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Fundraising basics for small voluntary groups and charities

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Fundraising basics for small voluntary groups and charities

Slide 1

Hello and welcome to this recording from Support Cambridgeshire. This training introduces the basics around fundraising that any group should consider.

  • You’ll find the guidance links to all the materials mentioned in this recording at the end of the accompanying transcript.
  • This recording focuses on fundraising through encouraging donations and contributions to activities and events. If you want to find out more about applying for grant funding we have another recording you can look at called Funding Application Tips and you can also look at our Support Cambridgeshire 4 Community funding database available for free on our website which gives information about funds for not for profits in Cambridgeshire.

 

Slide 2

Fundraising provides vital unrestricted income for small charities.  Unlike most grant or contract funding, it is not usually ring fenced for a particular purpose and can be used to cover essential costs that support the delivery of the group’s mission or build reserves that can be used at the discretion of the trustees to build sustainability.

However, with changing economic conditions and new trends in donor expectations, staying effective means adapting and refining your fundraising approach. In this session we’ll look at some key fundraising trends , explore a basic fundraising strategy, discuss building a supporter base, highlight the importance of a strong case for support, touch on the fundraising mix, and finally, outline some tips for planning your fundraising activities.

 

Slide 3 

Key Fundraising Trends include

  • The need to focus on donors from all age groups although older donors remain important for regular donations and legacies, younger donors are more likely to engage in events and in fundraising volunteering
  • Digital Fundraising continues to be important despite the return and growing popularity of in person events. Digital fundraising includes donations made through websites and giving platforms as well as social media and email marketing. Mobile-friendly giving is key with more people than ever browsing and donating through mobile devices.  Areas of focus include:
    • Livestream fundraising – this has been steadily growing on platforms such a Twitch involving people making donations while watching others play online games
    • In person events using digital fundraising tools have also been growing in popularity. Both those centred around socialising such as quizzes and coffee mornings and exercise challenges such as fun runs.
  • The need for greater transparency in relationships with donors: Donors want to know exactly where their money is going. They want to see impact through storytelling, social proof, and real-time updates. The most popular causes continue to be health, children and animals with most individuals supporting 2 or 3 causes
  • Opportunities for Corporate Partnerships: Businesses are increasingly looking to align with social causes both to appeal to the values of their staff and to deliver on their social responsibility commitments.
  • Environmentally conscious campaigns appeal to many donors, especially younger ones, but groups need to ensure they make this alignment with integrity and avoid green washing.

 

Slide 4

Fundraising insights

Given these trends what sorts of things could you do to improve fundraising success?

  • Set fundraising targets and developing fundraising strategies to meet these targets
  • Diversify sources of income
  • Manage data to gain an understanding of your supporters and their patterns of giving behaviour.
  • Make use of AI’s potential to utilise data to anticipate supporter need, predict behaviours and improve efficiency. As well as using free AI packages to help generate resources.

 

Slide 5

A Basic Fundraising Strategy

A fundraising strategy is essentially a roadmap to achieve your funding goals over the next few years. Creating a strategy doesn’t have to be complex:

  1. Start by reviewing where you are now with your fundraising:
    1. How much did you raise in the last couple of years? Which of your activities and events were most successful in raising funds?
    2. Who are your existing supporters and how do they support you? Include those that give you their time and in-kind support to help raise funds as well as direct financial contributions. Are your supporters’ individuals in your local community, small businesses, specific groups with a passion for your cause or some other group?  Think about what you know about your supporters and how you can build a closer relationship with them.
    3. What is the environment you are operating in? Do you have competitors for funding? What are the likely barriers to supporter engagement? For example, cost of living increases or demographic change.
  2. Set your goals: Define how much money you need to raise over a particular period and why.  If you have a business plan this should be reflected here. Be specific – knowing your exact funding requirements and purposes will make it easier to communicate this to supporters.
  3. Select Fundraising Methods: Choose the tactics that best fit your resources and audience, we’ll discuss this further when we look at the fundraising mix.
  4. Allocate Resources: Who can you involve and how, what budget can you afford to allocate?
  5. Finally, continually monitor your efforts, and don’t hesitate to adjust your tactics based on what works and what doesn’t.

 

Slide 6

Developing a Supporter Base

For small charities, a cohort of loyal supporters can be more valuable than simply aiming to grow your number of supporters.  Loyalty is developed by creating relationships.  Here are some points to consider:

Keep in touch: Send out regular updates and stories via social media, emails, and newsletters to help build your community around your cause. The most effective messaging will outline the positive difference their support has made to your beneficiaries.

Show appreciation: Thank your donors so that they know their contributions matter and are valued.

