Why So Many Charity Strategies Fail and What You Can Do About It
28th November by Deniz Hassan
Here’s some big news to share, but first, a little context.
If you look across the charity sector today, you’ll see a common theme: organisations of every size are struggling to make their fundraising and engagement strategies deliver. From grassroots groups to big household names, performance is stalling or slipping.
The instinctive reaction is always the same: fix the strategy. But after three years of reviewing some of the UK’s largest charities, I’ve seen first-hand that the real issue often lies elsewhere.
It’s Not Just About Strategy
Yes, sometimes your strategy needs a refresh. But in many cases, the thinking is sound, and teams are working hard to deliver.
The real problem? The systems and infrastructure that sit beneath the strategy.
If you don’t integrate your strategy with your data model, technology, and finance, you’re effectively building on sand. No amount of clever tactics will compensate for fragmented systems and unreliable information.
Leadership in a New Era
Charity leadership today is a different beast altogether. You’re operating in an environment where:
Systems are fragmented and outdated.
Data lives in silos, often inconsistent and incomplete.
Teams are under relentless pressure to deliver faster, better results with fewer resources.
The truth is, many organisations simply don’t have the models, processes or measurement frameworks to know what’s working - or to act decisively.
The Missing Link Between Strategy and Delivery
Too many strategies fail because they never get translated into the real world. There’s a gap between the vision and the infrastructure needed to bring it to life.
That gap is precisely what inspired us to create something new.
AAW Integrate
AAW Integrate is a new consultancy designed specifically to bridge the gap between fundraising and engagement strategies and the technology, data and financial systems that underpin them.
We sit at the intersection of income, engagement, finance, data and technology. That’s where the magic, and the measurable results, actually happen.
What Makes Us Different
AAW Integrate isn’t just another consultancy with a glossy slide deck. We’re a team combining:
The top fundraising strategists of our time - people who know what drives results.
Data engineers and mathematicians - who can turn raw data into clear, actionable insight.
Digital and technology specialists - who build the systems that make strategies deliver reliably and at scale.
Time to Fix the Foundations
If your strategy is there but you haven’t quite got the systems to glue it all together, you’re not alone.
But you do need to act because the charities that thrive over the next decade won’t be the ones with the cleverest ideas on paper. They’ll be the ones with the infrastructure to turn those ideas into consistent income and lasting impact.
Let’s Talk
If you recognise these challenges in your organisation, we’d love to hear from you. Let’s have an honest conversation about what’s holding you back - and how we can help you design the systems, models and frameworks that will unlock your potential.
After all, strategy without infrastructure is just wishful thinking.
Is Your Strategy Stronger Than Time?
21st November 2025 by Alison Clarke
We’re all conscious of time slipping away. Days, weeks and months pass more quickly than we expect. What’s especially satisfying about strategy is that it acts as the enemy of time.
A well-crafted strategy pushes back against the natural drift of priorities and the constant pull of the urgent tasks over the important ones. It creates momentum, sets a clear direction and, in those early stages, it can feel powerful.
Here’s the reality, though: the moment a strategy is created, it begins to fade. The world shifts. Priorities evolve.
It’s easy to assume the biggest risk is that your strategy will be wrong from the start. In truth, the far more common threat is that it becomes static.
A strong strategy doesn’t burn forever on its own. It needs to be fed and adjusted and, like a fire, if you don’t tend to it, it fades.
How Do You Keep It Burning?
Feed It Consistently
Strategy cannot be something you write once and set aside. It demands regular attention. Check progress frequently. Ensure it is guiding real decisions, not merely sitting on the shelf. If your strategy isn’t influencing daily work, it is already losing momentum.
Adapt as Needed
No fire burns in exactly the same way forever. You move the logs, adjust for the wind and reshape the fuel. Likewise, strategy must flex when circumstances change. If it becomes too rigid, it will inevitably become irrelevant.
