At the IOF recently I overheard a few senior fundraisers stating how their intuition was core to making large scale future fundraising investments. 

And this of course is nothing new. One of the benefits of being an experienced fundraiser is having a well-honed gut instinct for what works well and what doesn’t.

There’s no doubt that intuitive bets have paid dividends for many charities in the past. And in a stable and established charity sector, following your instinct is a sure-fire way to success based on a well-worn feel for what worked in the past.

Today, however, relying on hunches alone has become increasingly risky. 

When intuition meets increasing complexity

Fundraising is fast becoming convoluted and complex. The variety of ways audiences support and engage is evolving and, as a result, decision-making based based mostly on intuition is less assured and less likely to succeed. 

As this trend continues, many senior fundraisers are in a tricky position, where even with years of experience and knowledge on their side, acting on gut instinct can be a bit of a gamble. 

It makes a lot of sense then to combine that hard-won intuition with a more evidence-based approach, leveraging insight derived from data. 

So why aren’t fundraisers already doing this across the board?

Most charities have a wealth of data but not always at their fingertips. Putting this data to practical use for decision-making is often the biggest obstacle.  Maybe it takes months to compile a post-campaign-analysis simply because that’s always the way it’s been done. Perhaps you are able to only look at channels in isolation, or your reports don’t roll up to give a high-level view of performance against priorities. 

Or maybe it’s the fact the mosaic of performance measures available is blinding you to what’s working, what isn’t, where you should invest and where you might want to optimise. 

Whatever the reasons, it takes a concerted effort to embed usable views of performance derived from data. 

In our experience this is best delivered via browser-based dashboards – highly accessible and easy to consume reports in a graphical format – which, when delivered collaboratively, can fast become an invaluable source of actionable insight across your organisation. 

These well-designed visual dashboards work on a number of levels, helping you gain a clear picture of key aspects of performance, so you can unpack activities and optimise spend. 

Track the KPIs and insight on what’s business critical

Make business decisions supported by robust, accurate insight

Visualise moments of truth, customer journeys and future contact strategies 

Instill governance and controls - all from a single source of truth

Deliver automated and real-time insight directly to every user’s device.


It’s also important to remember that effective visualisations, when done right, are about more than the tool itself. Poorly designed and over-engineered dashboards can actually cause more confusion than illumination.

Effective dashboards, delivered collaboratively, help create a common language for fundraisers based on your most important objectives.

Properly scoping this will help narrow your focus to what will speak to and support the priority functions in your organisation, rather than over-engineering your dashboard with too many sanity and vanity metrics and filters.

Just as important is how you use the dashboard to inform your decisions on an ongoing basis. Regular check-ins and cross-discipline analysis sessions are a must.

Summary: If you’re not effectively measuring, you’re mostly guessing

In an evolving charity sector, it’s crucial that intuition is not your sole decision-making source but is well supported with data and insight. This begins with metrics and KPIs, delivered via easy to consume dashboards. 

Effective dashboards are much more than numbers and dials. They are a means to ensure shared comprehension of performance and engagement. And they help you make more informed decisions on future activity to repeat, reshape or discontinue.

Intuition should play a key role in driving your strategic direction. But with metrics and insight at your fingertips, it’s time to lose the gut and take the guesswork out. 

Want to make more confident decisions and turn insight into action? 

We help fundraisers build a powerful shared focus around the metrics that matter.

Get in touch if you’d like to find out more.

Fundraisers: Let’s take the guesswork out

Intuition should play a key role in driving fundraiser's strategic direction. But it is no replacement for data; it’s time to lose the gut and take the guesswork out. 

For fundraisers, acting on gut instinct alone can be a bit of a gamble. Instead, intuition combined with a more evidence-based approach can lead to more informed decisions. 

Fundraisers: Let’s take the guesswork out | Signal Blog 

Ben Hunt-Davis MBE is a big believer in focusing on the metrics that matter. 

He was part of an underachieving British rowing team who came in last place at the 1996 Olympics. But his team went on to achieve a remarkable turnaround, winning Gold in Sydney four years later. 

How did they do it? By organising themselves around one simple question: ‘will it make the boat go faster?’ 

