The Face-to-Face fundraising sector has come together to celebrate the best and brightest at its 2026 Fundraising Industry Awards, shining a spotlight on excellence, quality and sector leadership across 2025.

Held on Friday 13 February at Crown Towers in Melbourne, the event drew more than 400 fundraisers, marketing agency staff, charity representatives and sector leaders.

Hosted by The FIN Agency, the awards recognised outstanding performance in Face-to-Face fundraising, with a particular focus on quality donor acquisition, best practice and the long-term sustainability of the sector.

A highlight of the evening was the recognition of Lauren Hendron in the Fundraising Excellence category, following her runner-up placing in the PFRA Fundraiser of the Year award.

Lauren Hendron (left) of A1 Promotions, recognised for her fundraising excellence, and Jenny Kearney (right), Chair of the PFRA and Acquisition Lead at Cancer Council NSW.

The criteria for this award included: presenting a positive image of the sector, impacting change and commitment to personal development. Within this framework, factors such as achieving low attrition rates and excellent donor feedback are important markers of excellence.

Michele Wilkinson, Chief Executive Officer of The FIN Agency, was also acknowledged for her 35 years of service to the Face-to-Face sector. Specifically, she was recognised for: leadership and dedication that has elevated the industry, mentoring of future generations, and creating impact that will last well into the future.

Michele said the awards were about reinforcing standards and celebrating quality.

“The awards celebrate a partnership approach, proactive communication, budget management, a strong commitment to improvement of campaigns, execution of market leading work in areas of campaign fulfillment, and positive contribution to the sustainability of the sector.”

She also said the awards event recognised the contribution that F2F made to fundraising broadly. “If we don’t talk about the impact and the scale of what Face-to-Face fundraising achieves, people don’t understand the magnitude of it.”

Industry data indicates that Face-to-Face fundraising plays a huge role in fundraising for charities and nonprofits. According to Peter Hills-Jones, Chief Executive Officer of the Public Fundraising Regulatory Association, PFRA member charities recruited 322,000 Regular Givers via F2F in 2025, an increase of 8.4% from 2024 (297,000 pledgers). And the PFRA estimates a further 75,000 to 100,000 donors annually are recruited by non-PFRA-member charities.

According to The Benchmarking Project, income from F2F recruited Regular Givers in 2024 was  $235.7 million (from the 42 charities that report F2F results as part of The Benchmarking Project. This total income for calendar 2024 is from all F2F donors recruited in the 10 years from 2015 to 2024.