The Accelerator Programme

Big Gift fundraising is something all organisations should consider, no matter what size they are. This form of fundraising can help you to achieve a particular goal and has a clearly defined timetable. Before you embark on it you will need to do a feasibility study – access the level of interest and buy-in, consider existing donorbase, investigate the potential of big gift fundraising, and look at the strengths and commitment of CEO, staff and board. Below are some pointers from Paul from the session he delivered.

Why is big gift fundraising less developed in NI?

• No organisational track record
• Perception that there is no big money in NI
• View that wealthy people are secretive about wealth
• Less experience of fundraising staff
• Lack of confidence of success
• Low or no major donor connections on board
• Availability of more accessible sources of funding
• Resource: CFNI Major DonorGiving in NI

What motivates people give big gifts?

• They believe in the cause and what you as an organisation is doing worthwhile
• Want to share their wealth
• Enjoy their relationships made through philanthropy
• Believe in complimentary roles of government and charity
• Appreciate the recognition
• They are asked

Where do you find where the money is?

• Research, research, research
• Starting point is inside – start with your donorbase
• LAI – Linkage, Ability, Interest
• Suspects v prospects
• Wealthy doesn’t necessarily mean charitable

How do you cultivate donors?

• Donors need to be won over - this comes before you ask for the money
• Make sure they know the project, maybe visit it, so that they understand it.
• Types – presentation, visit location, meeting people involved.
• Emails/letters don’t work
• Patience is needed
• Questions from potential donor are good.

Recognition and stewardship

• Everyone likes thanks and recognition
• Thank you - Letters, cards, phone, in person
• Something physical – sign, notice, on website
• Need to maintain contact

Watch the recording here:

 

Inspiring Impact cycle

Sandra Bailie from NICVA introduced the session and gave an overview of The Inspiring Impact Cycle. She signposted everyone to the Inspiring Impact website which has great resources, measurement tools, best practice examples and a diagnostic tool "Measuring Up" for you to complete.

1. Plan - be clear about what you are trying to achieve, for whom and why. Think about your target audience. Develop your theory of change. Review your existing data
2. Do - think about the questions you ask when you collect your data. there are different types of methods including surveys, case studies, focus groups, as well as using digital such as polls, mentimeter, google forms and social media. Always use methods to suit your service users.
3. Assess - Look at patterns and themes. Also consider different types of data: user, engagement, feedback, outcome and impact and compare your findings to the the wider context.
4. Review - Learn, improve, communicate. Find out what works and what doesn't not just in what you do but how you do it. Use your findings to improve service, reach audience better, engage more effectively, review internal process and communicate.

For more information on each of these click here

Theory of Change

Judith Rankin from SportedNI then described the terms used in Impact practice and explained how to develop a theory of change for your organisation. Impact simply put it is the difference we make. Although we may know this within our organisations it can be challenging to explain and communicate this to others who don't know about the work you do. At it’s core, a Theory of Change is a method of sharing and explaining your vision, in a logical pathway that ‘makes sense’ to those outside your organisation. 

Judith encouraged us to see our theory of change as a roadmap, a way of describing how our activities will lead to the changes we want to make – how we get from A to B. She described the relationship between the situation, activities, outputs, outcomes and impact. Then she gave a couple of examples from community organisations that she had worked with as well as  Sported's own Theory of change. She outlined questions to think about at each of the stages such as: what is the problem or need you are trying to address, what is the ultimate change you want to see, who are you working with?

It is also important to plan how to use your theory of change - in your strategy and planning, marketing and communications and working with partners. Consider what indicators you will use to help you know if a change as taken place and gauge the success of your programmes. You will then need to develop a measurement plan that is proportionate and appropriate for your resources. More information can be found on the slides on this artcile and also on Inspiring Impact website.

Watch the webinar:

Resources

Inspiring Impact - Self assessments

Inspiring Impact - Resource Library where you can search for tools, research report, surveys and frameworks

Impactasaurus - easy impact reporting

Stephen gave an overview of the work of Workwest and how they could help charities and social enterprises. He then explained why you need to prepare a business plan. It is important to give your business every possible chance of success by understanding your market, financial objectives and marketing objectives. You also need to think about your social value -  how does it fit with your mission and vision, what difference are you making and how will you measure impact? You should also consider Programme for Government draft outcomes framework and how your work fits with that. The key thing is to have sustained competitive advantage. You can do this by ensuring your products and services are valuable, rare,inimitable and that you are well organised. 

Stephen reminded us to think about our implementation partners, people like our beneficaries, board, funders, delivery partners and suppliers. How do we engage them and communicate with them? He also gave an overview of some useful tools to use such as PESTLE, SWOT and Porter's Five Forces.Reiterating the importance of the customer and how to identify key market segments for your products or services.