Hard work, determination and training were all still required, of course, but all those efforts were directed towards one clear purpose.

Ben’s story beautifully illustrates the power of being laser-focused. But with the charity sector in the midst of an unprecedented period of change, it can be tricky for fundraisers to identify such a simple route to success.

We know that ambitious fundraisers are exploring new recruitment channels and products, and new ways to deepen engagement and value from supporters.  

Making that shift can be risky however, without a clear view of the right metrics at the right time. And the reality for many charities is that it can take months to analyse their results and make recommendations for future activity.  

However the same basic principle applies to charities as much as it does an Olympic rowing team - decisions are made much easier when you have access to the right metrics to steer the ship.

When we talk about the ‘metrics that matter’ it’s not about saying some of your KPIs are unimportant. It’s about being clear which metrics are most important of all. And giving internal teams a way to easily communicate (and understand) how you’re tracking against them.

Getting the timing right is also crucial. I’ve heard too many stories of charity teams getting a shock when unexpected results are unveiled to them months down the line. Not only that, but the time it’s taken to produce the results means a lot of missed opportunities.

For example, one Head of Individual Giving recently told me that they almost fell off their chair when the charity’s data agency presented the ‘latest’ view of their Weekly Lottery retention performance (which was actually 6 months old).  

The expansion of recruitment channels had dramatically increased attrition, but their teams were operating for months without this knowledge and repeating costly mistakes over and over again. 

Putting a stronger performance culture in place

Thankfully, charities that cultivate a strong performance culture can avoid this situation.  By establishing a shared view of your charity’s most important metrics, all in one place, at a glance, fundraisers will benefit from:

Improved accountability across internal teams, with a common language and a genuine reason to collaborate

The ability to make better, quicker decisions, enabling meaningful progress against big strategic challenges.

The insight to turn off, or reshape failures as soon as they become apparent, and build on successes as soon as they show a significant uplift. 

All hands on deck - collaboration is critical

As my colleague Sam points out, well-designed visual dashboards can provide these benefits, but tools alone don’t guarantee success, especially if bought ‘off the shelf’ and left to gather dust.

The most important part of cultivating a performance culture is making sure all the key end users/stakeholders (IG, Data, Digital teams) are together from the start, to discuss, challenge and agree on the common insight view that will drive performance forward. 

This co-creation means that internal charity teams have the reassurance of a common, agreed-upon results view (via a tailored dashboard) that they can use to minimise risks. This facilitates leaner working practices, and continual testing and learning.  

This on-going lens into the latest results can be liberating. It strips dangerous delays and a reliance on outside agencies (and their reporting routines) out of the process. 

In a sector where every pound spent on fundraising is (rightly) scrutinised, placing bets should be as informed as possible. And with a little bit of effort upfront, it is possible for charities to track the most important metrics and therefore make better decisions.

Just as Ben Hunt-Davis’s ‘big question’ kept the whole British rowing team on track for Olympic success, charities that prioritise performance measurement in this way will be able to make quicker progress against big goals. 

It should also help fuel appetites amongst internal teams to work together for further positive change, and make the job of fundraising much less frustrating and more interesting for everyone involved.

Do you want to improve your fundraising results? 

We help charities create a powerful shared focus around the metrics that matter.

How fundraisers can make faster progress by tracking the metrics that matter

A shared understanding of the latest key metrics is central for fundraising success

Charities can make better decisions when they have access to the right metrics, but what do we really mean when we talk about the ‘metrics that matter’. 

 How fundraisers can make faster progress by tracking the metrics that matter | Signal Blog 

The IOF Convention, which takes place over 3 days in July each year at the spectacular Barbican Centre in London, is Europe’s biggest fundraising event of the year. 

It’s a fantastic opportunity for professional fundraisers to learn from their peers and share their latest insights through a series of expert presentations, panels and workshops. 

It’s also a chance for us to check in with how the sector as a whole is tackling the current charity change conundrum.

With this in mind, we assembled an intrepid team of Signallers to attend this year’s event and find out what the burning issues are for fundraisers in 2019. 

