# I've seen the future of charity income generation

- Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/2010/10/19/i039ve-seen-future-charity-income-generation/
- Published: 2010-10-19T14:31:16+01:00
- Author: Howard Lake

I’ve come up with a radical new way for charities to generate income. It has been
conceived in response to the upsurge of charity comparison websites, some of which
have received criticism for being totally ineffective and a complete waste of time,
money and effort. It’s called ‘fundraising’.

Comparison sites – whereby some bright spark sets up a website that allows potential
donors to compare charities’ costs, incomes, outputs and such like – rely on the
prospective donor to make a proactive decision to visit the site. While it sounds
fine in theory, the problem of course is that no bugger ever does that of their 
own volition.

However, ‘fundraising’ gets round that problem by actually asking people to give
money to a charity. There are many ways that charities can ‘fundraise’. They can
send letters, use TV and press adverts, make telephone calls, send emails or texts
or even stand in the street and ask people as they walk past.

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Each and every way of doing this has the advantage over static websites that it 
prompts people to give who otherwise might not have thought about it.

Of course, ‘fundraising’ is a lot more expensive than just setting up a website 
and waiting for the populace to flock to it, bank cards in hand. It might even cost
charities a year’s worth of donations. But in the long term, I think it will be 
worth it because, by my reasoning, you’ll end up with more donors giving more money
by asking them to give than if you don’t.

Simple, really.