What Lego Can Teach Us About Strategy

By Alison Clarke, 4th September 2025

I’m writing this fresh from a day at Legoland and it has struck me how much more this is than just a theme park. It’s creativity, imagination and storytelling brought to life.

Yet not so long ago, Lego was in serious trouble. Overexpansion and a lack of focus nearly sank the company. The turnaround happened when they stopped chasing everyone else and concentrated on what made them unique.

There are a few lessons here that feel just as relevant in the not-for-profit world as in business.

Focus on Being Different, Not Better

It’s easy to get caught up in comparisons: who’s faster, cheaper, slicker, better. That’s a race no one really wins.

Lego didn’t try to be the cheapest or most high-tech. They focused on limitless creativity. A simple system of bricks with endless possibilities.

What’s your equivalent? What do you offer that no one else can replicate?

Expand With Purpose

Growth works best when it reinforces what makes you special.

Lego’s films, games and theme parks weren’t random, they all built on the idea of imaginative play. That’s why The Lego Movie felt authentic, not just a marketing exercise.

Before you launch something new ask: Does this deepen what we already do best? 

Own Your Strategy and Know When to Pivot

Lego didn’t cling to every idea forever. When Legoland wasn’t working, they sold it. Years later, they bought it back when the time was right.

Strong strategy isn’t just about sticking to a plan. It’s also knowing when to step back and when to try again.

Involve Your Supporters

Lego doesn’t just sell to customers, they co-create with them. From Lego Ideas to massive fan-built displays, they turn buyers into partners.

In not-for-profits, this is powerful. People who help shape your work become your strongest advocates.

One Simple Question

Standing in Legoland, you can see why limitless creativity can’t be copied. It’s more than bricks, it’s a whole culture.

Do you know what makes your organisation impossible to copy? And are you using it to its full potential?

Build Strategy That Sticks

At AAW Partnership, we help not-for-profit organisations uncover exactly what makes them impossible to copy, and turn that into a strategy that works.

Whether you're rethinking your fundraising or ready to grow with purpose, we bring unrivalled experience to the table. We've worked with some of the sector’s most high-profile names, helping them cut through the noise, focus on what matters and build strategies that are both grounded and imaginative.

Because like Lego, your organisation has something no one else does. The challenge is making sure your strategy reflects it and gives your team the tools to build something remarkable.

If you're ready to take a fresh look at where you're headed, get in touch. We’d love to help you build what’s next.

Rethinking the Decline in Giving: A Systems Approach to Charitable Participation

By Claire Routley, 26th August 2025

Dr Claire Routley is Consultancy Director at our friends Legacy Futures. In a special blog for AAW she reflects on the decline in giving and considers what organisations can do to help reverse this trend.

Public participation in charitable giving is declining, with only half of UK adults now making donations. While this trend isn’t new, the sector still doesn’t have a definitive answer as to why it’s happening.

The decline been linked to factors from economic pressure and donor fatigue to a decline in religious participation. All of these are likely contributing, but crucially, they’re not operating in isolation. These forces interact in complex, sometimes hidden ways. That’s where systems thinking comes in.

Rather than viewing the decline in giving as a linear problem with a simple fix, systems thinking helps us recognise it as the product of interdependent, reinforcing dynamics. And by stepping back to explore the system as a whole, we can begin to spot strategic points of intervention: places where we may be able to halt or even reverse the decline.

What’s Reinforcing the Decline?

Several feedback loops seem to be amplifying the downward trend:

1. Belief and Participation: Younger generations are less likely to see charities as effective agents of change. This scepticism leads to lower engagement, which weakens charities' impact, which can reinforce the perception that they’re ineffective.

2. Income and Giving: As disposable income shrinks, especially among the middle class, fewer people give. This in turn can weaken the very social fabric that once encouraged giving.

3. Social Fabric and Participation: Community participation is waning. Fewer people are part of groups where giving is a social norm. As these bonds fray, giving becomes less visible and less habitual.

Together, these loops erode both the cultural and economic foundations of broad-based giving.

A Fragile Balance

Despite the fall in participation, total charitable income has increased — but that’s thanks to a shrinking core of highly engaged donors, often referred to as the “civic core.” Their generosity is helping to stabilise the system, but this model may not be sustainable.

Meanwhile, deeper systemic shifts — rising inequality, political polarisation, and a loss of trust in institutions — are reshaping the fundraising landscape. Technologies like AI may improve targeting and efficiency, but they also risk deepening economic divides, particularly if they displace middle-class jobs and further erode disposable income.

What can we do?

One of the central ideas in systems thinking is that small, well-placed interventions can create disproportionate change — a concept sometimes called “social acupuncture.” Instead of pushing against the system, we can look for points where momentum already exists and build on it.

Here are three ideas for where that might begin:

1. Tell Our Bigger Stories

We often focus on specific campaigns or impact stats — but can we better tell the epic, collective story of what giving has made possible over time?

• Over decades, the March of Dimes and Rotary International have helped very nearly eliminate polio.

• Global extreme poverty has dropped by two-thirds in just 30 years.

• Charities helped fund the COVID-19 vaccine.

When people see that giving works on a historic scale, it strengthens belief — and belief reinforces participation.

2. Make First Steps Easy

Research shows that small civic actions — like signing a petition — make people more likely to donate, especially when the causes are aligned. These “gateway behaviours” help people see themselves as someone who takes action, which creates consistency in future decisions.

Charities can design journeys that begin with low-barrier engagement, nudging supporters along a path toward deeper involvement.

3. Create Greater Connectedness

A recent study showed people tend to underestimate how empathetic others are, making them less likely to take social risks like striking up conversations or asking for help. But simply telling people the truth — that most people do care — boosted perceptions of others’ empathy and expanded social networks.

Charities, by their very nature, are built on compassion. Who better to remind people of the kindness of others – and potentially help to rebuild our social fabric?

These are just three ideas. Tapping into the creativity, ingenuity and lived experience across the charity sector could uncover many more. From frontline practitioners to digital innovators, fundraisers to researchers, we have the insight and imagination to co-create meaningful change.

No single organisation can shift these systemic patterns alone. But together — through collective insight, bold experimentation, and shared learning — the sector can begin to rebalance the dynamics and rebuild a culture of participation.

It’s not easy work. But if we care about the future of giving, it’s work worth doing.

Visit here to find out more about Claire and the services offered at Legacy Futures.

Why We Launched AAW Integrate: Meeting the Real Challenges Charities Face Today

By Deniz Hassan, 18th August 2025

I want to share why we’ve decided this is exactly the right moment to launch AAW Integrate.

This isn’t just another new offer. It’s a direct response to the biggest, most consistent problems we see holding charities back - problems no one else seems willing or able to tackle in a joined-up way.

A Decade of Sector Leadership

Almost ten years ago, Imogen Ward, Tobin Aldrich and our sorely missed friend Mark set out to build what has become a powerhouse consultancy in strategic fundraising and engagement. Along the way, they gathered some of the brightest minds in the sector - people with deep experience of what drives income and connection.

Since then, AAW has helped countless organisations transform how they fundraise and engage. But the fact is, today’s problems are very different to those we faced a decade ago.

The Same Challenges, Everywhere We Look

Over the last three years, we’ve conducted a huge number of income and engagement reviews, as well as digital reviews, across charities large and small. Despite all the differences in scale, mission, and resources, the trends have been strikingly similar:

• A desperate lack of clarity about performance, because of poorly architected data and technical infrastructure.

