One year after launching the Canal and River Trust - and nine months since it began fundraising -  the organisation, borne out of British Waterways, has raised £900,000 from the public and corporate supporters.

Total income at the new charity was £122.1m, with the majority coming from Defra, investment income, boat mooring and licence fees and other such fees. The £900,000 was raised in the nine months since the Canal and River Trust began operating as a charity.

But while, as the charity establishes its fundraising programme from scratch, investment in fundraising is greater than returns, the charity in its annual report says that it is pleased with the “encouraging start” made on individual and corporate support for the Trust, whose work has traditionally been funded by the state.

The report reads: “Currently the total cost of the Trust’s fundraising programme exceeds the amounts raised and this situation may continue for a number of years until the income from the fundraising programme grows.”

The charity fundraises on the basis of a ‘Golden Pound Promise’ which pledges that no donated money will be spent on administration, but rather on the specific purpose it was donated to. Some £435,000 of the nearly £1m raised in voluntary income by the Trust was subject to this Golden Pound fund, and a further £272,000 has been earmarked for specific projects.

Head of fundraising Ruth Ruderham told civilsociety.co.uk that the charity has made a specific investment in individual giving and corporate fundraising, but that it will in future look to expand to major donors and trusts. Statutory fundraising income, which has been a traditional source of income for the organisation, is worth in the region of £13m.

Volunteer face-to-face fundraising

Ruderham revealed that the Trust has begun a pilot trial involving training volunteer face-to-face fundraisers. Ten licence holders have volunteered to be trained as a face-to-face fundraiser and will, in return for sign-ups, receive points which they can redeem for discounts on licence fees and such.

“We go out and we train them, similar to the way we train our museum staff and our face-to-face fundraisers. They obviously know huge amounts about the Trust already, so we’re predominantly training them in how to talk to people about supporting us, what it means to be a friend of the Canal and River Trust, gift aid – all of the obvious things you train a face-to-face fundraiser in,” she said.

“What we’re looking for is whether people are enthusiastic to do this, and if they are whether they are getting lots of sign-ups. Longer term we will be looking at whether the attrition on those sign-ups is any different to the attrition with a regular face-to-face team.”

In addition to the money banked, the trust has recorded some 200,000 hours of volunteer time and 17 corporate partners which have pledged support.