Fundraising Management

Analysis, Planning and Practice

Adrian Sargeant, Jayne George

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000426939
• Edition: 4
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

Applying the principles of marketing to nonprofit organisations and the fundraising sector is vital for the modern fundraiser who wants to increase profitability and diversify their fundraising efforts in this challenging industry. This comprehensive how-to guide provides a thorough grounding in the principles underpinning professional practices and critically examines the key issues in fundraising policy, planning and implementation.

This new edition of Fundraising Management builds on the successful previous editions by including an integrated theoretical framework to help fundraisers develop a critical and reflective approach to their practice. Also new to this edition are how-tos on budgeting and making a strong and compelling case for investment, two vital core skills, as well as comprehensive coverage of digital fundraising and fundraising through social media. The new edition also accounts for recent changes in the fundraising environment, notably in the UK, the introduction of a new fundraising regulator and new thinking on professional ethics.

Combining scholarly analysis with practical real-life examples, Fundraising Management has been endorsed by the Chartered Institute of Fundraising, and is mapped to the Certificate and Diploma in Fundraising, making it the definitive guide to best practice both in the UK and globally. This is a clear, problem-solving guide that no fundraising student or professional should be without.

1 The history and development of fundraising practice

I would leave this work immediately if I thought I were merely raising money. It is raising men that appeals to me.

(Charles Sumner Ward, 1905

Objectives

By the end of this chapter you should be able to:

• a) Describe how the practice of fundraising evolved in the US and the UK
• b) Trace the history of modern fundraising techniques
• c) Describe the key changes that took place in fundraising practice in the 20th century
• d) Describe the influence of Charles Sumner Ward on modern fundraising practice

Introduction

In this text, it is our intention to provide a comprehensive guide to modern fundraising practice, examining all the major forms of fundraising and fundraising channels/media. We focus particularly on the use of digital technologies and the management of a digital communications mix. We will also examine topics related to fundraising management, including fundraising reporting and making the case for investment to a Board.

It is our intention to draw on the best of professional experience and academic research. Giving is one of the most researched topics in the whole of the social sciences, and it is important that fundraisers have access to the wealth of materials that should be informing their work. It is, thus, not our intention to provide yet another “how-to” guide based solely on our professional experience. Rather, we blend theory with practice to provide a solid framework against which to analyse the performance of an organisation’s fundraising and evaluate changes that could be implemented to significantly increase giving.

The result, we hope, is a text that will for the first time provide fundraisers and students of fundraising alike access to an accumulated body of knowledge about how best to manage and operationalise all the key forms of modern fundraising. It is important to begin, however, by recognising that the roots of such fundraising lay not in the recent past, but rather an accumulation of practice over many centuries. Indeed, as it will become clear in this first chapter, many at first glance modern ideas have actually been around for a very long time indeed.

Early philanthropy and charity

The word philanthropy comes originally from Greek and means “love of mankind.” Robert L. Payton (1984) defined it as:

voluntary giving,voluntary service and voluntary association,primarily for the benefit of others; it is also the ‘prudent sister’ of charity,since the two have been intertwined throughout most of the past 3500 years of western civilization.

Philanthropy is, thus, quite dispassionate and impersonal and concentrates on the resolution of the root causes of human issues. It is concerned with improving the quality of life for all members of a society, by “promoting their welfare, happiness and culture” (Gurin and Van Til, 1990, p. 4).

Charity, by contrast, is focused on the poor and is a term drawn from the religious tradition of altruism, compassion and empathy (Ylvisaker, 1987). Over the years it has come to be defined somewhat differently from one country to another. In many countries, such as the UK, a charity is a distinctive legal form of organisation that has a series of tax advantages enshrined in law. In the US the term has a wider application and has come to mean simply serving the poor and needy (Gurin and Van Til, 1990).

The concept of charity has been around since the dawn of antiquity and nonprofit organisations of one form or another appear to have been with us since civilisation began. References to voluntary giving can be traced back to the beginning of recorded history. The Pharaohs, for example, established some of the earliest charitable trusts, albeit in their case for the somewhat selfish purpose of ensuring the security and perpetuity of their final resting-places. Of course, such early arrangements could hardly be described as philanthropic in nature, since the giving in question served only to ensure the deceased’s footprint in history and, hopefully, a glorious afterlife. It was certainly not the intention of these early trusts to enrich the quality of life for others.

Early references to giving of a rather more charitable nature can be found in the Old Testament. Religious sacrifices were commonly offered and the Old Testament of the Bible notes that the patriarch Jacob promised to give a tenth of all that God gave him. Indeed, we read that what is now known as the tithe was well established and organised. The Hebrews believed in sharing what they had with the poor who were traditionally, for example, the recipients of the harvest every seventh year.

Other forms of donation from this time include the vast treasures dedicated to the Delphic Oracle, (first recorded as early as the 5th century BC) and the earliest recorded school endowments of Plato in Athens and Pliny at Como. Giving in its various forms has thus been around for many centuries.

