Fundraising Bright Spots

How to change what’s not working. Sometimes in fundraising, things aren’t working, you feel overwhelmed, and you don’t know where to start. 

The excellent book Reset by Dan Heath is all about how to turn things around when you feel stuck. In this podcast Rob talks to Craig about ways you can apply the Reset techniques to solve difficult fundraising problems. 

Heath suggests that in most difficult situations there is one crucial ‘leverage point’ – something that will potentially make the biggest difference. The key is to work out what this is and then stack far...

Growing your confidence to talk to supporters makes a big difference.

What’s the key to increasing High Value Fundraising Income for your charity? Build stronger relationships with people who care about your cause. 

There are many ways to do this, but even in this tech-savvy era, the most effective thing is to have actual conversations with those people! And a greatly under-used way to do that, is to call them on the phone. Obviously, it’s not always possible. But when it is, we’ve noticed that very successful fundraisers often call their supporters.

Ma...

How do you beat tough odds in fundraising? For many fundraisers, the odds are now tougher than ever. Whether it's because your cause is less popular, or your charity is small or less well-known… There are many reasons you may feel like an underdog.

Interestingly, some charities do secure valuable gifts, partnerships and grants, in spite of big disadvantages. Clearly this fact does not make life fair or make fundraising easy.  But it means that if we seek them, we can find valuable insights.

Having studied dozens of examples, in...

The power of your reason why can be immense.

Charities often focus too much attention on how they help. They act and speak as though what they do is the most important and interesting thing. 

When you clarify and reconnect to the reason why your charity exists, it can be a fabulous catalyst for growth. You get new creativity and energy. When the South African non-profit Feenix did this in 2017, it unlocked a period of extraordinary growth. During the next five years up to 2022, fundraising income grew by 630%! Their impact was transformed.

Cara J...

How to attract younger donors is a valuable issue for a charity to solve. 

Younger supporters tend to see the world differently to older generations – as charities, how can we respond? For answers and encouragement Rob talks to philanthropist and best-selling author Lisa Greer.

As a so-called ‘major donor’ Lisa has a valuable perspective on charity relationships with High Net Worth individuals. And one of the fascinating themes in her latest book The Essential Fundraiser’s Handbook is how charities can effectively raise funds with younger supporters. 

In the interview Lisa explains why the tradit...

‘We aced all three big pitches – here’s how.’ As most fundraisers are all too aware, pitching to funders is a complex and difficult process.

In recent months, the UK charity Refuge created the chance to pitch for three corporate partnerships. For all three, the stakes were high. In fact, one of them is worth millions of pounds and will make a massive difference to their services protecting women and children from domestic abuse.

All three pitches were successful. 

In this episode Rob Woods talks to Katie Hillitt, Head of Philanthropy at Refuge. She share...

High performance culture is invaluable for charities seeking to make a bigger difference. What can we do to encourage an approach to fundraising that strengthens relationships and increases fundraising income?

The High Value and Legacies fundraising department at Alzheimer’s Society has achieved impressive growth over the last 5 years. Rob talks to Charlotte Matier, Associate Director at the department to hear about the culture, processes and priorities that have helped achieve these results. In particular, she shares the three pillars they use to guide decision-making and ways of working.

Using examples, Charlotte shares how her te...

What do Great Fundraising Organisations do, that is different to the rest? 

Relatively few charities and non-profits achieve impressive, sustained growth over several years. But a few do. And as a result, they are able to make a much bigger difference for the communities they serve.

For more than ten years, Alan Clayton has carried out detailed research into what makes the difference. In this episode he and Rob discuss the valuable distinctions he has discovered. And Alan brings these ideas to life with lots of recent examples and he offers guidance for other charities d...

Growing existing partnerships and winning new ones – these are the two main ways to increase corporate fundraising income for a charity. But they are easier said than done. Since joining her charity in a newly created role focused on corporate partnerships, Charlie (Charlotte) Richardson has grown partnerships income in both ways. 

In this interview she shares the techniques she learned on the Corporate Partnerships Mastery programme that she’s used to deepen relationships and add value with her charities’ partners – this has led to an increase in income of £100,000 in the last year with one partner – as well as how...

Thinking (more) is a powerful way to grow results. 

Of course, in our busy and ever more distracted world, it’s not always easy to find time to think. That said, we’ve noticed that fundraisers who are very effective and also resilient, usually find a way to deliberately build thinking time into their week.

If this idea appeals, but you often struggle to do it in practice, this episode is for you. Jhumar Johnson is Chief of Staff to the Vice Chancellor at the Open University. Her demanding role includes that of Development Director, so sh...