Create Genuine Connection
Every person should understand how their work links to the broader direction. When people feel that connection, they are far more likely to add their energy to sustaining it. If they don’t, the fire diminishes.
Don’t Let Time Wear It Down
We all get busy. Decisions are made without revisiting the bigger picture. It’s very human to become caught up in the day-to-day rush. However, without ongoing attention, even the most promising strategy quietly recedes into the background.
A good strategy lives and dies on momentum. It must be tested and embedded in decision-making at every level of the organisation.
How much of your strategy is still burning? And what are you doing to keep it alive?
Keep the Fire Burning
At the AAW Group, we don’t just help charities and not-for-profits write strategy, we help you live it. The true value of strategy isn’t found in the document itself but in how well it adapts, endures and drives decisions in your teams over time.
With decades of experience and a client list that includes some of the sector’s most recognised names, we know how to build strategies that thrive.
Whether you're revisiting a plan that’s lost momentum, conducting a fundraising review or ready to reshape your direction entirely, we can help you reignite that fire with fresh insight and practical, tailored support.
Your mission deserves more than a static plan. Let’s make your strategy dynamic, resilient and built to last.
Get in touch to find out how we can help.
New Insights: The AAW Fundraising Leadership Salary Benchmark Report 2025
It’s been quite a year for AAW and our benchmarking work — and we’re delighted to launch our first ever Fundraising Leadership Salary Benchmark Report, offering a clear snapshot of pay levels for senior fundraising leaders across the UK’s top charities in 2025.
Our analysis reveals that:
💷 The average salary for the UK’s top fundraising lead is £116,774.
🔗 Integrated portfolios – where fundraising combines with marketing and communications – now make up more than half of all roles, attracting around a 10% pay premium.
🎭 Cause area continues to shape pay, with cultural and social welfare organisations topping the scale.
📊 Larger charities do pay more, but the difference by income band remains modest, reflecting a more balanced approach than in the commercial sector.
If you’d like a full copy of the report, please get in touch at imogen@aawpartnership.com.
This free resource is part of AAW’s ongoing commitment to supporting the non-profit sector with accessible, actionable data — helping leaders make informed decisions about structure, pay, and talent.
And if you have ideas about other insights or benchmarks that would be useful for your team, we’d love to hear from you. Drop me a line — we’re always keen to listen and collaborate.
Beyond the Windfall – From Uncertainty to Confidence in Legacy Income
2nd October 2025 by Poppy Naylor
My very first fundraising role, back in the early noughties, was as a Legacy Marketing Exec. I absolutely loved my meetings with legacy supporters and hearing firsthand their motivations for leaving the ultimate gift. But for all the supporters we knew about, there were many more that we didn’t – a reminder that legacy giving can be as unpredictable as it is powerful. In today’s challenging fundraising landscape, navigating this tension has never been more critical.
The importance of legacies
Legacies are the single largest source of voluntary income in the UK, delivering exceptional return on investment and crucially, offering largely unrestricted funds. This was reflected in our Fundraising Benchmarks where Legacies remained dominant, accounting for 34% of gross voluntary income and an even higher 38% of net income across the sample.
Over the last decade, the legacy market has grown steadily, with a record-breaking income of £4.5bn in 2024. Longer-term projections suggest this figure could reach £10bn by 2050, an important reminder of the opportunities legacies can unlock.
Why leaders struggle with legacies
For all their value, legacy gifts can feel frustratingly unpredictable and remain one of the most talked-about issues among charity CEOs and CFOs. Through our work with leaders across the sector, five concerns come up time and again:
Forecasting - How do we predict short or medium-term legacy income?
Long-term visibility - What does our legacy pipeline really look like?
Control - Can we influence legacy performance at all?
Attribution - Do we actually know where our legacies come from?
Investment - How do we decide where and how to invest in legacy marketing?
These challenges are not unique to any one organisation, they’re sector-wide issues. Left unaddressed, they can lead to inconsistent investment, missed opportunities and unnecessary anxiety about a critical income stream.
