Coronavirus presents a huge challenge for charities and their fundraising teams. Events have been cancelled or postponed, many companies are facing financial challenges and individual supporters may be worried about their jobs or investments. At the same time, demand for many charities’ services has never been higher, particularly those working in mental health or social welfare. Most charities are having to rapidly adjust their working practices and delivery models to reflect social distancing.
So how can Fundraisers best help our charities, beneficiaries and supporters right now? How can we mitigate the impact on income this year, and best prepare for the future?
Here are seven ideas for next steps:
1. Check to see if your charity is eligible for any of the emergency funding programmes being announced. The Government is expected to announce a package of support for charities in week commencing 30th March. Martin Lewis released £1m from his charity fund to provide grants of £5,000 to £20,000 to small registered charities, or local arms of bigger charities, to help with coronavirus-related poverty relief. Applications have now closed but it’s worth watching his site for possible further grant rounds https://blog.moneysavingexpert.com/2020/03/i-m-making-p1m-available-to-fund-urgent-small-charity-coronaviru
This National Emergencies Trust will be allocating grants raised from their national appeal via the Community Foundations – more info here https://www.communityfoundation.org.uk/coronavirusfund
And the National Lottery is focusing £300m of funding over the next 6 months on projects focused on helping communities through Coronavirus and helping charities with liquidity issues https://www.tnlcommunityfund.org.uk/news/press-releases/2020-03-27/27-march-statement-from-dawn-austwick-ceo-the-national-lottery-community-fund-covid-19
2. Keep communicating with all of your supporters – those who give or raise money, and supporters who volunteer or campaign for you. Those who are currently committed to your charity are most likely to continue or restart their support in future. It’s vital to take them with you. Update them on how you’re responding to the situation, and that their support is more important than ever. If your charity is furloughing staff, explain why this is necessary and how it’s being done. RNLI’s You’re part of the crew social media post was a great example of taking your supporters with you. https://twitter.com/rnli/status/1240685834338045952?s=21
3. Use the telephone and post as well as digital communications. As most of us are at home, more of your supporters than ever before are able to take a phone call, open a letter or engage on social media. Can your staff working at home do stewardship calls? These will build relationships with supporters and boost and retain their support. Depending on your budgets, can you continue or expand planned direct mail activity? Can your social media feeds drive interaction with your supporters?
4. Talk to your biggest donors about how they can help – whether these are companies, high net worth individuals, volunteer groups or Gala Ball Committees. Large funders are acutely aware of the impact this is having on the beneficiaries and causes they support. Can you agree revised criteria for projects funded by restricted grants? Can you reallocate all or part of a current restricted grant to your overall costs? Can a major donor make an additional one off gift to help you manage the impact? Remember, some companies and investors are seeing increased demand and profits for their products and services so there are opportunities for support from this.
5. Consider an emergency appeal. Many charities are now running these, mainly through digital channels. The need for and impact of funds needs to be really clear but people do want to feel like they’re doing something to help. AAW Partnership’s blog has good advice on how to run a successful emergency appeal https://aawpartnership.com/blog-25th-march-2020-six-top-tips-emergency-appeals
The public are responding with great altruism to the situation – from care package donations to NHS workers to neighbourhood What’s app groups to the over 750,000 people who have signed up to the national volunteering scheme. Do your own thing isolation fundraising is springing up via virtual quizzes, video dinner parties with friends, and crowd funding appeals. How could your charity tap into this? Could you suggest a virtual do your own thing fundraiser for your supporters?
6. Keep fundraising – and keep making the case for fundraising internally. We all know successful fundraising depends on a consistent, long term strategy. One of the biggest risks right now is charities cutting back fundraising investment too far. This will help the position this year, but will damage income in 2021 and beyond. Charities facing serious income drops and cashflow issues will be under great pressure to cut fundraising spend but this will make recovery in 2021 even harder.
If you’re working through how best to respond to Coronavirus, I’m offering telephone advice and support sessions. I can signpost you to support on offer for charities, talk through your options and advise on best next steps and managing internal stakeholders. Contact me at cmilesconsulting@outlook.com to discuss this further.