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An example fundraising strategy template which explains how to develop a fundraising SWOT and write a fundraising plan for your UK charity.
This UK charity fundraising strategy template enables you to create your strategic plan in 4 steps;
However, it does more than that. The CEF Data Store shows charities across the sector reporting fundraising as the lowest rated of the 21 dashboard metrics. That make this an opportunity to achieve more, so the toolkit has been designed to enable you to audit your fundraising processes to help you do that.
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This strategy template can be used by anyone. If you don't have any experience in fundraising strategy it will walk you through the process and for those that are, there are tools to enable you to analyse in more depth, those areas you wish to. Action steps you may wish to consider are highlighted in bold. Here’s the first.
Growing fundraising is understandably at the forefront of everyone’s mind, but that will be difficult and take time and the funding available is far short of what the sector requires. Fundraising alone is not enough.
Forty nine of the 74 CEF Data Store fundraising indicators are amber, meaning that the majority of charities report they are not doing these well.
Developing a fundraising strategy is about making the best decisions you are able to, based on the best evidence you have.
The strategy process doesn’t have to be complicated, but you do need to have a logical, structured process, challenge positively, be prepared to think about new ways of doing things, take people with you and make decisions based on the available evidence.
Some strategies may look 10 years into the future, or even longer; major investment programmes. However, most are 3 to 5 years.
We cannot control the events in the outside world so effective strategy, isn’t about deciding what we want to do, but rather understanding how that may impact our work, and focussing our resources to exploit the opportunities and mitigate the threats facing us.
However, there are potentially a huge range of factors, many of which may well be both critical and highly uncertain. Here’s how to manage that risk.
What are we trying to do? Your aim is to deliver the funding your charity needs and you can’t plan how to do that without first knowing what that is. This can be as simple as rolling forward your normal income and expenditure numbers and then adjusting these in light of relevant key factors. For example, building in the need to replenish reserves, any capital campaign or building costs, or the ending or start of any major projects.
Wouldn’t it be safer to just do what we do now? Maybe, but maybe not. The operational risks and pressures in the immediate term are obvious and urgent. Whereas the strategic risks tend to be less obvious, so it may feel safer to sit tight, but if you’re wrong, it may be too late by the time you find that out. Here’s a way to assess and manage that risk.
Income diversification is often talked about, but less often done. Should we? Over reliance on limited income streams has 2 potentially serious implications. Firstly, there may be limits on the extent to which this income can be grown. Secondly, a major unforeseen future event may lead to a significant reduction in a critical income stream; as just happened to pretty much all of them.
However, diversifying also involves risk – it usually requires investing often scarce resources, takes time and, inevitably, developing new income streams carries more near-term risk than relying on existing well-stablished methods.
Whatever you decide to do, having a robust strategic process will enable you to minimise the risk.
Fundraising SWOT Analysis Part 1 - The Outside World - As the cost-of-living crisis brutally demonstrated, we are at the mercy of what happens in the outside world. Effective strategy is how well you respond to that. The first part of your fundraising SWOT looks outwards.
In strategy, there is always huge uncertainty, so we plan using the best information we have.
These are the S and W in your SWOT analysis. There’s a PESTLE tool for fundraising, with the Additional Tools in the downloadable toolkit.
Fundraising SWOT Analysis Part 2 - Assessing your charity. The 2nd part of your SWOT analysis looks internally, to objectively assess your strengths and weaknesses. Many find this the most difficult aspect of strategy. Talking about weaknesses almost always makes people react defensively. I prefer to think of this as finding ways to achieve even more.
The Data Store results show charities reporting that how they manage the fundraising process is an area where we can do that. Think through each area. This isn’t a compliance check, but a search for opportunities. These are the internal Strengths and Opportunities in your fundraising SWOT. The impact of each improvement you make may be small, but it will be cumulative and improve your fundraising on an ongoing basis.
If you wish to, you could identify those that are particularly important or urgent. Then use this to create your strategy. Watch this Charity Excellence ‘How To’ video (3 mins) for how to do your SWOT really well.
The image at the top, in this blog, is a CEF worked example of a SWOT analysis that highlights those that are particularly important, or urgent. The arrows show linkages that can be used to create a strategy; using strengths to exploit opportunities, and/or to address weakness, and/or to mitigate/avoid threats. Or better still, could you turn a threat into an opportunity?
You now know what you’re going to do, so it’s now time to work out how to do that.
The 1st step is to look at all your fundraising options, particularly those techniques you don't use, or don't do well.
But there are a whole range of other options.
There’s a Fundraising Techniques Checklist in the downloadable toolkit that provides a summary assessment of the most common techniques.
For those you might wish to consider, assess each. There’s a Testing & Selecting Fundraising Options checklist in the downloadable toolkit.
| Why Charity Return On Investment (ROI) Really Matters |
| ROI is a key factor, but not often taken into account. Charities will be focusing on reducing cost, but whilst cutting your fundraising budget may generate short-term cost savings, it’s fundraising that generates the funding you need.
Using ROI offers a much better way to get the most out of your fundraising. It’s how much return you might achieve, compared to the cost of doing so. The return may not just be financial and cost is both time and money. There’s a Simple ROI Process that you could use below. |
Remember that you may have to initially invest more than you get back. That’s OK, as long as the longer term growth makes that worthwhile, and you have the time and funding to invest.
It’s often an iterative process, so you might not get the numbers you want first time round.
That changes nothing, but the spreadsheet.
Have you missed an opportunity somewhere? Or, you might consider taking funding from another budget area to invest in fundraising?
As long as you can be realistically confident that you will remain sustainable in at least the medium term, you have bought the time to develop alternatives.
Business Planning - Year 1 of your strategy is your next year’s annual business, budget and risk management plans.
Don’t overlook staff development. Our people are our greatest asset. Developing them is an investment in your future, not a cost saving. Here’s a CEF resource on how to develop staff well, at little or no cost.
Strategy isn’t a plan, it’s what an organisation does and that involves everybody, ideally from the outset.
Your people may not understand the full breadth of strategy in the way you do, but they are experts in their area. This helps to test your thinking, may identify opportunities you’ve missed, or problems you were unaware of. It also makes people feel part of the process and helps them to understand their role in delivering it. And once you’ve finalised it:
The best place for big glossy plans that are full of jargon is usually on the shelf, which is where they tend to end up gathering dust.
The last thing to do is to:
There’s a Strategy Reality Check checklist in the toolkit. To be confident in your fundraising strategy, you should be able to answer ‘Yes’ to the statements in it.
A registered charity ourselves, we provide 8 online health checks, the huge information hub, Quality Mark and 3 online directories.
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