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Is it time to reappraise our attitude to individual donors
Andrew de Mille takes the long view of personal giving
Is personal giving a fraction of what it used to be? Many fundraisers with long experience say so, and to some extent practical experience bears this out. But there are lessons from 1970s practice which are once more becoming relevant today, as there are early signs of a resurgence in major donor funding which it is important to nurture.
These thoughts have emerged as a result of a committee moment in my voluntary life, a few months ago, when colleagues on my village Day Centre committee turned to me and said “Well? You're the fundraiser - how are we going to raise the £200,000 we need for the extension?” I do this all the time for much larger projects; it's my job. But here on my home patch, surrounded by friends who had puzzled for years over exactly what it is that I do, I suddenly felt very exposed! Grant makers generally consider Thames Valley villages too prosperous to warrant their support, even if, as here, the charity concerned helps seriously disadvantaged older people on a daily basis. I was acutely aware that almost all the funding would have to be raised in the village, and that the best way to achieve this would be a personal giving campaign promoted 1970s style, face to face, peer to peer, donor to prospect. It's a long time since I have run a capital campaign which is almost entirely dependent on personal giving. But twenty-plus years ago it was a crucially important part of every campaign, and there is some evidence that charities are turning their attention once more to this potentially lucrative area.
In 1971, we divided the £600,000 target for building a new regional theatre, one of my first projects, roughly as follows - £200,000 from local authorities and the Arts Council capital programme; £200,000 from companies and trusts; and £200,000 from ordinary individuals, the potential theatre audience, giving through seven year covenants. (For approximate current-day values add a nought, but remember that the equivalent project today would cost considerably more than £6million as the quality of building would be higher and there would be many more ancillary facilities.) Nowadays we expect more, yet over the intervening years our sense of social obligation to contribute has virtually disappeared. We are taxed less heavily, we are considerably wealthier, yet it would be utterly unrealistic to expect a provincial theatre building project today to attract £2million from ordinary individuals' contributions. This applies across almost all sectors of charitable support, not just a theatre project. The exceptions are arguably churches and faith based projects, and to a diminishing extent independent schools, where committed personal giving underpins most projects.
Surveys show that around two-thirds of the population regularly give to charities, averaging around £180 a year. This represents 0.7% of average income. Most of this is given casually rather than through standing order. This low average reflects a society with little understanding of serious committed giving. The headline figures do however hide several trends, including a rise in the number of very wealthy donors establishing trusts or giving six and seven figure sums, and a steady rise in Gift Aid take up. The big brand charities may have achieved substantial market growth , but their high cost, impersonal, database-driven war of attrition has also alienated wide sections of the potential donor public. The AB economic group who gave regularly to local capital appeals in the 1970s now has a very different mindset. They are the baby boomers, now approaching retirement, and the Thatcher “me-me” generation, both living with unprecedented levels of debt and working inordinately long hours. They come across little real hardship, but donor surveys show that they do pay lip service to helping others. If charities engage with them individually, face to face, they do have capacity to give, but they need to feel involved as well. Their participation in sponsored events bears this out. The next step must surely be to engage them in real charitable giving, rather than “fun for a good cause”.
The personal giving campaign of the 1970s was based on peer group pressure and unequivocal leadership. It works today just as ever. In five months our village Day Centre has reached £175,000, through 62 regular gift aid contributions of varying levels over three years, averaging £2,800 gross. Most charities class donors in the £2,000 - £20,000 range as “major donors”. These need careful personal approach by someone they know and respect, who has already given at an appropriate level. Asking is a job for financially and personally committed volunteers; the task of the professional is to enthuse, support, and steer them. Charities, especially those with major donor programmes would do well to reapply the techniques of the 1970s and earlier, to the circumstances in which we now operate.
End
Andrew de Mille trained as a fundraising consultant in 1971, working in a consultancy specialising in capital project fundraising, mainly in the arts. He established his own consultancy in1979 after taking an MBA at Cranfield School of Management. A keen advocate of professional development and high standards of integrity in fundraising, he was one of the first members of the Institute of Fundraising, and a founder, current Board Member, and former Chair of the Association of Fundraising Consultants. He has masterminded capital appeals and undertaken other consultancy work for over two hundred charities.
This article was first published in Charity Funding Report, Issue 75, April 2008