GIFT AID> Gift Aid on sponsorship?

Date: Tue, 4 Mar 2003 15:07:11 -0000
From: Howard Lake, FundUK list manager

"Julian Smyth" asked:

>PS How come it takes a week or more for my postings to arrive on the
>forum and yet the responses to it get posted within an hour or two?

As list manager for FundUK I try to approve and forward messages to the
list as quickly as possible. Usually that is within 24 hours, and often
much faster. Sometimes though it can take quite a bit longer, as in the
case of Julian's previous message.

The list is provided at no charge so sometimes paid work can mean that
messages don't get handled as quickly as usual. Sorry, Julian, that it
affected you this time - I hope this message demonstrates that some
messages can go through much faster.

If you have any comments on how FundUK works please direct them to me
off-list at [email]hlake@fundraising.co.uk[/email]. I don't like the list turning into a
discussion of itself.

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Howard Lake
List manager of FundUK, for discussion of fundraising in the UK
[email]funduk@dircon.co.uk[/email]
Fundraising UK Ltd
+44 (0)20 8640 5233
FundUK is kindly supported by Netscalibur [url]http://www.netscalibur.co.uk[/url]
FundUK details [url]http://www.fundraising.co.uk/discuss.cfm[/url]
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Date: Wed, 12 Mar 2003 18:42:09 +0000
From: Andrew Pring

Hi Julian

I feel I must respond again.

Most of the work I have done in my time for good causes I have done for
free. I have personally approached sponsors and raised money to get me
to Washington DC for international conferences and to attend meetings at
the World Bank about hunger and poverty issues because I inspired people
and they wanted to contribute and be part of what I am up to. I
represented them and reported back to them on what we had achieved
together.

I am treasurer of a peace organisation that promotes peace with
underprivileged children in some tough schools in the Sheffield area and
make funding applications to trusts on their behalf unpaid.

I am also lucky enough to be employed part time in the voluntary sector
here at the CIB and see this as a privilege and I am very careful to
keep myself aware that I am living off funds which others have donated
to allow me to do this work, albeit indirectly as a multitude of low
cost subscriptions to the CIB funding newsletter that I produce for
community groups and voluntary organisations. The newsletter,
unsubsidised, pays my salary and covers other costs.

I have also built a website for the CIB that has cost peanuts but would
have cost tens of thousands if it had been put together badly by a web
developer. It is there as a free service to community groups and
voluntary organisations. I cannot justify a high salary just because of
the money I save the CIB even though I am not rich and could make a mint
if I applied my skills and entrepreneur ship in the private sector. I
choose to do what I do out of passion not as a career path or
consideration of salary comparison.

I am also involved with Landmark Education and have paid for their
courses because of the difference they has made in my life in terms of
my self expression, the impact on my relationships and how to make a
real difference in the world. I sometimes work with them for free
because I want to contribute to all the people who become their
customers. It is here that the word relatedness comes in because there
is no other word that creates that distinction.

There is a story of two masons working side by side carving stones. When
asked what they are doing one says I am carving a stone. The other
replies I am building a cathedral. When I talk about the cathedrals I am
building in my life I enrol others into my vision. Finding out about the
cathedrals that others are building is creating relatedness. I can then
see where I am contributing to their cathedral and I may discover we are
actually working with the same vision but at different sides of the same
building. I can then celebrate every stone they carve as a part of what
we are building together.

Quite how that relatedness is built with a mass audience I do not know
but I do know that mass communication works to encourage others to
contribute to the sort of cathedrals visioned by those that created
Comic Relief and Band Aid. Letting people know of what an NGO is up to
and being proud of the contribution to a better world, is coming from a
different space than we need to get x amount of cash before next
September or there won't be the money to pay our salaries. The first
inspires me to contribute to building a cathedral with them. The second
leaves me turning my back.

I have no sense of envy of what others achieve - only praise and
admiration. I can be resentful that money I have raised and efforts I
have put in have just gone in salaries without real appreciation of me.
I have seen the well paid jobs go to 'professionals' while the minions
are expected to work their butts off for nowt and I have been one of
them. Sometimes the volunteers are 'grandmothers who have been sucking
eggs' for years at much higher levels than those who have the paid jobs.
Treating a volunteer as a minion misses talents and an accountant can
end up stuffing envelopes. I have also seen the adverts for masters
graduates to work in central London as interns unpaid and laughed ho ho
into my sleeve. Being a professional does not get my respect. Being
professional does.

