Perhaps issues with trying to get people to increase their donations, over and above the inflation rate is that we live in a completely self absorbed society where everyone spends money on material things. The real aim should be to make the people in this country genuinely happy like many of the people I met in Cuba who had nothing and wanted nothing. Then we'd have more disposable income with more to give to charities!

One of the biggest downfalls with getting more people to donate more money, is that everyone in this country is out to get everyone else. Ian MacQuillin is a good example here - to comment on someone's 'opinion' with such a bad attitude quite clearly shows that he has no interest in bringing people together for 'the greater good' which afterall, is what charity is really about.

To Amused Observer

If you want to engage in a great debate about fundraising issues (either this one specifically or anything else), please feel free to email me at ian@pfra.org.uk, or you might even like to visit my blog on UK Fundraising.

This can still be a great debate but as Steve Andrews has already pointed out, not on this site under the current regime. Trying to have a debate here is like banging your head against a brick wall: it's a blessed relief when you stop doing it.

Steven, I'm sorry you think I'm taking an arrogant approach - but I don't think I am. I don't pretend to know the answer to the question of how fundraisers could raise more cash, and defer to professionals who know better than me to decide how best to do this. All I'm calling for is a debate, which I don't think is arrogant at all.

Ian, the reason I tend to focus more on studies into lapsing/attrition/etc than those which talk about what fundraisers need to to to encourage more donations, is twofold. First, loads of other people talk about these positive studies - that's why the IoF Convention exists, for a start. But second (and more importantly) studies into why donors stop giving are by their very nature more interesting. That's because these studies have to properly engage with questions of fundraising ethics: they have to examine what fundraisers may have done wrong. This in turn focuses our attention on what fundraisers can do to improve. Studies looking at successful stewardship, on the other hand, can be unethical and uninteresting. For instance, they may recommend sending pens to people in the post - which most people dislike, but which do raise more cash. There's not much for me to say about that, other than that it exposes what I think is a pretty muddle-headed attitude.

Adam, Intelligent Giving

But people employ the same tactics they accuse surely?

Quoting CC income stats without any real foundation as to the makeup of that income is at best ambiguous.

Would fundraisers for instance accept that if a significant margin of income was proven to come through the trading arms of charities, that we scale down fundraising departments and open more shops?

The CC stats are useless without a breakdown of how that income is raised. How much income is attributed to emergency appeals, notorious for not converting to long term support.

How many fundraisers achieve or exceed targets year on year? What % of overall budgeted income is given to the fundraiser to raise? How much does it cost to raise their share, surely the mantra of every fundraiser is "ethical ROI"?

Who sets the targets, how are targets assessed? If fundraisers failed to reach targets, what environmental issue do they blame for this, if they exceed how have they achieved?

This could have been a great debate - lost in personal slights. Shame.

I'm glad you admit it, Adam.

Studies about donor communications - such as the optimum number of comms needed to secure a gift and levels of donor satisfaction with such comms; or how comms can reduce attrition levels (both of which were presented at convention this year) - you glibly dismiss as 'industry chit chat' because 'it misses the point', by which you mean it misses YOUR point. You ignore these studies because they do not confirm your hypothesis.

However, equivalent 'industy chit chat' about donor dissatisfcation, you happily admit to the canon of 'evidence' supporting your hypothesis.

The case for the prosecution rests.

It's such a shame Adam has to always put his arguments in such an arrogant and nasty way. It means on the rare occasions that he's got something useful to say, it can get lost. For this reason, I think he could have been much more effective in his job than he has been.

If it's true that the amount we've raised as a profession has barely increased more than inflation in the last decade, then it's true that we need to ask ourselves some more fundamental questions as a sector.

This is a disappointing fact. And it is right that we should be challenged on this.

We should have a positive and supportive discussion of these issues. But not here on the pages of this website under the current regime.

Wow methink the Lady Fundraiser doth protest to much.

Instead of beating the Opinion maker where is the counter evidence of growth in aggregate fundraising income?

What measures of success are being offered up to counter the claim of failed fundraisers?

We have some excellent fundraisers out there, we also have some hard working dedicated fundraisers too which does not. I'm afraid, equate to smart, successful.

Batter the OP by all means, nothing like a good debate to get the juices flowing, but batter him with facts and worthwhile stats - not verbal abuse. Weakens the argument immediately.

Anon2, you've successfully pointed out, I admit, the fact that my argument in this post isn't watertight. But I stand by it because I don't think anyone in fundraising seriously believes that unrestricted, fundraised cash has been going up over the past decade. If I'm wrong about this, I'll willingly concede the argument - but I think I'm really just conveying an established and reasonable belief.

Adam, Intelligent Giving

Thanks for that considered comment, Ian. For everyone else out there, I should point out that Ian works for the PFRA, the body that represents the people who employ chuggers. Essentially, he's the nation's second-most-important chugger, after the PFRA's boss.

