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Welcome to Propper Fundraising, the website collating fundraising blogs and articles written by some of the best fundraisers, leaders, marketers and data professionals.

Leadership and Advancement in the Current Crisis – I wish we had started earlier!

In this second article on leadership in a crisis, Karen Cairney and Colin McCallum discuss the importance of focusing on external relationships. They discuss if now is too late to start and whether you are ready to launch into an emergency campaign. https://www.cairneyandcompany.com/blog/2020/3/30/leadership-and-advancement-in-the-current-crisis-i-wish-we-had-started-earlier

Do the next right thing: Leading during Coronavirus

Here is the first in a series of useful articles to tackle fundraising during a crisis. This article is written by Shaun Horan, who delves into how you can be resilient during times of change and make the best decisions possible with the limited information available. Shaun identifies three key qualities needed.https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/do-next-right-thing-leading-during-coronavirus-shaun-horan

8 Things Your Team Wants from You

If you’re a development manager or you’re hoping to be one someday, here’s a list of things that your staff wants from you. And if you can put this list into practice, your team will not only be successful and bring in positive results, they’ll also be happy in their work and stay with you […]

Understanding the emotional journey of fundraising

A fundraising campaign can be an emotional rollercoaster, with the initial highs of launching your challenge and getting a flurry of donations often followed by lows as the money coming in slows. What can a fundraiser do to prepare for the ups and downs? Dr Beth Breeze, director of the University of Kent’s Centre for Philanthropy […]

Which Staff Member Has the Biggest Impact on Fundraising?

Which staff member in a fundraising office has the potential to the biggest, long-term impact? The Major Gift Officer? Sure. They bring in big gifts. Chief Development Officer? Absolutely. They have the ultimate responsibility. Planned Giving,Annual Fund, Special Events – any of these? All revenue generators. Sure. But who has the potential to have the […]

What Every Leader Should Know About Purpose

Upwards of 80% of the world’s workforce reports active disengagement in their work. Engagement means being prideful and enthusiastic about the job. And most organizations have compelling mission/purpose statements that have been carefully word-smithed. We’ve become really good at knowing our purpose as leaders and organizations. We plaster it on the office walls, put it […]

Pregnant at Oxford University: Juggling motherhood with studying

Are you ever asked why you are fundraising? Some of the responses I’ve come across include “surely the problem will sort itself out”, “someone else should be paying for it” or “you must have enough money already”? When you come across experiences like these shared by Emily Beater and Aswathy Mohanaprakas and you know that […]

My experience of being a woman in the charity sector

Just as we all say that homogenous trustee boards lead to homogenous senior leadership and we all agree that we must tackle the balance of gender, sexual identification, ethnicity, ability and age on the Board, then we must be careful not to take our foot off the pedal just because we found brilliant leaders who […]

In conversation with Liesl Elder and Amanda Bringans… The Highlights

In 2018, Blackbaud ended their UK conference with a conversation between Liesl Elder, Chief Development Officer at the University of Oxford and Amanda Bringans, Director of Fundraising at the British Heart Foundation. Here, Blackbaud present highlights from their discussion as these two successful fundraising leaders from two sides of the sector, charity and Higher Education […]

Be confident, be bold: 10 tips from female charity leaders

This article first appeared in The Guardian in 2015. While more than two-thirds of the UK’s voluntary sector workforce are women, men still dominate leadership roles. In the UK’s top 50 fundraising charities by income, just 30% have female chief executives and only 36% of trustees are women. Women are still under-represented at the top, […]