• A gap in executive-level understanding about how technology and data relate to strategy, and what good looks like in practice.

It’s no exaggeration to say that these issues come up time and time again, often underpinning the most persistent frustrations and failures.

Why Existing Solutions Weren’t Enough

Let’s be clear - there are plenty of good fundraising consultants out there. You can find more tech agencies than you can shake a stick at. There are excellent analysts who will crunch your numbers.

But the market simply didn’t have anyone who could pull it all together:

• Someone who could think like a CEO, a Fundraising Director, a Technical Director, and a Data Engineer all at once.

• Someone who could architect integrated solutions to complex, seemingly intractable problems.

• Someone who understood that strategy, technology, and data aren’t separate silos—they are inseparable if you want to thrive.

Level Up: Creating the Consultancy Charities Actually Need

It was obvious to us that if we were serious about helping charities succeed, our own consultancy offer needed to level up.

AAW Integrate exists precisely to fill this gap. We’re here to:

• Design the systems, models, and frameworks that make your strategies deliver reliably and at scale.

• Provide end-to-end support, bridging the worlds of fundraising, digital, data and technology.

• Give leaders clarity and confidence to make better decisions, faster.

Putting Our Money Where Our Mouths Are

So, long answer short, we launched AAW Integrate to solve the problems no one else is solving.

This is about giving charities a head start, not leaving them to deliver strategies with an arm tied behind their back.

Because the sector deserves better. And because every cause, and every supporter, deserves organisations built on clarity, not confusion.

Final Thought

If your organisation is wrestling with fragmented systems, patchy data, or strategies that never quite get off the page, it’s time to think differently.

We’d love to talk to you about how AAW Integrate can help you build the foundations your mission deserves.

When Strategy Looks Impressive but Fails: A Cautionary Tale for Not-for-Profit Leaders

By Alison Clarke, 7th August 2025

I recently came across a strategy from another sector that left me genuinely frustrated on behalf of the people expected to deliver it.

Even in its beginning stages, it was apparent this polished new plan was destined to fall flat. As is so often the case, it will inevitably be the staff who had no real voice in the process who take the blame for the failure. 

Unfortunately, it’s a scenario many not-for-profit organisations will recognise:

• A beautifully presented strategy document, brimming with ambition

• A confident implementation plan, signed off by senior leadership

• A high-profile launch designed to generate enthusiasm

And then, very little. Or worse, mounting frustration as the reality of delivery hits home.

Why Good Strategies Come Unstuck

So why does this keep happening?

Even the best ideas are bound to unravel if they aren’t grounded in a clear understanding of what it actually takes to bring them to life.

• Unrealistic timelines.

• Rigid milestones.

• No space for learning or adapting.

If I asked whether you’ve ever seen a strategy that looked impressive on paper but quickly fell apart in practice, I suspect you could think of a few examples. I certainly can.

At heart, the issue is simple: Strategy isn’t just about where you want to go, it’s about whether people have what they need to get there.

The Mountain Metaphor

Picture this: you ask your team to climb a mountain but you haven’t given them the right kit or the time to acclimatise.

That’s exactly what happens when strategy is focused solely on speed and certainty rather than execution and adaptability.

It’s a recipe for burnout, disillusionment and, ultimately, failure.

So What Can We Do Differently?

The good news is that this isn’t inevitable. The best strategies don’t just look good, they work because they’re designed to set people up for success.

Here are three ways to make that happen:

• Involve the people delivering the strategy in shaping it.
  When teams are part of the process, they’re more engaged and they’ll often spot potential pitfalls early on

• Set milestones that stretch people without overwhelming them.
  Ambition is important but it has to be balanced with a realistic assessment of capacity and resources

• Allow time to learn, refine, and adjust.
  No strategy survives first contact unchanged. That isn’t a failing, it’s a sign of a healthy and responsive organisation

A Simple Question for Leaders

Next time you’re reviewing a new strategy proposal, ask yourself: Does this set our teams up to succeed or are we, however unintentionally, setting them up to struggle?

In the end, no matter how impressive the vision or slick the presentation, a strategy is only as good as the experience of the people tasked with delivering it.

If it doesn’t work for them, it doesn’t work - full stop.

If your organisation is grappling with how to create strategies that stand up in the real world, I’d be glad to have a conversation. Supporting not-for-profits to build strategies and plans that actually deliver is what we do best at AAW.

Rip It Up and Start Again: Why Charities Need Drastic Structural Change

By Deniz Hassan, Digital Director AAW

23rd July 2025

In the 1980s, the band Orange Juice urged us to rip it up and start again. Today, that call rings truer than ever for our sector. Charities have been clinging to legacy structures and outdated ways of working while the world around us has transformed at pace. The result? We’re now stuck with monolithic systems that stifle innovation, repel talent and make it nearly impossible to understand or drive impact.

It’s time for something bigger than incremental change. It’s time to reimagine our organisations from the ground up.

The Same Old Story: Structures Holding Us Back

Over the last few years at AAW, we’ve reviewed some of the UK’s largest charities. Despite their scale and ambition, the pattern is consistent:

• Earning income is harder than ever, and even when we succeed, we often have no clear view of what worked and why.

• Spending money is paralysing, because without a confident understanding of impact, leaders feel unable to invest.

• Critical functions are neglected, simply because they never existed before.
  
  

A quick search on LinkedIn reveals the scale of the issue. When looking for data engineer roles in the not-for-profit sector, chances are you’ll be met with a handful of poorly paid listings, if anything at all. Meanwhile, there’s an abundance of generic fundraising and data analyst posts. These roles can’t thrive in isolation. They need modern support structures and interdisciplinary collaboration to be effective.

Missing Roles, Missing Skills

Too many of us assume that because certain jobs have always existed - fundraisers, analysts, comms managers - they’re the ones we need most. But the reality is that the roles charities don’t have may be the most important of all.Where are the people who connect the dots between strategy, finance, technology and impact? Where are the data engineers and integration specialists who can turn fragmented information into actionable intelligence?

These aren’t “nice to have” positions, they’re foundational. Without them, our sector will continue to fall behind, unable to attract and retain the talent that could propel us forward.

The Cost of Standing Still

While the world has raced ahead, charities have remained stooged in outdated models. We can no longer pretend that minor tweaks will suffice.

If we don’t act, we will keep:

• Losing skilled professionals to other sectors with more compelling career paths.
  
  

• Squandering resources because we can’t trace impact with confidence.
  
  

• Delivering less for the people and causes we exist to serve.
  
  

This isn’t about tinkering at the edges. It’s about having the courage to rip it up and start again.

What Needs to Change and Fast

To remain relevant and effective, not-for-profit leaders must commit to bold structural change:

• Invest in new roles that didn’t exist ten years ago but are critical now (especially in data, digital transformation and systems integration).
  
  

• Design support structures that empower teams rather than confine them.
  
  

• Challenge legacy thinking about what skills matter and how organisations should operate.
  
  

The sector is brimming with serious talent and big brains. But unless we create the conditions for them to succeed, we’ll never harness their full potential.

Time to Act

This is a pivotal moment. We can choose to keep papering over the cracks, or we can rebuild with intention and ambition. The old ways are holding us back. Let’s be brave enough to leave them behind.

Partner with AAW to Build What Comes Next

If the challenges outlined here feel familiar, you're not alone, and you don't have to tackle them alone either. 