Looking for ideas or fundraising inspiration? Look no further than this special highlights episode.

Rob is again joined by Bright Spot colleague and fellow fundraising trainer Ben Swart to talk about four episodes that proved especially popular and inspired us in 2024. 

Our discussion of fundraising strategies, tips and examples includes: how to take advantage of the opportunities and resources already available to you (many of them are currently hidden); how to smash silos and help your whole charity pull together towards the common goal; a fabulous stewardship technique that helped one small cancer charity achieve i...

If you’d like practical lessons and some inspiring examples from our fundraising podcast in 2024, or you’d like tips on what to listen to next, we recorded this special episode for you!

Rob is joined by Bright Spot colleague and fellow fundraising trainer Ben Swart for this round up of our podcasting year. 

They pull out highlights from some episodes they’ve found most inspiring to listen to, including: how to influence your colleagues, for example to support your fundraising project; how to attract more major donors (precious insights from a philanthropy advisor at a bank...

How do we defend philanthropy? 

There have always been criticisms of charity in general and philanthropy in particular. But in recent years it seems that this has become more widespread, and that this issue may be having a detrimental effect on donations at all levels. 

If we work for a charity, understanding the issues is valuable for our own confidence and for the sector as a whole.

For help and encouragement, Rob was delighted to talk to Dr Beth Breeze, Director of the Centre of Philanthropy at the University of Kent. Beth has wr...

Building a transformational strategic partnership is not easy. But this example shows it can be done. And the reward in furthering your mission is so great, for many charities it is absolutely worth aiming high and developing even stronger relationships with the very few partners who can make the biggest difference.

In March 2024 Bowel Cancer UK launched a three-year partnership with Andrex, the UK’s leading toilet roll brand. This award-winning partnership is changing attitudes, as well as increasing awareness of the symptoms of the disease, on a huge scale. 

The partnership is worth an ext...

Pitching or presenting to a group is a valuable skill in fundraising. Many people see the purpose of a presentation as sharing information. But we’ve found you get better results if you instead see it as a chance to persuade people to actually do something (or something different.)

After your presentation, would you like your colleagues to actively support your fundraising project? Or perhaps you’d like the funder to share your proposal with fellow trustees… or for your audience to choose your charity as a partner.

Whatever your presentation, in this, the second episod...

Pitching or presenting to a group is not easy! It can feel stressful. In fact, many fundraisers dislike presenting so much they try to avoid it all together.

And yet, after helping thousands of people to improve various skills that are useful in fundraising, Rob and Ben have found that everybody is able to become more skilful in this area. It is entirely learnable.

And it’s certainly worth the effort, because being able to effectively share your ideas with a group is incredibly valuable. 

In speaking at dozens of conferences and training hun...

How do you attract and support content creators to help your charity? There are many thousands of people who create their own content and have a thousand followers or more. Many of them also care about good causes and would enjoy raising funds for charities that support those causes.

This time Rob talks to Tom Downie of Tiltify. They discuss the content creator economy and the opportunities it represents for charities. Every year Tom sees how hundreds of charities operate in this fast-growing market.

Tom shares both common mistakes and lots of insights from when...

How do you get the result you really want for your fundraising project or campaign? How can you increase your chances of achieving your outcome when things are not working?

We all get stuck sometimes! When this happens, it pays to change our approach. 

To help you get ideas Rob and Ben share three stories of charities who solved very difficult problems by doing things differently. 

One was struggling to recruit volunteers…and took a risk which transformed their results. And when the citizens of a town were angry that a nazi march was...

Starting a new project or side hustle, and keeping it going, isn’t easy. Kenneth Foreman and James Wright are both busy fundraisers and in their spare time for the past seven years, they have created the excellent Do More Good podcast.

In this episode Rob hears why and how they got started, ideas that have inspired them and lessons they’ve learned. They also offer advice and encouragement for anyone considering starting something new on top of their day job. 

Perhaps you’ve been daring yourself to blog or vlog, but you can’t quite get...

How do you convince companies that partnering with your charity is valuable to them too? 

Good corporate fundraisers have always known that the best charity partnerships are genuinely win/win. But not all companies understand this, which is a major reason they may be reluctant to consider a partnership, or to give more. How can you help them see it, and so be more open to the possibility?

Ben Swart shares advice to help you be confident about the value of corporate partnerships and skillful in conveying it to companies. Ben and Rob a range o...

