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Thursday, 7 April 2016

5 ways to combat Charity fatigue in your fundraising



"He who allows his day to pass by without practicing generosity & enjoying life’s pleasures...breathes but does not live."-Sanskrit Proverb


Giving is the gift that gives back because it makes us feel better about ourselves.

 The opportunity to give is  presented to us through the army of fundraisers who approach us in the office, in the high street ,at the railway station....

Fund raising is about persuading folk to sponsor you in a charity appeal.

Selling as defined by sales guru Alfred Tack was ‘persuasive communication against resistance.’
A traditional 'tin' collection in
Salisbury city centre , Wiltshire , Englan
d
 The resistance encountered with charity fatigue ( resistance ) from prospective sponsors encountered is fundamentally a selling challenge .

Friday’s metro newspaper ran a Charity Special article by Keith Watson on how to beat charity fatigue.


Charity fatigue is a syndrome that has grown with the mushrooming of fund raising activities available to people trying to raise money for their chosen cause.

It is not only at the individual level where this is experienced, often charities have had to dig deeper into their collective imagination  in order to compete with the finite amount of disposable income available in times of economic hardship.

5 Crafty tips for potential fundraisers ( suggested by Metro Newspaper on 1/4/16)

  1. Set a target. Sometimes you can persuade an employer / sponsor to match the money you and your colleagues raise.  There are many who will subscribe to make sure the top bods have to pay out !
  2. Use social media. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter et al  are your Charity Friends. Once you have dreamed up an innovative way of raising cash, ensure everyone knows about it. Make the most of your network.
  3. Don’t just ask for money, ask for stuff. Just handing over money nowadays is not enough – you can appeal to the eco-conscious potential sponsor by asking them to donate unwanted items that can be auctioned.
  4. Benchmark Top down on your list encourages others to follow and donate.  Start the list with the boss at the top  and a benchmark is set for the others tag along.
  5. Plan an activity.  Anything from an outing to a paint-balling experience for which everyone pays extra to a named charity to  £1 for every miss of  a ball of waste paper into  the waste-paper basket .
Back in 2012 The Government in response to this have backed this ‘innovation foundation’.
National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts ( Nesta)
http://www.nesta.org.uk/?gclid=CI_GiK-y78sCFSco0wod0AIFnA 


National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts ( Nesta)


Nesta distil the innovation process into 7 steps.

1.      Opportunities and challenges
2.      Generating ideas
3.      Developing and testing
4.      Making the case
5.      Delivering and implementing
6.      Growing and scaling
7.      Changing systems
These  steps will be very familiar to any in selling.

Innovation can appear shambolic, unpredictable and risky, and success is never guaranteed.

 But by learning as much as we can about how innovation happens, you can be smarter in the way that you

In the prize winning grants from Nesta were Mencap with their Kids for good initiative – a scheme to
Get children involved with fund raising from an early age.

The key factor is involvement. Age UK hit on the idea in which retired workers offered expertise for free in return for and in exchange the recipient would pay the charity.

Last year’s ice bucket challenge in aid of Motor Neurone Disease Association was particularly successful on leveraging this involvement factor.  The fund raising activity was turned into a fun club, with celebrities falling over themselves to show what ‘jolly good sports’ they were.

The resultant publicity exploited this. 


“There are two ‘i’s’ in Fundraising – they should stand for inspiration & innovation, not imitation & irritation.”  
Ken Burnett fundraising specialist


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