At AAW Integrate, we specialise in helping charities make bold, structural change a reality. Whether you're rethinking your digital architecture, reviewing your digital strategy, or recruiting the data and technology roles that will shape your future, we bring deep sector experience and a clear-eyed view of what it takes to thrive in a fast-changing world.

Don’t just tweak the edges. Let’s rip it up and rebuild - smarter, stronger, and future-ready. Explore our services and get in touch to start your transformation.

Why charities don’t understand their fundraising and how we can fix it

By Tobin Aldrich, Principal Partner AAW

20th June 2025

I spent about 20 years as a fundraising director for five charities and, since 2015, have been consulting on fundraising programmes for nonprofits of all sizes and cause areas. At this point, AAW have reviewed, at some level, the fundraising operations of hundreds of nonprofits, including around half of the top 100 UK charities by voluntary income. 

Across all these organisations we have consistently seen the same problems holding back fundraising performance. And they are not getting any better.

At the heart of these issues is the central problem of understanding fundraising performance. Out of the hundreds of charities that I have analysed, there are only a handful that actually understand the real drivers of their voluntary income and how they can effectively influence them. 

The majority of the charities I have reviewed cannot reliably answer some fundamental questions about their fundraising portfolio. What is the actual ROI on the resources invested in each area of fundraising? Who are our supporters and why do they give to us in the ways that they do? What is the contribution of each part of our marketing mix and each pound spent on the recruitment and retention of supporters? 

Fundraising Directors are, in too many charities, flying blind. If you don't know where the best places are to invest your time and money, how can you make meaningful decisions? 

Why don’t charities understand their business? There are a range of interconnected problems that start with the disconnect between income strategy and organisational strategy.  Fundraising is seen as an operational enabler not a core strategic driver. This leads to an overly operational and tactical approach to income generation. 

This constrains a properly data and evidence-based approach to fundraising.  The quality and availability of real action insight is the most common and most acute  single issue in the charities we review.  Charities have data, often lots of it, that details their fundraising and marketing performance, but it is inconsistent, unreliable and dispersed.  There are different and incompatible versions of the truth, with the result that decisions, even on seven or eight figure investments, are made based on instinct, prejudice or based on the advice of suppliers with vested interests in the outcome.

This problem has actually gotten worse over the course of my career in fundraising.  This is because charity marketing has got more competitive and more complex at a similar rate. Thirty years ago, I could build fundraising programmes by finding an activity that paid back fairly immediately and which didn’t really need much time and investment from the rest of the organisation. Face-to-face fundraising then, for example, was basically free money and you had to be an idiot not to invest (there were, of course, idiots).

The world now is very different. Successful fundraising programmes need to be much more sophisticated and to understand the interrelation between multiple channels and touchpoints, and their impact on supporter behaviour. Marketing in a digital word means needing to bring together and interpret data from many sources to actually understand what is driving what and why.

Charities have access to all the tools that would allow them to answer the fundamental questions about their fundraising. What they are struggling to do is to bring them together. Finance, IT, fundraising and brand and marketing teams are all addressing different parts of the problem but struggling to find a common language to discuss it, let alone a common approach to move things forward.  

Millions are being invested in new technology, particularly in new CRM systems and their panoply of clever and expensive ideas.  We have seen too many of these projects fail to meet expectations because actually this isn’t a problem technology can fix on its own. Spoiler alert, AI is not the answer. 

What we need, above all, is the proper integration of strategy, data and technology, and insight. 

This is why we have set up AAW Integrate. At AAW we have the combination of real depth of expertise in three things that don’t usually come together: fundraising with the AAW consultancy team, digital performance marketing with Deniz Hassan and marketing data architecture and technology with our technical team led by Simon Applebaum.  The job of AAW Integrate is to bring all key strategic and operational elements together to allow charities to understand their fundraising performance and make better decisions about it. We are identifying what are the key questions, where the data lies that can answer them and developing solutions that standardises and integrates this data into insight that can really drive performance.  

We are currently working with a number of big name charities and nonprofits and are already identifying actionable transformational changes in fundraising programmes as a result. Deniz and I will be joining Amnesty’s Rohan Hewavisenti to speak more about AAW Integrate at the Charity Finance Conference in June - so if you are attending please do come and say hello. Otherwise, drop me a line at tobin@aawpartnership.com to find out a little more. 

2025 Fundraising Benchmarks Survey

The 2025 Fundraising Benchmarks Survey is officially LIVE. AAW has collaborated with the Chartered Institute of Fundraising again for this survey, and we are hoping it will be even bigger and better this year 🎉

Last year the charities who took part accounted for an impressive £1.5 billion of fundraised income. We had some truly fantastic insights into fundraising performance across the sector. By joining in on this year's survey, you will help shape the collective understanding of how our sector is performing - and gain valuable insights on how your charity is performing relative to its peers.

What's in it for you?
✅ It is relatively quick and easy to complete
✅ It will provide valuable, actionable data
✅ It is FREE to participate!

Please set aside time before the 25th April to participate. Anyone who enters will get a free report on the findings, with anonymised data.

A huge thank you in advance to everyone who participates and shares our survey.

Who are the top fundraisers?

By Tobin Aldrich

19th March 2025

I’ve long been frustrated by the lack of really good information on which charities in the UK raise the most money. The Charities Aid Foundation used to produce a Top 100 Charities list but it has been many years since that has been updated.  So, at AAW, we have been developing our own data and now we are making it available to the sector.

We have carried out an in-depth analysis of the top 100 fundraising charities in the UK based on voluntary income for the financial year ending in 2023. And we have compared that to the same data from 2019.

The data is sourced from audited accounts and curated to exclude entities that, while appearing in the rankings, do not primarily engage in fundraising (for example, grant-making trusts, universities and religious organisations primarily serving faith communities). The report categorises charities by their primary cause area and evaluates income growth, legacy and donations income, and fundraising expenditure.

We’ve tried to deal with the major anomalies that bedevil such exercises, such as the different ways charities categorise income and expenditure. The results won’t be perfect, but this should be the most reliable list that’s available.

The results are very interesting. You’ll have to read the report for the full story but some snippets are:

• 81 of the charities in the top 100 in 2019 feature on the 2023 list. Seven charities in the top 10 in 2019 also remain in the 2023 top 10 list.

• The highest proportion of income in the top 100 came from charities dealing with international causes and that has risen since 2019. But this was heavily influenced by major humanitarian appeals, such as raising funds for Ukraine.

• Armed forces, disability and children’s charities all fell as a proportion of income compared to 2019.

• The charity which raised the most money in donations from the public in 2023 isn’t who you probably think it is.

We are making the report available for free to the first 100 people who ask for it. Please click here to order your copy.

The World Changes. Again.

Tobin Aldrich

10th March 2025

We are in the midst of dramatic and fast changing global events. Again.

Amongst a number of major convulsions that the new administration in the US has unleashed on us all in the last month, they have essentially trashed the whole global aid system. While no one has any idea of what the future will be, it seems unlikely that USAID in anything remotely resembling its previous incarnation is coming back. Lots of us might have had major issues with the way the US did international aid and development but suddenly stopping virtually all of it leaves a massive gap covering all kinds of programmes all over the world. The UK announcing its own massive aid cuts last week has just exacerbated the situation.

And non-profits are scrambling to respond and to develop strategies in response.  All of us involved in nonprofit consulting probably have in-boxes full of people looking for guidance and support.

