Christian Aid dumps head of fundraising role 4

Fundraising | Celina Ribeiro | 8 Feb 2012

Christian Aid has “disestablished” its head of fundraising role as part of a new approach to fundraising which emphasises integration with church groups and campaigning.

The decision to make the head of fundraising post redundant follows a review of fundraising at the charity and is part of a new strategy which the charity says will build a “wider ownership for fundraising”.

As part of this new approach, Christian Aid says it will step up its fundraising training and expectations of all staff in the UK and Ireland and its core fundraising teams will work with staff responsible for building relationships with churches and motivating campaigners.

The head of fundraising position was left vacant after Ruth Ruderham resigned in June last year and has since been filled by an interim who has now been relocated elsewhere in senior management. David Pain, director of supporter and community partnerships, will lead the department in charge of fundraising but the board will be responsible for fundraising spend and performance.

Pain told civilsociety.co.uk: “Christian Aid is moving to a new approach to fundraising, based on placing our relationship with supporters at the heart of the organisation. We will be seeking to inspire and respond to the energy, vision and faith of Christian Aid supporters who want to see an end to poverty in an integrated way.

“We are joining up our approach to awareness-raising, resourcing individuals and churches to reflect and pray and our invitation to give to transformational work.”

Pain, who was head of churches at Christian Aid from 2000 to 2005 and then head of the charity’s Africa division until 2010, said that the fundraising review brought up some problems in the way fundraising was structured within the charity.

“The review found that our existing structure was marred by fragmentation and complexity – in which our marketing, communications and fundraising were misaligned, and our face-to-face work across the UK and Ireland was misaligned with our centrally-driven fundraising.”

Pain said that Christian Aid is confident that it will be able to increase its income without having a senior management staff member solely dedicated to fundraising.

“This and associated decisions have been developed through a comprehensive review process over the last 15 months, all our decisions have been assessed by an external organisational development consultancy,” he said. “We are confident that we will be positioned well to achieve the income needed for Christian Aid’s organisational strategy. Our goal is that our relationship with our supporters will be stronger, they will be better resourced and inspired to give individually and to raise money for Christian Aid in their church and wider community.”

This emphasis on bringing fundraising closer to the church groups of Christian Aid would appear a departure from recent history at the charity which, while always connected to Christian community groups, has ventured into more secular fundraising efforts, such as with its much-lauded mosquito net text fundraising campaign.

Pain said that there have been no job losses as a result of the restructure, and that his department has seen an increase in the number of posts.

Christian Aid has undergone a series of structural changes related to fundraising over the past five years, integrating campaigning and fundraising back in 2010 and changing its supporter recruitment strategy in 2007.

Directory: Christian Aid
Who's Who: Ruth Ruderham

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Christian Charity
christian charity
http://www.ukchristiancharity.org/
10 Feb 2012

Christian aid should bring more advantage to the Poverty and to the society

[Reply]

Rarry Revan
Ranter
Rantingrules
9 Feb 2012

I doubt this is the full story, but I find it interesting that someone who has previously been a Director of Fundraising would advocate not having a fundraising role on the senior manangment team of a huge organisation. i struggle to see many other Directors of Fundraising asking for your expertise if you get a reputation for disempowering senior fundraisers.

I wonder how the public would react if instead of being greeted by a face to face fundraising saying " would you like a hug" they were actually asked "do you want me to pray for your soul?"

Anyway, only time will tell.

Rarry

[Reply]

Steve Thomas
Manging Director
Purple Vision
9 Feb 2012

As one of the "over-rated cowboys" working on the Fundraising Review at Christian Aid I would like to point out that the team working on this project was led by qualified senior fundraisers with many years practical experience. We deliberately included specialists from other professional disciplines because we believe that the strategic approach you call for cannot be achieved by complaining that fundraising is misunderstood.

In large organisations, capable and committed people (not least fundraisers) often find ourselves in dysfunctional organisational silos not of our own making. Over time, inertia and politics muddy the water so that the overall purpose gets obscured or, worse, forgotten. In these circumstances the professional disciplines and best practices of fundraising are not enough on their own to address the underlying issues.

For Christian Aid, we worked in a multi-disciplinary team, adopting a whole-organisational approach to avoid getting stuck in our own professional rut. Our research addressed the full range of reasons why supporters engage with the organisation, including volunteering, campaigning and prayer, as well as giving money. We then compared this to a careful analysis of the internal structures, practices and behaviours for supporter relationship management and assessed the degree of alignment between vision and reality. Perhaps not surprisingly, we found a gap!

Christian Aid, with its distinguished history and longstanding supporters, is an important part of our civil society. Like so many non-profits, it deserves to succeed, but the process to achieve this requires bold vision, careful planning and strong leadership, all of which can be painful and unpopular with those on the inside. Correcting misalignment is the basis of the plan that David Pain and his team are now putting into practice. By re-connecting fundraising with the rest of Christian Aid, it will be seen as an essential contributor to the overall purpose of eliminating global poverty. Mutual recognition and respect are key to achieving this, and embedding fundraising - or more broadly supporter relations - at the heart of the organisation will mean that it becomes part of the solution.

[Reply]

Bonkers
8 Feb 2012

As a Christian charity, closer alignment with churches makes perfect sense (who on earth decided to distance themselves from the best donor demographic in the first place? Some ground-breaking innovative new media guru I suspect) - but why is it necessary to get rid of a senior fundraising post to achieve this?

As for the 'external organisational development consultancy' - there isn't enough understanding of the strategic importance of fundraising in the sector, let alone trusting this to the over-rated ex-public school management consultant cowboys!

[Reply]

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