The Future of Community Fundraising

As part of my master programme I recently led a seminar with my fellow students around some of the issues effecting regional and community fundraising. The part of my presentation which excited me most was about how community fundraising is developing and what it might look like in the future so I thought I would pick up on some of it here:


Community fundraising is the public face of charity. An average member of the public when asked about fundraising would probably talk about bake sales, sponsored walks and the such like. Community fundraising is about large volumes of small gifts. It can be a powerful way to raise awareness of a cause and when scaled up can bring in large amounts of money for charities. The power of mass mobilisation through community fundraising can be enormous. I love it. But, there are a few things I think community fundraisers should be thinking about:


How can we maximise the income and impact of community fundraising? How does community fundraising fit in to the donor journey? If someone takes part in community event how will they connect to the organisation itself? How do we equip our supporters in the community? 


I think that social media and technology has a lot to offer community fundraising - it is now quite accessible for people to play a video from a charity's YouTube channel at their community event which could really help to connect the audience with the cause. This is more cost effective than always sending a member of staff to speak at events and makes it easier for smaller organisations to develop their reach. As fundraisers we need to develop resources to help our supporters make their efforts as fruitful as possible.


John Baguley says that community fundraising is outside the donor pyramid - I think this is true and I like the concept; but it doesn't have to mean we can't bring them in to the pyramid. I think we should celebrate the contribution that people make through community fundraising but use the opportunity as a stepping stone to engage with them further. How can we capture information about community fundraising participants and start a conversation with them? How do we integrate community fundraising with the rest of the fundraising mix?


Community/Region fundraising structures must adapt to current trends and ways of working. I think that the traditional supporter group/committee structures are quite off putting for a lot of people which is reflected in the fact that most are made up of retired people and struggle to attract younger members. These existing committees shouldn't be abandoned but we should also seek other ways of engaging people. 


I think that a major barrier for a lot of people to joining a traditional fundraising group is "commitment phobia". Many people feel they are just too busy to make a long term commitment and imagine that if they joined they may never be able to leave. One way to address this is to define shorter term roles which people can take on for a set period of time. I think Oxfam's Oxjam initiative does this brilliantly - recruiting and training a number of volunteer area managers who oversee the events happening in their locality for one year's events. Not only do people know exactly what they are committing to for a fixed time, but they have a title and training which makes it a very appealing volunteering opportunity.


As well as thinking about how we introduce more flexible structures we should also be thinking about how we embrace those who Beth Kanter calls Free Agents. "Free agents are individuals working outside of organisations to mobilise, raise funds and communicate with constituents." (The Networked Nonprofit. Kanter and Fine, 2010) 


There have always been people who give a great deal of time and energy to our causes and use their skills and passions to raise money for us but we need to realise that these relationships may become more transient. In the same way that we must loosen the reins of our brand in the age of social media perhaps we need to loosen the reins of our fundraising as well.


I'd love to know other people's point of view about the future of community fundraising so please comment and tweet me!