Helping you to fundraise properly
An exploration of the intersection of compliance and ethics programmes and behavioural science may not immediately strike you as a top candidate for your summer reading list – especially a fundraising reading list – but it would be a mistake to miss out on this review of a research paper by Meredith Niles. She considers how the learnings could be applied to fundraising to provide us with some well considered new perspectives.
At the end of 2016, when the ICO fined several charities for breaching the Data Protection Act 1998, Ian MacQuillin, wrote a fascinating philosophical piece on how charities are perceived by different types of people.
Even though this feels like a long time ago, it’s still as relevant today as it was back then. Whenever you feel that GDPR and data protection are not your friend, have a read of this.
This long read by John Baguley from International Fundraising Consultancy is split into several parts and what the team has learnt as they gear up to the firms 20th anniversary. focus on their top 20 tips to help us fundraise more effectively.
These 20 key facts every fundraiser should know: some are basic and some are outside any box we have ever found. None should be forgotten as we seek to grow our income and influence.
Part 1: https://groupifc.com/blog/2020-vision-in-fundraising/
Part 2: https://groupifc.com/blog/2020-vision-in-fundraising-part-ii/
Part 3: https://groupifc.com/blog/2020-vision-in-fundraising-part-iii/
Part 4: https://groupifc.com/blog/2020-vision-in-fundraising-part-iv/
Are you drowning in analysis paralysis? Having data to back up your decision making is good, but sometimes there is just too much!
Sometimes people often struggle to convert data into effective solutions to problems. The problem isn’t lack of data; the vast amount of data means managers struggle to prioritise what’s important. In the end, they end up applying arbitrary data toward new problems, reaching a subpar solution.
Here, Tanya Menon and Leigh Thompson discuss how you can make better decisions with less data.
https://hbr.org/2016/11/how-to-make-better-decisions-with-less-data
To deliver against their duties, charity trustees need to be able to identify the critical issues – the charity’s purposes and plans, its solvency, its resilience and quality of governance – and to be able to review these at regular intervals.
In this post, the Charity Commission has designed 15 questions to help charity trustees carry out such a review and decide what they need to focus on.
Boards play a crucial role in helping a charity achieve its mission and deliver the greatest impact possible. Sonali Patel discusses that when charities follow best practice in governance, they are more effective, forward looking and efficiently run.
Funders of charities require good governance for a charity to be effective. While there are exceptions, it is therefore surprising that there are not more funders who provide investment for charities to improve governance.
https://www.alliancemagazine.org/blog/funders-can-unlock-good-charity-governance/
Dan Francis from the NCVO shares key findings from the Good Trustee Guide.
Amongst the recommendations, Dan discusses how to make boards more diverse, accessible and make inductions less complex.
The reference to mind tricks makes this blog by Dr Travis Bradberry sound a little sinister, but making yourself more astute and aware of your surroundings, and the way people engage with you, can give you an edge when dealing with prospects.
As soon as you become aware of these 11 tricks, they start popping up wherever you look. With minimal effort on your part, their unconscious influence on behavior can make a huge difference in how you handle your prospects and in your day-to-day life.
If you’re anything like me – a quick escape into space can work wonders – you will enjoy this blog. If, however, you’ve never seen a Star Wars movie before, you can use this blog to bluff your way through a conversation by realising how similar a sci-fi romp and fundraising really is! 🙂
Regardless how you feel about Star Wars, this is a lovely intro on the fundraising characteristics needed to excel in fundraising by Ellie Burk.
https://www.classy.org/blog/ways-working-nonprofit-like-star-wars-gifs/
Major donor fundraising is not about quick wins. Instead, careful and considered relationship building between key stakeholders can support the process in much more effective terms.
How can this be achieved and institutional expectations met? UKFundraising comes to the rescue with 7 key considerations to make.