Blog

Videos are the way that many charities are reaching their audiences these days. In fact, nearly all charities engage and inspire not only their supporters, but also their stakeholders using video. Today, video is incredibly easy to create, edit and upload, making it available to charities of all levels of technical ability. If your charity is considering the use of video to garner a higher number of donations, or you wish to know how best to use them for better income, you’ll definitely want to read on.

It is very likely that you’ve heard the term 'CRM' being used to describe several different kinds of software applications. Unfortunately, this term is one of the most used – and abused – in the software industry. CRM, or customer relationship management is a way of doing things. It is often implemented as part of the practice and policy of a company. Indeed, if your organisation is engaging in good donor management, it is likely that a CRM policy is already in place.

Many charities are willing and able to embrace new technology. Software’s continuing rapid evolution and our increasing reliance on it means that charities can no longer depend on manual processes or slow software. In order to compete for donor pounds, today’s charities need to have current technology in place to manage their operations. If your charity is experiencing any of the challenges mentioned below, it may be time to consider the possibility of a CRM upgrade.

As technology continues to evolve, the number of data security incidents increases. For the charity sector, the news is not good. Data security incidents have increased more than double year on year. According to information released by the Commissioner’s Office, there were 29 data security incidents reported between April and June of this year. In 2015 during the same period however, only 11 incidents were reported.

Over the last year, ad spend for charities increased as much as 6%, with double the money spent on ads for the cinema and digital realms. Market research firm Nielsen revealed an estimated ad spend by charities of £458.8m in 2015. But how much of that money was well spent, being targeted to already-successful campaigns and used to build new campaigns on that success?

Thousands of UK charities benefit from the Gift Aid Small Donations Scheme (GASDS) each year. Many organisations continue to look for ways to make the most revenue from it. This article will outline some strategies for ensuring your charity claims as much of its yearly GASDS allowance as possible.

Recent research by Third Sector revealed some shocking results with regard to payroll schemes within charities: although 7 out of 10 large UK charities offered payroll giving to their employees, average employee participation was only 1.7%. How can this be? Charities cited several reasons; some placed more importance on staff effort than staff donations, while others opined that it was the pennies that mattered, and not the regular revenue.

Donations are the lifeblood of every organisation, and getting supporters to donate to your cause requires obtaining their consent to contact them. June 2016’s introduction of new data protection laws ensures more protection for charity supporters and require organisations to abandon the ‘soft opt-in’ approach, which previously allowed charities to continue to send their marketing material to previous donors. The new law requires explicit consent to be given by would-be supporters in terms of how they wish to be contacted.

UK charities receive £2bn in legacy donations each year. This already-incredible figure is expected to triple in size over the next several decades. Even so, there is hesitation among many charities about how to go about getting those vital donations with ease and tact. After all, not many people are really comfortable talking openly about their own death. The good news is that there are several ways to speak to your supporters about it, as well as several ways to be successful without causing offence.

Although creating a really great grant application isn’t considered to be rocket science, it requires different things at different times. Because anything can happen to interfere with your application, you need to be prepared to alter your plans if necessary. This will require a degree of flexibility, as well as the ability to respond quickly and to exercise diplomacy, among other things. You will also need to be able to track the responses to your applications over time with different funding bodies. What approaches and projects have been most successful in securing donations? A good quality charity CRM such as SubscriberCRM will be able to help you with this.