Developing a Fundraising Strategy

This course is for people who have at least some fundraising experience already, but want to develop a more strategic and sustainable approach. It will equip you with the ability to evaluate and prioritise different fundraising opportunities and ideas, make better use of your limited resources, and more confidently navigate the post-Covid fundraising landscape.

Depending on your current position and experience level, you may prefer to check out our Getting Started With Fundraising or Fundraising from Trusts and Foundations courses instead.

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What you’ll learn

Developing an effective fundraising strategy requires a methodical approach, a sound knowledge of how fundraising works and an honest evaluation of your organisation’s position. We’ll be walking you through a comprehensive process for developing a smarter and more focused strategy, and sharing a number of powerful decision-making techniques.

“Thank you for clear, concise, realistic information delivered in a friendly, inclusive way. See you again!” Rose

We’ll start by introducing some vital foundation exercises to do before developing your fundraising strategy. These will help you to articulate why fundraising is necessary, review your current performance and identify how to reach key fundraising audiences. We’ll then show you how to evaluate and prioritise different types of fundraising, and ensure you have the key building blocks in place for long-term fundraising success.

This course is ideal for you if you’re looking to:

• Identify how best to fund and sustain your organisation’s work in a challenging fundraising climate
• Harness the many different ideas from colleagues and trustees / directors into a coherent fundraising strategy
• Ensure everyone within your organisation pulls together on fundraising, and agrees what fundraising success should look like

“I didn’t expect to come away with so many things I can action straight away. I’m now really excited to go back and discuss everything with my colleagues.” Katherine

Timetable

This course is delivered online. It consists of two online sessions on consecutive days, with time for questions throughout. We’ll be setting you some exercises to work on independently between the two sessions. To get the most from the course, we recommend that you set aside some time for these before the second day.

Dates of upcoming courses:

• Tuesday 5th March / Wednesday 6th March 2024

Day 1 (10:00-12:15 including a break)

• The challenges currently facing fundraising, and the importance of a good fundraising strategy
• Reviewing your current fundraising performance and what needs to change
• Building a clear picture of how different types of fundraising work, and their potential for you
• Articulating the need for fundraising: how much do you need to raise and why?
• Some powerful analytical tools to help you – Enhanced SWOT Analysis & Audience Mapping
• Introducing some exercises to work on before tomorrow

Day 2 (10:00-12:45 with a short break midway)

• Q&A: How can you work with your Board and team to plan for your fundraising strategy?
• Deciding which fundraising activities to do, which to discard, and how to resource your plans
• Developing your central case for support and other materials to support your fundraising
• Creating a whole-organisation fundraising culture
• Forecasting income and setting targets
• Bonus Q&A: How to fundraise successfully after the pandemic?

Course facilitators

Mike Zywina has 15 years’ experience in the sector as a fundraiser, consultant, senior manager and trustee. He runs strategic planning workshops and training courses for charities and social enterprises, and designs major funding bids, with a particular track record in securing Lottery funding. As a strategy specialist, Mike brings together groups of people to make better strategic decisions, prioritise the right opportunities and develop a more sustainable funding base, by asking the right questions to bring structure to their planning and draw out the best aspects of their work.

Ally Rea is a marketing and fundraising professional with over 15 years’ experience for charities large and small. She has broad experience in bid writing, communications, strategic and operational roles across the arts, heritage, disability, health and media sectors. Ally has also spent time sitting on the other side of the desk assessing funding applications for Arts Council England, and brings this insight into her trusts fundraising work and training.

“Mike was fantastic. Really well structured and clear. Can’t wait to share what I’ve learned with my team and would definitely return to another workshop.” Ben

Location

All our learning will be taking place in live online sessions until further notice.

Joining details will be emailed to you in the run up to the workshop.

Price

For this one day workshop  plus all course materials you pay:

Book now:

8th and 9th October
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Book your place immediately with a credit or debit card via Eventbrite. We’ll send you a booking confirmation and joining details right away (check your spam too).

Please note our terms and conditions: we can offer a full refund provided you give us at least 7 days’ notice (within 7 days you can substitute the participant for someone else).  

Please only request an invoice if absolutely necessary and if it is for an amount over £500.