How to create a Strategic Fundraising Plan

1st April 2022

What is Strategic Fundraising?

A strategic approach to fundraising is about taking a longer term view of your organisation’s fundraising activities. Closely aligned with your overall organisation’s strategic objectives, a strategic fundraising plan helps steer a long term course for fundraising beyond the day-to-day demands of ‘firefighting’ to plug short term budget gaps.

Steps involved to create a Strategic Fundraising Plan

Create your Fundraising Objectives:

These need to align with your organisation’s overall strategic direction and be ambitious enough to fund the programmes set out in your strategic plan. The objectives must be achievable, measurable and time-bound.

Explore Fundraising Methods:

What is your budget for fundraising? What has and hasn’t worked for you in the past? What methods are your peers and organisations of a similar size using and how successful have they been? (one place to find out more about your peers’ fundraising performance is to subscribe to the Irish Giving Index. Where do your key fundraising strengths lie? Can you convert once-off and sporadic donations to regular giving? Can you strengthen your relationships with your top donors? Why consider relationship based fundraising?

Ask if fundraising methods new to your organisation might improve your fundraising performance.

This could be a regular or major gifts programme, a new focus on legacy giving or even a consideration of trending cryptocurrency fundraising methods (being an early innovator can deliver great results, but beware the inherent risks!).

Build a team and allocate tasks, responsibilities and resources:

A well briefed, co-ordinated and motivated team needs to work together to deliver the plan.

What role would a capital project play in your strategic fundraising plan?

While initially it may be something well out on your horizon, it is better to include it now as an aspiration so potential major donors are aware of your long term ambitions.

Why do you need and merit support?

Developing a compelling case for support will be the key driver in the success of your fundraising plan. Communicate, communicate, communicate with all your stakeholders: for example, public bodies, donors, media, service users. Different messages will be required and at certain times, specialists may have to employed to ensure the right messages are delivered to the right people at the right time.

Donors will need to be updated with how you are progressing and how their donations are making a difference.

Building a donor communications objective into your strategic fundraising plan is critical for relationship based fundraising. Success in achieving objectives will instil trust with donors and encourage continued involvement.

How a clear Mission, Vision and Values will help form your Strategic Fundraising plan

Explore fundraising opportunities that support your mission. Beware of mission drift: a common pitfall experienced by organisations seeking piecemeal funding is to develop programmes to fit available funding. This may ultimately lead your organisation down a path that distracts from its reason for existence. When exploring funding grants, get into the habit of asking ‘how would that support us in delivering on our mission?’. If you are unable to answer this when considering a funding application, this likely isn’t the right fund for you. There are donors and grants out there that match your organisation’s vision and values.

If your organisation starts to struggle with funding, it is important not to lose sight of your organisation’s long-term vision. Your ability to demonstrate future plans is vital to appealing to donors and philanthropic funders. Strategic fundraising, after all, is more than just keeping the lights on. It demands a clear, long-term action plan with an actionable implementation plan.

Taking the first step

If you are considering developing a new fundraising strategy for your organisation or wish to review your existing strategy, reach out to Rob Foley, 2into3’s Head of Fundraising Advisory Practice, to discuss further: rob.foley@2into3.com +353 86 032 7935

Changes to 2into3 Management Team

1st March 2022

Why consider Relationship based Fundraising?

19th January 2022

During our recent Giving Ireland fundraising webinars, some interesting common themes emerged across the various nonprofit sectors. This included relationship based fundraising, how to diversify income and how to use data better to improve fundraising returns. We have seen the recent successes that relationship based fundraising has delivered to many nonprofits in Ireland.

What is Relationship based Fundraising?

Relationship based fundraising incorporates many fundraising methods including Major Gifts, Trusts & Foundations, Legacies and Corporate Donations. Developing a long term relationship with a donor or company takes time. It’s not a fundraising income stream that can be activated instantly but the rewards to your organisation will far outweigh the required inputs if executed properly.

