Recession is a golden fundraising opportunity

A strange disease, Credit Crunch Gloom, pervades the Third Sector but it can make our fundraising more effective, more creative, and help us concentrate on the donors who really matter.

Just remember these tips:

• Remember the 80/20 rule. Mostly 80% of our income comes from 10-20% of donors. Lose a few big donors and life becomes risky so meet them, share your challenges, and ask them for help now not when there is a crisis.
• Where are the opportunities? Take half a day examining which fundraising activities can grow. Cull the less effective and reinvest savings in better fundraising. Involve staff, trustees and finance teams but create positive, not gloomy, sessions. Use the ACEVO Fundraising Helpline to help.
• Too dependent on public sector funding? Work hard on these relationships but decide if they are sustainable. If not, diversify income streams now before Treasury and local authorities start cutting back.
• Diversification means new fundraising investment which only comes from reserves, cutting expenditure or new investors. If reserves are limited that only leaves cutting programmes or investment; neither is easy but decide today.
• Get visionary because cost effective fundraising takes time. Your plans will kick in as we emerge from recession. I know it seems crazy during cutbacks but donors support causes aiming to solve real problems. They expect a clear and costed vision from you.
• Never take on more than one or two new fundraising ideas and invest steadily as they prove themselves. Never invest everything up front.
• Be careful in recruiting fundraising staff. It can be more sensible to train existing staff. Consider outsourcing, mentoring or consultancy but take care not to lose your relationship with donors.
• Chief Executives will be devoting more time to fundraising. Decide how to carve out more time for fundraising.
• For some, and only some, recession increases demands. Hard times for some like homelessness and mental health will strengthen the fundraising arguments. If hard times increase your workload use it but research shows that blowing the recession trumpet may reduce income if the need is not real.
• Britain has more wealthy and affluent people than ever before. Of course they feel slightly poorer but they are mostly still giving.
• Earlier recessions saw businesses moving from cash donations to gifts in kind, often office space, secondees and employee volunteering.
  

Andrew Thomas, Founder, Charity Consultants

Charity Consultants provide a free helpline to ACEVO members.
Members who are trying to raise over £1 million, can also access the free half day Credit Crunch Review

ACEVO members can find details of how to access the free helpline here

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