Training fund enables fundraisers to help global peers

Fundraising | Becky Slack | 10 Oct 2008

A new fundraising initiative designed to support fundraisers in the developing world has been announced today by the Resource Alliance.

The Fundraisers Fund will allow fundraisers in developed countries to fund training opportunities for their peers in areas such as Asia and Africa who don’t have the skills to access the funds that are available from the middle classes, ex-pats and corporates.

Fundraisers that sign up to the scheme will donate via the website to a pool of money that will be used to provide bursary places to Resource Alliance conferences and workshops and to fund local courses and workshops in fundraisers’ home countries.

Beneficiaries to post experiences on website

Those benefiting from the funding will be encouraged to share their experiences on the website, enabling donors to see first-hand how their money has helped.

“The central proposition of the Fundraisers Fund is that the people most likely to understand and support the needs of fundraisers are other fundraisers,” said Simon Collings, chief executive of the Resource Alliance (pictured).

“We’ve all had experiences of being undervalued and misunderstood by our colleagues, mistrusted by the public and attacked by the media. For fundraisers in the global south, those problems are often magnified by a factor of ten.”

Target of 2,000 donors

The aim is to recruit 100 donors giving an average of £10 a month by the end of the year but then grow this figure to 2,000 active supporters. It is to be presented to senior fundraisers at a special event in London this evening and then fully launched at the International Fundraising Congress in Holland in October.

The Resource Alliance has run similar initiatives in the past, namely the Guy Stringer Bursary Fund and then the Friends of the Resource Alliance, but this latest incarnation is designed to be a social networking model as well as a fundraising tool.

Cascaid has provided the creative work for the website and will finance it for the next three years. “It will demonstrate the very latest ideas in providing a shared donor-beneficiary experience,” said Alan Clayton, a director at The Good Agency, which Cascaid is part of.

Directory: Resource Alliance
Who's Who: Becky Slack

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