How to Engage Trustees in Fundraising

This article is from the resource base of the Charity Excellence Framework. Demand for services continues to increase, but not income and nearly 20% of charities are ‘struggling to survive’, yet only half of trustees are actively involved in fundraising.   Admittedly, many trustees find fundraising a challenge and others are simply not able to make a significant financial donation, but everyone can do something. Make sure they understand their statutory obligations, focus on what they can do, then support them in doing so - during recruitment, induction and then on an ongoing basis. Outlined below is some supporting information to help you.            

Statutory Obligations

Charity Commission guidance (CC20) makes clear that fundraising is a board responsibility. It lays out 6 key principles – a very good starting point. 

1. Planning effectively.
2. Supervising your fundraisers.
3. Protecting your charity’s reputation, money and other assets.
4. Identifying and ensuring compliance with the laws or regulations that apply specifically to your charity’s fundraising.
5. Identifying and following any recognised standards that apply to your charity’s fundraising.
6. Being open and accountable.

They must also comply with the Fundraising Regulator's code of practice, and HMRC, the ICO and others also issue guidance. It is not trustees responsibility to do all this themselves, but it is their responsibility to ensure that it is done, so they will wish to that there are adequate systems in place and working.  

Be aware that there are a whole range of other laws that impact on fundraising activities. Trustees will wish to ensure that there are adequate systems in place and working.  

For charities working internationally, some UK laws are applicable to work overseas, such as anti-bribery and data protection legislation, and there are specific HMRC requirements in respect of transferring charitable funding overseas and tax, as well as international agreements and host country legislation. 

Creating a fundraising culture

With demand expected to increase and income not, driving fundraising growth is critical to protecting increasingly vulnerable services. Regrettably, all too often, some people still see this as ‘not my problem’. Even trustees and senior staff who are responsible for making clear that it is and without whom it won’t be. Trustees must recognise that fundraising is a priority and the responsibility of everyone in the charity, and get behind the CEO and fundraisers to create a fundraising culture.   

Exercising oversight

Equally, whilst some fundraisers are brilliant, others can be masters of obfuscation – these are usually the ones you really do need to ask the right questions of. For many of us, fundraising is a bit of a black art. Can your fundraising reports be understood by everyone, do they focus on the key issues (both financial and non-financial), report against business plan/budget targets and identify the action being taken, by whom, when this will be achieved by and the impact expected? If not, ask for the clarity you need.  

Financial Support

For individuals, there are a range of tax efficient giving opportunities. 

·        Using Gift Aid, charities can claim back additional income from HMRC (as long as the donor is a UK tax payer) and, if he/she is a higher rate tax payer, they can claim this portion back for themselves. 

·        There are also tax efficient opportunities around the donation of shares, land, buildings and in wills. 

For companies, charitable donations can be used to minimise tax liability. Not only on financial donations, but also equipment, stock, land, property, shares, sponsorship and seconding employees.   

You may also wish to consider social investment which offers substantial tax relief.

Non-Financial Support

Company giving schemes. 

·        For example, supporting in pitching to staff through company magazines for donations, or through payroll giving schemes.  

·        Senior staff in major companies are sometimes allocated funding that they can donate to a chosen charity. 

·        Some larger companies have charity trust funds (eg Lloyds and Fidelity) and internal support can be extremely helpful in securing funding.

·        Encouraging staff to organise or take part in challenge events to raise not only funds, but also promote the company and build team working and moral.

Non-cash donations of goods – for example, support from food and drink companies to help with the cost of events. Charities also buy a wide range of goods, usually at retail prices, such as food, IT, office furniture and carpets.   

Pro Bono support for services – for example, construction, marketing/PR, sales, HR, H&SW, IT support and training, but also a whole range of others.   

Volunteering – many companies (eg Waitrose and John Lewis) encourage volunteering and may be able to offer specialist skills you might otherwise have to pay for.  

There are a variety of charity recycling schemes for printer and photocopier cartridges and old mobile phones. All you need would be for the company to agree to promote and distribute collection boxes that are collected by the provider.

You can create your own web shop via a range of companies, who can help with leaflets/posters etc. Individuals are able to make purchases from a range of retailers at no additional cost, and sometimes with discounts, and the charity receives commission in return. And there are now a whole range of charity apps. 

In a similar vein, E Bay for Charity supports charities. Anyone can give to your charity when they sell on eBay. Sellers can donate between 10% and 100% of each item's sale price. PayPal Giving Fund will collect the donation from the seller, claim Gift Aid (if eligible) and pass 100% of the money on to you.

Access to Networks

Everyone has a personal network and, potentially much more valuable, many of us have professional or business networks with commercial companies, the Media and, possibly, high net worth prospects or trusts/foundations. Having this conversation with trustees or suitable supporters during recruitment/induction, or circulating prospect lists to the board can be very useful. 

Even if individuals don’t have suitable contacts, they can still help by attending fundraising events and talking to prospects or, if appropriate, accompanying the CEO/fundraisers to meetings with trusts or prospects.      

Advocacy

Trustees and volunteers can also promote your work to the Media and influencers in your community. Actively encourage them to do so and provide them with support/material they might need. 

For some, this may only be getting an article published in the company newsletter or similar, displaying a poster or making leaflets available in the workplace, but it all helps. 

Also, encourage them to join your social media networks and to like and re-post/re-tweet your posts to raise your profile and build your followers.   

This is a resource from my free online toolkit for trustees/senior teams, which enables you to achieve more and reduce workload. It's very easy to use, set-up is 2 mins, each of the 8 questionnaires 30 and there are 3000+ links to resources – it finds the ones you need, so you don’t have to - https://www.charityexcellence.co.uk. To fund it, I'm available for facilitation and consultancy work, including pragmatic, cost effective charity health checks and governance evaluations. Find our more here.