Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Someone doing the work for you part I

After reading tons of articles, news-stories and more, I reckon I am in a good position to summarise what I am reading, and what is missing:

What they are saying
  • So much opinion, but generally feeling is that donations will be hit, especially corporates, trusts & foundations later on and probably legacies
  • Charities who invested in regular giving (monthly donations) and legacies are the safest
  • Don't cut fundraising expenditure
  • General feeling donor acquisition will be more expensive
  • Be calm, don't panic
What they are doing
  • I have two examples of charities who are cutting their fundraising expenditure budgets Please send me more examples. If you want to remain anonymous, just tell me.
  • All the agencies and consultancies are rushing to do surveys about what people think. Please send me the summaries / links.
  • Key thought leaders are pulling together 'emergency' sessions, like the one organised by Pareto Fundraising in Australia (details to come) and John Sauvee-Rodd on 4 November in London (sorry, it is full). Please send me details of any other such sessions.

And what is lacking

  • Charity thought leadership - apart from Amanda Sellar and the INGOs at IFC I struggle to find stuff from non-agencies. Fair enough, it is our job as agencies, it is in the interests of our businesses, and we usually have access to the thoughts of multiple charities - but Please, charity people send me details / results / data. Again, I am happy to anonymise.
  • Data, data, data. Tons of anecdotes. Steve says Canadian donations not down, Paula says USA donations down, UK Charity Commission says fundraising directors say income down - but no data. Please send data!

Sean Triner

1 comment:

Kimberley MacKenzie said...

I LOVE it when someone does my work for me!

Cut and pasting right into a staff report for my board. Thanks Sean.

PS I've read FIVE helpful papers from various consultants. Very interesting to see the different approaches. fascinating really. they aren't all the same folks!