Raising awareness and strategic planning are key to growing income through fundraising, according to a report published today by nfpSynergy.
The free report by the sector consultancy, entitled Ringing a bell? , Is taken from a sample survey of “nearly 60 of the best-known charities” in the UK, with incomes ranging from “the tens of millions to the hundreds of millions”. It analyses the relationship between media spend and growth in awareness and then subsequently in fundraising income.
While the data shows a general correlation between media spend and a growth in public awareness, there is no real relationship between media spend and total income growth.
In order to grow income, the report suggests that a long-term, strategic plan must be “linked” to awareness growth. Awareness is important, says the report, but it is “the beginning of the process, not the end of it”.
The report highlights this by using case studies of some large UK charities, including the British Red Cross, Oxfam and the RNLI. While the British Red Cross perfectly highlights how high awareness driven by large media spending leads to increased income, the RNLI and Oxfam present more “complicated” cases.
For the RNLI, raised levels of voluntary income have come in the last 12 months, despite “static levels of awareness”. The report concludes that this “suggests there are multiple strategies for raising income and that it’s perfectly possible to raise income without rising levels of awareness”.
Instead, charities should try and focus on allowing “awareness and income to boost each other”, by putting in place the right “human and financial resources to bring a project to life and make it work”.
The report suggests that charities can generally “raise awareness of their work with MPs in between six and 12 months” but that it will take between “two and five years” to do the same thing with the public.
The report concludes that “there are few well-known charities that don’t have a substantial voluntary income, and there are very few charities with a substantial income that aren’t well known. However, neither is a guarantee of the other”.
nfpSynergy’s founder, Joe Saxton (pictured), said: “This report won’t solve all of a charity’s awareness problems, but it’s intended to start the conversation about how it really matters and what the next steps are.
“With some statistics, ideas and advice, branding and comms people in charities everywhere can begin to persuade their colleagues to build towards an effective and combined strategy, resulting in more people knowing more about individual charities and the cause they are working so hard towards.”