Here are the four talks (or themes) that stood out:

‘Digital transformation: another way’  

Mistie Roskelly, Client Service Team Leader

Within the charitable sector, 75% of leadership have an intent to implement digital transformation, but only 37% have a strategy to implement this. It is clear that digital transformation is a huge area to be addressed in all charities, with many hurdles and blockers in the way. 

Martin Francis Campbell and Ben Nolan are both under a year into their roles in World Vision, but are driving real, tangible digital progression within the charity. Moving on from just the intent to change, they have recognised that true digital transformation cannot be achieved by simply layering a ‘new tech product’ over the top of existing processes and donor journey strategies, and hoping for different results. 

Instead, for example, using new tech products to support new agile online acquisition strategies has brought down World Vision’s cost per email address from £5 to under £1, as well as resulting in improved engagement and timeliness with the supporter.

The key factor to take away for the sector is that there are no longer ‘historical' fundraising products that anyone can be confident will work in perpetuity. Instead, there needs to be a fundamental change in the business model itself, and in every area of a charity, to make digital part of their new fundraising and supporter engagement reality. 

‘Build the plane as you are flying it’

Julie Roberts (Pancreatic Cancer UK) and Nick Burne (RAISETHRU) shared how PCUK used Facebook Ads to recruit over 100,000 leads from cold prospects and double their regular donors. One key theme became clear - if you wait until everything is perfect you will never get off the ground. Instead, their advice was to ‘build the plane as you are flying it’. 

Though a potentially terrifying prospect in the world of aviation, in the world of digital marketing it makes sense. We can never know for certain what will work until we try it, and as Julie pointed out, if a Facebook Ad wasn’t working she could simply just turn it off. Building the plane as you are flying it allows us to test ideas, learn what is working, and adapt or discard what is not.

Legacy acquisition is one of the strongest areas of growth in most charities, however it continues to be the most under-resourced. It is almost seen as a bit of an add-on and often charities don’t even have a dedicated team. A show of hands in the room backed this up, with most people there who worked on legacies also having other roles and responsibilities. 

The speakers from Cancer Research UK and Kew demonstrated that the main reason their programmes have been successful is down to collaboration within the charity, not operating in silos and seeing it as all part of the same supporter journey. 

Putting supporter engagement first - and making ideas happen

Monday’s presentation from WaterAid’s Director of Fundraising and Marketing Marcus Missen was a good example of what people mean when they say "we need to move away from transactional fundraising".

Missen shared how WaterAid have grown their income thanks to two big shifts:

1. Creating a more agile and innovative way of working internally

2. A new marketing strategy that focuses on engaging donors in a more relevant way and reduces the number of donation requests

Internally, they just went for it and created a culture of “if you’ve got an idea, make it happen”, and the result was that 75% of their comms now completely focus on demonstrating progress rather than asking for donations. 

They also talked about two recent campaigns that have performed well. To Be a Girl was their first integrated campaign, and it centred around supporters sharing their own childhood photos alongside their current photo as a way to make the issue more relevant. Their goal was to raise £1m within three months, but it went on to raise more than £2m – the most ever from a stand-alone WaterAid campaign at that point. 

Their #untapped campaign, which launched in 2017, was even more of a success, raising £8.9m (with half coming from UK Aid Match). It centred around telling the story of a community in Sierra Leone as clean water was brought to them. 

It’s heartening to see that charities that they need to learn fast and adapt their methods to cope with the shifting landscape, which is an area we are currently addressing for clients such as the British Heart Foundation.

We also saw an increasing emphasis on more inclusive collaboration across departments. More and more charities are understanding the link between breaking down silos to work more efficiently, and their ability to engage donors in more relevant ways.

From the recent discussions at the Convention, it’s clear that charities should aim to be much braver when trying out new ideas. They don’t need to be perfect the first time, as long as they are continually testing, learning and adapting, looking at what works and what doesn’t, and acting on this data. 

Of course, this won’t mean overnight transformation for most charities. But it’s great to see that making small steps in the right direction can lead to significant success.

4 key takeaways from the IOF Convention 2019

The burning issues for fundraisers in 2019. 

We assembled an intrepid team of Signallers to attend this year’s IOF Convention to find out what the burning issues for fundraisers in 2019. 

