#SurviveAndThrive - Charity Fundraising Toolkits
For Covid we built the funding database and toolkits, for the Cost of Living crisis, with less money around, we built 2 additional fundraising directories and upgraded tools. This time, there is huge funding gap, so our theme has to look more widely to be effective and far more substantial than our previous support programmes. Moreover, as adoption of AI accelerates, large charities are likely to develop even more of a competitive advantage over small charities. Consequently, as part of our
Charity Excellence 2.0 strategy, we will not only support non profits to find funding, help and resources but increasingly actively support them in income generation, using our reach and technology to help level the playing field.
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It will be delivered via downloadable toolkits and resources, webinars, and digital and AI solutions. Sadly, the more sophisticated elements to make it as accessible as possible for everyone (online learning and agents) had to be binned because we've no funding.
Charity Fundraising Outlook 2027 - 29 October
We'll publish our charity sector outlook in September to help you understand and plan for what might be coming.
Fundraising Communications
The foundation of any fundraising plan but often a Cinderella service, so an opportunity.
Our existing support includes the Communications
health check that takes only 30 mins and connects you to a whole range of support and free resources. We also have
Help Finder which connects you to a huge range of support using its 28 search categories, including Social Media, Websites & Apps, Media, PR & Campaigning, and Marketing & Communications, plus Imagery & Photos - which connects you to 30+ free imagery libraries.
We have now created a new communications plan toolkit to help you to identify, engage and retain donors.
- It has 4 stages.
- Who Are Our Current and Potential Donors?
- What Will We Say and How?
- How Will We Engage Our Community?
- How Will We Keep Our Supporters On-board?
- Each has 3 steps.
- This is a template of how this works.
- Example - this is what a completed template looks like.
- Task - fill in the blank template to create yours.
A final 5th section helps you turn your completed templates into a communications plan, either by uploading the completed document and pasting in the AI prompt we've created for you, or by using the blank Communications Plan blank template.
The comms toolkit will be supported by 2 additional toolkits. The first on how we communicate with people, including the major changes AI is bringing. The 2nd will focus on getting the most from your website, including what you need to know and do in response to the substantial fall in traffic caused by AI.
Charitable Tax Reliefs - Launching 1 October
The only big chunk of readily available funding. We fail to claim £500m pa in Gift Aid alone and we can claim 4 years back, but it's too complex for too many. I've created 4 new guides explaining the key issues plus we have an online Gift Aid tool. Why should that work? We're not raising awareness but working to remove the barriers to claiming. Some still won't be able to use it, but we plan delivery through CEF2.0 infrastructure partners to help overcome that. Gift Aid Awareness Day 2026 is 1 Oct.
-
Four Guides.
- Online Gift Aid Submission Toolkit. Making it really simple to claim everything.
Launching Early 2027
Diversifying and Growing Fundraising
The one everyone wants - growing and diversifying. A new upgraded version of our very popular toolkit but with a new funding assessment system to help charities identify and assess viable new income streams. As part of that, I have a new plan to raise funds for all smalls. It's very ambitious but viable.
- Health Check. The CEF Fundraising Health Check takes 30 mins and enables you to assess all aspects of your fundraising and connects you to lots of free resources and help.
- Fundraising Directories and Support.We have been working hard to increase the numbers of funders and also the quality of information we provide on them.
- Grant Makers Campaign. There are unavoidable time and financial costs in applying for funding but it has increased significantly in recent years and our research shows that it's far higher than it should be; it's £ billions.
- We identified a whole series of ways in which grant makers could reduce that and also increase the impact of their grant making.
- Much of that is very simple, costs nothing and quite a lot is little more than common sense.
- We created and promoted our grant makers' best practice guide for our #SmallsForSmalls week this year.
- We've improved it and and we'll be repeating this for #SurviveAndThrive because charities are desperately hard pressed and this is an incredibly quick and simple way to help them.
New and updated support.
- Fundraising Toolkit. A simple, practical step-by-step toolkit that works for any non profit.
- Managing strategic risk.
- Your donors.
- Creating your plan.
- Delivering your plan.
- Fundraising Techniques Toolkit. A new toolkit that underpins the main one to help you assess which new fundraising techniques would work best for your non profit.
- Resource Pack. Connects you to free resources produced by a range of organisations to enable you to explore the new ideas you uncover.
- Securing Funding. We are working on new ideas that would enable actively support non profits in securing more funding.
- Oct 26: Infrastructure body support - Charity Excellence 2.0 will raise their profile and offer the opportunity to secure more income.
- Nov 26: Small(s) Christmas Market - a major upgrade to our annual event to support small charities with their Christmas fundraising campaigns.
- Jan 27: Bun Run 27 - Ian races rabbit athletes nominated by bunny charities to raise funds for them.
- Jan 27: UK Community Lottery - a major initiative to help any non profit raise more funds.
Building Charity Resilience
Charities find this a lot less attractive than funding but it delivers near term cash that's controllable and builds longer term strength.
- Financial Resilience Toolkit.
- Online Risk Register and Library.
We also have existing Charity Excellence support:
- We have 2 online financial planning guides:
- And other online finance toolkits.
- You can also assess how effective your resource management is and access a huge range of resources, in 30 mins, by completing the Finance and Resources online health check.
Find the Funding and Free Help Your Charity Needs
A registered charity ourselves, the CEF works for any non profit, not just charities.
Plus, 65+ policies, 8 online health checks, the Quality Mark and the huge resource base. Our AI Ready programme and our 11 free online AI training courses.
Find Funding, Free Help & Resources - Everything Is Free.
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