The fundraising fallacy
Charities are the real social enterprises. But so often, we focus on ‘fundraising’ rather than taking the holistic, strategic view we need.
I'm going to get a t-shirt made that says "It's (almost) never fundraising." A problem I often come across is when organisations believe that the only thing that drives their success is successful bid-writing or donation-seeking. I'm going to christen this the 'Fundraising Fallacy.' The reality, I would say is, “It's (almost) always strategy.” And that includes when the problem is getting many bids turned down.
One problem is that so often 'fundraising' is considered to be something that happens completely outside of, or on top of, or after, or before, programme development. Of course you need to bake in how you're going to get the money - and if you can get the money - from the word go. It inevitably shapes what you do. But, not only is that reality, it isn't always a bad thing. Connectedly, more often than people imagine, the issue with programmes that can't be fundraised for is the programme. There is a strong tendency for people to believe that 'delivery is what we do best', and now it's up to a fundraiser to bring in the cash. But that delivery often does not hold up to scrutiny. And people's unwillingness to look at it, or consider it in comparison to the work of others, is a very common problem. Again, the 'fundraising' tends to be blamed. But it's not the sales, it's the product.
The second thing is that even the term 'fundraising' conjures a particular type of income generation for charities. It's essentially 'filling the bucket'. That model works still for massive household name megacharities to an extent, who have extensive individual fundraising - but even they tend to generate more income from contracts, investments, commercial activity, and indeed, trusts, than they once did. But really, in the shape of the insane market we have created for #VCS activity, we should be talking about strategic 'income generation' and looking at what we deliver as being the thing that makes the money. Be it grants, commissioning, or even traded services - for most charities, we are essentially commissioned after sending an EOI or tender, whether the person we send it to has a .org or .gov email address.
The fill-the-bucket model was for a sector a third of the size, and not required to prop up public sector austerity in a free market economy none of us asked for. At that point, we are very obviously doing what I think most of us - but sadly not all - know we are doing: running a business. Charities are the real social enterprises. So we need to think strategically about income, in the context of a market, at every stage.
This alongside cost and infrastructure: so often, fundraising crises could have been avoided by thinking earlier about strategic change. And that is where too many charities can still fall down - rather than thinking about how their activities and how they pay for themselves, they are still stuck in the 'fundraising' fallacy.
These are crazy times. I don't suggest any of this is a good way to be. But for now, what I do know is that without strategy, fundraising is always going to let us down.