Example from YMCA North Down

Stuart Buchanan from North Down YMCA joined the session and outlined how business planning had worked for them. He highlighted 4 benefits for his charity:

• Priorities - tracks the right things to focus resources
• Perspective - helps to take a step back to see the bigger picture
• Milestones - gives tangible goals to monitor progress
• Innovation - give confidence to take calculated risks

Stuart then described the impact of this on his organisation

• Funding by choice
• Growing autonomy
• Stronger "core"
• Longer-term focus
• Pro-active activity
• Rediscovered mission

Watch the webinar here:

Introduction to Business Planning from NICVA on Vimeo.

 

Support and resources

Workwest social enteprise support and Go Social - more information on their website

You can also contact Stephen McGarry directly for support [email protected].

Nadine Campbell

Nadine gave an overview of the digital fundraising landscape highlighting the fact that 80% of donations were made digitally according to the Global Trends Survey and text to donate proved popular in 2020. She described the range of online platforms to use for fundraising with lots of useful links.

• Enthuse-  fundraising, donations and events registration platform.
• Facebook donate – no fees and great way to engage with warm audience
• Just Giving Campaigns – Create bespoke events linked to your JG page
• The Big Give – Match funding platform

Nadine shared with us about The Big Give Campaign that Age NI ran in December 2020, and raised an amazing £14.6K in 7 days. Age NI applied to be part of the Big Give Christmas Appeal in June and ran a very organised campaign with focus on donors and communications such as social media and e-comms. Nadine ended on a high encouraging us that the future is bright with new opportunities and people continuing to donate. She reminded us of the need for good practice and compliance and pointed to the Fundraising Regulator for further information and guidance. Nadine ended with giving us lots of very useful resources (available below) and links and said –

“To have success you need to remember the 3 Vs and remain Virtual, Visible and Versatile.”

Rosie Forsythe, Cancer Focus,

Rosie started by giving a summary of the work that Cancer Focus does emphasising that the people living with cancer and their families were at the heart of everything they do. She the described the impact that Covid had had on them -on their patients and how they deliver their services as well as on their fundraising. They had completely reviewed their fundraising and treated it as if they were a new start up business, trying to see it as an opportunity. The most important thing was to continue to address the issues that are key to their service users and consider how to move everything online. She said –

“The power of digital has been there all along. This has pushed us outside our comfort zones and challenged us in many ways”.

Rosie highlighted that the physical activity events had been the most popular for them and that they were using a variety of online platforms such as Just Giving to ask for donations. They have run virtual campaigns, fundraising at work, quizzes, virtual marathon and giving in celebration such as birthdays, anniversaries and weddings during lockdown. Some advice to:

• Plan – research the idea, move quickly, know your audience, have a clear ask
• Promote – use social media, use partners such as businesses or celebrities, monitor what works
• Prepare – materials, support

Matthew Allen, Concern Worldwide

Matthew Allen from Concern Worldwide gave an overview of the work and impact of Concern, as well as looking at the shifting landscape towards digital fundraising. He then detailed an external study that showed an increase in online and digital activities due to Covid-19 such as 43% of people spending longer using social media. He drew our attention to the fact that for young people, there is a shift towards ‘passion for a cause’ over ‘charity loyalty’ and that they want to be part of a movement and be active. Matt then described their digital fundraising campaign, The Ration Challenge that raised £1.8 million in 2020, explaining how it helped raise awareness and empathy as well as money. 

You need to create a community and a movement that people can belong to and be part of. Make it as easy for people as possible to be involved in what you are doing and clearly demonstrate impact. Spend time determine your target audience.

Some tips:

• Meet the public where they are, research your audience and what they are using and looking at.
• Test what you are doing, analyse if your communication is working and use different techniques and images.
• Use the wealth of data that is available to you when fundraising digitally to improve what we do. (for example Google Analytics)
• Look after your donors - Donor stewardship is key: make sure you follow up with donors and a key fundraising tip is create milestones and incentivisation.
• Gift Aid is also a great way of increasing income.
• Make it as easy as possible for people to get involved. 
• “Raisely” is a fantastic fundraising platform that allows for excellent customisation to meet your brand guidelines. More information can be found here.

Watch the webinar

Further Resources

• CAF online Giving Survey
• Enthuse Donor Pulse Quarterly report
• Virtual Events
• Facebook Charitable Giving Tools
• Enthuse
• Just Giving Campaigns
• Fundraising Regulator Coronavirus guidance
• Health Improvement Project Zanibar - Great example of using Enthuse for Team Fundraising Events  
• Blackbaud – Fundraising Focus
• Fundraising Platforms and Fees

If you missed it you can watch the recording below.

