I still hear from organisations that their monthly donors continue to drop off and cancel. Two recent articles from Professional Fundraising and Philanthropy UK seem to suggest across the sector that is the trend but people are still signing up to help non profits:
The Association of Payroll Giving Organisations reports that the number of employees signing up to payroll giving schemes has fallen only slightly.
Figures from APGO’s five member professional fundraising organisations show that 60,366 employees signed up to a payroll giving scheme in the 2008/09 financial year, compared with 60,942 in 2007/08.
The number of direct debit donors has increased significantly, but so too has the number of donors defaulting on their commitments, according to new figures.
Direct debit donor levels are 600,000 higher than 2007, according to figures from automated payment processor Bacs Payment Schemes, which has labelled reports which claim direct debit cancellations are on the rise as “misleading”.
That was the headline in the Irish Times today where the author goes on to quote numerous heads of fundraising about how bad things are. I think Tim O’Dea came across as being most balanced.
What frustrates me about this is overall its not balanced its all about doom and gloom and I genuinely dont think it helps us to be fueling this fire. As for the title! Give me a break.
Thought this might be of interest. Based in Cork, Ireland. Here is the blurb:
CCPI (Chernobyl Children’s project International) is a not for profit organisation (NGO) founded by Adi Roche in 1991. CCPI raises funds to support its core projects in Belarus, Ukraine and Western Russia. We co-ordinate several projects such as Medical, Building, Rest & Recuperation, Community Care, Hospice and Deinstitutionalisation. CCPI has two offices; one in Cork with ten staff and one in Minsk, Belarus with eight staff. We also have a volunteer led office in Washington, USA.
We are currently seeking to recruit an experienced Operations Manager. The post holder will work closely with and report to the Chief Executive Officer
If you are interested contact the recruitment firm and ask for Sheila Hurley, + 353 (21) 48 09 11 8 or email sheila.hurley@collinsmcnicholas.ie
I was sent an email about this from Refugee Weekand I really like it. Its not a fundraising campaign but then again everything doesnt have to be!
The idea is simple people are invited not to raise funds, or make huge gestures, but to choose from 20 Simple Acts such as cooking a dish from a foreign country or watching a movie with/about refugees, which brings them closer to refugees.
Every Simple Act –will be contributed to on an online total at Refugee Week.org.uk so people can see what a big impact they are making collectively.
What I like about this is its a really clever way to make you connect with the organisation. I really like to cook so when I saw the idea of cooking a dish from a foreign country I thought, well I cook anyway, so why not.
online giving site mycharity.iereports that May was its most successful month for fundraising. EVER!
Yes since they started three years ago this May (the one with the recession) was the best they saw. I know there are factors such as mycharity.ie being more widely used etc…But still, isnt that some good news?
€298,185 was raised for charities in April. 6753 people donated an average of €44 each to reach this figure and the largest donation was €2000. 776 fundraisers created fundraising pages for their chosen charity.
May was the biggest month for mycharity.ie since records began 3 years ago!
I sometimes get frustrated when I see things being overcomplicated. Simple is beautiful! This video is a reminder of that. Thanks Paul for showing it to me, hope I didnt steal your thunder by posting it!
After a successful weekend of fundraising and then reading Damian’s post here about his recent successes (donor mailing up 42%) I am even more convinced now that if you give donors what they want you will be successful.
I am not saying I have a new magical piece of information here. I think thats the thing, there is no magical solution. The reality is everyone doesnt want to give to your cause. Your target market isnt everyone.
So know who you are targeting. Then do the small things well. Give people a really good reason to give and a really good reason why they should give now, you will be successful.
It kicks off at 6am this morning. These guys did an amazing job last year (and thanks to KP for what she did to get this off the ground in year 1), I have heard some of the stories that families have been kind enough to share with them this year and they are incredible.
What always gets me about these events is the fact that, no matter what the families and children have been through, they have nothing but good things to say about the hospitals. Cork is no different and CUH and Mercy’s children’s wards do amazing work, day in and day out.
This event is being run in conjunction with Children’s Miracle Network (yes thats who the day job is with). Its going to be great.
I was fortunate enough to get to stay at the Malmaison Hotel in Newcastle yesterday. These guys know their clients. I was really impressed by this sign in reception. Clearly hotels are places where people come and have business meetings in the reception. Most hotels, or a lot of hotels, make people a little uncomfortable about this. Not Malmaison, they seem to embrace it and encourage it.
Just made me think that we need to try understand the people that come to our organisations and challenge ourselves into thinking…why are they here? If we can answer that question then we can start delivering a better donor experience for them.
I keep going to write a post about non profits needing to be what they say they are and this scene from Starsky & Hutch just keeps popping into my head. So to allow me write the post I need to get it out of my head!!
“Cause-related marketing” is what we use to describe activities that are ancillary to a brand but which are not necessarily central to its proposition, for example, supporting a 10K race.
“Mutual Social Responsibility” is about inspiring the consumer and the brand to act together for common good.
Edelman are embracing this concept through their goodpurpose™ consulting, which they call “a new way to engage consumers and brands to work together to take action and effect positive social change for mutual benefit”
I came across them about a year ago and really liked the concept and some of the stuff they were doing. Recently when thinking about getting married myself and Gemma decided that instead of doing favours we were going to buy a net for every guest who attends (we were really taken by the impact a net has when we saw it on Comic Relief). Liking what Nothing But Nets does I decided to contact them and just ask if we could get something small to put on each table to let people know.
They have been fantastic.
Firstly they replied to my initial email within a couple of hours and straight away made me feel like I was important to them. I emailed an info@ address (which I tend not to like) but the reply to it made up for it, I was speaking to a person, Julie, and she gave me her email address and direct line so I could call her if I wanted to.
I went back with a few questions or thoughts that I had and Julie came back to me and really over delivered on my expectations. Lots of suggestions and she emailed me a whole load of stuff.
What I really liked was that Julie was taking a personal interest in the donation and she was so appreciative, not in a gushing way, but in a genuine way.
So well done Nothing But Nets. A great donor experience (oh and we still have to complete the donation as we still dont know the numbers attending our wedding).
The Women’s Mini Marathon is a great event. 40,000 women take part and the majority of them use it as an occassion to raise money for their favourite charity, resulting in Millions being raised for charity. Good luck to them all.
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