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.
