It can seem overwhelming to pick up the fundraising mantle and particularly difficult to prioritise strategic fundraising when the day-to-day operational pressures begin to stack up. We’ve pulled together five top tips to help you succeed.

“There is always more to be done, more that should be done, always more than can be done.” Andy Grove, co-founder of Intel.

Could you and/or your team be more productive this year?

There are many reasons why you may need to provide project budgets, from seeking grants through to presenting an internal case for funding. Your charity will have an organisational budget which shows in detail how you plan to deliver the services in your business plan. Project budgets must be easily understood and will generally form part of an overall organisational budget.

I want to reshape the way we approach community fundraising. I want to develop community fundraising from a separate entity within a fundraising team to an interwoven strategy. To add value and insight across the fundraising mix, whilst driving mass engagement with the key people who will stay with us long-term. Think about it…

November 2018 saw the launch of the first ever #donorlove celebration in a joint collaboration between KEDA Consulting and Agents of Good.

Download a complimentary, info-packed guide to learn how to use engagement events to build successful relationships with supporters.

January 2019

By law, every charity must prepare a set of accounts and a trustees’ annual report. The exact requirements vary depending on the organisation’s size, legal status and constitution. In addition to meeting statutory and constitutional requirements, this document is often where people outside of the organisation can find the most detail on how it is run.

Christmas reminds me a lot of community fundraising. At Christmas we make time and effort to spend time in the physical company of the people we care about, there’s handwritten cards shared with people you love, and you think hard about the perfect gift that will surprise and delight the recipient to show how much you appreciate them; all of the wonderful things I like to do as a community fundraiser.

Achieving goals faster, optimising the use of available resources, achieving funding targets, mitigating risk, navigating Brexit comfortably, learning and developing as an organisation and increasing the skills and experience of a staff team are all potential reasons why external collaboration with other groups should always be at the top of your strategic priorities list.

Whether you have a mature corporate fundraising programme or are looking to develop your fundraising approach to attract corporate partners, it can be easy to be drawn in to the ‘big ideas’.

What happens if someone comes up with a new paradigm for charities to get paid immediately for work carried out? What happens if funders and commissioners can be satisfied that funding allocations go directly to where they have the most benefit?

Do you have a current vacant fundraising position? Are you branching into a new income stream? Is your charity looking to change the way that they fundraise?

An outstanding case for support makes a charity stand out to funders. Charities can deliver fantastic work and raise significant income from trusts and foundations by understanding their organisation and service users well and articulating everything perfectly in a case for support.

This month, Paul Streets, chief executive of the Lloyds Bank Foundation for England and Wales was speaking at a panel session on core costs at the Charity Finance Summit.