Charities must invest in fundraising if they want to grow it, Cancer Research UK’s director of brand, marketing and communications told delegates at Fundraising Live this morning.
Opening the conference, which is organised by Civil Society Media, Anthony Newman outlined ten principles for strategic fundraising growth and said that “if you don’t invest then you are just not going to grow income”.
CRUK fundraises about £1m a day and Newman said that having a broad range of propositions was key to being sustainable.
Newman also said that being innovative, and prepared to fail was important.
Create the right culture
Newman said having the right people was important.
At CRUK he said there is a “rigorous” induction period and that “people that don’t make the grade do go”.
The charity also has brand champions across the organisation.
He said when designing organisation core values it was important to be “unique”.
“Who would say that they shouldn’t have respect?” he said. “We need to think a bit more deeply about the stuff that makes us unique.”
Turned around Race for Life
He said that in 2011/12 when he took on responsiblity for Race for Life it was in “dramatic decline” but has been turned around by following the ten principles.
It has been turned around by getting putting a new team in place, changing the brand, working with a new agency, and introducing new types of race.
Ten principles for fundraising growth
- Diversity - have a wide range of propositions to be sustainable
- Think long-term - committed giving is quite expensive in the beginning but delivers long term
- Think short term - CRUK has lots of fundraising activity, like World Cancer Day, that “just brings in cash”
- Create capability - manage and develop people and processes well
- Design your culture - what makes your brand unique?
- Grow your brand - CRUK has people embedded across the organisation who are responsible for brand in their performance review
- Innovate - and allow innovation to fail
- Look after data - this helps to put supporters at the heart of everything
- Manage portfolio - really important to look at how the whole range of activity works together
- Invest for growth
Fundraising Live is taking place today. Follow #FundraisingLive for all the updates, and check our website for all the latest news and features from the event. For more infomation on this year's event, and to see the full programme, click here.
