New model for the community fundraising ‘comeback kid’
Howard Lake | 8 July 2014 | News
A new model for community fundraising is being presented at the Institute of Fundraising National Convention today.
Lianne Howard-Dace
Delivering the session Community Fundraising: Problem child or rising star? Lianne Howard-Dace will outline a new model based on five ‘pillars’.
Each pillar embraces findings from a research dissertation by Lianne Howard-Dace – who is community and events fundraising manager at Royal London Society for the Blind – which she has recently submitted for her Masters degree at London South Bank University.
[quote align=”centre” color=”#999999″]’Community fundraising is a bit of comeback kid, an eclectic eccentric who, despite being written off by many, reinvents itself and continues to have kooky moments and moments of sheer genius'[/quote]
“The model I’ve developed takes the key commonalities and themes which emerged from the research and synthesises them in to actionable areas for improvement,” Howard-Dace told UK Fundraising.
“Obviously everyone will be at different points in their development so I will be suggesting people identify which of these will be short, medium and long term goals for them to look at.”
Five ‘pillar’ model
The five pillars – which characterize successful community fundraising initiatives in the organsiations she studied – are:
* Strong staff
* Empowered volunteers
* Pro-active planning
* Collaborative working
* Insight-led decisions
Each pillar contains recommendations for planning community fundraising initiatives. Under ‘strong staff’, Howard-Dace recommends developing digital skills and delegating decision making. Under ‘collaborative working’, she recommends cross-selling projects and “challenging internal perceptions” about community fundraising.
Howard-Dace also presents a template stewardship plan that can be adapted for any community fundraising project, and checklists for volunteer resources.
The title of Howard-Dace’s research and IoF presentation refers to the Boston Matrix management tool. She concludes that community fundraising has undergone a resurgence during the recession making it a ‘rising star’ once again and in some cases even a ‘cash cow’.
Howard-Dace says: “Community fundraising is a bit of comeback kid, an eclectic eccentric who, despite being written off by many, reinvents itself and continues to have kooky moments and moments of sheer genius”.
The five-pillar community fundraising model can be downloaded here.
Image: five pillars by Morphart Creation on Shutterstock.com
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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.