Large NGOs pay the tax claimed back from street and doorstepped direct
debit signers to the collectors. This leaves those making the donation
believing the collectors do it for the love of the cause rather than to
make a bit of cash. They even tell their customers that every penny they
collect goes direct to the cause. It can be a nice little earner but is
of dubious integrity for Amnesty or whoever. I have to question the
integrity of the fundraisers in high places that dreamed up these
schemes.

I suggest best practice comes from relatedness and integrity and not
from screwing the public for the most funds. I would guess that those
who come from relatedness and integrity are the biggest fundraisers
anyway because they inspire others into the vision of more vast and more
beautiful cathedrals which everyone wants to contribute to.

My original intention was to put people in touch with the vision that
inspires them and for them to convey that. If the vision is enrolling
then the cash will follow. That for me is the best practice.

Turning donations into legacies seems to be a pretty low vision. If
someone came to me and said thanks for your gift now give me a big
legacy at least it would be straight and I would say no. Trying to find
out how best to get me to do it seems to me to be sleazy.

A gun might work.
__________________________________

The CIB has got funds from the likes of Lloyds TSB, The Community Fund,
the Home Office ACU and local government to train and support funding
advice services and to work with local community groups in their
fundraising activities. Some income comes from charging those who can
pay for our services.

My personal vision is for everyone in the voluntary and community sector
in England to have the knowledge and skills to be able to raise the
funds they need to fulfil their dreams. I contribute to that by creating
resources to help them and by letting them know what the latest funding
opportunities are. The CIB website gets over a thousand hits a day. The
newsletter reaches over 900 subscribers most of whom cascade the
information to estimated hundreds of thousands of local groups.

I am a stand for compassion, equity and peace in the world. That is
where I am coming from.

Andrew

PS I will remind my boss about those accounts.

[email]funding@the-cib.demon.co.uk[/email]

The CIB produces a monthly E-mail Funding Newsletter.
To get trial copies and details of service go to
[url]http://www.cibfunding.org.uk/page20.htm[/url]
or send Name/Organisation/Address/Phone Number/E-mail address to
[email]Andrew@the-cib.demon.co.uk[/email]

Look at The CIB web-site: [url]http://www.cibfunding.org.uk[/url] for a range of funding
information, training programmes and details of The CIB services.

PLEASE NOTE

The Charities Information Bureau has moved to:
93 Lawefield Lane
Wakefield
West Yorkshire
WF2 8SU

Tel/Fax/Email/web are unchanged

Tel: 01924 239063
Fax: 01924 239431
E-mail: [email]funding@the-cib.demon.co.uk[/email]
Reg. Charity No. 1059077
Co. Ltd by Guarantee No. 3268906

Date: Fri, 7 Mar 2003 10:10:06 -0000
From: Julian Smyth

Andrew Pring raises an interesting point. And misses it.

How exactly does one develop one's "common ideals and real commitment to the
cause"? Is it not through careful nurturing and communication by the cause
in the first place? How does any cause impinge upon the consciousness of
the individual to start with? Are we born knowing everything about the
importance of every cause, or do we have to be educated? How does a cause
fund such an educational process?

More importantly, how does a cause identify those with a propensity to
support the cause? Sit back and wait for the moral justification of the
cause to prick the population's collective conscience and watch the money
roll in? I think not.

The moral high ground is not won by sitting in an ivory tower and condemning
fundraisers because they strive to be as professional as they can. Far more
money is wasted by low-paid under-resourced fundraising departments which
achieve relatively little than by those which are properly resourced and
both ethically and professionally run.

So, let us as a profession (and I stress "profession", not "good work" or
"vocation") look to celebrate success and not sink into the politics of
envy. Let us expect to be rewarded for what we do and not invent nouns from
verbs (what the h*** is "relatedness"?) in order to sneer at others who are
achieving more for their causes by learning best practice and implementing
it. Finally, what planet are we living on wherein fundraisers' salaries
could ever be regarded as "inflated"? They are 30% lower than equivalent
positions in industry and commerce and will remain so.