Four key takeaways from the IOF Convention 2019 | Signal Blog

In April this year, myself and three other (p)lucky adventurers from Signal set out on the challenge of a lifetime - trekking along the Great Wall of China, where it meanders through many miles of remote villages circling Beijing.

Signal China trekkers, L-R: Karen Wyatt, Lakshmi Balakrishnan, Graham Duffield and Leah Munting.

We prepared ourselves for what was billed as a mental and physical battle between man and the man-made. We were to conquer the impenetrable Wall, with its incessant steps, staggering climbs, demanding descents and searing heat - all to raise money for one fantastic charity - The British Heart Foundation.

Meeting our fundraising target of over £6,100 was no mean feat. We’d been frantically raising money since the previous August. As mentioned in the article I wrote during this time, we did everything we could to encourage donations, including organising raffles, gin tasting evenings, auctions, street collections and bake sales. 

So as we departed Heathrow, we felt lighter knowing we’d smashed our target, raising over £7,900 for BHF. Signal also covered the cost of entry, bringing the final total to £14,177.

Over 10 hours in the sky and 8,000km later, we finally landed and got some rest, having leapt seven hours in the future. We woke up for the first day of our trek jet-lagged and nervous. 

The iron sky outside belied the forecasts of sun, but our backpacks were bulging with wet layers, dry layers and any other layer we thought we could possibly need. So with our belongings stowed safely, we journeyed by bus to our first stop at Jinshanling. 

This is the question everyone asked us afterwards. But it hasn’t been easy to answer.

There are few words that can capture the sheer scale and awe of peering up and seeing the Wall rising in front of you. Thoughts flitted through my own mind about the impossible number of bricks, the feasibility of the challenge itself and just how infinitesimal I felt. 

Clambering up those first steps and emerging through the first watchtower, all descriptive abilities melted away as I looked down and traced the structure with my eyes, seeing it snake away from my feet, hugging the mountain spine and flowing into the endless horizon.

Then the terrain bought us back with a bump. 

We were of course prepared for there being a lot of steps. Extensive scouring of the internet had told us that much. We were sort of okay with the hills too. However, we were not prepared for steps that were sometimes higher than our knees! 

These would often appear entirely at random, hidden on a downhill or camouflaged in an uphill flight – essentially whenever we were just able to get a pace going. Our guide told us later on that this was a deliberate tactic to slow down invading armies from the North (along with us 21st century trekkers).

Sometimes there were no steps but this didn’t bring much relief, as we were faced with smooth stone surfaces worn down into a slipperiness by thousands of footsteps over the ages. 

This brought the high possibility of a long and painful roll to the bottom of the slope, so we were often clinging to the sides of the wall, fingernails digging into the brickwork to stop us from falling.  

We experienced isolated and unrenovated sections of the wall, which had us picking our way through ancient rubble and fresh undergrowth. This pushed us perilously close to several scary precipices.

(The sign shown above on the right translated to ‘Danger! Do not pass’, which we weren’t aware of until we passed it)

And then there were the climbs! These were unpleasantly frequent. The terrain never failed to tease us, so when we thought we could see the top within reasonable distance, the Wall would inevitably climb upwards to the next mountain crest and then disappear from view. 

Whilst it’s a popular misconception that the Great Wall can be seen from space, at times the ascents were so steep and unforgiving that we were sure it actually must be true. 

But for every moment of chest-heaving, sweat-drenching and heart-bursting uphill exertion, there were so many emotional highs. 

There was the zen-like tranquillity of stepping out from our inn in Gubeikou onto a riverside lined with cherry blossoms, whilst kingfishers darted out, scattering the resident goldfish.

Or when we trekked for over an hour through the dense forest at Mutianyu to get to a particularly remote but original and spectacular section of the Wall, only to find the ladder to climb onto it had gone. 

Together, our team built a cairn of rocks and scrambled, pushed and pulled everyone up to the most breathtaking and overwhelming view.

We dedicated prayer ribbons to family and friends and tied them to the trees to whip in the eternal winds at the top of the Heavenly Stairs.

