If you’d like practical lessons and some inspiring examples from our fundraising podcast in 2024, or you’d like tips on what to listen to next, we recorded this special episode for you!

Rob is joined by Bright Spot colleague and fellow fundraising trainer Ben Swart for this round up of our podcasting year. 

They pull out highlights from some episodes they’ve found most inspiring to listen to, including: how to influence your colleagues, for example to support your fundraising project; how to attract more major donors (precious insights from a philanthropy advisor at a bank who has talked to and learned from more than 4000 High Net Worth individuals; insights from an ambitious, strategic partnership worth £2.3m); and tips for negotiating more effectively with (potential) partners, through a deeper understanding of your charities’ value to companies.

If you’d like to get in touch or share this episode with other charities, thank you very much! We are both on Linked In.

How do we defend philanthropy? 

There have always been criticisms of charity in general and philanthropy in particular. But in recent years it seems that this has become more widespread, and that this issue may be having a detrimental effect on donations at all levels. 

If we work for a charity, understanding the issues is valuable for our own confidence and for the sector as a whole.

For help and encouragement, Rob was delighted to talk to Dr Beth Breeze, Director of the Centre of Philanthropy at the University of Kent. Beth has written an excellent book on this subject, In Defence of Philanthropy. In the interview Beth shares the three most common types of criticism she has found through her research, and she shares examples and her ideas for how we might respond to each one. 

We’d love to know what you think and your ideas on this subject. Beth and Rob are both on LinkedIn.

Building a transformational strategic partnership is not easy. But this example shows it can be done. And the reward in furthering your mission is so great, for many charities it is absolutely worth aiming high and developing even stronger relationships with the very few partners who can make the biggest difference.

In March 2024 Bowel Cancer UK launched a three-year partnership with Andrex, the UK’s leading toilet roll brand. This award-winning partnership is changing attitudes, as well as increasing awareness of the symptoms of the disease, on a huge scale. 

The partnership is worth an extra £2.3m to the charity. This is on top of its ongoing presence, which raises awareness of symptoms on toilet roll packaging in 10 million homes in the UK. 

In the show, Megan from Bowel Cancer UK and Natalie from Andrex share their perspectives on building an ambitious, win-win partnership whose positive effect is so much greater than either organisation could achieve on its own.  

And they share tips and encouragement for other organisations that want to create their own win-win strategic partnerships. 

Pitching or presenting to a group is a valuable skill in fundraising. Many people see the purpose of a presentation as sharing information. But we’ve found you get better results if you instead see it as a chance to persuade people to actually do something (or something different.)

After your presentation, would you like your colleagues to actively support your fundraising project? Or perhaps you’d like the funder to share your proposal with fellow trustees… or for your audience to choose your charity as a partner.

Whatever your presentation, in this, the second episode on influencing groups, Rob and Ben share a powerful technique for deciding what to include. With examples, they explain three ideas for improving your results when you present or pitch through more effective content.

We’d love to know what you think! And thank you for supporting our show, e.g. by sharing it with colleagues or on LinkedIn.

Pitching or presenting to a group is not easy! It can feel stressful. In fact, many fundraisers dislike presenting so much they try to avoid it all together.

And yet, after helping thousands of people to improve various skills that are useful in fundraising, Rob and Ben have found that everybody is able to become more skilful in this area. It is entirely learnable.

And it’s certainly worth the effort, because being able to effectively share your ideas with a group is incredibly valuable. 

In speaking at dozens of conferences and training hundreds of fundraising teams, Rob and Ben have learned some things that make it easier! 

In this episode they share techniques to help anyone who wants to improve their confidence and skill at presenting to colleagues or funders.

We’d love to know what you think! And thank you for supporting our show, e.g. by sharing it with colleagues or on LinkedIn.

How do you attract and support content creators to help your charity? There are many thousands of people who create their own content and have a thousand followers or more. Many of them also care about good causes and would enjoy raising funds for charities that support those causes.

This time Rob talks to Tom Downie of Tiltify. They discuss the content creator economy and the opportunities it represents for charities. Every year Tom sees how hundreds of charities operate in this fast-growing market.

Tom shares both common mistakes and lots of insights from when charities make the most of these valuable opportunities. He shares examples, both of charities responding to influencers that approach you with their own ideas; and of campaigns organised by charities that successfully recruit many influencers to get involved.

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

How do you get the result you really want for your fundraising project or campaign? How can you increase your chances of achieving your outcome when things are not working?

We all get stuck sometimes! When this happens, it pays to change our approach. 

To help you get ideas Rob and Ben share three stories of charities who solved very difficult problems by doing things differently. 

One was struggling to recruit volunteers…and took a risk which transformed their results. And when the citizens of a town were angry that a nazi march was due to take place through their streets, they responded creatively and had the last laugh. 

And to improve her odds of winning a competitive partnership with a restaurant, one shrewd fundraiser decided to do things differently…and won a valuable partnership for her charity, for life.

Finally, Rob and Ben share three steps to help you be creative and brave in solving your own challenges.

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.

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.