So, here's my attempt to engage with the issues Ian raises. First, it's worth pointing out that I arrived at IG with absolutely no preconceptions about charities and/or fundraising. IG was my first job after leaving university, where I spent my final year studying 19th-century American literature for a master's dissertation. Before beginning my internship in 2006, I hadn't had any serious thoughts about fundraising at all: I arrived with an open mind.

However, as Ian suggests, I swiftly became a critic of what many fundraisers do - because what I saw some practitioners do behind the scenes, away from donors, made me feel queasy. After being witness to some fundraisers' techniques, I became distressed that these sharp practices weren't being seriously questioned. My overriding concern was that many fundraisers are myopically fixated on the bottom line: how much money a given campaign raises was often the only issue on fundraisers' horizons. My view was - and is - that fundraisers have a moral duty to their supporters that runs much deeper than this, and which is almost always ignored. 

As for what Ian says about ignoring industry chit-chat about stewardship etc., the reason I've done this is simple: because I think much of it is uninteresting and misses the point. Although I'm happy to admit that I've missed something, it's my feeling that 'stewarship' as currently defined by most fundraisers fails to address the fundamental point: that charities owe their  supporters inherent respect, and not only when they cough up their cash. 

Finally, and ss for not engaging with Ian, I have to admit to being nonplussed at this. I've tried to arrange to meet you, Mr McQ, twice in the past year, but to no avail. And I'm happy for us to meet for coffee in London at a time of your conveneince. You've got my number - just give me a call and we can set something up.

Adam, Intelligent Giving

You could have gone quietly Adam, but you just couldn’t resist a valedictory swipe at the entire fundraising profession.

You know that you are unpopular with a lot of fundraisers. You wear this unpopularity with pride like a badge of honour. That’s because you think it derives from the fact that you’ve been asking fundraisers a lot of awkward questions and delivering a series of nasty home truths we’d rather not be confronted with.

You had neither the wit nor humility to realise that the reason so many fundraisers dislike you is because you have been doing such a supremely bad job as director of Intelligent Giving.

You have been completely biased in your opinion and argument, as well as what has passed for ‘research’. You developed an overarching hypothesis about fundraising right from the start (basically all fundraising and all fundraisers were useless but if they listened to you they’d be better).

But instead of looking for evidence that refuted this hypothesis, as anyone schooled in science or social science would have done, you went looking for evidence that confirmed it. Of course, one can find evidence to confirm just about any hypothesis, but often at the expense of ignoring, bypassing or just failing to notice the bulk of evidence that refutes it.

Which is what you did. Items about donor satisfaction and loyalty, best practice in stewardship, low levels of complaints and the like, just never made it on to your pages because they didn’t support your central argument.

As a result, your arguments had all the scientific and logical rigour of astrology.

You genuinely believe that you have been the first person to raise issues of transparency, accountability, communicating with donors, trust etc and that before you came along, this was something fundraisers just avoided or swept under the carpet. What utter nonsense. As editor of Professional Fundraising, I was tackling all the topics you did years before you appeared on the scene (and you know that because I’ve given you copies of the articles). And of course, fundraisers were discussing it for a long time before I became editor of PF.

Last year, your PR stunt, er, I mean ‘research’ on F2F fundraisers was one of the most amateurish attempts at genuine market research I have ever encountered. The results didn’t support your hypothesis that chuggers were abusive and aggressive so you stretched the findings to the limits of credibility until they did. Anyway, your utterly flawed methodology had already rendered those findings worthless.

And despite your constant exhortations for fundraising and fundraisers to ‘engage’ with Intelligent Giving, you never once made a genuine attempt to engage with or understand fundraisers or the fundraising profession.

You probably think you’ve been our bete noire these past couple of years. But the ironic truth is that we’ve been yours. We’ve given you something to channel your negative energy into throughout your working week.

You’re going to miss us a lot more than we’re going to miss you.

Ian MacQuillin

Hi Adam
I'm not sure this is the best place to share this -
http://blogs.harvardbusiness.org/pallotta/2009/07/efficiency-measures-di...
but thought it might be of interest...

I lost the will to engage with you a while ago Adam. Waste of my time.

rarry

I don't think the headline you chose is justified, in that case. Youhave

1. attributed a goal to 'fundraisers' (whoever they are)  that they are not generally tasked with (increasing aggregate donations, rather than making a net contribution for their empolyers)

2. asserted without evidence that they have not met this goal

3. used this to justify your own preferences/agenda

Hope you encourage a more rigorous approach in your young charges come September

I can't point you to totally solid research backing up my claim here, Anon2, as you propose: but that's largely because there are extremely few solid stats on anything at all in the charity world. What I do know, however, is that fundraisers are worried about not raising enough money, and about how they perceive donations overall are stagnating or falling. Put another, way, I don't know of anyone in the fundraising world who seriously claims aggregate donations are rising. 

Clearly, this is a 'soft' position I'm advancing - but it's that way by necessity. 

@Rarry, It's always nice to hear your constructive and considered points. Keep it up.