That’s exactly why we’ve developed our new report: “Beyond the Windfall – From Uncertainty to Confidence in Legacy Income”
This report, developed in partnership with Legacy Futures, reflects on these concerns and provides a consolidated view of how leaders can gain greater clarity and confidence in managing legacy income. Our aim is to equip charities with the insights needed to strengthen this critical source of long-term funding.
Inside, we explore:
How to bring more clarity and confidence to forecasting.
What indicators to track for long-term legacy health.
How to take control of performance without chasing quick wins.
Why attribution matters, and how to gain better insights into your legacy donors.
We also highlight some of the most common mistakes charities make with their legacy income - from undervaluing its importance to treating it as a stop-start campaign - and what leaders can do differently.
Our white paper doesn’t promise to eliminate uncertainty, but it does provide some answers and a framework to help charity leaders move forward with greater clarity.
Drop me a line at poppy@aawpartnership.com to get your copy.
How do you know your fundraising investment is working?
25th September 2025 by Tobin Aldrich
Fundraising and Finance Directors often tell me a version of the same story: “We’re spending millions on fundraising… but I can’t quickly show the return—or how confident we are in it.” That’s a problem. The UK’s top 100 charities alone spent £1.5bn on fundraising in 2024; not being able to evidence current or future returns puts budgets, strategy and trustee confidence at risk.
The root issue usually isn’t effort—it’s clarity. Many organisations lack a unified view of where fundraising money is invested, how decisions are made, how ROI is measured, and which assumptions and risks sit underneath those projections. Inconsistent methods make it tough to compare channels, justify spend, or reallocate quickly.
To help our clients understand how their fundraising investments are performing , AAW have created a Fundraising Investment Healthcheck. This is a focused review of how your organisation invests in fundraising—process, metrics, assumptions and governance—so you can evidence performance and make better, faster decisions. It’s designed to assure trustees and senior leadership that decisions are taken on the right basis and to surface the gaps to address.
In this process we will look at relevant data and documents and interview key staff to review and score seven elements that determine the effectiveness of your investments:
How ROI is calculated.
Consistency of measurement across programmes/channels.
Basis of assumptions (growth, attrition, response, costs).
Quality of data feeding your models.
Quality of reporting to leadership and trustees.
Use of benchmarks (internal & external).
How decisions are made (governance, risk appetite, approval paths).
What you will get is a clear evaluation of whether your current investment process is fit for purpose, together with a concise set of prioritised fixes, a common language for Fundraising & Finance to align on ROI, risk and resource allocation and greater assurance for trustees and leaders that spend is working—and what to do next.
If this sounds like something that your organisation could benefit from, drop me a line on tobin@aawpartnership.com.
Fundraising on a Wing and a Prayer: Why Your Data Silos Are Costing You
19th September 2025 by Deniz Hassan
We live in a sector awash with dashboards, reports, and metrics, so much so that it’s easy to assume everything is working as it should. But scratch the surface and you’ll often find something much less reassuring: fundraising programmes built on sand, behind smoke and mirrors.
This isn’t simply a question of individual skill. It’s the inevitable by-product of outdated structures and a chronic disconnect between fundraisers and analysts.
A Cautionary Tale: The Big Appeal That Wasn’t
Let me share a story that should give any charity leader pause.
A couple of years ago, a client celebrated a record-breaking appeal. Dashboards told a glowing story - targets smashed, performance off the charts. The results went all the way up the chain. There were congratulatory emails, back-slapping, even budget reallocations in anticipation of the same success next time.
Fast-forward a year. As part of planning for the next big push, someone spotted a few anomalies. What looked like minor inconsistencies turned out to be massive mistakes in the data transformation, buried miles upstream from the final reports.
Nobody had the full context of the entire data flow until I sat down with a data engineer and unpicked the lot. The bottom line? Income had been overstated by a huge amount. What was assumed to be a winning formula was, in fact, a dangerous illusion.