Our wheelhouse is money and where to find it, so I’ll stick to that.  Our advice in this situation is basically the same as in any other of the crises we have been through (I remember something about a global pandemic?).  There are a few simple points to keep in mind:

Don’t hide away

What you cannot do is freeze and turn inwards. There’s lots of internal stuff you’ll need to do but it’s essential to communicate externally. Most of all with your supporters.

Focus on those who love you

Or your cause. You need to be talking to them honestly about the situation, what it means and what you can do. They will help if you let them but they won’t if you don’t. Don’t wait until you know everything, you are not going to. Speak to your supporters now.

Focus on what you can control.

There’s no point in bewailing the situation or hoping that someone will ride to your rescue. The first is a waste of energy and the second isn’t going to happen. So what are the levers you can pull, where can you reduce exposure and create breathing room?

Make the changes.

Let’s be honest, while the latest developments are shocking, they haven’t come out of nowhere. The world aid system has been in a slowly developing crisis for a long time. Aid and development models have been increasingly questioned and the role of the international NGO in particular ever more under scrutiny. We’ve all known change has been needed and this simply hasn’t happened fast enough. Our friend Keith Kibirango discusses what this means for the new world funding order in this great video here

This is true of funding too. Many INGOs have attempted to ride the two horses of public support and institutional money as the environment for both has changed fundamentally. Can organisations continue both to be essentially sub-contractors to government while mobilising individuals in donor countries? Arguably many are doing neither well.

Many of us have been arguing for a long time for a different approach to securing funding, much more integrated into organisational strategy, much more authentic to and co-created with supporters, that properly brings together all parts of the nonprofit around a shared narrative.

In the weeks to come there will be nonprofits desperately scrambling for different funding sources, looking for unicorns and asking people like us to find them.  But there are no tactical short cuts here.

The sooner we can have conversations about fundamental strategic changes and tackle the factors that have stopped this in the past, the more quickly we will move on to the new approaches that allow the sector to navigate these very uncertain times.

All that is certain in the future is change and we need to adapt to it now.

And of course, if you want to talk through options, you know where to find us.

Certainty

Imogen Ward

10th February 2025

“There is one sin which I have come to fear above all else… certainty. Certainty is the great enemy of unity… the deadly enemy of tolerance.”

Anyone who has enjoyed Robert Harris’s Pope romp, Conclave, will probably remember the line about certainty.

It’s as much about how we navigate our own lives as it is about faith. And it got me thinking about how the role of certainty is key to planning in a strategic context.

Our role as Strategy Consultants is to balance focus and attention on deep diving into  the past, interrogating the present and forecasting the future.

By the very nature of what we do - guiding organisations to make the right strategic and operational choices often at a time of extreme pressure  - consists of a judgement on certainty.

But surely we’d be charlatans of the worst kind if we proposed that everything we advised was based on a concrete belief of…. well… certainty.

Well maybe - because there are some components of our work that we really do need to be fairly clear on. These are my top 3:

The Truth - This is the biggie really and something that we often struggle to land with our clients. This is not for any nefarious reasons, but usually because the position right now - or as is - is often really hard to grasp. My colleague Deniz Hassan speaks about the growing chasm of what any organisation needs to understand in terms of data and insights to motor planning and what is actually assumed to be right.

The Vision - What is it that you want to achieve and over what timeframe? Typically not-for-profits are good at articulating the vision, but struggle then to provide the indicators to prove that impact. Why? Well see above.

The Culture - Perhaps I should clarify here. It’s not the articulation of the culture that is important,  but the appreciation of its impact: is it enabling the organisation to succeed or is it creating a static environment. Or (and we see this far too much) is it tearing it apart. Signs we see: a rock star department that dominates. The Income Generation team plough their course with little regard or attention to the rest of the organisation? Has Compliance moved from something that gives a framework, to something that rules with fear?

But there is some stuff that is less straightforward to be certain on:

The Forecast - we all know that the future cannot be predicted. God knows what next week will bring at this stage let alone any longer than that. So why do Trustees  ask for a 5 year income forecast from the Fundraising Director? And then insist on reassurance that it will be inevitably delivered?

Don’t get me wrong, organisations need some way of planning for the future, working out what sensible investment looks like and what it might bring in. But too often we find Fundraising Directors who have inherited a lovely looking strategy that will double (it always doubles) income in five years based on what exactly? Unless you are really clear about the key risks and assumptions behind the forecast and there’s a robust process to validate these assumptions against real-world outcomes, the result is too often a paper strategy that no one believes in and will never succeed.

The Benchmarks - Trustees looking for certainty will ask for examples of organisations who have been in the same position and whose strategies can be copied. We do a lot of benchmarking for our clients and it’s a useful indicator of what other similar organisations are doing and how you perform against them or what you can learn from them. But charities are so different from each other and report so differently, that an indicator is all it can ever be.  There’s no magic formula for success.

We crave certainty in life - we seek out patterns and trends to prove this or that. As with life, in fundraising, some stuff works, some stuff doesn’t work but you are more likely to make the right choices if you approach it all with a good pinch of honesty.

Cardinal Benitez would be proud.

From Cost to Catalyst: Why Non Profits Must Properly Invest in Data and Tech

Deniz Hassan

January 20th, 2025

Last week I had to descend into the lower basement to meet the Chief Technical Officer of a huge organisation. It was a bit grim. Two hours later, I met the comms team upstairs on a beautiful, bright and newly refurbished floor. It felt very 'IT Crowd' (couldn't find the box with the internet in it though).

In a bit of a different take to my usual fundraising point of view, this time I'm thinking about things from a finance angle.

In the non-profit sector, technology and data are often relegated to the shadows, not just in terms of location but viewed as necessary but costly overheads.

This perception needs to change. For senior finance leaders, particularly in organisations with complex, multi-channel, and multi-product portfolios, technology and data are not just tools; they are enablers of financial sustainability and mission-driven success. It’s time to bring them into the light.

From Expense to Investment

For too long, technology has been considered a cost centre rather than a strategic asset. But the benefits are so clear (when communicated in the right way) - with the right infrastructure and insights, technology empowers finance leaders to achieve clarity in fundraising operations, predict financial outcomes, and measure the true ROI of every facet of an income generation programme. Imagine having the ability to precisely calculate the cost-to-income ratio of a specific appeal across digital, direct mail, and events—and knowing where to double down for future success.

Data and technology provide this clarity, eliminating guesswork and enabling informed decisions. The right investments in data and technology means finance teams can actually do things such as compare historical performance against current strategies with confidence rather than the standard opaque conversations that seem to drive some of the most important decisions - imagine that!

Better Relationships Through Better Data

Over the years as a fundraiser, I've made sure I've spent the right amount of money buying coffees for my finance people. But the relationship between finance and fundraising teams can sometimes be a bit tetchy, especially in large organisations where teams work in silos.

Technology bridges this gap by making the right sort of data available. Data, at the correct level of granularity and transparency ensures finance teams have a comprehensive view of income generation programmes. This transparency allows for more collaborative planning and the ability to forecast more accurately.

When finance teams have access to 'proper' data, they can better understand donor behaviours, campaign lifecycles, and the financial impact of different fundraising initiatives. This shared understanding fosters trust and strengthens relationships across the organisation. The intangible ROI is off the chart.