Find ways to engage people: Not everyone can give money, so consider ways they can volunteer, share your cause, or contribute their skills.

Create Donor Journeys: Think of the donor relationship as a journey, from first contact to regular giving, advocacy, and potentially legacy giving. Nurture relationships at each stage.

 

Slide 7

Developing a Strong Case for Support

A compelling case for support is critical – it’s what communicates the need and urgency of your cause. To develop this effectively:

  • Clearly Define the difference you want to make: What problem are you solving, and why does it matter? Describe how contributions make a tangible difference.
  • Share Stories: Facts and figures are essential, but stories create emotional connections. Share real stories of those whose lives have been changed by your organisation’s work. You may want to make it clear if you are intentionally keeping beneficiary identities anonymous.
  • Show Accountability: Highlight how donations are used. Transparency and accountability build trust and show that you’re responsible with funds.
  • Include a Call to Action: Be direct about how supporters can help. Whether it’s donating, volunteering, or spreading the word, make the call to action clear and easy to follow. Don’t be shy about making an ask here is a lot to be said for a big red donate button.

 

Slide 8

The Fundraising Mix

The fundraising mix is the combination of methods you use to bring in donations.  The mix you develop will depend on your specific goals, resources, audience and attitude to risk.  The main elements of the mix are:

  • Individual Giving: This can be one-time giving, such as a collection outside a supermarket or regular giving through direct debit offered by more committed supporters. It is essential that donors’ data is kept secure and that there is good communication to build relationships and to be responsive.  Individuals may also give by paying your organisation for goods or services
  • Community Events: such as charity runs, bake sales, or fetes allow you to engage face-to-face with donors and build connections to create a wider base of supporters. This type of fundraising is resource intensive and requires careful management of costs to ensure a good return on investment.  You will find resources to support event fundraising in the transcript accompanying this recording and for larger events check out your local authority’s safety advisory group page – this covers advice around any licencing and permission required.
  • Peer to Peer fundraising is when supporters raise money on your behalf via their existing networks typically through social media or donation platforms like JustGiving that can reach a wide audience with limited overhead costs.
  • Crowdfunding for not for profits usually involves asking people to donate to a campaign run by an organisation to achieve a specific purpose and within a set time frame. Although we usually associate crowdfunders with online giving platforms, crowdfunding has been used to good effect for many years to raise funds, for example for community buildings.  Some crowdfunding platforms such as ‘Crowdfunder’ and ‘Space Hive’ offer access to match funding opportunities.
  • Finally we have organisational giving: where businesses or organisations such as the Rotary Club may offer sponsorship, volunteering or in-kind donations

 

Slide 9

Fundraising Planning

In addition to creating a fundraising strategy you’ll need a shorter-term action plan. Here are some tips to consider:

Create a Calendar: Map out key fundraising activities throughout the year, considering factors like seasonal giving trends, annual events, busy delivery periods and your cashflow forecast.  For example, Giving Tuesday is a matched crowdfunding opportunity that takes place in December but requires groups to sign up for it in July   There is a link about Giving Tuesday in the transcript.

Create a budget:  Allocate funds to cover fundraising activities, keeping your budget realistic

Set short term targets: such as funds raised, donor retention rates, and event attendance. These will help you assess progress and guide future planning.

Evaluate and Reflect: Regularly assess your fundraising efforts. What worked well, and what didn’t? Use these reflections to feed into what you do.

 

Slide 10

Fundraising compliance

Any charity that is carrying out fundraising activity, even on a small scale, is subject the Fundraising Regulator’s code of fundraising practice.  The code exists to protect the public and encourage those involved in fundraising to follow best practice.  You can find a link to the code in the transcript.  The code includes a requirement to have an easily accessible complaints policy and to put in place safeguards on how to handle and bank any money collected.  Your organisation will also need to comply with other relevant regulations for example around safeguarding, health and safety, food hygiene and licencing.  See the links in the transcript for more on these.

 

Slide 11

Data protection

Data protection is crucial to ensure the privacy and security of supporters information from unauthorised access, misuse, or loss. This is important not only to comply with legal requirements – such as the General Data Protection Regulations – but also to maintain trust and credibility with your supporters.  Take a look at the links relating to this topic in the transcript.

 

Slide 12

In summary

Fundraising brings unique challenges and opportunities. By staying on top of trends, building a dedicated supporter base, creating a compelling case for support, mixing various fundraising methods, and planning strategically, your organisation can become more sustainable.

 

Slide 13

To find out more

For more detail on all of the topics covered here, check out the guidance links in the recording transcript.

