Fundraising Bright Spots

Starting a new project or side hustle, and keeping it going, isn’t easy. Kenneth Foreman and James Wright are both busy fundraisers and in their spare time for the past seven years, they have created the excellent Do More Good podcast.

In this episode Rob hears why and how they got started, ideas that have inspired them and lessons they’ve learned. They also offer advice and encouragement for anyone considering starting something new on top of their day job. 

Perhaps you’ve been daring yourself to blog or vlog, but you can’t quite get started. Or you want to create an intra-team initiative in your charity. Or you wonder about joining or starting anything else that serves the sector…Kenneth and James share what they’ve learned and encourage you to take the first step.

Thank you so much for supporting our show! Please share it on, and if you want to get in touch we are all on LinkedIn.  

How do you convince companies that partnering with your charity is valuable to them too? 

Good corporate fundraisers have always known that the best charity partnerships are genuinely win/win. But not all companies understand this, which is a major reason they may be reluctant to consider a partnership, or to give more. How can you help them see it, and so be more open to the possibility?

Ben Swart shares advice to help you be confident about the value of corporate partnerships and skillful in conveying it to companies. Ben and Rob a range of practical things you can do to improve your results when persuading companies to partner with your charity.

We’d love to know what you think! And thank you for supporting our show, e.g. by sharing it with colleagues or on social media. We are both on LinkedIn and on X Ben is @benswart and Rob is @woods_rob.

Many of the most difficult challenges for fundraisers involve influencing your colleagues. Whether it's persuading someone in another team to support your idea or getting your proposal signed off by your Chief Exec, it can feel like an uphill struggle. 

For practical ideas and plenty of encouragement, I was excited to talk to the always-inspiring Paul McKenzie. Paul is a very experienced fundraising leader, and he is convinced that we have far more power to positively influence people within our charity than we might think. Paul and Rob share examples and offer three practical things anyone can do to better connect, build strong cross-team relationships and make change happen. 

Thank you for supporting our show, for example, by sharing it with colleagues or on social media. We are both on LinkedIn and on X / Twitter Rob is @woods_rob and Paul is @scottallpaul.

Have you ever thought about creating a podcast to engage your community?

This time we look at an award-winning podcast, The Log Books, which has run for three successful seasons. Rob talks to Stephanie Fuller, CEO of Switchboard and Adam Zmith from Aunt Nell, who collaborated to create the show.

We explore why and how they made it, how it helps the charity connect with its community, and other benefits the show has brought.

Thank you for supporting our show, for example, by sharing it with colleagues or on social media. We are both on LinkedIn and on X / twitter Rob is @woods_rob and Adam is @AdamZmith.

In our second interview with the experienced philanthropy advisor Tom Hall, we share a fundamental element that most wealthy philanthropists are looking for when deciding whether to make a major gift.

Tom is Managing Director, Global Head of Social Impact and Philanthropy at UBS and over the last ten years he has had conversations with more than 4000 High Net Worth Individuals about their philanthropy. Through these conversations and in witnessing many transformational donations Tom has gained valuable insight into how they make decisions.

In this, our second interview, Tom shares the second crucial element that philanthropists especially value in requests for funding from charities. And he shares various tips to help fundraisers improve this element of their proposition.

Thank you for supporting our show, for example, by sharing it with your team or on social media. We are both on LinkedIn and on X / twitter Rob is @woods_rob.

What do wealthy donors most prize when they weigh up whether to make a major investment in a charity? In 10 years as a philanthropy advisor at UBS bank, Tom Hall has had conversations about philanthropy with more than 4000 wealthy people, and he has witnessed a vast number of major gifts. This opportunity has given him precious insight into their psychology and the factors that have the biggest impact on their decisions. In this conversation Tom and Rob share which one element of your charities’ proposition is more important than all the rest, if you want to attract major donations at a transformational level. And Tom shares his tips for how charities can make use of this insight to increase income. We’d love to know what you think! And thank you for supporting our show, for example, by sharing it with colleagues or on social media. We are both on LinkedIn and on X / twitter Rob is @woods_rob.

One of the best ways to grow fundraising income is to find ways to add value to relationships with supporters and partners. This makes sense in theory, but how do you do it in practice, and with consistency, especially if your resources are limited? Events can be very effective! Though many charities use them to raise funds directly, it is less common to regularly use events for stewardship and to inspire subsequent support or partnerships. In this episode Chris Salt describes the event strategy that his relatively small charity uses to inspire existing and potential corporate partners. The approach has helped fuel his charity’s best ever year of corporate fundraising results. To help you weigh up whether something similar could help your own fundraising, Chris shares how they do it and what they’ve learned. We’d love to know what you think! And thank you for supporting our show, for example, by sharing it with colleagues or on social media. We are both on LinkedIn and on X / twitter Rob is @woods_rob.

There are many ways to deepen relationships with people who care about your good cause. At Bright Spot, one of our favourites is to create Wow Moments - something that makes them feel great or helps them connect with your charity at a deeper level compared to what most would expect. Sometimes this involves a creative, ambitious approach that other charities wouldn’t even think of. But just as often, the ‘wow’ is experienced by your supporter because you do something thoughtful and bespoke, rather than something especially surprising. What’s great about this is that these ideas are very do-able! And what’s difficult about it is that they are also easy to not do, (or manage to do regularly). They often take a little extra effort. To give you new ideas, and maybe a nudge of inspiration to make time for your existing good idea, Ben and Rob share various Wow Moments that have inspired them recently. They share examples of smart fundraisers taking part in Bright Spot’s recent Corporate Mastery and Major Gifts Mastery Programmes. We’d love to know what you think! And thank you for supporting our show, for example, by sharing it with colleagues or on social media. We are both on LinkedIn and on X / twitter Ben is @benswart and Rob is @woods_rob.

When you concentrate more effort developing relationships with a relatively small number of supporters or corporate partners with high potential, it becomes much easier to grow high value income. We’ve also found that although this idea makes sense to many people in theory, it can be hard to apply in practice. So what can you do to overcome the various barriers to more focused and effective relationship-building with partners / supporters / funders? Using examples of successful partnerships and major gift fundraising growth from people on Bright Spot’s recent mastery programmes, in this episode Rob and Ben share techniques to help you harness the power of highly focused effort. We’d love to know what you think! And thank you for supporting our show, e.g. by sharing it with colleagues or on social media. We are both on LinkedIn and on X / twitter Ben is @benswart and Rob is @woods_rob.

An effective way to grow fundraising income is to add value to relationships with high value supporters. But how do find ways to do it? One approach is to start looking at your existing resources differently. When you ask yourself what potential assets you could make use of, rather than what is difficult for your charity; and what you can give (to relationships with supporters) rather than what you can get from them… amazing things become possible. To help you look again at opportunities (that might be under your nose), Rob and Ben share stories of creative, determined fundraisers doing things a bit differently and creating WOW moments for their donors / supporters. We’d love to know what you think! And thank you for supporting our show, e.g. by sharing it with colleagues or on social media. We are both on LinkedIn and on X / twitter Ben is @benswart and Rob is @woods_rob.