Why use Relationship based Fundraising?

Successful fundraising performance relies more and more on relationship based fundraising methods. They can untap a stream of income that can secure the future growth of your organisation and help it weather any unpredictable future events. It can evolve into a mutually beneficial relationship for both funder and nonprofit, based on clear expectations, continuous communication, mission alignment, respect and ultimately trust.

How to cultivate a meaningful relationship with donors?

Consider how your organisation will develop its donor-based relationships with the following:

Who will you target and at what level?

Begin by looking inside your organisation. Identify current and past donors as well as those of high-net worth known to key stakeholders. Research on trusts/foundations is also vital as some will support specific projects and causes which may rule out your organisation.

Do you have the organisational culture and the right person to make the ask?

Major gift fundraising involves a high-level skill-set and dedication. A full time major gift fundraiser can manage a maximum of 100 relationships, 50 might be a more realistic number in more advanced stages of cultivation. Executive and Board engagement in donor cultivation and making the ‘ask’ is often required.

How to build relationships with funders? Do you have a strong case for support?

Major donors and trusts/foundations want to make a demonstrable impact to an organisation. Building a compelling case for support educates prospective donors and motivates them to support your organisation’s ambitions.

Can you invest the time?

Developing relationships takes time. Securing a major gift can take up to 3 years and typically involves multiple meetings. Building a connection and network of trusts/foundations and applying to each with a tailored submission is key. It all takes time but after an initial lag a flow of income should begin to emerge from all the hard work!

Taking the Next step:

Is your organisation ready to engage in these fundraising methods? Feel free to contact Rob Foley at rob.foley@2into3.com or +353 21 237 9882

Data-driven fundraising decisions | Findings from Irish Giving Index 2021

7th December 2021

Join our Irish Giving Index Webinar

Interested in learning more about fundraising in the nonprofit sector? Join us on Wednesday 15^th December at 10am to delve into our Irish Giving Index findings from 2021. Carol Casey, Head of Fundraising & Communications at Merchants Quay Ireland, will be joining us to explain how they use the Irish Giving Index to support fundraising decisions.

Merchants Quay Ireland is an Irish homeless charity who provide vital services to people who are homeless, hungry and in addiction. Their mission is to offer people dealing with homelessness and addiction in Ireland, accessible, high quality and effective services, which meet their complex needs in a non-judgemental and compassionate way.

In this webinar, we will share a selection of the subscribers’ only based findings from Irish Giving Index. See how your organisation’s fundraising measured up to its peers this year, and how you can use your data to join in the movement to improve transparency, dialogue and collaboration in the nonprofit sector. This webinar will cover data-driven findings extracted from the full Irish Giving Index report, which looks at data on fundraising from January up to September 2021. During our recent fundraising webinars, some interesting common themes emerged across most sectors. These included how to diversify income, relationship based fundraising and how to make data work better to improve fundraising returns.

Irish Giving Index

The Irish Giving Index is the only Irish nonprofit sector tool which tracks and analyses the fundraising landscape. This enables you to benchmark your fundraising performance against your relevant subsector and against organisations of the same fundraised income. The Irish Giving Index provides reliable and evidence-based updates on trends across a variety of fundraising metrics, with the objective of helping your organisation make well-informed decisions. Understanding the drivers of these trends enables fundraising teams to develop longer-term effective fundraising plans.

Register to our webinar on Wed 15^th December at 10am.

For more information on the Irish Giving Index, visit our website or contact Rebecca.droop@2into3.com.

Register now for your subsector’s webinar on funding – Giving Ireland 2021

1st November 2021

The Giving Ireland 2021 report launched last week, indicates several subsectors of the nonprofit sector saw an increase in fundraised income in 2019. Total Giving in Ireland was €1.78 billion, as a percentage of GDP (Gross Domestic Product), that equates to 0.5% GDP, for that period.