Many of the most difficult challenges for fundraisers involve influencing your colleagues. Whether it's persuading someone in another team to support your idea or getting your proposal signed off by your Chief Exec, it can feel like an uphill struggle. 

For practical ideas and plenty of encouragement, I was excited to talk to the always-inspiring Paul McKenzie. Paul is a very experienced fundraising leader, and he is convinced that we have far more power to positively influence people within our charity than we might think. Paul and Rob share examples and offer three practical things anyone can d...

Have you ever thought about creating a podcast to engage your community?

This time we look at an award-winning podcast, The Log Books, which has run for three successful seasons. Rob talks to Stephanie Fuller, CEO of Switchboard and Adam Zmith from Aunt Nell, who collaborated to create the show.

We explore why and how they made it, how it helps the charity connect with its community, and other benefits the show has brought.

Thank you for supporting our show, for example, by sharing it with colleagues or on social media. We are...

In our second interview with the experienced philanthropy advisor Tom Hall, we share a fundamental element that most wealthy philanthropists are looking for when deciding whether to make a major gift.

Tom is Managing Director, Global Head of Social Impact and Philanthropy at UBS and over the last ten years he has had conversations with more than 4000 High Net Worth Individuals about their philanthropy. Through these conversations and in witnessing many transformational donations Tom has gained valuable insight into how they make decisions.

In this, our second interview, Tom shares the second crucial element that...

What do wealthy donors most prize when they weigh up whether to make a major investment in a charity? In 10 years as a philanthropy advisor at UBS bank, Tom Hall has had conversations about philanthropy with more than 4000 wealthy people, and he has witnessed a vast number of major gifts. This opportunity has given him precious insight into their psychology and the factors that have the biggest impact on their decisions. In this conversation Tom and Rob share which one element of your charities’ proposition is more important than all the rest, if you want to attract major donations at...

One of the best ways to grow fundraising income is to find ways to add value to relationships with supporters and partners. This makes sense in theory, but how do you do it in practice, and with consistency, especially if your resources are limited? Events can be very effective! Though many charities use them to raise funds directly, it is less common to regularly use events for stewardship and to inspire subsequent support or partnerships. In this episode Chris Salt describes the event strategy that his relatively small charity uses to inspire existing and potential corporate partners. The approach...

There are many ways to deepen relationships with people who care about your good cause. At Bright Spot, one of our favourites is to create Wow Moments - something that makes them feel great or helps them connect with your charity at a deeper level compared to what most would expect. Sometimes this involves a creative, ambitious approach that other charities wouldn’t even think of. But just as often, the ‘wow’ is experienced by your supporter because you do something thoughtful and bespoke, rather than something especially surprising. What’s great about this is that these ideas are very do...

When you concentrate more effort developing relationships with a relatively small number of supporters or corporate partners with high potential, it becomes much easier to grow high value income. We’ve also found that although this idea makes sense to many people in theory, it can be hard to apply in practice. So what can you do to overcome the various barriers to more focused and effective relationship-building with partners / supporters / funders? Using examples of successful partnerships and major gift fundraising growth from people on Bright Spot’s recent mastery programmes, in this episode Rob and Ben share techniques to h...

An effective way to grow fundraising income is to add value to relationships with high value supporters. But how do find ways to do it? One approach is to start looking at your existing resources differently. When you ask yourself what potential assets you could make use of, rather than what is difficult for your charity; and what you can give (to relationships with supporters) rather than what you can get from them… amazing things become possible. To help you look again at opportunities (that might be under your nose), Rob and Ben share stories of creative, determined fundraisers do...

What can fundraisers do to increase our chances of securing large, multi-year donations from trusts and charitable foundations? Rob was delighted to talk to Caroline Danks, a wise fundraiser with 20 years’ experience of working with Trusts and Foundations. In the last two years, three different charities she’s worked with have received six-figure, multi-year grants. Caroline noticed a clear pattern across all three examples. Caroline and Rob discuss the four factors common to all three successes and explore ideas and tips to help you make use of them in your own fundraising with trusts and foundations. We’d love to kno...

One greatly under-estimated tool for building relationships with potential funders, corporate partners and major donors, is LinkedIn. But what’s the most effective approach? Rob was delighted to talk to fundraising and LinkedIn expert Michelle Benson. After many years as a fundraiser and grant giver, Michelle has found that most fundraisers are failing to make the most of this potent tool for success in major donor / trusts / corporate partnerships fundraising. Michelle and Rob discuss an approach which is different to what most people usually do. Rather than you chase them, a better way is to attract your ideal funders an...