And after a long day of walking, as the last visitors of the day to the Ming Tombs,  we were able to watch the sunset fall down behind the temples.

We walked for between six to eight hours most days, often not seeing anyone beyond our group. We would mostly hear our own voices, our footsteps, the clack-clack of walking poles, deep breaths and quite often the internal pounding of our hearts.

When we woke up on the final day and headed to Huanghuacheng, we were all a little quieter and more contemplative. Scaling the last peak and taking the last step we celebrated the achievement in the individual ways we’d become accustomed to over the past days with each other; Karen’s singing of ‘On Top of the World’ echoing around, Graham beaming from ear to ear, Lakshmi giving it her all right to the end and me simply contemplating the moment.

Before that finishing descent, standing on top of that ultimate peak and feeling on top of the world, we laughed (and maybe we cried). 

We thought about what we’d done, we thought about our loved ones and we thought about home. We thought about walking and we thought about not walking. We thought about the journey and just how good it was, how far we had come and what we had achieved, for us and for the BHF. It left us all speechless.

As the Tang dynasty poet Wang Zhihuan (688-724 AD) wrote:

But you can widen your view three hundred miles

By ascending a single flight of stairs…

Conquering the Great Wall of China for Charity

A team of adventurous Signal staff took on the challenge of a lifetime in China - for a great cause.

Taking on the challenge of a lifetime for a great cause.

We tackled the Great Wall of China, all to raise money and fundraise for The British Heart Foundation.

Conquering the Great Wall of China for Charity | Signal Blog

https://cellosignal.com/blog/china-charity-challenge-success

The Institute of Fundraising Convention is the largest event for professional fundraisers in Europe - thousands of attendees descend on London’s Barbican Centre at the height of summer for three days of expert presentations, keynotes and panels. Covering the experiences, insights and challenges of charity organisations of all shapes and sizes, it’s a treasure trove of useful information for anyone associated with the not-for-profit sector. 
 
The speakers were diverse and the topics were broad, but we particularly took note of one key takeaway that cropped up again and again in different forms - the idea that moving away from the justification that something ‘has always been that way’ often leads to huge successes. 

We’ll be delving a little bit deeper into some real-life examples of this that were shared during the three days, as well as adding some of our own thoughts on the insights that piqued our interest. 
 
Feeling inspired to challenge the status quo in your own organisation? Here are three ways for you to get the ball rolling.

Status quo challenge #1 - break down internal silos:

The topic of breaking down the long-standing silos between departments was a common theme this year, as our Senior Planner Maxine discussed in her recent post.

There was an underlying message of collaboration, understanding and empathy – the core elements necessary to deliver amazing services to a charities’ beneficiaries - but being applied between internal teams as well as within them. 

For example, the NSPCC’s Ben Ingram (Senior Philanthropy and Development Manager) and Debbie Boughtflower (Head of Planning, Programme and Operations) shared how collaboration across their teams and the introduction of a robust sprint process has enabled them to get quicker decisions from senior management and move faster in response to high value funding opportunities.

Ensuring fundraising and service delivery teams “own and commit to the same language” to describe the work of the charity has helped everyone remember that they’re ultimately working towards the same goals.

A motivated, multi-discipline team can achieve great things because everyone is pulling in the same direction.  So it’s great to see the increased focus on circumnavigating the internal barriers that stand in the way of fundraising success.

Status quo challenge #2 - don’t make assumptions about supporter motivations:

We all know how it important it is to foster long-term relationships with supporters, but it’s equally important to consistently reassess these relationships - remembering that donors are human and that consequently their circumstances and motivations are bound to change. 
 
It’s also key to bear in mind that an organisation’s motivations and concerns won’t necessarily mirror those of their supporters. The National Trust provided a fantastic case study on their recent White Cliffs of Dover appeal that proved this point perfectly. 

According to the National Trust fundraising team, back in the 1960’s their acquisition appeals were driven by the idea that it was better for them to take ownership of the land over a less desirable buyer - a holiday park developer, for example. They considered this angle for their recent appeal (“If we don’t buy it, who will…”) but ultimately opted for something that they felt fit their current motivations better - that of preserving the environment and the wildlife within. 