Adam, Intelligent Giving

Bit baffled by this Adam.
What you should be comparing is what a charity without fundraisers is able to get compared to what difference the fundraiser make.
Between grants, contracts, events, regular donations, major donors, Lottery funds, local lotteries, corporate donations and sponsorship - I've seen us fundraisers make a difference.

We tend not to be involved in deciding the mission of a charity, we merely enable the charity to work. Others spend the money we raise.

If you want fundraisers to get more and more, give us a market thats always expanding. Instead we seem to have more and more charities, limited markets, other drains on funds available (Lottery money being nicked for olympics) and often more needed by the charities than we can get.
I think as a group we do a good job. Always room for improvement, increasing skills etc, like in any type of work.

1 When exactly does Richard take over?

2 Is this the best you can do? I hope this isn't your parting shot...

rarry

You said: unrestricted cash from public appeals ... isn't increasing at anything like the 8% rate.

Source please?

 Also what on earth is the 'average charity' with a mission that will take > 1000 years to achieve? 

The link you don't like, SimonK, wasn't ideal, I know - but I included it not because of the post's subject (ethics, as you say), but because it pointed out that fundraisers are, as I type, wondering around the London Hilton Metropole at the IoF Convention wearing bags proclaiming fundraisers as "heavenly" - and this after the big shindig national awards ceremony last night. I'm not saying any of this is bad per se - but I am saying that this sort of behaviour gives the impression of a profession that's broadly pleased with its aggregate performance, and it's that which I'm questioning here.

Re debates: no, I honestly don't think that the big debates that need to happen about fundraising are happening. Look at the recent hoo-ha about attrition rates from chugging. In a nutshell, it turns out that people signed up by chuggers tend to stop giving on many occasions. The chuggers' response to this news? They say that charities ought to write nicer follow-up letters to people signed up by chuggers. That's the kind of superficial chit-chat which I have problems with, and which bulks large in so much fundraising discourse.

Adam, Intelligent Giving

Anon2, I could hardly disagree with those figures you quote from the Commission. My strong feeling, however, is that much of that income increase is from non-fundraised sources. You suggest that's not a problem - but I think it is. When charities earn income from contracts with government, for instance, they can't then use that money to do anything other than deliver a service sanctioned by the government. Whether or not you think charities ought or ought not to be doing this, it remains the case that this income is used by charities to provide a service - not to change the world. That's why, in my view, fundraised income is particularly important. In my experience, if you ask (almost) any charity what income they want most, they'll say unrestricted cash from public appeals - which isn't increasing at anything like the 8% rate.

Adam, Intelligent Giving

Hard to know where to start. But the fact that someone won an award for fundsraising doesn't imply in any way that "fundraisers" as an amorphous mass don't think they need to improve. Even if fundraising was absolutely appalling, and everyone agreed that it was, someone would still be better (or less bad) than the rest.

Also, one of your links is to a blog post about few people turning up to a session on the ethics of fundraising. Now, it's clearly important if fundraisers don't care about being ethical, but it's utterly irrelevant in this context unless you truly don't see the difference between "ethically good" and "good at raising money".

Also, you say that "Fundraisers should start asking the difficult questions about why more people don’t give, and what should be done to change that." Do you honestly not think they are having those debates?

According to the charity commission, total charity income has increased from £23.74bn in 1999 to £48.40bn in 2008, a compound increase of 8% p.a., with RPI average 3% over the same period. This includes trading, grants and contracts income, of course. All of which are methods of raising funds. (Source: http://www.charity-commission.gov.uk/registeredcharities/factfigures.asp).

Fundraisers, like other marketers in mature markets, may well be adept at (and focus on) increasing market share. Probably because they are paid by one or other charity, for whom they do the best (most efficient) job they can. they aren't hired by 'the sector'.

 Afraid your straw man is failing to stand up this time, Adam  

They've failed because charities at present aren't achieving nearly anything like they want to achieve. As I mention in the post, the average charity mission statement is extremely ambitious - and won't ever be fulfilled (in less than 1,000 years, at least) without morecash. So charities' fundraising efforts have, by their own standards, been collective failues.

Adam, Intelligent Giving

I'm getting it from a chart in Charity Trends 07 - which relies on 'Trends' data from the previous decade. Although I've got grave doubts about the accuracy of Trends 07, previous editions - though imperfect - were (in my view) more reliable. Obviously, this does mean that the data I'm referring to isn't exactly breand new, but my point still stands - because since 2007 there's been absolutely no sign that giving has gone up, as the recession has hit. So the stats are rickety, as I say, but they're the best we've got.

Adam, Intelligent Giving

The Link to CAFonline leads to a page saying they haven't updated their Charity Trends report. So where are you getting the numbers from, and how were they collected?

Why does the level of giving only rising in line with inflation mean that fundraisers have failed? Seriously, I don't follow.

Are you saying that the level of giving should increase in real terms every year, until - until what? Until people are giving away all of their money?