FRSB to break even by June
Howard Lake | 28 January 2010 | News
The Fundraising Standards Board (FRSB), the self-regulatory body for fundraising in the UK, has published its annual accounts and says that it is on target to break even by June 2010.
The accounts cover the period July 2008 to June 2009, the second full year of operation by the organisation that was set up to champion best practice in fundraising and ensure that the public could give to charities with confidence.
The figures include a one-off grant from the Office of the Third Sector to fund the launch of the FRSB’s Give with Confidence campaign.
FRSB chief executive Alistair McLean said that, half-way through its current financial year, the organisation was still on target for this break-even point, and for membership growth. Since June 2009, membership figures had increased from 866 to just under 1200 members. McLean pointed out that its members charities now account for nearly 50% of all the estimated £10 billion voluntary giving in the UK.
The break even point has been reached even though the organisation has held its membership fees for two years running. Nevertheless, he said that the organisation would be able to sustain its work with its current staff numbers on its budgeted income.
It is cutting its marketing budget from £70,000 (excluding the one-off OTS grant) to £35,000. McLean explains that this is part of its move to what he called “piggyback marketing” with its charity members. “They help us promote the FRSB brand by including the logo and give with confidence tick on all their fundraising and communications material,” he explained.
He added that the tick had appeared extensively on all the Disasters Emergency Committee’s material for its emergency Haiti appeal, following the DEC’s decision to become a FRSB member. Many of the DEC’s members were already FRSB members.
www.frsb.org.uk
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.