This article was first published 29 May, 2019 Legacies remain one of the last great opportunities in fundraising. Massively fewer of us give in death than we do in life, even though we often care passionately about the causes we support. Often this happens because folks either aren’t asked or are asked poorly. So what are the basics of legacy fundraising? First, drop the ‘L’ word. Legacies sound like something only wealthy people can do and bequests sound like something only royalty can do. Offering donors the opportunity to leave a ‘gift in their will’ is infinitely smarter. All of us can do that, and one of the big reasons…
Glaciers move slowly. Sometimes you need to take several snapshots over a long period of time to see any movement at all. And so it is with regulatory reform in fundraising. But if the current rate of change is anything to go by, there is reason for hope that the next 24 months could deliver the kind of red tape reduction fundraisers have been seeking for what seems like an Ice Age. The mood for reform was captured in the unanimous recent report of the Senate Select Committee on Charity Fundraising in the 21st Century, which said: “the Australian Government must demonstrate a commitment to achieve urgent reform.” The Select…
Nicola Long: Hey Kaz, thank you so much for making the time to share your thoughts with us. I know you’re just back from Europe and the USA helping to launch the Ration Challenge with partner NGOs. I’d be really interested to hear how that’s going, but first, this headline… really? Kaz McGrath: I have stood at conferences with people from the sector all around the world and listened to them explain how wrong we’re doing things and the numerous reasons why we haven’t yet seen a transformative change in our sector. It seems that the biggest obstacle we are facing is overcoming the scepticism that we could actually pull…
In 2019, we celebrate a new chapter in Pareto Fundraising’s Benchmarking: being one step closer to delivering ‘Benchmarking live’ through an interactive online portal. It will better help charities turn insights into action, find solutions to fundraising challenges and identify opportunities for program development. To produce this year’s report, Pareto’s team of data scientists and engineers crunched the data on 22.4 million donors, 208.7 million gifts and analysed 237 million rows of data from member Australian charities. The full data analysis and reports belong to the charities who participated in Benchmarking. But in the spirit of sharing, here are some of the key learnings. FUNDRAISING INCOME HAS PLATEAUED Overall, the…
A colleague recently shared a slide presentation with me – it was of a study that suggested the measurement of non-financial transactions was being underutilised by not-forprofit organisations. I wholeheartedly agreed. But, one of the questions and the responses stood out to me. The question was: “What kind of non-financial activity about donors and supporters are you tracking?” The top responses were: “E-mail open rates”; “E-newsletter subscription”; “Activity on organisation Facebook page”; “Mention of organisation Twitter profile”; and “Virality or reach of social networks”. OTHER IMPACTFUL NON-FINANCIAL ACTIVITIES To me, these responses were okay, but I felt like something was missing. The slide show focused on one side of non-financial…
Young Fundraiser of the Year Alan White appointed to FIA Board of Directors Alan White, Fundraising Manager at Asylum Seeker Resource Centre (ASRC), has been appointed to the Fundraising Institute Australia board of directors. Alan is also FIA’s 2019 National Young Fundraiser of the Year. “We’re pleased to welcome Alan to the board of directors of FIA. At just 29, he has accomplished a great deal in his eight years in the sector. The FIA board of directors is looking at ways to encourage more young people to consider fundraising as a career and Alan is perfectly placed to help us with this. His insights, experience and advice will help…
Without fail, the chart that provokes the most interest and response every time More Strategic delivers a presentation is the ‘Seven Shifts’ (see Chart 1 below). It illustrates the seven ways in which our research shows charities need to change to build longer term, more engaged relationships with donors. Put simply: we need to give our donors choice and control. Giving choice shows respect, and we need to respect our donors first and foremost. We also need to engage in dialogue with them to understand their motivations, needs and experiences so we can react quickly and deliver great customer experiences. As part of this, we need to ask more questions…
