If you're not a fundraiser, you're a cost: the Kidney Research UK philosophy 0

Kidney Research UK is taking no prisoners. From the front line to the chief executive, everyone has responsibility for fundraising. Peter Storey explains the charity’s brave reinvention

When Civil Society Fundraising approached me to write this article, they thought the shift in direction at Kidney Research UK had been brave and rather monumental. What sort of charity, that claims to be focused on fundraising, has no fundraising director? Why are employees, who do not participate in fundraising, regarded as a cost to the organisation?

Five or six years ago, Kidney Research UK, or the National Kidney Research Fund as it was known then, was a very different animal. We had a corporate image better suited to a dull building society, a dependency on trading activities and a culture of ‘raise a pound, move on and raise the next pound’. The idea of supporter acquisition, retention and development of lifetime value was some way off. Fundraising – that’s collecting cans and 'guess the name of the toy', isn’t it?

Large scale change began in 2005. The senior management team started questioning the numbers and scrutinising the accounts to understand product profitability. We quickly decided to exit a number of field-based trading activities and moved towards a supporter-relationship strategy. Bottom line became king. We removed the expensive apparatus of the communications department and absorbed the function into the two main fundraising departments.

The supporter database, hitherto a mysterious secret, accessed only by the inner sanctum of fundraising, was catapulted centre-stage. Practically overnight, all fundraisers, including all our field-based community managers, got access and were schooled in the arts of acquisition and supporter development.

Supporter stewardship reared its head and the first structural changes were made. ‘Acquisition, acquisition, acquisition’ became our Blairite mantra. This is where we made our first mistakes; we moved from a transactional fundraising methodology to one of product management.

Trouble was that having product managers results in a product, not a supporter focus. The database was segmented into product campaign lists and supporter fatigue set in as we kept asking the same people for the same things. We talked a lot about supporter journeys, but struggled to implement them in practice.

Re-structuring departments

We adjusted the structure to align organisational behaviours with the aims of growing our supporter base and maximising lifetime value. You can’t make people do things, you have to provide the environment that makes them seem the natural thing to do.

We made the commercial distinction between marketing and sales so that responsibility for database growth, supporter focus and supporter communications sat in the marketing division. Meanwhile, routes to market (or ‘sales’) moved to the new community giving division. Major giving and legacies got their own division, insofar as the direct dialogue with supporters sits there, but the marketing division supplies the data co-ordination and agency management. Grant-giving and charity services were combined and given the responsibility for raising restricted funds for specific projects. We were trying to drive an integrated approach so that we made the right ask, of the right supporter, at the right time.

There is no fundraising division, no director of fundraising at Kidney Research UK. The charity regards itself as a fundraising organisation whose raison d’etre is to plough as much money as it can into lifesaving research, education and patient welfare.

Many fundraisers may be jealous of that, especially those that work in organisations that regard fundraising as the slightly embarrassing relative that you have to accommodate when they come to visit.

Now the chief executive has the ultimate overall responsibility for fundraising, because that’s what we are about as an organisation. This enables us to structure the directorates in a less conventional ‘charity’ way, to focus attention in the areas that will drive growth and remove inefficiencies that come with silo structures. The structure raised a few eyebrows externally when we implemented, but it is working for us and we will continue to develop and adapt.

The culture at Kidney Research UK could be described as commercial and indeed, someone once called it ‘masculine’. Our commercially-minded chief executive espouses some very clear principles in our business planning:

• No passengers; be prepared for the tough decisions

• Showing responsible management in our operations and decisions

• Invest in a few real opportunities

• Sweat our assets

• Keep it simple and focus on what makes it happen

This means we can drive change quickly and bring staff and volunteers along with the plan. Because we have a flat structure, people are empowered to make decisions, take risks and give their input to the business development process. Continual change has become a fact of life. I call it a ‘Just Do It’ culture in which staff are encouraged to make it happen’, not write position papers.

Inevitably, not everyone has come through these changes. We believe our responsibility is to do the right thing for the charity’s mission and we expect people’s focus to be on that.

Fundraisers at all costs

We have another principle: “If you’re not a fundraiser, you’re a cost”. All employees and volunteers are encouraged to participate in the supporter and income-raising process. We don’t build artificial ‘fundraising objectives’ into non-fundraising job descriptions, but focus on key events where people can lend their support. Our London Bridges Walk is an example; you can’t make people do it, so it has to be fun and rewarding.

And our numbers speak for themselves.

We have doubled our research funding from 2004 to 2009 and have released further significant increases for research funding in our three year planning cycle. In one year we increased the profitability of our fundraising from individual givers by 35 per cent. Our current supporter base has increased dramatically and the quality of our supporter engagement and communications is in a completely different place than five years ago.

The business plan is disarmingly simple; we want to double our income and treble our impact on kidney disease. To do that we will need to keep adapting to the environment and adopt strategies that give us flexibility and scalability.

I was at our annual Advent service in Peterborough Cathedral recently. Over a glass of wine, a guest observed our team in action at the supporter reception. “You guys know what you’re doing, don’t you?” she said to me. Well we don’t pretend to get it all right, but we have fun doing it.

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If you're not a fundraiser, you're a cost: the Kidney Research UK philosophy

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