When compared to the UK, if the Irish nonprofit sector fulfilled its potential in attracting sources of philanthropic support to a similar level as the UK (their GDP rate is 0.84%), Irish overall Giving could increase to approx. €2.99 billion. How can we close this gap?

In these subsector specific webinars we will look in more detail at the funding of each subsector, its trends relative to other subsectors and discuss the impact of Covid (2019 is the last full year of pre-covid stats, so it’s the baseline for comparison when assessing Covid’s impact).

Register for your subsector webinar:

– Health – Tues 2nd Nov 10am

– Social Services – Wed 3rd Nov 10am

– International Development – Thurs 4th Nov 10am

– Education & Research – Tues 9th Nov 11am

– Arts, Culture & Media – Wed 10th Nov 10am

– Sport & Recreation – Thurs 11th Nov 10am

– Religion – Tues 16th Nov 11am

– Philanthropy – Wed 17th Nov 10am

– Environment – Thurs 18th Nov 10am

Kindly supported by The Community Foundation for Ireland, Salesforce.org, Quilter Cheviot, Ecclesiastical Insurance.

Giving Ireland is a joint collaboration between 2into3 and Philanthropy Ireland. The Giving Ireland Report 2021 – Analysis and Insights on Funding of the Nonprofit Sector in 2019.

Growth in Giving continues for Irish Nonprofit Sector 2019 – Giving Ireland Report

20th October 2021

Download Giving Ireland Report 2021

Thanks for attending our ‘Giving Ireland 2021 – Analysis and Insights on Funding of the Nonprofit Sector in 2019’ launch event. Our research indicates some interesting findings from 2019:

Fundraised income increased 5%, rising for the 10^thconsecutive year
Ireland’s per capita giving is €362 compared to €324 in the U.K. and €359 in N.Z.
Organisations declared more information on funding than in previous years
Average cost to raise €1 in 2019 was 28 cent, a slight decline vs 2018

Giving Ireland Webinar

A warm thank you to all of our panelists for their contributions during today’s webinar, including Deirdre Garvey, CEO of The Wheel who was our MC, Denise Charlton, CEO of The Community Foundation for Ireland, Michael Duggan, CxO Industry Advisor with Salesforce.org, Sinéad Price and Rachel Murphy, Directors of Fundraising with Pieta House and Prof. Vincent Cunnane, President of Technological University of the Shannon.

During the webinar, Rebecca Droop, Analyst with 2into3, outlined the findings from 2019, including the investment income by subsector and fundraised income. Furthermore, Rebecca outlined Ireland’s giving landscape on an international basis.

Our panelists spoke individually covering a range of topics from funding, role of Government policy and benefits of sharing data and learnings across the sector.

Giving Ireland Report

Giving Ireland is a collaboration between 2into3 and Philanthropy Ireland. It gives a detailed analysis and insights on Funding of the Nonprofit Sector in 2019.

The report reveals the total fundraised income from private sources in 2019, the fundraising performance and mix of the sector year on year and the cost of fundraising by method. State funding accounted for 63% of the sector’s total income in 2019. It uses a representative sample of nonprofit organisations to chart philanthropic income trends in Ireland.

The report estimates Ireland’s charitable giving to be at €1.78 billion in 2019, with Irish people giving an average of €362 annually, forming 0.5% of Ireland’s GDP. For more details on these figures, download the report here. The Giving Ireland Report is supported by The Community Foundation of Ireland, Salesforce.org, Quilter Cheviot and Ecclesiastical Insurance.

Dennis O’Connor, 2into3 Director states, “Perhaps it is time now to look at giving levels more in terms of Ireland’s giving capacity in GNI (Gross National Income) and/or GDP (Gross Domestic Product) terms and less in terms of per capita, as our economy is now in a different place. GDP captures what our multi-national sector is contributing, and we see what this brings in terms of corporate tax income. Our entrepreneurial culture has advanced, wealth levels are rising.”

