Resource Alliance announces Springboard Fund to ‘restart the IFC’
Howard Lake | 21 October 2021 | News
The Resource Alliance, hosts of the International Fundraising Congress since 1981, have launched a fundraising appeal to help ensure that the global event continues into the future.
The duration and severity of COVID-19 has prevented the UK-registered charity from delivering the IFC in its in-person format in both 2020 and 2021. Its switched to an online version of course, last year and this year. Indeed, IFC Online is taking place currently over three days this week.
SEE ALSO: IFC Online 2021: day one (20 October 2021)
But the organisation is committed to running the global gathering of fundraisers and change-makers as an in-person event again. But its finances have been hit hard by not being able to run the conference for two years in a row.
Advertisement
IFC Springboard Fund
“If we don’t act now, we may never be able to deliver IFC again” says CEO Brian Higgins as he announced the IFC Springboard Fund. “Fundraisers won’t be able to come together, to learn and share together, and to create magic together on a truly global scale.”
Income raised from the appeal will help ensure that it can “bring the global fundraising community back together, next October at IFC 2022 in The Netherlands”.
The appeal is directed at fundraisers and those who have experienced the benefits of attending IFC over the last 40 years. “We need your help”, says the Resource Alliance, “to rebuild and restart the IFC as the home of global fundraising and social innovation for generations of fundraisers to come.”
He hopes that enough fundraisers will acknowledge that the IFC “delivers a generous sharing of best practice, insights, and mutual support from other fundraisers, and that their work and careers have benefitted enormously from their time at IFC”.
He adds with some pride that the IFC was “the birthplace of many national fundraising associations, which are the keystones in the professional development of the fundraising profession”.
The donation form states that “By donating to the IFC Springboard Fund, you’ll be supporting the global fundraising community to maximise their impact on social change.”
Higgins says: “In a world that truly needs us to work together, we need the IFC. We are asking for your support to give us the working capital to deliver the best-ever IFC in 2022 and we commit to engaging deeply with the global fundraising community to understand your needs and wishes, and to re-build to meet the needs of fundraisers across the globe, for today’s fundraisers and the fundraisers of tomorrow.“
One-off or regular donations can be made to the IFC Springboard Fund via the Resource Alliance.
If you don’t complete the form promptly, a small reminder popover appears, featuring a resourceful heart, still beating. Similarly if you select the ‘give monthly’ option an animated heart flies upwards.
The donation process has some other nice touches too, including a session to convert a single gift to a monthly gift:
and an invitation to cover the transaction costs of a single donation:
and a minimum donation level of £5.
For public appeals this is not good practice but for a targeted, business-related appeal it makes more sense.
- Resource Alliance to hold first virtual fundraising conference focusing on digital fundraising (6 February 2009)
- In memoriam bursaries available for IFC 2018 (26 July 2017)
- Resource Alliance launches initiative to help smaller organisations attend IFC 2019 (16 September 2019)
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.