Interestingly however, when supporters who donated to the appeal were surveyed, it turned out that their motivation was not at all linked to nature preservation. Instead people were driven by what the White Cliffs represented to them, citing emotional memories like childhood holidays, links to their grandparents or the day they arrived in the UK for the first time. 

The British Heart Foundation also shared how they used data analysis to identify and understand the most committed participants of their London to Brighton Off-Road Bike Ride, and then communicate with them as directly and relevantly as possible. 

Despite previously considering professional mountain bikers as the least likely to fundraise, it turned out they were actually raising the most money per head. As a result of providing a better experience for this highly engaged community both in the run up to, and during the event, the charity have achieved an increase in the event’s income from £230k in 2015 to £435k in 2017. 

It just goes to show that not only is audience insight hugely important, it also needs to be an ongoing process - no more relying on outdated assumptions. 

Status quo challenge #3 – change needs to be inclusive and sustainable

Cultural change doesn’t come overnight and it can be tough. On Day 3 of the event, Tom Barker, Head of Digital at the National Trust, compared digital transformation to quitting smoking - you’ve got to really want it, and be prepared to make sacrifices.
 
There’s also a pervasive assumption that everything has to start from the top down, but all changes have to start somewhere and that doesn’t have to mean the CEO. 

Ultimately it’s on the ground where the real change happens, and new processes need to be given space and time to evolve organically through a process of testing and learning. 

It was clear from this year’s Convention that teams and even individuals can absolutely change the way they work to be more inclusive, insight led, efficient and ultimately more successful. We also  saw how reaching out between departments often leads to the discovery that there are many opportunities to collaborate, to share knowledge and to fill in any gaps. 
 
Finally, fundraisers also need to be sure that any plan for implementing change is realistic and sustainable - both for the charity and themselves.  Resilience and self-care is as essential for fundraisers as it is for carers and support workers - all are professions/vocations where others come first as a matter of routine. This is especially important for those fundraisers who care enough to challenge the ingrained status quo of their organisation as well as meeting the income targets they've been set. 

IOF Convention 2018 - challenging the fundraising status quo.

The Institute of Fundraising Convention 2018 - 3 takeaways for charities looking to challenge the status quo.

IOF Convention 2018 - challenging the fundraising status quo

IOF Convention 2018 - challenging the fundraising status quo | Signal Blog

https://cellosignal.com/blog/iof-2018-challenging-status-quo

Okay, we know. It’s the 25th May and we’re guessing there are four little letters you probably never want to hear again, let alone read about. 

You’ve likely lived and breathed GDPR for the past 6 months, with not a day going by without today’s much-hyped deadline and what it means for your supporters’ data on your mind. 

And now, naturally, we’d all like to have a bit of a rest and not think about consent, legitimate interest, personally identifiable information and all the other intricacies of the new laws. 

Well, sorry to break it to you, but dropping the GDPR ball now is the last thing anyone should be doing - especially charities. Today is just the start of the consent process - not the end of it. 

Your charity will have spent a lot of time getting databases in order, policies written and permission granted for communications to existing supporters, but you can’t afford to rest on your laurels now. GDPR will (quite rightly) mean that every individual is more aware of their data rights, and they will be more likely to turn off this consent if their relationship with an organisation gives them reason to do this.

Charities must take this opportunity to leverage the momentum that has built up over the last few months by continuing to improve their long-term supporter relationships.

Understanding supporters better will help charities navigate this brave new world

To achieve this, charities will need to consistently give something back to the supporter, rather than value being a one-way street (ask, ask, ask). You can do this by connecting with supporters about the issues that matter to them most and giving them a strong reason to continue to stay engaged.

Call it what you like; a two-way relationship, stewardship, CRM - it’s the same thing. It all boils down to understanding what your audience cares about and how you can connect with them on a deeper level, and crafting content that reflects that.

Get this right and you’ll create an even stronger relationship than one based on ‘doing the right thing’ and donating. For example, the new supporter relationship could be built on showcasing inspiring, personalised examples of how donations are being used, or finding new ways to share your organisation’s expertise that provide tangible value to the supporter. 

