- As a corporate fundraiser, I am no longer attending staff events or cheering people on to run marathons. As a trusts manager, I might be writing about students working on refugee camps one minute and an arts programme the next. But in both my work at a charity and in higher education, what people want to know is the same – what difference can they make? What long-term effect will their donation have?
- Universities are often seen to have bigger budgets, but they are also fighting against a need to ask high figures for student placements and projects that may not show their full impact for years, while charity budgets can also vary enormously.
- Charity fundraisers often think universities have it easier because they have committed alumni making up their database. But alumni are no different from other members of the public – yes, they may have experience of your university, but that doesn’t mean they are going to give to it. Just as charities have groups of major donors, some will be engaged, and some won’t. And a much wider base of donor types is necessary fro success.
- Universities have big projects and good stories to talk about. But what charity doesn’t have emotional, surprising, urgent stories? If you’re here, you’re probably passionate about yours, and tell your own great stories.
- Universities can give honorary degrees – but charities can celebrate their donors too, with events, with special membership packages, with good, personalised stewardship.
- In my experience, both charities and universities face the same problems: getting the entire organisation behind fundraising, encouraging wider staff members to share their needs with you, engaging donors, showing impact versus financial commitment.
- As Leon Ward debated in a recent article on this website, I believe it is time that charity careers outside London were seen as equally relevant and viable. In the social media savvy 21st-century, we are imposing barriers that don’t need to be there by focusing on the capital. By ignoring what is going on elsewhere, we are missing opportunities to learn.
- I believe that I have more ideas and knowledge about fundraising now that I have worked in charities and higher education. There’s plenty we can share and teach each other. By existing in two camps and assuming the other can’t help us, we are narrowing what we can learn and achieve.
- Similarly, as a corporate fundraiser I have learnt a lot from business leaders, people moving into management, people making career plans. That their career was different from mine doesn’t mean their challenges aren’t similat – indeed, sometimes their different perspective has taught me even more.
- Whatever you are raising money for, the donor should remain the focus. In today’s world of personalised and interactive technology, donors tailor their interests and will support many different causes. We need to adjust for them, so our own categories of donor type and preference need to bend and break. My cause and yours may not be opposites anymore.
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