There are plenty of factors that make fundraising difficult at the moment. Whether it’s the cost of living crisis, the pace of change, the sense of political chaos, shorter attention spans etc…it’s true that connecting with people who care about your cause can feel harder than ever. So what can we do to defy the odds and achieve great fundraising results, in spite of the challenges? For clear answers and encouragement, Rob was delighted to talk to best-selling author and marketing expert, Grant Leboff. He explains why taking steps to increase genuine human connection is so powerf...

Is silo working inevitable in charities? Or is it possible to create a culture where it’s the norm for the different teams to proactively help each other, so that efforts combine to make a bigger difference? This is the second part of Rob’s interview about integrated working with the brilliant Joe Jenkins. They build on the Team of Teams concept from Part 1, and the amazing difference it makes to both results and trust between teams. Joe shares how one charity applied these ideas in three important projects, improving results and working relationships with each iteration. Finally he shar...

One of the biggest sources of stress for people working in charities is conflict between teams. Many find that however committed they are, and however hard they work, the default structure and culture often hamper genuine cooperation and progress toward a common goal. Given how difficult this problem can be, Rob was thrilled to talk to Joe Jenkins, who has given more thought and energy to solving it than anyone he has interviewed. Joe shares what happened when he worked for Friends of the Earth over a decade ago, when the leadership team did certain things to reduce silo-thinking...

Rob is again joined by Bright Spot colleague and fellow fundraising trainer Ben Swart to talk about some of the episodes that most inspired us in 2023. Our discussion of fundraising ideas and examples includes: how to ace your event or media appeal (ie what content makes all the difference to results); ways to beat the Curse of Knowledge – and how one charity did this to raise five times more than the average through their appeal; ideas to help you succeed in spite of very competitive trust application processes; and how to create a culture where people genuinely value failure / le...

If you’d like practical lessons and a bunch of encouraging stories from our fundraising podcast in 2023, or you’d like tips on what to listen to next, we recorded this special episode for you! Rob is joined by Bright Spot colleague and fellow fundraising trainer Ben Swart for this round up of our podcasting year. They pull out key insights from some episodes they’ve found most inspiring to listen to, including: tactics for corporate fundraisers to win multiple partnerships; ideas to further your mission through partnerships; how to use the Top 20 Rule to grow income with any group...

This time we’re looking at capital campaigns and appeals, and in particular how to make them work if the charity you work for is relatively small. Successful appeals are not an easy undertaking for any charity, but there are at least examples of various famous appeals by well-known charities in books about fundraising. Given how many smaller charities need to raise an extra injection of funding for an important new project, I wanted to share a story from a fundraiser who has managed a successful capital campaign in an organisation with fewer resources. I was delighted talk to St...

Just occasionally we (hopefully) have a bigger opportunity to reach more people and raise money. Whether it’s being chosen for a media appeal that reaches thousands or millions; or the chance to tell your charity story at an event in front of hundreds of people…there are a few moments when the fundraising rewards can be HUGE…if we get it right. So what can you do to maximise the potential of these valuable opportunities? For shrewd insights and examples, Rob was thrilled to interview Sally Flatman. In her many years as producer of BBC Radio 4 appeal, Sally worked...

Changes in technology over the last three decades mean our supporters’ now have less time, and more demands on their attention, than at any point in history. This makes it tougher than ever to deepen relationships with people who care about our cause. In this environment, what can we do to create effective marketing and communications? To better understand the issues, Rob was delighted to talk to best-selling author and marketing expert, Grant Leboff. Grant routinely advises both companies and charities on effective marketing and communications strategies in the fast-changing world we live in. In the interview, he explains wh...

Many charities see the advantages of creating strategic, long-term partnerships with companies, rather than applying for those intensely competitive Charity of the Year partnerships. But how do you initially approach companies where there is a good fit? Even after you get that first meeting, how do you inspire them to want to partner? And how do you solve the challenges in bringing your two organisations together to achieve something that works really well for both parties? It’s not easy, but its less daunting if you can hear insights from someone who has already done these things. So I wa...

Some types of cause are less popular than others. If your charity is relatively less attractive to many people, what can you do to raise funds successfully? Rob talks to the experienced major gift fundraiser, Sarah Jane O’Neill, about things you can do to raise funds in spite of the challenges, whatever cause you serve. They share tips, practical tactics and examples of how fundraisers have overcome the difficulties of being less popular. And Sarah Jane shares top line findings from her new thesis exploring factors that can make it harder to secure high value donations for female do...