Fundraisers are not targeting ethnic minority communities effectively
Howard Lake | 13 August 2003 | News
Charities are missing out on fundraising opportunities because they are not
effectively targeting ethnic minority communities, according to a report
commissioned by the London Development Agency (LDA).
The report, entitled “Reaching Multicultural Britain”, also highlights the need for charities to do more to enable them to recruit staff from diverse communities. The report by Milestone Research for the Mayor’s agency for business and jobs surveyed some of the UK’s leading charities to look at how they could improve relationships with ethnic minority communities, especially in areas such as fundraising.
It features details of some charities which have been successful in this area. Case studies show how Shelter, Help The Aged and Macmillan Cancer Relief have all developed successful partnerships with various ethnic minority communities.
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Shelter for example has been successful in not only recruiting but also retaining and developing ethnic minority fundraisers
in the mainstream voluntary sector. It did this by introducing procedures that include:
- advertising vacancies widely, including, where appropriate, in black and
ethnic minority publications. - supplying information in different formats, which is indicated on the job
advertisements. - all applicants are asked to complete a monitoring form to ensure that they
can monitor their success and make any necessary improvements in attracting
a diverse range of candidates. - periodic reviews of their recruitment methods to make sure people are
shortlisted, interviewed and appointed fairly, consistently and solely on
the requirements of the job. - all members of staff attend an equal opportunities training course.
- all managers attend recruitment and selection training to ensure that job
applicants are treated equally and with respect. - Shelter’s Senior Management Team recognise the importance of a diverse
organisation and have made this a strategic goal. They have established a Diversity Group to look at issues specifically relating to this area and are currently in the process of recruiting a Diversity Manager.
However the LDA report recommends that the voluntary sector as a whole needs to improve links with the UK’s ethnic minority communities, not least because they are estimated to have a total disposable income of over £13 billion.
Manny Lewis, Deputy Chief Executive of the LDA, said: “This research is a useful contribution to the debate on how charities can improve their links with ethnic minority communities, particularly in London. The case studies in this report show how charities can benefit from accessing untapped
funding, but also in finding people for key fundraising jobs.”
The report recommends that charities:
- encourage directors and personnel officers to work more closely together
to look at their monitoring and recruitment processes and put in place
appropriate strategies to promote job vacancies within diverse communities. - use the ethnic minority press more to publicise their vacancies within
local, regional and national ethnic minority and voluntary sector networks and with ethnic minority business and professional networks. - share good practice in the recruitment and training of staff, taking into
account ethnic diversity. - consider developing fundraising partnerships with individual ethnic
minority organisations – through joint campaigns using models such as the
Help the Aged/HelpAge India and Macmillan Cancer Relief/Cancer Black Care
partnership campaigns. - encourage community and volunteer fundraisers to form links with local
ethnic minority community fundraisers and with local community and voluntary
organisations to promote joint fund-raising events and activities.
The report ‘Reaching Multicultural Britain’ can be downloaded from the LDA’s Web site in Microsoft Word format (505 Kb).
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.