Éilis Murray, Philanthropy Ireland CEO and one of our panelists during the Giving Ireland webinar, states, “As advocates of strategic, planned giving, we note the increases in major gifts, trust and foundation giving, and legacy giving is positive. They are also identified as the most cost-effective methods tending to have a higher-than-average gift level. The opportunity to advance this is through development of Policy for Philanthropy which government has committed to.”

Download the report here.

If you would like more details on the findings of the report, feel free to contact Dennis@2into3.com.

2into3 are Celebrating our 300th Customer

13th October 2021

2into3 are delighted to announce that we are celebrating our 300th customer. After 15 years in business, across 3 offices in Dublin, Belfast & Cork, we continue with our mission, to help transform nonprofits throughout Ireland. As a team we are thrilled to arrive at this important milestone. We work with some truly fantastic organisations, who undertake amazing work for the people of Ireland.

2into3 300th Customer

“We are delighted to be developing a strategic plan for County Kildare LEADER Partnership, our 300^th customer. Kildare LEADER delivers rural, enterprise, social inclusion and community initiatives in the county of Kildare.” – Dennis O’Connor, Director, 2into3.

How Nonprofit organisations benefit from a strategic plan:

Gives a clear sense of direction
Identifies priorities and aids clear decision making.
It’s a living document, which is owned by the people of your organisation. Therefore, motivating your employees with a sense of purpose
Enables your organisation to be proactive, rather than reactive.

Special word of thanks to all our customers, who partner with us on some of the most impactful and strategic projects in their organisation’s history. It has been a privilege and a pleasure to share insights, learnings and feedback to help add capacity and grow the potential of each and every one of these organisations.

If your nonprofit would like to develop a strategic plan, or avail of our consulting, recruitment or research services, please contact Dennis@2into3.com.

About County Kildare LEADER Partnership

County Kildare LEADER Partnership is one of over fifty local development companies in Ireland. They are a nonprofit Local Development Company that has been operational since January 2009 and is the result of an amalgamation of a number of organisations and their activities including KELT, the Kildare Community Partnership (KCP) and the County Kildare based section of OAK Partnership.

County Kildare LEADER Partnership is now continuing this work through the Rural Development Programme (LEADER), the Social Inclusion Community Activation Programme (SICAP) and other supporting programmes in empowering local communities to improve their quality of life.

Join us for the launch of Giving Ireland 2021 report

1st October 2021

Giving Ireland 2021

2into3 and Philanthropy Ireland warmly invite you to the launch of Giving Ireland 2021 – Analysis and Insights on Funding of the Nonprofit Sector in 2019. Kindly supported by The Community Foundation of Ireland, Salesforce.org, Quilter Cheviot and Ecclesiastical Insurance.

Joining our panel will be:

Deirdre Garvey, CEO of The Wheel, who will MC the event

Denise Charlton, CEO of The Community Foundation of Ireland

Sinead Price and Rachel Murphy, Directors of Fundraising with Pieta House

Prof. Vincent Cunnane, President Technological University of the Shannon

Details: Wed 20th Oct at 11am

This will be a virtual event, via a zoom webinar. Register for Webinar here.

All who register will receive a copy of the report and a recording of the webinar event.

The report will examine the total fundraised income from philanthropic sources in 2019, changes from 2018, the fundraising performance of the sector, the fundraising mix in 2019, the cost of fundraising by method and international comparisons. At the launch event, commentary will include impact of Covid on fundraised income in past 12 -18 months.

If you have any questions about the event, please do not hesitate to contact judith.power@2into3.com

Depending on your email spam filters, you may need to check your junk folder for the email with your zoom login details, once you have registered.

About Giving Ireland

The Giving Ireland 2021 Report gives a detailed analysis and insights on Funding of the Nonprofit Sector in 2019. Formerly known as “The Irish Not-for-Profit Sector: Fundraising Performance Report”, the Giving Ireland Report, builds a year-on-year performance insight into fundraising by the nonprofit sector in Ireland. It used a representative sample of nonprofit organisations to chart philanthropic income trends in Ireland.