You can also contact our team for help including help with policies and templates at

Info@supportcambridgeshire.org.uk and you can join our online fundraisers network to link in with other fundraisers across the county.

 

Guidance links

For more information contact our team on info@supportcambridgeshire.org.uk

Join Support Cambridgeshire’s Fundraisers Network

 

General background information

Fundraising facts you need to know in 2025 (Charity Digital)

Charitable Support Across Generations in the UK and Ireland (Blackbaud institute Nov 24)

UK Civil Society Almanac 2024 (NCVO)

UK Giving 2024 (CAF)

Introduction to engaging with business (Support Cambridgeshire/Get Synergised)

 

Fundraising resources

Guidance and resources for small charities (Chartered Institute of Fundraising CIoF)

How to build a fundraising strategy (Charity Digital )

How to boost your charity campaigns with AI (Charity Digital)

How to perfect the donor journey (Charity Digital)

Storytelling to support your goals (Support Cambs)

A-Z of the best fundraising ideas for charity (Charity Digital)

 

Livestream fundraising

Complete guide to livestream fundraising (Charity Digital)

Gaming for good fundraising pack (End Youth Homelessness)

Jingle jam

 

Events

The ultimate event power pack (Cambridge City Council 2024)

Ideas & resources (Eden Project)

Safer activities and events (NSPCC)

Event Safety Checklist (CCVS)

 

Local authority safety advisory group guidance:

Cambridge City Council

East Cambs DC

Fenland DC

Hunts DC

South Cambs DC

 

Data protection

Advice for small organisations (ICO)

 

Compliance

Community fundraising and events (Fundraising regulator)

Trustees and Fundraising a practical guide (CIoF)

 

Grant funding

Funding Application Tips (Support Cambridgeshire)

Support Cambridgeshire 4 Community funding database

Income diversification discussion for voluntary sector groups

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Background

Support Cambridgeshire ran 2 discussion groups with voluntary sector groups considering the barriers to diversifying their income streams and discussing solutions to build more sustainable futures.

Group 1: comprised 4 smaller organisations with incomes of less than £50k per annum. The groups were a mixture of charities and CICs, all serving different local communities from a variety of perspectives, The current main source of income of for each organisation was grants, with some donations, sales, and member/subscription fees

Group 2: comprised 4 registered charities with turnovers exceeding £100k pa. Their main income sources were grants and contracts and in one case major donors. The funding streams engaged with were:

  • Grants
  • Contracts
  • One-off donations from individuals/online/text/bucket collections
  • Regular donations from individuals through direct debits
  • Large donations from individuals
  • Fundraising via organisational events
  • Fundraising by supporters
  • Sponsorship and business donations
  • Legacy giving
  • Trading through sale of goods and services
  • Donations from other organisations eg Rotary Club

Challenges to diversifying income

We asked the groups about the challenges they are facing in diversifying their income and what ideas they had around the support needed to help them generate more sustainable income.

The key challenges identified were:

  • Lack of capacity
  • Concerns around risk
  • Legal restrictions
  • Need to prioritise beneficiaries
  • Demands made by funders
  • Demands from business supporters

Lack of capacity.  Both in terms of staff time and relevant expertise to find ways to diversify income

All the groups cited lack of capacity as an issue.  The smaller organisations highlighted the need to recruit more volunteers and in particular trustees with the right skills.  They also mentioned the need to offer training and development support for their (often voluntary) leadership teams.

‘The effort it takes to raise money through those kinds of things is so high I think you’ve got to be a charity of a certain size where you’re able to cover those fixed costs.  When you’re this small you’re adding to someone’s role creating a real burden’

Concerns around risk.  Groups are hesitant to explore new income streams due to fear of financial and operational risks.

‘So often these events (organisational fundraisers) represent a massive gamble in terms of resource and costs and certainly don’t deliver the hoped for income gains.’ 

‘We are reliant on what we can raise, we can’t borrow or attract investment.  The more successful we are in meeting our clients’ needs the less funds we have.’

  • The need to prioritise needs of beneficiaries before all else

‘We must be sensitive and respectful about the way we portray our beneficiaries. They don’t want to be labelled disadvantaged.’

‘The absolute priority is the experience for the coworker so that is above and beyond anything that we produce.’

Demands made by funders both around application hurdles, geographic boundaries and reporting

‘There is often a really high level of work for a very low level of donation’

‘We aim to support refugees but the funding we have been given will only support those refugees within a certain local authority boundary, whereas refugees live all over Cambridgeshire, on top of that we get referrals from social prescribers that we refuse because the person doesn’t come from the area we are funded’

Demands from business supporters that can conflict with a group’s mission or operational capabilities

‘ I learned my lesson a bit about over promising to corporates you’ve really got to get crystal clear on how much you can actually deliver for what they’re giving you.’

