Tips for a Strong Case for Support

What is it?

A Case for Support is often the most difficult hurdle to starting a fundraising campaign. What do you say? How long should it be? What is the pitch? It is very often the first impression potential donors have of your client’s vision and campaign, and is therefore a document that clients will often rely on their fundraising consultant’s expertise to get right.

Clients will typically want to tell their whole story, but it is important to understand that this is a short and sharp document. It needs to concisely coalesce the facts that make the project or organisation worthwhile, and should be presented in a way that ensures potential donors, sponsors and funders can swiftly understand the benefits of the project or organisation and how they can provide support. In other words, it is the written version of your elevator pitch: it will set out what is urgent and compelling about the project and why it needs financial support. The Case for Support should not be longer than three A4 pages. It tells the story behind your client, their project and ambitions, and makes the case for fundraising. It is crucial that it is written well and thoroughly peer reviewed within the organisation before bringing it to an external audience.

How can it go wrong?

As a campaign unfolds, the Case for Support can be amended and developed in order to better reflect recent developments, and to incorporate the feedback received from potential donors throughout a campaign. However, it is often easy to fall into the trap of creating multiple documents! Whilst you of course want to tailor this important document to appeal to key donor constituencies, it is important to stay on message and not veer away from the strategic goals, aims and messages of your campaign.

What works?

Begin your Case for Support with a strong opening – you want to capture the potential donor’s attention, so it is critical that the document sets the scene. It is equally important to say how much the campaign is trying achieve, and to lay out these key goals and objectives in a clear way

A common mistake clients often make is forgetting to include a breakdown of how donations would be allocated and what they would be used for. Would you make a large donation without knowing where it went? Try to be as specific as possible.

Finally, do not forget to mention how donors can be recognised for their support. Many UK charities often assume that their donors, unlike their American counterparts, do not like to be recognised, but this is often not the case. Exploring creative options for recognising donors and setting these out in the Case for Support can not only help with your current campaign, but may result in more donor interest and increased support over time. We know from years of experience that a little flattery can often go a long way!

Written by Apple Fundraising Consultants

Why join the AFC?

With the Covid-19 pandemic directly impacting UK philanthropy across multiple sectors – including the arts, education, heritage and churches to name just a few – many donors have stated that they are currently directing their limited resources towards supporting their existing grantees, and are not considering new applications. Furthermore, numerous trusts and foundations have already diverted a significant proportion of their available funding towards emergency grants to address immediate relief efforts related specifically to the pandemic; at the same time, many prospective corporate supporters are conserving their financial resources in the face of an uncertain global economic outlook.

This situation has put additional pressure on professional fundraisers to continue to deliver the same level of results for their clients, who need help more than ever during these highly unusual and uncertain times. Coupled with the recent loss of EU funding following Brexit, the UK donor pool has become saturated with requests for funding, with competition for limited resources becoming fiercer than ever before.

The need for fundraising consultants has therefore never been more urgent.

Charities are always looking for creative and new ways to raise funds; accordingly, the appetite for professional help continues to grow exponentially. Yet, as the pool of fundraising consultants in the UK also steadily expands, it is becoming crucial for prospective clients to be able to distinguish between those consultants that have the right experience and who follow good practice, and those that don’t. Membership of the Association of Fundraising Consultants (AFC) therefore serves as the best way of distinguishing yourself. The AFC takes enormous pride in accepting only the most experienced and qualified fundraising companies and individuals into its ranks, so this membership will provide assurance to prospective clients that you represent a safe pair of hands: the AFC’s ‘stamp of approval’ which can be included on its members’ websites and client pitches provide testimony to the high quality of services you are offering. The AFC provides the vehicle to make your consultancy stand out!

Although online forums continue to provide a useful resource, fundraising consultancy can often be a lonely and siloed job. Personal interactions tend to mostly be client focused, with limited opportunities for collaboration among peers, or the sharing of ideas and fundraising trends, or learning about new client opportunities. This can especially be true when you are just one of thousands of members of an online forum! However, membership of the AFC does provide this much-needed personal interaction. Under the leadership of Caroline Hutt, Managing Director of Hutt and Co, who serves as the chair of the AFC, the AFC has been reinvigorated with new leadership, new members, and new ideas. It is a lively and cooperative association which champions and supports its members.