As more and more charities rely more and more heavily on statutory, lottery
and Trust funding, the more divorced they become from the fundamentals of
what "charity" is about. Where is the moral high ground in not looking for,
and achieving, support from the millions of individuals who, as individuals,
make up the very society we are aiming to help and empower? How much
fundraising does the CIB do, Andrew? Where does your £250,000 turnover come
from? I presume that you are not actually going out and asking the general
populace to support you? So where, exactly, are you coming from when you
criticize those that do? (And, by the way, your 2002 accounts are overdue
at the Charity Commission).

Julian Smyth
Principal Consultant, ASK Associates
Tel/Fax: 01494 447115
Mobile: 07798 826105
Email: [email]julian@ask.org.uk[/email]
Website: [url]www.ask.org.uk[/url]

Date: Tue, 4 Mar 2003 15:49:40 +0000
From: Andrew Pring

It is all an energy thing. It is where you are coming from that counts.

If I am seen as a money making commodity, a statistic or a funding
source to be nurtured for my lifetime rather than a person who has
common ideals and real commitment to the cause I choose to fund I pick
that up immediately and I will delete, bin or whatever contact has been
made with me.

It also encourages me to believe that there are a lot of fundraisers who
are more interested in paying their inflated salaries and in having a
good track record of getting cash out of people than the cause they
currently work for as they progress on their career ladder.

A weekend attending a Landmark Education Communication Action to Power
Course (see [url]www.landmarkeducation.com[/url]) might teach people a few things
about relatedness and enrolment that are far more important than
getting them to fill in the form and getting their cash.

Andrew Pring

Andrew Pring
E-mail: [email]Andrew@the-cib.demon.co.uk[/email]

The CIB produces a monthly E-mail Funding Newsletter.
To get trial copies and details of service go to
[url]http://www.cibfunding.org.uk/page20.htm[/url]
or send Name/Organisation/Address/Phone Number/E-mail address to
[email]Andrew@the-cib.demon.co.uk[/email]

Look at The CIB web-site: [url]http://www.cibfunding.org.uk[/url] for a range of funding
information, training programmes and details of The CIB services.

PLEASE NOTE

The Charities Information Bureau has moved to:
93 Lawefield Lane
Wakefield
West Yorkshire
WF2 8SU

Tel/Fax/Email/web are unchanged

Tel: 01924 239063
Fax: 01924 239431
E-mail: [email]funding@the-cib.demon.co.uk[/email]
Reg. Charity No. 1059077
Co. Ltd by Guarantee No. 3268906

Date: Tue, 4 Mar 2003 14:04:11 -0000
From: Julian Smyth

Many thanks to those respondents who have engaged in such a positive and
lively debate on this subject.

However, I think Sue and Tina miss my point. How does one begin a
relationship? What is relationship fundraising all about? Surely it is to
translate a donor from 50p in a tin to a legacy with everything in between
during the lifetime of the donor. The single bit of sponsorship for cousin
Willy is surely a more positive starting point than one's subscription to an
up-market magazine, living in a desirable postcode, or the fact that one
already gives regularly to a wholly unrelated charity? And yet that is
exactly what list brokers are selling you. And if you do neither of these
things, how exactly are you going to grow your donorbase?

The fact is that information is potential and a lack of it is stagnation. I
don't think one should throw away anybody who could develop into a regular
and committed supporter.

PS How come it takes a week or more for my postings to arrive on the
forum and yet the responses to it get posted within an hour or two?

Julian Smyth
Principal Consultant, ASK Associates
Tel/Fax: 01494 447115
Mobile: 07798 826105
Email: [email]julian@ask.org.uk[/email]
Website: [url]www.ask.org.uk[/url]

Date: Tue, 4 Mar 2003 13:10:48 -0000
From: Mecca Ibrahim

All interesting points Tina's point about the level of interest in your =
charity, I'd totally agree with.

We have found the same and that people are sponsoring their "friends" in =
a lot of cases rather than the "charity". However, I will repeat what =
I've said before, our system sends out an automatic "thank you" email to =
all the people who sponsor. This can be personalised by the charity and =
the person doing the sponsored event. It gives the charity a great =
chance to say thank you and to direct those people back to their =
website, or to sign up for a newsletter, call a telephone number or =
whatever - but it's that sponsors choice as to what to do next - if =
anything!

