Helping you to fundraise properly
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/
The Institute of Fundraising (IoF) recently launched Good Asking – a report on why charities research and process supporter information. They worked with leading academic Dr Beth Breeze from the University of Kent, to survey over 300 fundraisers to understand why they process and research information about their supporters, and what the benefits are for donors, charities and the wider public.
The purpose of this report is to shed light on the importance of fundraisers and their work. If they are to be successful, fundraisers need to conduct research to facilitate the efficient and accurate matching of donors and the causes they might wish to support, and to do so in a way that makes the experience as pleasurable as possible for the generous donor.
THE REPORT FINDINGS INCLUDE:
The report also highlights that:
https://www.institute-of-fundraising.org.uk/library/good-asking-report-2017/
Data governance is needed to ensure your organisation can consume data which has integrity and quality.
But how do you focus your efforts so that your governance programme can deliver the results needed?
Toochukwu Philip Ibegbu MBA shares with us how he was able to successfully launch data governance initiatives that made the most impact.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/data-governance-3-key-areas-focus-your-efforts-philip-ibegbu/
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
Retention is one of the Big 5 KPIs to measure, but why is it so important?
A 10 percent improvement in attrition can yield up to a 200 percent increase in projected value, as with lower attrition significantly more donors upgrade their giving, give in multiple ways, recommend others, and, ultimately, perhaps, pledge a planned gift to the organization.
In this sense the behavior of “customers” and the value they generate appear to mirror that reported in the for-profit consumer sector, where similar patterns of value and behavior emerge. Indeed, the marketing literature is replete with references to the benefits that a focus on customer retention can bring.
Adrian Sargeant explains more in this article.
https://nonprofitquarterly.org/donor-retention-nonprofit-donors/
Reinier Spruit discusses how we’re in the relationship building business and how we need to measure and register every response.
Ironically, we must quantify the relations with our donors, so we can improve the quality of the contact we have with them.
There are a ton of metrics we can track, and should track, like email open rates, sign-up rates per hour, one-off cash donations and appeal response rates. But there are 5 that are simply much more important. Mainly because they are the building blocks for making sensible decisions for the longer term.
I call them the Big Five. The Big Five are Volume, Expenditure, Income, Retention and Return on Investment.
Find out more by clicking the link below:
https://101fundraising.org/2014/05/big-5-fundraising-performance-metrics/
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.
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.
Nonprofit board members have the potential to be exceptional ambassadors for the charity. However, finding the time to coach board members in the art of putting the organization’s public face on view can be tricky.
In some cases, the CEO simply doesn’t encourage contact between the board and staff. At other times, they fail to include selected directors in important conversations with key public figures and/or major donors or foundation executives.
In this article, Eugene Fram highlights a number of ways to develop “ambassadorships” on the nonprofit board: