting them in front of the charity manual/intranet for an entire day (yes, this happened to me!) fill their time with going to meet people who have been affected by your cause, or your front line staff, or the place where all the action happens. Whilst it is logistically impossible and expensive to send all staff to a project half way across the world, could you be creative and do this in another way? Can you make a video? Can they Skype a member of your project team in the field? I understand this is not the top priority of people working in extreme circumstances but coming up with some way of doing this could pay dividends in the long term.

3. Don't forget - everyone goes through bad days or patches at work, but by intermittently providing an opportunity to remind people why they are here and how important it is, you may just be able to lift people out of their funk and help them get their groove back! Remember it is much more expensive to replace staff than it is to re-inspire them.

4. Share stories - encourage staff, no matter who they are or what job title they hold to share stories they have heard about your charity that inspires them. Create an appropriate forum and start sharing.

Whilst it is possible to do a good job even if you don't love a charity, by following these steps then hopefully your staff will feel passionate and dedicated to go the extra mile and make more money for your organisation.

If you would like to discuss any aspect of managing your fundraising team then please feel free to get in touch and have a chat.