Some tips from Camilla on improving how you use LinkedIn:

Focus on your purpose

• Use LinkedIn as a platform for sharing your purpose
• Many corporate partnerships come from networks with your staff and volunteer body.
• All great and inspiring leaders all think act and communicate – the golden circle – Why? How? What?
• Why do you get out of bed in the morning and why should anyone care?
• Look at your social selling index- this will allow you to see who good you are at making the right connections

Ways to improve your connections

Couch to 5 K

• My network accept/reject requests
• Reply to messages
• React to your notifications
• Engage with 2-3 posts on your home news feed
• Check who has viewed your profile

Supercharged – do these twice a week

• Search and send requests on your network – make it personal
• Post consistently twice a week
• Get your profile in tip top shape - Make sure you have a professional photograph,.You can use Canva to make a banner for you or your organisation.
• People connect with people – best to have a personal account in LinkedIn

What content works?

• Think about your audience – What do they need? What help can you give them?
• Audience will ask WIIFM – what’s in it for me?
• You are not the hero of your content
• Shows to your first degree connections – if they engage then it shows to their first degree connections – this amplifies your message
• Write for a reading age of 12 years – you may be the expert in your field but others are not. Make them conversational.
• #broetry – how to write for LinkedIn and advice
• Avoid links in the post – the alogrum will download that, put links in the comments
• If you share content then include context.
• Only tag a couple of people
• Think about how your audience is feeling and respond to that

Watch the webinar here:

NICVA Using LinkedIn to connect - with Bespoke Communications from Bespoke Communications on Vimeo.

 

For more information and help contact Bespoke Communications.

Amanda Johnston from SENI gave an overview of What is A Social Enterprise, what is the differences between operating as a charity and as a social enterprise and whether community groups/charities should consider starting a trading arm of a social enterprise and the differing legal structures you can be operate as, including the importance of having a board.  

Three other speakers spoke about their experience starting and running social enterprises:

• Chara Clarke – You Glow Girl
• Jacinta Linden Community  – Bolster (formerly Space NI)
• Narita Woods – Fox & Bean

Reasons to make it legal

• Limiting your personal liability - If your business gets into debt you personally may be liable.
• The legal framework you choose helps create your identity.
• Your legal framework will set the rules and regulations about how you trade

Things to think about

• Need to have clear aims for their business
• What are your mission and objectives?
• How are you going to be financed?

Reasons to start a social enterprise

• Someone has experienced or identified a problem they want to solve (and then solve it for other people)
• All businesses should operate this way, and put people and planet on an equal footing with profit
• Charities needing to earn more of their money to survive and thrive
• Not wanting to rely on handouts or donations or volunteering to be sustainable
• Being inspired by examples of successful social enterprises
• See a gap in the market that they could income generate from

Things to consider when starting a social enterprise

• Charity to social enterprise is changing the funding model
• Decide on your legal structure
• Find support and Get a mentor either from a support programme or someone you admire and respect
• Finding and keeping best people – skills of board and staff team very important.
• Business approach
• Finding investment and funding

For more support and help go to the SENI website

The recording from this session is available below. Here are some tips from Louise:

• Think about which platform is right for your organisation
• Audience – who is your audience and which platforms are they on, demographics, psychographics
• Your audience is not everyone, you need to be specific
• Be of value to your audience
• Shorter is better, 90 minutes
• Create a conversation – if people feel involved then they will support you. People connect with people
• Make it easy for people to donate – you can add donate button to FB
• Canva.com is a great resource for images
• Instagram stories is great way to build story to engage people and give people inspiration
• Facebook is reaching people where they are - know what time your audience is online
• Your content should Educate, Entertain and Engage
• Use Facebook Live to engage people
• Always reply to people who comment on your post
• Reuse your content when appropriate eg when topical in news, special days/weeks - Mental health awareness day
• Use the measurement tools to find out what works and doesn't eg Facebook Insights, analytics

Watch the webinar:

Social Media for Fundraising from NICVA on Vimeo.

 

This webinar was attended by 50 people and  included how to effectively engage with the corporate sector,  BITC’s 5 Principle Community Investment model and tips from business representatives. The main presenter was Hilary Hanberry from BITC. She was joined by 5 guest speakers from the corporate sector - Jenny Barkley, Belfast Harbour Commissioners; Jane Carr, Southern Health and Care Trust; Roisin Sarsfield, Veolia Water; Gwyneth Compston, Power NI; Owen Keogh, Lidl. Below are some tips and advice that they shared from their experience. The recording of the session is also available below.

Hilary Hanberry, Business in the Community

Hilary started by outlining why we should develop partnerships with corporates and that it is a two-way process.

• People are people – it’s about relationships.
• Volunteering is a great opportunity to engage
• Skills match – linking skills of business sector to charities
• National Business Response Network – think about what support you need – not necessarily skills
• It’s about partnership
• There is an appetite to help
• Think about sustainable development goals SDGs) and how your organisation can help companies them meet them in a strategic way. Familiarise yourself with the goals and articulate how your organisation tackles them.