Saying "thank you" by email in this way costs nothing more than it costs =
to use our service and it can give you a chance of developing the =
relationship with that sponsor which who *may* then be nurtured into =
something greater. It's a case of using technology to cheaply do =
something that you may have felt to costly to do before.

People in the States are sending emails to people before they send them =
a piece of direct mail and this is increasing response rates and paying =
for the cost of the emails, so it's all part and parcel of the same =
package.

Mecca Ibrahim
Marketing Manager - Justevents

08000 286 183 - Freephone helpline
+44 0207 025 1500 - Switchboard

Justevents - Sponsorship made easy!
[url]http://www.justgiving.com/events/default.asp[/url]

Date: Tue, 4 Mar 2003 12:19:16 -0000
From: Sue Fidler

Im sorry I set off a rant Julian

But on a purely practical bases there is no point spending the time and
money to data capture Jo Bloggs who sponsored his mate 50p to sit in a bath
of custard.

That 'donor' isnt engaging with the charity at all.. They are sponsoring a
mate..

So we add them to the database (cost)
Start sending them mailings (cost)
They are annoyed cos they didn't want mailings but forgot to tick the DPA box
and 'how did they get my name anyway'.. (reputation)
A year and three appeals later analysis shows they have never given a gift..

All for 50p plus gift aid.

None of us have the spare capacity for this sort of DM.

Sue

Sue Fidler

IT & Internet Manager

Date: Tue, 04 Mar 2003 12:18:53 +0000
From: Tina Shilleto

Julian

Your rant is interesting, and in an ideal world I'm sure you'd be absolutely
right.

I have to say though, that the world I live in isn't quite so rosy. I can
honestly say that if a friend comes to me with a sponsorship form / selling
raffle tickets / dressed as a clown and shaking a donation tin, most of the
time I don't even look at who the charity is that they are representing -
although I always tend to give them a donation. So in effect, I'm not giving
to a 'cause', I'm giving to a friend.

I find it incredibly annoying when I receive mail or messages from obscure
or well known charities that I have no interest in whatsoever - it's even
worse when you get targeted in a mailshot by a charity you already support
because they have a different version of your name on a mailing list than
the one you are registered with them under (Tina = Christina = a lot of
duplication!). Too much effort can change apathy into annoyance - and there
is a potential future donor lost.

Yes, by all accounts, speak to and build relationships with those donors who
have shown interest by giving directly to you, but recognise that there are
different levels of donors - some of whom simply do not care who you are or
what you do!

Tina Shilleto
Development Officer, Forestry Commission
[email]tina.shilleto@forestry.gsi.gov.uk[/email]

Date: Wed, 26 Feb 2003 11:30:32 -0000
From: Sue Fidler

You star Larry.. What a wonderful and informative answer.. I will pass it on
to the fundraisers immediately cos I think it answers their prayers!

Sue

Sue Fidler

IT & Internet Manager

Date: Wed, 26 Feb 2003 11:04:52 -0000
From: Julian Smyth

<

Aargh! So, one has on the one hand list brokers making millions selling
charities the subscription list of Country & Garden or Tatler whilst you
are throwing away potential future donors, who have already made some
support to you, upon a "supposition"?

On my supposition that there is a Gift Aid check box on the sponsorship
form, then my advice is to process every single one, add them to your
relational database, increase your potential giving constituency,
develop them through good relationship fundraising practice and watch them
flower into regular and substantial supporters.

No offence to Sue who made a genuine request, but it does gall me how
full this forum is of people asking how little they have to do for donors
rather than how much. Whether we are talking about acknowledging gifts,
mailing dormant donors, producing decent annual reports and who to send
them to,
returning the phrase "face-to-face" to mean a genuine mutually agreed
upon meeting etc., the key point MUST be to develop the relationship between
the cause and the donor and that in turn must mean making resources
available to do this. Fundraising is an investment, not a way to free
money. The
sooner a charity accepts this whole-heartedly and goes the extra mile, the
sooner the funds will start rolling in.

Rant over.

Julian Smyth
Principal Consultant, ASK Associates
Tel/Fax: 01494 447115
Mobile: 07798 826105
Email: [email]julian@ask.org.uk[/email]
Website: ASK Associates - Educational Fundraising Consultants