Predictive Power for the Future

In addition to understanding past performance, technology enables organisations to look forward. Predictive analytics, powered by robust data sets, allow finance leaders to model different scenarios and determine where future investments will be most effective. For example, what happens if we invest more in digital fundraising versus face-to-face? Technology can provide the answer, helping to allocate resources with precision. Again, doesn't really sound like a 'cost', no?

The Cost of Inaction

Failing to invest in technology and data because it's expensive is a fool's errand. You're investing in ignorance and uncertainty while potentially pouring millions into a media plan. And all because one has a 'direct ROI'. But step back and consider the cost your organisation risks when making inefficient decisions in our income generation programmes ("Let's pour more money into DRTV"), wasting resources ("It'll take us 2 weeks to pull together a report that shows our returns"), and falling behind in an increasingly competitive landscape ("We'll learn the lessons and have another crack before I decide to get a new job").

Non-profits must view technology not as a cost but as a catalyst for growth. It’s the foundation upon which better decisions are made, better relationships are built, and better outcomes are achieved for both your organisation and the people you serve

Leading the Way

For senior finance leaders, embracing technology and data isn’t about keeping up with trends; it’s about leading their organisations into a sustainable future. By investing in the right systems and fostering a data-driven culture, they can ensure that every pound spent is a pound well invested.

It’s time to step out of the shadows. Data and technology are no longer optional extras—they are the backbone of modern, impactful, and financially sustainable non-profits.

The Localisation Agenda is Failing – Here’s Why

Keith Kibirango

3rd December

AAW have a great deal of experience of working with the world’s biggest INGOs on major, often very complex, resource mobilisation projects.

The shift of power – localisation -  has become a major part of the conversation and a fundamental vision for the future of international aid and development.

As we close the year and look to 2025, AAW are delighted to welcome our friend and colleague Keith Kibirango, CEO of New Global Markets Consulting to reflect on why progress is not greater and what needs to be done to accelerate change.

The localisation agenda is hailed as the future of global development - a shift of power, resources, and decision-making to the Global South. Yet, despite the rhetoric, it’s failing. And the reason is brutally simple: a lack of serious investment in capacity-building for leaders and organisations in the Global South.

We hear endless platitudes about equity and empowerment, but in practice, localisation is too often reduced to outsourcing implementation while maintaining power and influence in the Global North. Global South organisations are handed crumbs - short-term, project-based funding - barely enough to keep them afloat, let alone build the robust systems and infrastructure required for long-term sustainability. This isn’t localisation; it’s paternalism with a glossy rebrand.

The Hypocrisy of Localisation

Let’s be honest. If we’re serious about localisation, we must confront some uncomfortable truths.

The current system perpetuates a cycle of dependency. Organisations in the Global South are rarely treated as true equals in decision-making. Instead, they’re kept in a state of perpetual precarity, reliant on the next round of funding from the same Global North organisations that claim to be “empowering” them. This approach doesn’t just fail the localisation agenda - it undermines it.

Worse still, the capacity-building narrative is often weaponised against Global South leaders. The excuse? “They don’t have the skills or experience to manage large-scale programmes.” But whose fault is that? How can we expect leaders to thrive when they’ve been denied access to the transformative opportunities - education, mentorship, leadership training - that many of us in the Global North take for granted?

The Capacity Gap: A Manufactured Crisis

I am where I am today because I was given the opportunities that my fellow leaders in the Global South are routinely denied. I was granted access to a world-class education, mentored by industry leaders, and allowed the freedom to make mistakes and grow. It’s not that Global South leaders lack potential; they lack access to the same pipeline of opportunities that allowed me to succeed.

The Global North has systematically hoarded expertise and opportunities, leaving Global South organisations with limited resources, minimal support, and a fraction of autonomy. The result? A non-profit sector in the Global South that is perpetually dependent, unable to build the kind of home-grown leadership that can truly drive local solutions.

A Vision for Real Localisation

The localisation agenda needs a radical overhaul. If we’re serious about creating a thriving, independent sector in the Global South, we need to stop tinkering around the edges and start addressing the root causes of the problem. This means moving beyond project-based funding and investing in people.

We need a deliberate, long-term strategy to build a pipeline of home-grown leaders who can anchor themselves in their communities and drive sustainable change. This is more than technical skills; it’s about equipping leaders with the confidence, networks, and resources to set their agenda - not as passive aid recipients but as the architects of their futures.

What Needs to Change?

1.      Stop Paying Lip Service: If funders truly believe in localisation, they must put their money where their mouth is. Fund capacity-building initiatives that focus on leadership development, mentorship, and infrastructure.

2.      Break the Dependency Cycle: Move away from tokenistic funding that keeps organisations in survival mode. Offer unrestricted, long-term funding to allow them to build resilient institutions.

3.      Decentralise Power: Stop controlling decisions from the Global North. Global South leaders need real authority over how resources are allocated, and programmes are designed.

4.      Invest in Talent Pipelines: Build the same systems of mentorship and opportunity in the Global South that have produced generations of leaders in the Global North. This is a must!

A Home-Grown Agenda

The Localisation Agenda is fast becoming a dirty word. At NGM Consulting, we are committed to creating a “home-grown agenda” - not one that relies on being an implementation partner for Global North organisations, but one that builds thriving, independent institutions that respond to the needs of their communities.

This isn’t just a professional goal; it’s deeply personal. My career was built on the shoulders of mentors and opportunities that are inaccessible to too many in the Global South. My dream is to replicate those experiences for the next generation over and over again.

But let’s be clear: this won’t happen without a fight. The localisation agenda, as it stands, is failing because it was never designed to succeed. It’s a half-hearted attempt at power-sharing that avoids the hard work of dismantling the systems that maintain inequality.

If we’re serious about localisation, we need to stop pretending and start doing the hard work of building a non-profit sector in the Global South that doesn’t just survive but thrives. Anything less is a betrayal of the very communities we claim to serve.

Are we ready to stop the charade and commit to real change? Let’s have the conversation.

To found out more about New Global Markets Consulting please email Keith Kibirango at keith.kibirango@newglobalmarkets.consulting

What We Can Learn About Philanthropy From The Higher Education Sector

By Tobin Aldrich

9th September

One of the reasons that I enjoy being a consultant is the variety of organisations and sectors we work with. We learn from every client and every project we work with.

In the last couple of years we have increasingly been working in the higher education sector, including a series of major Advancement projects in Australia with the University of Sydney. It’s been a fascinating experience and we have learned loads from it.

As part of building our expertise in the specifics of university philanthropy we’ve got more involved with the extremely impressive industry body that is CASE, the higher education organisation that promotes Advancement (philanthropy and alumni relations) across the sector.

Last week I was at the CASE Europe annual conference in Manchester. It was a great event that showcased how well higher education does some aspects of philanthropy.

One of the joys of working with HE for someone like me is this is a sector that really, really loves data. US universities have been developing very sophisticated philanthropy programmes for well over 150 years at this point and CASE itself dates back to 1960. That’s a massive amount of experience in the art and science of (mostly) major giving. And they have been collecting data for a long time.

The result is that HE fundraisers have access to data on relative fundraising and alumni engagement performance that their counterparts in the charity sector can only dream of. While the most data (and the most giving) is in the US, there is now considerable data available for giving to higher education in the UK.

This allows us to get a clear picture of a sector that, while it has some common characteristics, is quite distinctive from the wider charity sector.