The smaller organisations also highlighted:

  • The volunteers and trustees supporting the organisation did not have the skills or time to effectively support the growth of the organisation, leading to inconsistent support.
  • Perception that Cambridge organisations were more likely to receive donations than organisation located outside of the City- how could that culture of giving be extended across the county?

How to address the challenges

  • Provide greater access to expert support and guidance
  • Develop more opportunities for networks and peer support learning
  • Encourage the right kind of business support
  • Change the dynamic with grant funders.
  • Create a county wide ‘social value’ brand for Cambridgeshire

Provide greater access to expert support and guidance:

  • Legal/Finance support around trading, legacy and payroll giving
  • Financial guidance and training around budgeting and pricing strategies
  • Fundraising expertise and help with fundraising event logistics
  • Strategic development support.

‘We need to be having more conversations about Legacy giving but I find that most of the resources out there about it are pitched at much larger charities.’

Develop networking and peer support learning and action groups

  • Large scale events that bring in a wide range of potential, customers, partners, collaborators and experts to network and to learn from
  • Peer networks such as small charity CEO networks

Encourage the right kind of business support

The smaller organisations highlighted building relationships with businesses via business networks and The Get Synergised platform to help broker relationships.

The larger organisations had all experience of receiving support and income from businesses and want to improve the way voluntary organisations and business interact by:

  • Promoting the confidence of charity leaders in asking major donors and businesses for money without creating expectations that add additional demands on limited resources

‘We worry we aren’t qualified to talk to potential major donors but our knowledge of delivering front line services makes us passionate and credible.  This is our superpower.’

‘Sometimes it’s enough just to say can you give us some money – we don’t have to sugarcoat it or negotiate or discuss what you’ll get in return’

  • Persuading business to recognise the value of charity time and expertise and consider payroll giving

‘We’ve been lucky in having a few key businesspeople who’ve then been very generous with their contacts and that’s the way that we have become a little bit more known and garnered business donations.  The great thing about business donations from our point of view is that they are in the main unrestricted.’

‘Promoting your charity as an option for payroll giving is a really good one to put back to corporates.’

  • Promote more opportunities for collaboration with key institutions including universities

Change the dynamic with grant funders Title: Supporting Income Diversification for Voluntary Sector Groups Main Content: • Introduction: o Support Cambridgeshire conducted two focus groups with voluntary sector charities and CICs. The goal was to explore barriers to income diversification, potential solutions, and the future if no action is taken. • Barriers: o Lack of capacity o Concerns around risk o Legal restrictions o Need to prioritize beneficiaries over income o Demands made by funders o Demands from business supporters • Solutions: o Provide access to expert support and guidance o Develop more networks and peer support learning o Encourage appropriate business support o Change the dynamic with grant funders o Create a county-wide "social value" brand • The Future Without Change: o Reduced capacity to meet beneficiary needs o Staff burnout o Smaller organizations may not survive • Impact of Session: o Participants found the sessions very or extremely useful. They gained valuable insights and ideas to benefit their organizations, particularly regarding income diversification. The sessions also provided an opportunity to share experiences and best practices. Visual Elements: • Icons illustrating each section, such as a magnifying glass, a speech bubble, and a checkmark, are used to reinforce the points visually. The infographic uses a colour scheme of teal, orange, yellow, and green with bold and clear fonts.

Advocate for grant makers to adopt more flexible, long-term funding strategies that support capacity building and income generation Persuade funders to make their requirements proportionate.

Creating a countywide ‘social value’ brand to support individual marketing

County marketing to build a social value network in Cambridgeshire leveraging collective strength and raising the profile of their work within the county.

The future without change

We asked the groups what are the consequences of continuing with their existing funding models and where did they think they would be in 18 months’ time?  The larger organisations expected to still be in existence in 18 months’ time but had concerns about their capacity to deliver services and the wellbeing of their staff and volunteers.  The smaller organisations agreed that in the medium term they needed to change their current funding model if they were to survive.

The groups focussed on:

  • Staff burnout

‘Something’s got to shift either we have to grow (and take on more capacity and expertise) or shrink.  We can’t sustain where we are now.’

‘I am the only person who writes the funds, manages and reports on them and it is only a small part of my job – burnout is a concern’

  • The dangers of having an inbuilt cycle of short-term planning

‘Our horizons are short term.  I don’t have a road map into next year, it is hand to mouth all the time.’

‘We will carry on, but we have a crumbling building that needs work and issues with keeping our staff motivated.’

