What makes you engage with charity fundraising and what puts you off?

[5013R]

Hi all - I’m hoping / looking for some honest views on fundraising. I lead a medium-sized domestic abuse charity which supports women and children. It has been around for a long time and I am not the founder. It depends on fundraising, grants and a couple of contracts to survive, and the fundraising landscape is understandably bleak right now. I don’t think any charities are having a particularly good time, but in this sector where we have to safeguard the identities of who we support and be very careful not to put anyone at increased risk, our marketing strategy means fundraising suffers even further. I can’t show donors the lovely faces of our service users to show impact and tell their story.

Whether from a personal, community or corporate fundraising perspective, can you tell me - what makes you engage? What makes you avoid and walk away? What fundraising activities have you been involved in that you absolutely loved and would recommend?

The charity world is a very proud one where it is not the done thing to ask these questions in a public forum, so I’m hoping Mumsnet can help - any thoughts massively appreciated!

But the Board of Trustees does not.

@sashh I have a monitor on my TV that identifies which adverts I watch, I do this because they send me points and I can spend those on various things including vouchers. I can normally get a £10 voucher each month, I get Argos vouchers that go to local charity near me. They are a community shop / food bank / charity shop and I asked them what was useful

Couldn't you just leave your TV on day and night or is there an actual camera to check you are watching it? Am I correct that you given the vouchers you accrue to the charities instead of money?

I know they don't. I wasn't talking about Boards of Trustees, I was referring to the senior executives who are in charge of the organisation from day to day. When you have a multi-million household name charity, there has to be paid managerial and other staff to actually run the thing, as you would any other entity of that size. Some of those senior executives are paid rather a lot. All of which is conveniently missing from the Charities Commission overview. The charity I'm particularly thinking of is run as hundreds of separate branches, all of which absorb a small amount of those overheads, making it invisible to the casual observer. Hopefully you will see what I mean now.

There is no camera. It works onthe sound, before each add is a sort of pulse, humans can't hear it.

Yes I give the vouchers to the charity. I live on, and the charity is on a council estate. So fairly often there are people moving in with nothing, or not much.

They asked for Argos vouchers because you can buy bedding, toys, pots and pans, cutlery, tableware. Basically anything a family could need, and if you are moving from eg a refuge to a house it is nice to be able to choose something rather than just having what has been donated.

I fundraise for charities professionally (yes that means I get paid, but under the national average salary) and I wonder if you could use illustration to provide "faces" without having to show the real faces of the women you help? Could be a variety of styles, from contemporary to old master...as you'll know it just really helps people empathise with the women their money would be helping.

Another option - which is probably overdone but you might try - is to use photos of objects that suggest the personalities of your beneficiaries...like a teddy to represent a child, only more sophisticated of course.

In the past I have given to the Poppy Project run by Eaves (about trafficked women) and it was the individual's stories that moved me to donate. Heart-rending stuff and very close to the boundary between bearable to read and distressing but definitely on the right side of that otherwise I'll switch off.