Giving to HE in the UK has grown strongly in the last 20 years rising from £0.4bn in 2004 to £1.4bn last year.  This compares to the £1bn that the international development sector raised from voluntary sources, for example.  

Unlike other sectors (outside arts and heritage), giving to higher education is all about major giving, six, seven, eight and increasingly nine figure gifts. Over 85% of the funds raised by UK universities are typically from major gifts, from individuals and foundations mainly. HE is well ahead of the wider charity sector in philanthropy and it is an interesting question why this is the case.

An explanation that is often offered is that this is because of alumni connection. About half of the biggest gifts come from alumni so this is definitely part of it. My view, however, is that the scale of ambition that universities can offer is also a key factor. This is a sector that can genuinely come up with big ideas and visions, with a truly long-term view - this is something that many fundraising charities really struggle with.

This doesn’t mean that HE fundraising is universally better than practices in the charity sector. Smaller scale giving, often called “community giving” is rather under-developed by UK fundraising standards, with investment limited and relatively unsophisticated programmes. This is a bit surprising as alumni engagement is otherwise taken very seriously by universities.  Legacy giving is also lower in the HE sector than you might expect.

Universities, like the charity sector, often have a gap in their fundraising strategies around mid-tier donors and we increasingly hear concerns about this “missing middle”.

Higher education and the charity sector are all looking to achieve step-changes in their use of digital channels and technologies, and are facing similar challenges in making this a reality - the issues of limited technology, lack of expertise and significant cultural barriers are familiar to both.  Charity best practice can definitely add value to many universities in terms of digital fundraising.  There is huge interest in the potential of AI but a common lack of integrated strategies to understand and exploit it.

While we will continue to work across a wide range of sectors and look for cross-fertilisation across them, we will be building our HE engagement and expertise over the next year and look forward to sharing some of those findings.

Fundraising Benchmarking: The Findings

By Tobin Aldrich

30th July 2024

I am very excited to announce the results of our 2024 Fundraising Benchmarks report, in collaboration with the Chartered Institute of Fundraising.

I have been looking for years for a robust external benchmark to use to compare how well a charity’s fundraising  is performing against peers. We do this as part of our fundraising reviews (of which we’ve done more than a hundred at this point) and each time I’m frustrated by the lack of decent external data to use.   I covered the issues in my previous blog.

Our hypothesis was that it was possible to create a meaningful benchmark based on a survey if we could be really, really specific in the questions.

In the end 56 organisations ranging from the very small to the biggest charities in the UK completed the survey. We got representation from most sectors and the charities who took part accounted for no less than £1.5bn of fundraised income, around 6% of the total voluntary income of the UK charity sector.

The survey was definitely not perfect. We only got a few respondents from small charities with under £1m of voluntary income and those that did take part fed back that the survey was too complicated for them with many of the questions not relevant. We need to give respondents more guidance in how to fill out the survey and be realistic about the amount of pre-work they need to do. This really wasn’t a 30 minute exercise.

But we got lots of really good data and much of it was pretty robust. We have enough charities who operated in all of the areas at sufficient scale to give us decent samples for things like income and expenditure levels (and hence ROIs) and team sizes and income raised per fundraiser.

Many of the findings were confirmation (but with hard data, so still useful) of things we already knew - the importance of legacy income and regular giving, how events income is concentrated in particular sectors such as health, how little charities spend on promoting legacies considering the importance of this income source. But there were also things that we suspected but didn’t know for sure, that there a real economies of scale in fundraising, that all else being equal the amount raised per member of fundraising staff is higher the bigger the charity is (in voluntary income terms).  I think this is less a case of larger charities being more efficient per se (trust me many of them really aren’t) as of there being a high cost of entry for many fundraising areas such as individual giving. You need specialist staff, for example, whether your income is £1m or £10m. It was also interesting to see that for all the emphasis on digital in fundraising, the vast majority of new charity supporters are still being produced from non-digital channels, particularly face-to-face.

The report is being sent to all participants who also get an individual analysis of their numbers against the survey means. For everyone else, you can download it by providing your email address below.

We are planning to make this an annual exercise and are aiming to keep it free to enter. We’ve been approached by charities looking to replicate this for particular sectors and we might develop some sub-sets if there is enough demand (probably not for free though). If you are interested in exploring this, drop me a line.

We are also exploring a simpler version for smaller charities and may be looking for volunteers to test this on. We’ll announce that when we have something ready.

By submitting this form, I understand the AAW Group will process my personal information submitted in accordance with their Privacy and Cookie Policy

How Does Our Fundraising Compare?

Tobin Aldrich

21st May 2024

For as long as I’ve worked in the sector, the issue of how to benchmark the fundraising performance of charities against each other has really bugged me. We have collectively never managed to come up with a way of comparing fundraising activities that manages to be both robust and easy for charities to participate in. As a result we don’t even have a single comprehensive list of the top fundraising charities, let alone good benchmarks for fundraising efficiency across the different areas.

There have been many valiant attempts to address this issue. Remember Fund Ratios anyone? And there are good quality studies that do exist - Open Creates run a very good annual benchmark, mostly focused on individual giving. But it costs a reasonable amount of money to take part in and charities have to provide their data for it, so participation is limited to only a relatively small number of the largest charities.

Is it possible to create an annual benchmark for fundraising that would be accessible to all charities, relatively easy to take part in, free to enter and still able to produce decent usable data? I don’t know, so we at AAW in collaboration with CIOF decided to give it a try.

We are launching the CIOF 2024 Fundraising Benchmarking study this week. This will be based on a self-survey questionnaire sent to Directors/Heads of Fundraising. The aim is to have something fairly simple that answers what we believe are the most common questions about fundraising performance, for example how does our ratio of income to expenditure across each fundraising area compare to other charities or how does our cost to acquire new donors by channel differ from others?

This won’t be an in-depth process and this isn’t intended to compete with or replace existing studies such as the Open Benchmarks (which we still encourage charities to take part in if they can). But we really want to get the biggest possible sample size and the most representative of all parts of the sector, so we can have something that is as robust as we can make it.

The survey is intended to take about 30 minutes to complete (although information will need to be collected beforehand).

We are planning to share the results at the CIOF National Convention at the beginning of July so we will need to have all the entries in by the 20th June 2024.  We would love to hear people’s feedback after taking part in the survey - this is very much a first attempt and something we would hope to refine over time.

You may already have received an email from us or from CIOF that has been sent out to all their  organisational members letting you know the survey is ready, but if you haven’t you can find the link here. Everybody is welcome to take part, there are no fees to pay and everybody who takes part will get a report of the results (and of course, we will anonymise individual charities in the report).

I do hope your charity can take part. In the meantime, please contact me with any questions or feedback.

To Mark, With All Our Love

Imogen Ward

29th April 2024

Mark has been a close friend, colleague and mentor to me for over 20 years. From our time when we first met as part of the DEC to when 7 years ago, he left his beloved Red Cross to join Tobin Aldrich and myself in the newly formed consultancy practice Astarita Aldrich Ward.  

Tobin always laughed that only Mark and I could actually ignore the rule of the alphabet and put his name first. Technically of course Aldrich should come before Astarita. Mark and I just thought Astarita Aldrich Ward sounded better. And it did. We were right. We often were. 

The search side of our business had been Mark’s idea all along. Fundraising leaders finding other fundraising leaders had been something that came naturally to Mark. For many, many years every charity recruitment agency in the UK bent his ear for recommendations on roles and his instinct for talent meant that he was generally pretty astute to landing the right people for the right role. So he kind of knew this would fly. 

