Who, or what is a professional fundraiser?

A professional fundraiser is an individual or employee of a company who specialises in recruiting quality donors for charities to support their cause and engage with them for years to come. Professional fundraisers aim to secure regular giving on your behalf instead of one-off donations, through sponsorship, lottery, traditional monthly donation schemes and many other methods. In addition to traditional paid fundraisers, charities have access to a whole host of  fundraising experts who can provide bespoke consultancy. The term ‘professional fundraiser’ has become quite a loaded one in the industry, so let’s take a deeper look into paid fundraising in all its forms, and where the controversy may lie.

How does it work?

Fundraising businesses work by offering you a tailored strategy to increase your number of long-term givers. The most common professional fundraising services include trained street fundraisers, door-to-door collections, telephone marketing services and direct mail campaigns. However, an increasing number of consultants offer expertise and support in building successful long-term fundraising strategies, whether that be through legacy giving or a new approach to major donors.

Okay, why do I need one?

If you lack the resources or contacts to fundraise effectively yourself or are wanting to reach a wider audience, a professional fundraiser or fundraising consultancy can help you meet your fundraising targets and raise money on your behalf through securing recurring donation income. What is the value in securing regular donors instead of one-off donations? Well, over the last few years there’s been a significant shift in donor behaviour.

Overall, the total of household giving in the UK has remained relatively stable over the last few years (around the £10 billion mark), but at the same time fewer people are giving to charity. What does this mean? Well, while the total amount of money given to charity has stayed stable, some people have stopped giving to charity completely. Instead, it’s the dedicated donors who continue to give which is keeping the total household giving the same, as they are donating more per donation than in previous years.

According to CAF’s May 2019 report on UK giving, the majority of donors (51%) gave to charity ‘from time to time’, while 24% gave monthly and only 4% donated on a weekly basis. This shows that there remains a substantial percentage of the population who give on a regular basis, and may be giving more than in previous years. Interestingly, the average monthly donation in 2017 was £44, which adds up to £528 over the course of a year.  Working with a professional fundraiser can help your organisation engage with and form long-lasting relationships with these donors who are continuing to give on a regular basis, creating a stable revenue source from recurring donations.

Why can’t volunteers do this?

While donations collected from volunteers on behalf of a chosen charity have long formed the backbone of charity fundraising, to form long-term connections with donors a more strategic approach is needed. Professional fundraisers are trained and experienced in securing and building lasting relationships with regular givers, while volunteers (usually) are not. Not only will a professional fundraiser be able to target the right groups of people to engage, inspire and connect with and encourage them to support your cause for the long term, they’ll also be able to explore innovative ways to engage with new donors. In a trial we ran with one of our museum partners, the introduction of a small team of professional fundraisers increased contactless donations by 375%.

How do I pick which one to work with?

This is where the controversy comes in. Some professional fundraising companies in the UK and abroad have been criticised for unethical fundraising tactics. The Fundraising Regulator’s code of practice prohibits the use of “undue pressure”, and has strict guidance, particularly in the area of street and door to door fundraising. However, this criticism certainly doesn’t apply to all professional fundraisers, you just need to be sure to check out potential partners. As any organisation you employ will be working in your charity’s name, it is absolutely vital to do your due diligence and ensure that they are a good fit for you as an organisation.

The first thing to check is their credibility – if they are a member of a respected body, such as the Fundraising Regulator or the Institute of Fundraising, as this is a good indication of their integrity. You’ll also want to ensure that the fundraising company you go with focuses on quality not quantity when it comes to targeting and attaining new donors, and that you are comfortable with their methodology.

They’ll need to be experienced in identifying the most effective approach to fundraising to be able to create an impactful and comprehensive strategy based on your needs. References from other charities can also be helpful in seeing which professional fundraisers they’d recommend. It’s also a good idea to enquire into how they train their employees and how they choose which people to target before signing the dotted line, as you’ll want to be confident in their ability to attract and engage with potential donors.

How does technology fit in?

Embracing technology into your donor retention efforts can help you not only reach a wider audience of potential supporters, but also find out who you should be targeting in the first place. The best professional fundraisers, a little bit like our own GoodBox Portal, will use detailed analytics of your donor demographics to work out which individuals are best to target to give you the best possible chance of finding and attaining quality donors.

They should also be leading the sector by investing in technology to improve your donor relations and provide excellent service to your supporters. Mobile donation apps can simplify the donation process, making it easy for supporters to give on a regular basis without signing up to a monthly donation scheme. While creating tailored thank you and welcome emails to new donor sign-ups will create a more personal experience for each supporter.

Technology can also be used to keep you one step ahead of the game when it comes to face-to-face fundraising, providing new and exciting ways to engage and inform regular givers. Take VR for instance. Virtual reality technology is currently being used by various charities to bring their cause directly to the donors and get important emotive messages across much more effectively. Using VR, charities can create immersive and powerful storytelling experiences for their donors which engage them on an emotive level, bringing their cause to life before the donor’s eyes.

Alzheimer’s Research UK designed a VR app to help the public better understand the complexities of dementia by allowing them to experience life through the eyes of a person with the disease. In a similar vein, Amnesty International brought VR tech to the streets of London and Manchester for their #360Syria campaign, equipping fundraisers with VR headsets which showed users the devastating effects of the Aleppo bombings in Syria. The visual storytelling was so successful that they even won Third Sector ‘Digital Innovation of the Year’ award after the project saw a 16% increase in direct debit sign-ups as a result. Finding a professional fundraiser who understands the impact that effective technology integration can have is vital to you staying ahead of the curve. Devices like our GBx Core can help to visually capture audiences as the screen helps to deliver effective storytelling and emotionally connect donors with causes more effectively

How we can help

Using technology to the benefit of charities is something we are clued up about, as it informs everything we do at GoodBox. With over 500 charities on our books, both nationally recognised charities and local names, we have processed close to £2 million in donations through our award-winning contactless technology. After integrating our contactless donation devices into their operations, our clients have seen their donation income increase by as much as 64%. When used together with the GoodBox portal, our digital fundraising software, you can analyse, track and optimise your fundraising in real-time. And we’re not just stopping there.

Ambitious, altruistic and driven by innovation, our team are continuously exploring new ways that technology can help charities develop, both digitally and in terms of their donor reach. That’s why we work together with other social impact startups such as Swiftaid, to offer charities and nonprofits the complete package when it comes to digital transformation. We are currently exploring text giving, direct debits, QR & NFC codes and so much more, to ensure that when it comes to technology, charities never have to settle.

Get in touch with our team to find out how we can help you take a more strategic approach to your fundraising and make an even bigger impact.