This is a big shift, but a series of steps (some big, some small) is the best way to start. Here are a few ideas that will hopefully be helpful:

1. You’re not going to do this on your own

It’s likely that, in many instances, your charity will need to make changes internally. In the brave new world we live in, supporter engagement shouldn’t be just a job for the fundraising department. Acknowledging this is crucial. 

You’re going to need to break down internal silos and get teams working together across brand, marketing, IT and digital to make this happen. You need to be part of a connected team to make this change, not work on your own. 

The next step is to set a vision and re-evaluate how your success is measured. Prioritise supporter experience as well as income.

Designing better relationships with supporters will mean consent shouldn’t be a barrier. But it also offers much wider benefits - higher engagement and increased satisfaction, for example.

Get this right and the income targets should take care of themselves. 

3. Be practical and pragmatic - work out where to start

Think big, start small, and act fast. Identify the first audience or products that have the most to gain, e.g. regular givers, and test here, before layering into other supporters or products. 

Supporter centricity, stewardship, CRM – they’re all the same thing, and the key to better supporter relationships is the sweet spot between:

Do you have a clear understanding of the parameters of the brand? Do you have quality insight in place which shows what the audience expects and needs? Use this insight and overlap as the basis for your strategy.

Once you know what your supporters need, you have to make sure the content is in place to continually serve them this information. How good is your organisation at gathering this information and, critically, sharing this information? 

What great stories can you share about where donations are going, what tips can you provide to help supporters with their problems? Content forums where people share internally are a great start.

Charities are bound to fail if we try and manage this change with manual data extracts and traditional creative briefing processes.

Embrace the automation technology that will make delivering this supporter-centric approach quicker, easier and more scalable - lots of CRM databases have this functionality. 

7. You’re not going to get this right straight away

Give yourself breathing room to try new things and permission to fail. The key here will be to test and learn from the results quickly.

Set plenty of tests that enable you to figure out the answer in the real world, then make sure you’ve got analytics in place and a team who can quickly huddle around the insights and look for ways to do better next time.

Supporter consent is not a ‘tick box exercise’ that can be dealt with once and forgotten about. We’re talking about living, breathing people whose goodwill can never be taken for granted. It needs to be valued and nurtured long-term. 

The new laws that come into effect today provide a solid foundation to ensure we are dealing with people’s personal data in the right way. But it’s how charities build on these basic guidelines in creative ways that will set them apart and ensure their long-term success.  

Happy GDPR Day! Charities, your big challenge starts now.

Dropping the GDPR ball now is the last thing anyone should be doing - especially charities.

Happy GDPR Day! Charities, your big challenge starts now. | Signal Blog

https://cellosignal.com/blog/gdpr-challenge-for-charities

As well as working with many of the UK's major charities, Signal staff are involved in plenty of our own fundraising efforts.

In the last couple of months, we’ve raised over £450 for WWF by getting in touch with our wild sides for WWF.

And we've volunteered for a number of local charities such as Cheltenham Animal Shelter, CCP (Caring for Communities and People) and Priors Park Edible Garden and Allotments:

But the biggest fundraising efforts of the year are our annual Charity Challenges. Previous years have involved a cycle from Niagara Falls to NYC for Marie Curie and a Peru trek for The Salvation Army.

Here are a few more details about 2017 and 2018’s big challenges.

A massive shout out to our colleagues who went to the northern reaches of Swedish Lapland earlier this year to dog sled over 180km of Arctic terrain, raising over £13k in aid of The Royal British Legion.

They spent five days following a team of huskies through snow-covered forests and mountains, tending to the dogs and battling the elements in temperatures ranging from -5°C down to -45°C.

fundraising

Fundraisers: Let’s take the guesswork out

How fundraisers can make faster progress by tracking the metrics that matter

4 key takeaways from the IOF Convention 2019

Conquering the Great Wall of China for Charity

IOF Convention 2018 - challenging the fundraising status quo

Happy GDPR Day! Charities, your big challenge starts now.

Charity Challenge 2018: Trekking the Great Wall of China

Facebook’s new fundraising button offers charities mixed blessings

Charities are counting on door drops to attract new supporters

Cheltenham

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