 

Impact of focus group sessions

The groups’ feedback was that the sessions were very useful or extremely useful and agreed they had gained something to benefit their organisations.  They welcomed the opportunity to share experiences and best practice and took away income diversification ideas to discuss with their own organisations.

‘It was reassuring learning about the issues that other managers were experiencing, and the similarity with mine! Particular approaches to fundraising were especially useful and the commonality around the balancing act of being both inclusive and money focused.’

If you are interested in discussing ideas around income diversification for your not for profit organisation, please get in touch: enquiries@cambridgecvs.org.uk

Let’s talk about trading

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We recently hosted an event – one of three this summer exploring funding diversification for charities.  The focus of this event was on trading.  We kicked off with a presentation from Livia Velicu – an Associate in the Charity and Social Enterprise team at Bates Wells, followed by presentations from three local charities who are trading or in the process of developing their ideas on trading.

Livia gave us a whistle stop tour of charities and trading looking at the legal basis on which charities can trade without creating a trading subsidiary.  She then went on to explain when it might be advantageous to set up a trading subsidiary and the pros and cons of doing so.  You can watch a recording of Livia’s presentation here.

The charities sharing their experiences around trading were:

Cambridge Community Arts (CCA) – a social inclusion charity that uses art place-based activities to support personal growth, improve health and wellbeing.

The Kite Trust – who work to support the wellbeing and creativity of LGBTQ+ young people in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough.

Romsey Mill – who are committed to overcoming disadvantage, injustice and social inclusion with young people, children and families across Cambridgeshire and into Peterborough.

We asked each charity:

– what they do at present by way of trading

– the contribution it makes to their charitable mission.

– how they see trading in the context of their funding mix now and in the future

CCA’s new CEO Emily Jolley shared that her charity is at an early stage in their trading journey.  Historically they have obtained most of their income from contracts with some trading income derived from learners contributing to fees.  Their main contract is coming to an end which has led the team to re-evaluate their approach to trading income.  Trading plans include looking to develop workshops for companies around employee engagement and wellbeing, and running one off workshops for paying learners.

Emily went on to conclude that aside from the need to develop inhouse expertise and delivery models to make a success of trading, there were barriers to overcome towards charities looking to raise income and that this needed to be addressed.

The Kite Trust’s CEO Pip Gardner shared that around 20% of their income comes from primary purpose trading.  There are 3 strands to this:

  1. Merchandising which makes a minimal contribution.
  1. Work with schools – originally local authority grant funded, the Rainbow Flag Award is a national programme which The Kite trust run in partnership with charities from elsewhere in the country.  The programme is set up to focus on positive LGBT+ inclusion and to tackle LGBT phobic bullying in schools and is funded by fees from schools.  The Kite Trust views this programme as aligned with their charitable purpose and is run to break even rather make profit as they recognise the limits on school budgets.
  1. Training consultancy – after a slow and unsteady start (thanks to the pandemic) this income strand is starting to yield income – the target is 5% of the charity’s turnover.  To develop training consultancy income the charity has made significant investment in developing a bank of associate trainers (from a wide range of backgrounds) and recruited staff specifically to manage the programme.  Early in the process the charity was able to secure a grant to build capacity for the development of this funding stream which helped limit some of their financial liability.  The Kite Trust is currently looking to develop a business plan with systems, processes and marketing to scale up the training consultancy programme.

Romsey Mill’s CEO Neil Perry outlined that at £300k, trading represents around 17% of his charity’s income.  The main areas of trading activity are:

  • Romsey Mill’s charity shop on Mill Road
  • Cara Coffee social enterprise coffee shop in Shelford
  • Hall hire from the three local halls that the charity manages
  • Some training and resources sold to other organisations.

Romsey Mill’s approach to trading is reflective of the relational rather than transactional approach the charity takes to its activities.  They look for trading to bring together community benefit including valuable volunteering experiences.  Neil highlighted the importance of looking for capital funding to help set up any enterprise rather than risking a charity’s own reserves.  As Neil made clear, trading is ‘not a pot of gold’ it is resource and time intensive – Cara Coffee after several years now makes a £9,000 surplus but this is in large part because the café operates rent free.

Neil recommended that organisations considering trading:

  • Review their current income mix
  • Learn from others and be prepared to innovate
  • Be clear about their ideal income mix and their organisation’s approach to risk
  • Be realistic about timescales and results.

Looking to the future Romsey Mill are open to developing further social enterprises and are considering developing their knowledge and experience products.

To hear much more from the three charities involved in the event you can see a recording here.

If you are interested in discussing ideas around income diversification for your not for profit organisation, please get in touch with us at enquiries@cambridgecvs.org.uk