I am not saying that the actual translating of this idea to a proper company was easy. It wasn’t. We had to learn loads and we were lucky to get some of the best search people in the business to help us. But the core of it - the authenticity of what we knew was right - was our North Star. And it worked. AAW’s Search and Interim service will continue to be one of Mark’s many, many brilliant contributions to our sector. 

Professionally, Mark was inspired and energised by three things. Firstly, the Red Cross movement and all that entailed. Whether that’s a humanitarian response thousands of miles away or a crisis closer to home. 

When I worked with him as part of the DEC someone said to me (when Mark was being particularly truculent) “when Mark bleeds it ain’t red. It’s Red Cross”. And it was true. Mark was always fixated on doing what was best for humanity and delivering aid as his axle, and he was always convinced that the role of the Red Cross in an emergency was key. So of course they deserved all the money!  He loved the Red Cross Movement  - he lived and breathed its values and history, and was entranced by all its many incarnations. Even when he left, he was still part of it. The blood running through him was Red Cross. 

The loss of Mark's late wife, Gill, hit him hard and when some years later he found love and laughter again with Angie everyone was so happy for him. When Gill was coming to the end of her life she was treated by the St Joseph’s Hospice in Hackney. It triggered for Mark a deep connection to the cause, serving on the board of St Joseph’s and then later St Clare’s in Harlow. He did so much for the movement and I know it’s stronger thanks to his love and determination. 

Finally Fundraising. Or rather Fundraisers. When Mark moved from being a Trade Unionist to the Charity Sector he really did bring something very different. Mark was a working class young man who had left school at 15 with very few qualifications. Smart, cocky and determined to have his voice heard in a sector which, like the rest of British society, really wanted the Marks of the world to conform and be quiet. But Mark couldn't be quiet. And as he got more confident he got louder. And it was Fundraisers that became his cause. Fundraisers who he loved and roared for and would always, always champion. Fundraisers were Mark’s life’s work. 

Mark raised loads and loads of money for the causes he worked for in his career - billions of dollars in fact. He won countless awards, was the Chair of many, many committees and institutions and even received an OBE in recognition of his work. But I think the thing he was proudest of was the teams of Fundraisers he led and inspired to not only deliver the greatest for the charity they were working for, but to achieve greatness for themselves. 

It’s impossible to quantify how many lives Mark touched in this way. How many individuals he inspired, encouraged and propelled  - many are now CEOs of some of the biggest charities in the world. All of the people he touched will be remembering him now. Mark was one of those unique people who changed your life from simply being in his presence. 

Mark - all of us at AAW loved you very much and will miss you deeply.  We are having to deal with the unimaginable and navigating the next few days and weeks will be hard. But we were all blessed to be close to you personally and have you as part of our small company trying in your words “to do good stuff for good people fighting the good fight”.

And do you know what? Even if your surname had started with a Z -  your name would have always been first. 

How Has Fundraising Changed Since 2016?

Tobin Aldrich

4th April 2024

Anybody who has ever tried to benchmark the fundraising performance of charities against each other will tell you it is a thankless and frustrating task. Charities are absolutely excellent at reporting their income and expenditure in confusing and inconsistent ways and the task of comparing apples to apples is, well, an interesting one.

So obviously we spend quite a lot of time and energy on benchmarking. It’s pure masochism really.

Amongst all the pain and suffering we do occasionally manage to collect interesting data so I’d thought I’d share some of this.

Since 2017 we have been tracking the overall fundraising performance of the top 100 UK charities by voluntary income. This is using public data only (although we have worked with a majority of these organisations in some capacity, we obviously can’t share their information) which means using the audited accounts each charity files with the Charity Commission.

Given that every charity uses the same accounting framework (SORP), you’d have thought this means that this would be a simple task. You would be wrong, there is wide room for interpretation in these principles and boy do charities take advantage of it. How and why is a whole different subject but for now let’s just say we have to do quite a bit of work on these figures to make them reasonably comparable. 

That all being said, in 2015/16  (year ending before April 2016) the organisations below were, according to our figures, the top charities in the UK by fundraised income (that is to say donations and legacies from individuals, charitable trusts and companies).

*These are our definitions based on what section of the fundraising “market” we think the charity occupies, not how the charity would represent themselves (sorry Guide Dogs).

Of the top 20 charities, five were in the health sector, including the two big cancer charities CRUK and Macmillan which were first and second in the top 20. There were six internationally focused charities (if we classify Red Cross and Comic Relief as international), four animal charities, two conservation/heritage and a smattering of others.

Going forward to the year ending before April 2023, there has been quite a lot of change. CRUK retains the top spot but there’s plenty of movement below this. This was the year of the Ukraine appeal, so we have internationally focused charities - BRC, Islamic Relief and UNICEF – performing strongly and moving up the chart, but all of these had been growing even before this. Sightsavers, which is not an emergency charity, has entered the top 20, up 11 places since 2015/16.

Not all international charities have grown, Oxfam has fallen from 4th to 8th place while Save the Children has gone down from 7th to 14th place.

Health charities remain strongly represented, but there are winners and losers. Macmillan is down to 4th from 2nd place.  Marie Curie is down three spots. BHF is up one place and Alzheimers has entered the top 20, up nine spots from 2016.

Animal charities are still strongly represented but there has been a bit of movement between them. Conservation charities are showing growth, WWF are up four places for example.

What does all this tell us?

Well let’s start with the macro picture. The voluntary income of the top 20 charities in 2015/16 was £2.56bn and this had grown to £3bn by 2022/23. That’s a 19% increase in seven years.  That sounds good except that, according to the Bank of England, the Consumer Price Index has increased by 30% in that period. The situation is worse if we exclude legacies. Donation income of the top 20 increased by just 12% in seven years.

There’s some movement between causes. In a year when there was a once-in-a-generation emergency appeal for Ukraine, we saw some strong results for some international charities but this overlays a pattern of steady decline by some long established international development charities. Children’s charities are steadily losing market share - the highest ranked children’s charity is now outside the top 10 charities. Conservation is growing, animals and health are broadly stable.

Oh and the fifth biggest charity by voluntary income in the UK is Islamic Relief. Now that’s a societal shift right there.

This is very much just the edited highlights of our data, which cover the top 100 charities. If anyone wants more of the underlying detail, just drop me a line.

The Art of Asking for What You Want.

Mark Astarita

26th March 2024

Last week I received an email out of the blue that made me smile. I have permission to share it with you and I wanted to do so, to as it’s a great reminder to all fundraisers especially, as well as candidates looking for new roles, to be brave – and that if you don’t ask, you don’t get. And if you ask beautifully, you are unlikely to be ignored and will stand out from the crowd.

The email started with a reminder of our shared past and this person’s expertise as a highly successful fundraiser…

I hope you are well, and don’t mind me reaching out in this manner. I’m taking a wild stab in the dark here, in the hope that you might remember me. A few years ago, we spent an afternoon together whilst you observed my work as a door-to-door fundraiser, representing the British Red Cross. At the time, I was one of the highest performing fundraisers in the country, on the verge of setting up my own direct marketing company. My business proved a roaring success, sustaining an unparalleled retention rate, generating millions in revenue for numerous charitable organisations… most favourably the British Red Cross of course!