Giving Ireland is kindly supported by The Community Foundation, Salesforce.org, Quilter Cheviot and Ecclesiastical Insurance.

About 2into3

2into3 works with mission-driven organisations to build capacity, so that they can have a transformative impact on society in Ireland and the world.

About Philanthropy Ireland

Philanthropy Ireland promotes the development of Philanthropy and good giving practice in Ireland and aims to maximise the impact of giving, making real and lasting change for the benefit of our society.

Thanks for Attending our Q1 2021 Irish Giving Index Webinar

16th September 2021

Thanks to everyone who attended our webinar, How effective was your Fundraising Performance in Q1 2021? Insights from Irish Giving Index Q1 2021 report’ on Thursday 16th September. We had a fantastic session with John Fleming, CEO of St. John of God’s Foundation.

About the Irish Giving Index

The Irish Giving Index is the only Irish nonprofit sector tool which tracks and analyses the fundraising landscape. This enables organisations to benchmark fundraising performance against relevant subsectors.

As a subscriber, you will understand the driving factors behind the changes in fundraising. One benefit of subscribing is that the index can help you make decisions at senior level and can also enable sector-wide solutions for fundraising in the nonprofit sector.

Dennis O’Connor and Rebecca Droop explained the increase in fundraised income and the insights within each subsector- including health, social services and international. The attendees also engaged in several polls, so we could gain an idea of our attendees’ nonprofit backgrounds and fundraised income.

John Fleming, CEO, St. John of God Foundation

A huge thanks to John Fleming, CEO of St. John of God Foundation, who joined the webinar to discuss how he uses the Irish Giving Index to support his fundraising strategies. Since 1960, St. John of God Foundation have been dedicated to raising funds to enrich the quality of life for those living with intellectual disabilities and mental health challenges.

John uses the Irish Giving Index to ensure his team are meeting their fundraising ratio. He described the index as a, “straightforward graphic that can back up my fundraising plans” as they decide which strategies are the best value for money.

Subscribe to the Irish Giving Index

If you are interested in subscribing to our Irish Giving Index, please contact Dennis O’Connor or Rebecca Droop. If you would like to find out more about the Irish Giving Index, please visit our website.

If anyone is interested in watching the webinar, click here.

Irish Giving Index How effective is your fundraising

Irish Giving Index Webinar Q1 2021

6th September 2021

2into3 looks forward to another webinar on Thursday 16th September 2021 at 11am, where we will look at the key changes in fundraising trends in Q1 2021. Understanding these trends will enable your team to develop longer-term effective fundraising plans for your organisation.

The content of the webinar is based on validated research from Irish Giving Index report for Q1 2021. This webinar will include a Q&A session with our consultants and interactive polls throughout.

John Fleming, Chief Executive Officer at St. John of God Foundation, will be joining us during the webinar. St. John of God Foundation are dedicated to raising funds to enrich the quality of life for those in our community living with intellectual disabilities and mental health challenges. John Fleming will explain how the fundraising team in St. John of God Foundation use the insights from Irish Giving Index to enhance their fundraising strategies and activities.

If you are interested in finding out more, join us on Thursday 16th Sept at 11am to get a snapshot of the latest findings and how you can use the Index to invest in the future of your organisation. All those who register will receive a copy of the webinar recording, 24 hours later, in case the time of the event does not suit.

Did you know:

Fundraised Income in ROI increased by 16% year-on-year.
Fundraising mix of organisations shifted, with significant growth seen in Trusts & Foundations.
DM Marketing Appeals/Campaigns were the most expensive fundraising method of Q1, 2021, costing 0.45 for every euro raised, when compared to same quarter in 2020.

(source: Irish Giving Index Q1 2021)

For more information on our Irish Giving Index, visit here. We hope to see many of you in attendance on Thursday 16^th September. For further information on our findings, contact Dennis O’Connor.

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