Fundraising and the religious tradition

The earliest recorded instances of formal fundraising activity are frequently linked to the activities of religious faiths. Mullin (1995), in particular, charts the significance of organised fundraising activity to an early Jewish charity. In this tradition, individual volunteers were clearly assigned within each community to take responsibility for specific fundraising tasks. This reflects the positive moral view of the volunteer fundraiser in the Jewish faith. To quote Rabbi Akiba: “It is a greater virtue to cause another to give than to give yourself.”

In the Christian tradition, the now common practice of the weekly church collection dates from the Dark Ages and in medieval times the church commonly sent out professional fundraisers (Quaestores) to solicit gifts from the wealthy in order that the church could both support itself and minister to the poor. Indeed, grand fundraising campaigns were often designed and initiated to support the creation of the great cathedrals across Northern Europe from the Middle Ages onwards. Frequently, professional fundraisers were employed to ensure success. Detailed analytical planning and market segmentation accompanied much of the fundraising that supported these appeals and as Mullin (1995) demonstrates, a rich variety of forms of fundraising were undertaken. As an example, Table 1.1 depicts the table of gift allocation associated with the fundraising for Troyes Cathedral; monies that were generated by a volunteer committee supported by professional fundraisers.

Table 1.1 Troyes cathedral fundraising (£s)

	1389–1390	1390–1391	1412–1413	1422–1423
Appeals	176 (17%)	186 (13%)	160 (15%)	34 (6%)
Legacies	44 (4%)	5 (4%)	54 (5%)	22 (4%)
Citizens	29 (3%)	386 (28%)	40 (4%)	70 (7%)
Big gifts	440 (43%)	250 (18%)	100 (9%)	100 (17%)
Other	331 (32%)	572 (41%)	695 (66%)	380 (66%)
Total	1,020	1,399	1,049	606

Source: Mullin (1995, p. 6, adapted from Murray 1987).

Fundraising was not only directed at the rich and powerful in society. Bishop (1898) identifies gifts from fundraising in schools, house-to-house and street collections, community fundraising events and even jumble sales, as significant in the generation of income for Milan’s cathedral (see Exhibit 1.1) in 1386.

Exhibit 1.1 Milan Cathedral

Source: © Bridgeman Art Library.

Over the centuries the church developed many effective forms of fundraising practice, including the use of the now infamous indulgences. Until Martin Luther publicly rebelled against the practice in 1517, the church had for 500 years allowed individuals to pay for their sins by making a worldly donation to the church. The system was simple. After confessing their sins to a priest, an individual would be set an appropriate penance. Ideally, this would be dealt with in life, thereby expunging the sin. However, if the individual died before the penance had been paid, it would still need to be dealt with before entry to heaven would be permitted. Needless to say, this could delay entry to heaven by a period of some years and was described as a most agonising and protracted process. The solution to this problem was simple. Having been furnished with an appropriate penance, individuals could buy an indulgence to clear this “debt.” This would reduce the years of punishment that could otherwise ensue and guarantee a speedy entrance to heaven. Indulgences could be purchased for a variety of good works; including churches, hospitals and bridges, and were available from professional fundraisers as well as priests. As Mullin (2002, p. 15) notes these indulgences “exploited very private self-interests or harnessed the vulnerabilities of the poor to such self-interest.” The Church has long since abandoned the practice.

The development of fundraising in England

Early fundraising in England was conducted against the backdrop of a suspicious State. Social, moral and religious upheavals regularly tore through British society, and charities were inevitably bound up therein. One of the oldest charities in England is Week’s charity, an organisation originally set up in the 15th century to provide faggots (bundles of sticks) for burning heretics, an activity supported by the government of the day. The State has, therefore, long had a vested interest in controlling what should, or should not, be considered charitable in nature. In Tudor times, those seeking to raise funds were well advised to stay within the law or risk fines, flogging or worse. Even the donors themselves had to be mindful of this legislation, at one stage risking the punishment of having their ears forcibly pierced for giving to the unworthy.

Barbaric though this might sound, Tudor England was much concerned with public order and vagrancy, two concepts which governments of this time saw as inextricably linked. It was thus felt that giving should be strictly controlled to encourage the channelling of alms (money or food given to the poor) only to those who were referred to as the impotent poor (i.e. those that were prevented by their age, health or other circumstances, from earning their own living). The able-bodied poor were to be encouraged to take responsibility for the amelioration of their own condition. In short, they should be compelled to find work or starve. Such a pre-occupation would, it was felt, preclude the possibility of their finding time to pose a threat to the State. As ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgements
• 1 The history and development of fundraising practice
• 2 Fundraising planning: the fundraising audit
• 3 Marketing research for fundraising
• 4 Understanding giving
• 5 Strategic planning: the fundraising plan
• 6 Fundraising reporting
• 7 Donor recruitment
• 8 Making the case for investment
• 9 Donor development
• 10 Major gift fundraising
• 11 Legacies
• 12 Community fundraising
• 13 Corporate fundraising
• 14 Trust and foundation fundraising
• 15 Digital fundraising
• 16 Fundraising in social media
• 17 Managing fundraising teams
• 18 Fundraising leadership
• 19 Legal and ethical aspects of fundraising
• Index