Fundraising consortia

Howard Lake | 25 January 2012 | Blogs

• Tagged with:
• Management
• Promotional

Are you a member of a fundraising consortium? How many are there and what models do they use? The issue came up today on the Major Gift special interest group discussion forum, and I thought it would be helpful to build a list.
A fundraising consortium in this case is a network of charities that fundraise together under an umbrella band. There are quite a few consortia like the Consortia for Street Children that fundraise for the umbrella organisation, and there are plenty of networks of fundraisers, formal and informal, that share fundraising advice.
But which consortia fundraise jointly to benefit all their members?
Already the following consortia have been suggested:

• the Counting Women In coalition, which campaigns for equal political representation for women in the UK, also undertakes joint fundraising
• The Prostate Cancer Charity and Breast Cancer Care have created a partnership called TeamPB following their selection as joint official charities for the 2012 Virgin London Marathon.

To these I would add:

• Remember a Charity, the legacy promotion campaign – although it doesn’t directly fundraise for members, the group promotes a particular method of fundraising
• Help the Hospices shares fundraising advice amongst member hospices, connects supporters to local hospices, and raises funds for the hospice movement
• The Child Concern Consortium is a group of five small charities that help vulnerable children and their families across the UK. They have fundraised together since 1994.

Advice on fundraising consortia

There are quite a few fundraising consortia in the payroll giving area. Often small, local charities group together to help them gain access to companies that would not be likely to invite them to approach their staff on their own.
WCVA publishes advice on setting up a fundraising consortium, for example to promote and carry out payroll giving actitives. So too does the Institute of Fundraising via its Payroll Giving Centre.
What other consortia are we missing here? Do add your suggestions below.

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.