FRSB slashes marketing spend to break even by June

Finance | Tania Mason | 27 Jan 2010

The Fundraising Standards Board has slashed its marketing budget to £35,000 this financial year in order to ensure it breaks even without any further government funding, according to its chief executive Alistair McLean.

The FRSB launched as an offshoot of the Institute of Fundraising in February 2006 and since then has used up just over £2m of public money setting itself up, marketing itself to prospective members, explaining its existence to the general public and considering complaints.

The intention was always that the public funding tap would eventually be turned off and the organisation would be able to sustain itself through membership fees alone.

But as time has gone by the organisation’s ability to be self-sustaining has never seemed certain, particularly given ex-CEO Jon Scourse’s comments in September 2008 that it would need 2,000 members by June this year in order to stand on its own two feet. So far it has managed to attract 1,187 members.

But this week McLean (pictured) told Civil Society that despite falling well short of 2,000 members the organisation has been able to reduce costs enough to balance its books without further government help. It has done this mainly by slashing its marketing spend - this was £255,678 in 2006/7, £213,000 in 2007/8 and £172,000 in 2008/9. This financial year, however, it budgeted to spend just £35,000 on marketing.

The FRSB's total income for the year will be in the region of £400,000 to £450,000, McLean said.

McLean said the new marketing model relied on the FRSB’s members promoting the ‘Give with confidence’ campaign to their supporters and the wider public.

“We intend that by the end of this financial year, 30 June, we will have broken even and will be financially viable,” he said. The Welsh Assembly has committed to continue to fund the FRSB Wales office for a further two years, amounting to a further £67,000.

The organisation also hoped it would be able to hold fees at the current level for another year.

Directory: Fundraising Standards Board | Institute of Fundraising

Comments

[Cancel] | Reply to:

Name *

Email *

Organisation

Job Title

Comments *

Verification *

* Please read our Community Standards

Close »

Community Standards

The civilsociety.co.uk community and comments board is intended as a platform for informed and civilised debate.

We hope to encourage a broad range of views, however, there are standards that we expect commentators to uphold. We reserve the right to delete or amend any comments that do not adhere to these standards.

We welcome:

Robust but respectful debate
Strongly held opinions
Intelligent relevant discussion
The sharing of relevant experiences
New participants

We will not publish:

Rude, threatening, offensive, obscene or abusive language, or links to such material
Links to commercial organisations or spam postings. The comments board is not an advertising platform
The posting of contact details for yourself or others
Comments intended for malicious purpose or mindless abuse
Comments purporting to be from another person or organisation under false pretences
Gratuitous criticism, commentary or self-promotion
Any material which breaches copyright or privacy laws, or could be considered libellous
The use of the comments board for the pursuit or extension of personal disputes

Be aware:

Views expressed on the comments board are left at users’ discretion and are in no way views held or supported by Civil Society Media
Comments left by others may not be accurate, do not rely on them as fact
You may be misunderstood - sarcasm and humour can easily be taken out of context, try to be clear

Please:

Enjoy the opportunity to express your opinion and respect the right of others to express theirs
Confine your remarks to issues rather than personalities

Together we can keep our community a polite, respectful and intelligent platform for discussion.