That afternoon we spent pacing the streets of East London left a huge impression on me. It was just over 10 years ago now, but I distinctly recall bonding over our love of motorbikes and the phenomenal work the Red Cross do. I left our encounter feeling deeply inspired by your story and have since been committed to working in sectors that make a positive and powerful difference. 

…before going to on to ask directly for what she wants now:

My reason for reaching out now, (and I must stress that I sincerely hope it is not too cheeky to do so), is that I am looking for a new career opportunity and the chance to use my skills to make an incredible difference in the charity sector again. Recently, I've become a member of a fundraising board, on a volunteer basis, further securing my desire to apply myself fully in this field again; which explains why you are reading this email right now.

It would mean such a lot to me if I were able to steal a little bit of your time to pick your brains on what might be my best way to move forward. Perhaps you may know of an organisation that needs an ambitious, tenacious, self-starter like me? Or alternatively, I'd value any words of wisdom that could help me identify possible gaps I may need to fill, in order to get to where I want to be. 

And then closing with a very personal thank you:

I appreciate how busy you must be however, so if nothing else, please consider this a long overdue thank you for the invite I received to the BRC garden party at Buckingham Palace. I believe you were responsible for that invite and let me just say, the whole day was wonderful...the cucumber sandwiches were sublime!

It was an email that made me recall getting a similarly lovely letter along with a CV in my first few weeks as Director of Fundraising at the British Red Cross, asking for opportunities. It was from the one and only Tanya Steele – within a few days she was volunteering at the charity and today she is the CEO of WWF. She asked, I noticed, and the rest is history.

It’s a direct approach that has proved successful in my career before. Some years before I met Tanya, our wonderful Patron where I was working as Director of Fundraising and Communications at the National Deaf Children’s Society signed six very speculative letters to potential major donors for a capital build. Five out of the six responded and donated – the largest had never had a previous connection with the charity and won naming rights because of the size of the gift.

The key lesson here is that approaches were very personal, appealing and direct – above all you need to ask specifically for what you want; heck what have you got to lose by not trying and then trying again?

Oh and yes the email sender is having coffee with me next week.  I look forward to hearing all her news 10 years on.

What Can We Learn From Universities About Philanthropy?

Tobin Aldrich

12th March

As I’ve said before, one of the great pleasures of consultancy is the variety of the projects we get to do.

In the last year we have been working more with Higher Education organisations than in previous years.  It’s a fascinating world and there are definitely learnings for the wider charity sector.

HE philanthropy is very different from charity fundraising. In some ways they can be seen as mirror images of each other.

What HE really excels at is major giving. We have been working with a University in Australia that raises 97% of its over $100m annual philanthropic income from gifts of over $100,000 and nearly 75% from gifts of over $1m. HE institutions are the places where really big giving is happening - the largest gift to an Australian University so far has been $250m.  By contrast, the biggest UK fundraising charities typically raise around 5% of their income from major gifts. And that proportion hasn’t really changed for many years.

Why do universities do so well with larger gifts? They have an advantage with their alumni communities, people who have a lifelong relationship with the institution and to at least some degree, a stake in its success. But only around half of the biggest gifts to universities come from alumni. So what else is going on?

One of the things that has really struck us about working with universities is the sense of possibility and optimism in these places. We’ve always said that to raise a very significant amount of money you need an idea that is big enough. Universities are full of people who can generate very big ideas. That isn’t to say that turning these ideas into deliverable programmes isn’t often very challenging, but this is an environment which enables big picture thinking while the institutions are large enough to be able to pull them off.    

The universities which routinely secure these very big gifts have learned how to build philanthropy into the fabric of the institution. US universities have been doing this for over a century but we are increasingly seeing this in the rest of the anglosphere as well as in other parts of the world such as Asia. Institutional leadership are committed to and prioritise philanthropy, and academics engage more and more with philanthropists.  Major projects are co-created with potential funders and other partners. Donor stewardship is proactive and professionally managed.

This isn’t to say that everything in the HE garden is rosy. The sector has as many challenges as the wider charity world and there is much variation in philanthropic performance across institutions.

Compared to the charity sector, HE is generally much less good at delivering effective programmes to engage large numbers of smaller donors. Philanthropy programmes built around a one-to-one approach can really struggle even to take smaller gifts. Trying to give a small gift to a major university can be a ridiculously difficult process.

Although in theory universities understand how to deliver one-to-many engagement through alumni programmes, these often struggle to convert into effective fundraising, at least outside the US.  There is much the HE sector can take from the best of supporter engagement practice in the more progressive charities.

What universities and charities do have in common is a struggle to effectively deliver engagement progress for supporters who fall between the major giving and mass donor programmes, what is often called “the missing middle”. People who have the capacity to give mid-tier gifts have very significant potential value but too often fall between organisational siloes and do not receive the attention they deserve.

As we hopefully do more work in the HE sector, we will continue to share learnings across sectors. There is much potential for collaboration here in order to engage donors more effectively around ways giving can achieve transformative outcomes.

Universities don’t have the secret to great fundraising any more than the charity sector does but each side has much to learn from each other.

The Practicalities of AI

Deniz Hassan

11th December

Over the summer I embarked on a mini European speaking tour on how frontline fundraisers can use AI right now to make their jobs more effective. I'm lucky enough to look across the full fundraising ecosystem - from strategy to tech to tactics - and I've found uses across the lot. To put it into context, I’m a digital fundraising expert who uses AI frequently and having spent a lot of time thinking and testing, here are a bunch of things I've learned using it:

• It's a baby. A very clever baby but at the start of its useful life nonetheless. It gets stuff right but also gets a lot of other stuff wrong. So we can't just expect perfect outcomes.

• It tends to get stuff very wrong because we haven't fed it correctly. In much the same way as people, you get out what you put in. If we're poor with how we communicate with it, the margin for error is pretty big. We make basic assumptions with a lot of the stuff we do - and with AI, this can lead to the weird and the wonderful (/bloody awful).

• Both us and the AI need to learn together so we're not always starting from scratch. If, while you're working on something you make a mistake and clock that there's a better way to work, note it down for next time. Don't expect it to remember what you did and nail the same task in the same way each time. On a number of occasions, I worked with Chat GPT to undertake repetitive tasks and I found I could get the same outcome 9 out of 10 times and then the 10th would be massively different. So now I'm microscopically specific each time and repeat myself.

• I’ve used it extensively for heavy data analysis and found that I need to work in a lot of quality assurance. One of the tactics I've developed is asking it for granular steps so I can compare against my own workings. Only once I've done enough spot checks do I trust it to do an entire job. People asked 'what's the point if you still have to work hard?' to which I respond that, even if in the first instance it only saves me 5% of time, then I know that next time it will be more because I've learned how to drive it better. And of course, 5% is still 5%.

• It's an excellent troubleshooter. I use a number of enterprise level platforms to build anything from data visualisations, CRM configurations and automations. Often, it won't take the job off my hands but it will be able to look at my work and help me get round obstacles I might otherwise get stuck on.

• It's not a fundraiser but it can be taught fundraising (scarily better than many fundraisers I've met!). It doesn't get big strategic things like how you could create a diverse, balanced portfolio 'out of the box'. But I found that, given the right level of love, it will help with strategic planning and modelling.

These are just a few thoughts and I’d love to hear what you think. And of course, if anyone wants to discuss how we can help you leverage AI in your fundraising programmes, give me a shout. You can contact me at deniz@aawpartnership.com.