The Thin Sliver of Understanding
The truth is, the overlap between fundraisers who deeply understand data, and analysts who deeply understand fundraising, is wafer thin.
This isn’t about incompetence. It’s about structural silos:
Analysts don’t always know what they’re analysing or why it matters.
Fundraisers often don’t know how their data is assembled or what it actually represents.
When you operate like this, you’re effectively running your fundraising programme on blind trust and luck.
Dashboards Full of Nonsense
We’ve normalised living in a world of reports that look solid but aren’t:
Metrics with no real meaning.
Models built in a vacuum.
Dashboards that serve more as décor than decision-making tools.
This is how bad decisions happen, and why so many strategies fail to deliver.
The Fix: Build the Middle of the Venn Diagram
Here’s what needs to change. It isn’t complicated, but it does require commitment:
Fundraisers: stop blindly trusting reports.
If you don’t understand how your data is put together, you’re working on a wing and a prayer. Get curious. Ask questions. Demand clarity.Analysts: stop building models in isolation.
Step out of the technical bubble. Learn what drives fundraising decisions. Engage with the people using your reports.Leaders: break the silos.
Invest in structures and skills that encourage collaboration and mutual understanding. Make it someone’s job to connect the dots.
If we can do this, that thin sliver in the Venn diagram, where fundraisers and analysts truly understand each other’s worlds, will finally get bigger. And with it, so will the impact and income our organisations can achieve.
Final Thought
Until we move beyond outdated structures and start valuing shared understanding, the sector will continue to haemorrhage time, money, and opportunity.
It’s time to build fundraising programmes on solid ground, not wishful thinking. Because no cause deserves to be propped up by bad data and blind faith.
Fundraising Benchmarks: What we learned in 2025
By Tobin Aldrich, 11th September 2025
We are launching the 2025 Fundraising Benchmarks report, in collaboration with the Chartered Institute of Fundraising.
This is the second year of what we hope to be an annual study. In 2025 we have had 53 charities take part who, together, account for £1.8bn of voluntary income, about 8% of the total of the UK voluntary sector.
Benchmarking charity performance is hard. The charity and nonprofit sector is incredibly diverse. How charities organise, deliver and report on their fundraising varies hugely. And fundraisers are busy people with limited time and resource to devote to activities they can’t see as directly and immediately benefiting their charity. So this isn’t the easiest thing to do but it is we think, really valuable.
The Fundraising Benchmarks we produce focus on answering a small number of key questions about fundraising performance. What is the income being generated by each fundraising area? What are charities spending on fundraising in these areas? And therefore what returns are being generated? Over time we will be able to see how these are changing and draw conclusions about the trajectory of fundraising.
Other information that we are gathering in this process includes data on the size of fundraising teams - this is proving particularly useful for charities looking at whether they have the right level of resourcing in key areas. And the information we are gleaning across each fundraising area is showing some fascinating insights.
The four things I found most interesting this year were:
Scale helps. The average charity with voluntary income under £10m has £300k of voluntary income, one with £100m+ has £900k.
Legacies are critical. Legacies and individual giving account for over two-thirds of income. Legacies are even more important for net income, accounting for nearly two-fifths of charity net income.
But are they prioritised? Investment in legacy marketing is increasing significantly but remains a small proportion of fundraising spend.
Investment in new donors remains significant. Over half of expenditure on individual giving is on recruiting new donors, with the charity in the sample with the largest recruitment programme bringing in over new 100k regular givers last year.
We are planning to continue this survey every year. We are also looking at doing versions for specific sub-sectors. Do get in touch if you’d like us to look at doing it for your sector.
If you want a copy of the 2025 Fundraising Benchmarks report, email us at info@aawpartnership.com.
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:
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.
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.
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 onSet milestones that stretch people without overwhelming them.
Ambition is important but it has to be balanced with a realistic assessment of capacity and resourcesAllow 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.