She also described the Community Investment Model – BITC encourage companies to use this to look at a key social issue. Eg Danske Bank working with voluntary and community organisations on social issues and SDG. The 5 stages of this are: 

1. Identify social needs
2. Work in partnership with communities and voluntary and community organisations
3. Plan and manage community investment
4. Inspire and engage employees, customers and suppliers
5. Measure and evaluate

She highlighted a quote from the Simon Sinek Ted Talk

“People don’t buy what you do…people buy why you do it”

Jenny Barkley, Belfast Harbour Commissioners

• We need you as charities and community organisations to tell is what the needs out there are
• Longer term mutually beneficial to both organisations
• Align to sustainability goals
• Think about volunteers or board members of your charity who are staff members in a private company. They could approach their company.

 Jane Carr, Southern Health and Care Trust

• Partnerships should not be primarily about raising funds, it’s about raising awareness
• Get staff involved to fundraise and volunteer
• Relationships are key

Roisin Sarsfield, Veolia Water

• Develop a meaningful relationship with charity
• Companies want to learn about the charity what it does and its impact
• Should not be transactional – it should be transformational 

Gwyneth Compston, Power NI

• Be present
• Communicate people to people – it’s about relationships
• Work towards a shared purpose
• Be ambitious, don’t be afraid to ask
• Make it impactful
• Share information with each other
• Don’t just come asking for money – think about opportunities to volunteer, share goals, communicate messages, share skills
• 2 way relationship win win

Owen Keogh, Lidl

• Think about the impact
• Lidl have voucher donation fund, food donations, charity partnerships, funding for schools equipment
• Keep engaged – food retail is a dynamic industry that is always changing
• Use the right channels and business networks
• Have volunteer opportunities for staff to be involved in
• We get a lot of requests but we need to focus on what’s important to local store network

Watch the recording here:

Resources

Business in the Community

Skills Match

 Ambitious partnerships article

UN Sustainable development goals

Remarkable partnerships - 5 tips to creating corporate partnerships

Third Sector Article on corporate partnerships

NPC Building more impactful corporate-charity partnerships

We were delighted to have a range of experts with us to share their knowledge and experience in this field. It was good to be part of the Get Safe Online Global24 campaign and to represent NI in the line up of events.

Joe Dolan, Head of NI Cyber Security Centre (NICSC) started the session of by describing the world of cyber crime and why cyber security should be a priority for all individuals and organisations.

Caroline Mooney, Regional manager NI Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) then spoke about cyber security and the legislation relating to this in the GDPR.

Matt from National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) gave an overview of the Small Charities guide and practical tips on what measures to put in place to keep you and your organisation safe.

Stephen Gray, Head of Information management NICVA outlined things we need to consider as voluntary and community organisations and how we can put all of the advice into practice.

Watch the webinar:

Resources

NICVA's GDPR Toolkit

ICO’s data protection hub for small organisations including checklists, toolkits and simple guides. 

NCSC Small Charity Guide

NI Cyber Security Centre Advice and guidance

Get Safe Online have lots of useful resources

Scamwise 

Haveibeenpwned - To check if your account has been involved in a data breach click here

Lynn outlined how to find the perfect funder for your project or organisation, described the application process and gave an overview of what makes an application successful.

She started by saying that the funder needed your organisation/project in order to deliver their mission and reach the people they wanted to, so it was important to have a partnership approach.

She also highlighted the importance of choosing the funder carefully, quoting Stephen Covey - "If the ladder is not leaning against the right wall, each step we take only gets us to the wrong place faster"

Lynn then described the range of different types of funder and the type of questions you should ask when choosing a funder or funding scheme, such as:

• Are you eligible to apply?
• Do you meet their current funding priorities?
• Do they offer the size of grant you need?
• Will they fund exactly what you need?
• Is match funding required? In kind or cash?
• Do you need to have a partner(s)?
• Can you meet any additional requirements?

Some tips

• Remove the risk for the funder - well governed organisation, project objectives clear, management systems in place, complete and realistic budget
• Evidence the need - surveys, focus groups, vox pops, audits, research, interviews
• Put people first
• Cost a project realistically 
• Make the impact of the project clear - what difference will it make?
• Have all of the documents prepared and ready in good time
• Get in touch with the funder and take any advice they offer

Resources

GrantTracker - almost 900 funding schemes for voluntary and community organisations in NI at your fingertips

NICVA's fundraising advice hub

The Fundraising Regulator - Code of Fundraising Practice

The National Lottery Community Fund and full cost recovery  - Guidance for applying for project overheads

NICVA's GrantNet funding conference videos and resources - Halifax, TNL Community Fund and Trusthouse Charitable Foundation

Esmee Fairburn Video funding from a funder's perspective