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Why charity branding (done properly) IS good for fundraising

Published on 16 May 2013, by kevin baughen
in

In the last week there have been lots of conversations around why branding is potentially pointless for charities and can be a total waste of hard-earned money.

Well, I’m here to (loosely) use maths and logic, the core tools of good fundraisers, to suggest why this need not be the case.

Firstly, here’s a truism I think we can all agree on:

  • Unfocused, generic brand advertising ≠ guaranteed success for a charity’s specific activities

How to use your corporate events budget for charity

Published on 14 May 2013, by howardlake
in
Corporate team events participants

Think the limit of an away day is a paintballing trip or a strategic thinking session run by an overpaid expert who is too fond of ‘blue sky thinking’? Think again.

Zombie fundraising techniques

Published on 10 May 2013, by johnbaguley
in
Zombies pic from Laughing Squid

Have you noticed how dead-on-their-feet zombie fundraising techniques lurch on from year to year their income falling, their costs often rising and their ROI heading south; but for some inexplicabl

A founding Chief Executive's view on fundraising

Published on 7 May 2013, by guest_blogger
in
Nicky Goulder - photo: Rob Clayton

It is a little over 10 years since I had the vision for Create, a charity that would make society fairer, more caring and more inclusive by using the power of the arts to transform lives.  Whe

Why fundraisers are so 'angry'

Published on 6 May 2013, by ianmacquillin

Gosh aren’t fundraisers a defensive, angry bunch of insecure people, lashing out at anyone who has the temerity to criticise them for being too professional, spending too much on raising money, or using aggressive fundraising techniques. Or maybe they aren’t. Maybe what some people interpret as an unwillingness to face up to what they perceive as some home truths about fundraising is really a sign that many fundraisers are just fed up to the back teeth of the same naïve and simplistic objections continually being rehashed and presented as insightful debate.

Can aligning your brand to a cause do more harm than good?

Published on 1 May 2013, by kevin baughen
in

Forget Nike and Lance Armstrong; that was and continues to be just about the huge sums of money involved.  What about when ethical or charity brands align themselves with causes for perhaps the best of intentions but circumstances evolve in an undesirable way?

Fundraising and Organisational Culture

Published on 1 May 2013, by simongeorge
in
People arranged in a hierarchy - image: winui on Shutterstock.com

The influence of organisational culture on fundraising is rarely discussed in our sector.

Interview with Kylee Ingram about events fundraising app TeamTap

Published on 1 May 2013, by howardlake
in
Team Tap

Yesterday I met with Kylee Ingram who has developed Team Tap, a mobile app that lets spectators at sports and other events raise funds by competing to achieve the largest number of taps or bumps on

Charities wish good luck to their London Marathon runners

Published on 19 April 2013, by howardlake
in

The London Marathon looms large in many charities' fundraising calendar, given that it is currently the largest single one-day fundraising event.

The difference between charity leaders and managers

Published on 17 April 2013, by kevin baughen
in

I was inspired to think about this blog by receiving an email from the Harvard Business Review collating several key works on the topics of leadership and management.  They note in weighty tomes that there is a difference between the two which is something most of us already understand, I suspect.

Backed up by no academic research whatsoever but fed by experience, anecdote and the thoughts of several, very experienced, close colleagues and friends, here are my common sense thoughts on leadership and management in the not for profit world:

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