# Bill Bruty shares trusts analysis

- Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/2003/04/07/bill-bruty-shares-trusts-analysis/
- Published: 2003-04-07T23:00:00+01:00
- Author: Howard Lake

Trust fundraising consultant and trainer Bill Bruty has shared some “startling results”
from his analysis of some trust income figures.
Bruty shared his figures on the 
trust-fundraising e-mail discussion list. He reported that the majority of trust
income will come from a small number of trusts.

Bruty analysed the trust income of 13 charities over nine years, concentrating specifically
on the high value gift band, namely gifts over £5,000.

He found that these high value gifts constituted around 85% of the overall income
for each charity. These high value gifts had come from 310 trusts, and totalled 
£19,729. This compared to the £23.199 million donated from all trusts to the charities.

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Analysing just the high value trusts found that once again a few trusts dominated
the results. Just 67 trusts accounted for £15.006 million of the total income from
high value donors, of £19.729 million.

Bruty was taking part in a discussion on how to set targets for trust fundraisers.
Based on his reasearch he said he could predict that 64% of the total income will
come from a ‘pool’ of 67 trusts, or “the usual suspects” as he put it. A further
21% of the income would come from a charity’s own unique high value trusts, ones
that are not shared with other charities. The remaining 15% of the income would 
come from low value trusts giving under £5,000.

Bruty also looked at whether low value trusts could be persuaded to increase their
gifts. He found that it is likely that only 5% of a charity’s active trust supporters
would be able to upgrade to a gift level of £5,000. “Another nail in the coffin 
of the donor pyramid,” as he put it.

Bruty admitted that this dependence on such a small group of trusts had surprised
him, even after 15 years of trust fundraising. In short, although there are an estimated
8,000 grant-making trusts, most charities rely upon a tiny proportion (0.8%) for
two thirds of their income.

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