Apple Fundraising Consultants, which joined the AFC in 2018, is a boutique consultancy specialising in high-net-worth international fundraising, campaign management, bespoke event management for local and global clients, and tailored philanthropic advisory services that help high-net-worth individuals make the most of their charitable giving. As a fundraising consultancy with a unique niche in the market, Apple Fundraising has seen the benefits of AFC membership first-hand, having had the opportunities to work alongside our fellow AFC members on large scale international campaigns, and having made numerous top-rate professional contacts among other fundraising consultancies whose work complements our own. We frequently benefit from the knowledge and experience of the other members who specialise in different niches, and have learned a great deal from the AFC’s sessions and workshops which are scheduled regularly throughout the year.

More than anything since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, the AFC has provided an important professional support network in these most isolating and challenging times. At the start of the lockdown in March 2020, the AFC immediately pivoted to online networking and information events, enabling its members as leaders in the industry to frankly discuss the immense challenges facing the charitable sector. Now that the UK has set a roadmap to emerge from the lockdown, and restrictions are beginning to ease, the charitable sector is seeing a ‘reawakening’ with new fundraising campaigns and initiatives in the pipeline. The AFC stands ready to support its members as we all help our clients achieve their aspirational fundraising targets while navigating our businesses towards the post-lockdown future.

If you believe you or your company share the AFC’s ethos and commitment, and if you meet the criteria for joining, we would be delighted to discuss membership of the AFC with you. Full details can be found on our website at https://afc.org.uk, or by contacting our administrator Karen Harkin on karen@afc.co.uk.

We do hope you will join us.

Written by Apple Fundraising Consultants

So What’s Wrong with Commission-Based Fundraising?

Payment by commission is defined as a professional fundraiser receiving, as remuneration for their services, a percentage or ‘cut’ of the funds they raise. In order to cover likely costs of salary and other expenses, a commission-based fundraiser would typically require 15% of the funds raised from their campaigns. Therefore, if a commission-based fundraiser secured a gift of £500,000 for their charity, they would expect payment of £75,000; if they raised £0, they would not expect to receive any payment.  

As a ubiquitous tool in commerce and an established practice in many other sectors, why don’t all fundraisers take a slice of the funds they raise? Surely it is a win-win: charities give away a slice of money they couldn’t have raised anyway, and fundraisers are incentivized to aim high?

Although commission-based fundraising (CBF) is practiced in the UK, within the sector it is broadly considered to be unethical and a sign of bad practice.

Why? 

1. Money over mission –CBF encourages the pursuit of short-term success and personal gain at the expense of the charitable mission. ^1,2
2. Trust –CBF could undermine the trust of donors.¹ This commercial approach is a disincentive to giving, does not properly reflect the value of the service provided, and encourages opportunistic and damaging fundraising practice.
3. Team effort –fundraising involves a multitude of people working together. It would be challenging to correctly assign credit for revenue to a specific individual at the expense of another. ¹
4. Resentment –including both commission and non-commission-based roles within the same non-profit organisation could generate bitterness among individuals. ¹
5. Disproportional –the amount of work needed to secure a donation is often not directly associated with the amount received: CBF could poorly reflect the expertise and effort provided by the fundraiser.¹
6. Practicality –there are guidelines that make it almost impossible to conduct a successful major gifts campaign based on the practice of CBF. ^4,5
7. Legality – if a fundraiser were to be paid by commission, they may find themselves in breach of the Charities Act 2011. ^4,5
8. Accreditation – the practice of CBF is a barrier to membership of nearly all Fundraising Professional Bodies in both the UK and USA.

Sources:

[1]   WeConservePA – Commission-Based Compensation for Fundraising

[2]   Standards for Excellence Institute – Beware of Fundraisers Who Seek a Commission

[3]   The Association of Fundraising Consultants – Code of Practice

[4]   Cabinet Office – Charitable Fundraising: Guidance on Part 2 of the Charities Act 1992

[5]   Fundraising Regulator – Professional fundraisers, commercial participators and partners

Written by Nicole Gray Conchar – Apple Fundraising Consultants