Flexible Fundraising During The Cost-Of-Living Crisis.
Advice from across the sector is that charities need to adapt their fundraising strategies, as the impact of inflation and the cost-of-living crisis hits.
Here we take a look at how sales fundraising can be utilised as a tool for fundraisers, to help them retain donations from supporters and diversify income.
As a charity fundraising platform, we listen to our charity members and understand the challenges they face. And right now fundraisers need to be agile and adapt their ask of donors once again. Guidance suggests that fundraisers need to enable supporters to donate in a way that works for their circumstances. With money becoming tighter than ever, it's likely that flexible and lower-risk fundraising options are going to become more favourable and sales fundraising is a great example of this; which can and should be offered to supporters.
Here's why...
- Sales fundraising is a flexible fundraising solution
With the worry of a rise in bills, people have tied their purse strings tight and fundraisers must allow for flexible ways of giving. Many fundraisers will already have accepted that individual givers are likely to be nervous of committing to regular donations, some will fluctuate the amount they donate every month and others will give one-off donations when they can afford to.
The benefit of sales fundraising for small businesses is that it's adaptable and can be done in a way that works for them. With sales fundraising, business supporters are committed to donating what they have raised in relation to their sales. Therefore, when sales are good they'll donate more and when sales are down they can still donate; albeit a little less.
"I find that by donating a percentage of my profits I can ensure that any donations don’t damage my cash flow" - Hannah, founder of Talented Ladies Club, donates a percentage of her business turnover to three charities helping women. In total, she has donated over £3,660 including £3,187 to Microloan Foundation.
- Small businesses are likely to be already supporting your charity!
Attracting new supporters is the hardest part of fundraising, now more so than ever. Fundraisers need to look at their existing donors and offer alternative ways of giving. With 5.6 million small businesses in the UK, it's highly likely that many individual givers who have always supported charities, will also be small business owners or work for an SME.
So it's important as fundraisers to make your existing supporter base work for you and tell your supporters about sales fundraising. Use our guides and resources to demonstrate to your supporters that using their business sales to raise funds for your charity is a sustainable, flexible way of giving. It's up to charities to get the word out there.
Recently our Charity Engagement Manager Loren Ludlow was asked by a charity for her top fundraising tip. Here is what she shared:
The most important thing is to show businesses that you as a charity are open to sales fundraising as a method of giving. This could be including it in your fundraising offerings on your website, or on your social channels"
- It's a tax efficient way to give
Gift Aid is incredibly valuable to charities. Last year, charity income was boosted by £1.3bn from Gift Aid which is a phenomenal amount BUT it is a slight decrease in previous years. Where individual giving and therefore Gift Aid may be impacted further by the cost of living crisis, sole traders, of which there are 3.5 million in the UK, can help to close that gap and increase charitable income because they are also Gift Aid eligible. As long as the sole trader is registered as a UK taxpayer and meets the necessary criteria, they may opt to add Gift Aid to their donation to charity.
So for every £1 raised, your charity can claim 25p more via Gift Aid.
🙂 £1 becomes £1.25
😀 £10 becomes £12.50
😃 £100 becomes £125
🤩 £200 becomes £250
- Tools to help
The ask for donations in the next few months is going to be tough and fundraisers need to evolve their fundraising strategy. Offering sales fundraising as a sustainable and flexible fundraising option to donors could help charities during these challenging times.
Work for Good's purpose is to remove the barriers that hold businesses back from raising funds for charity through their sales. We enable fundraisers to embrace this method of giving and accept donations from businesses of any size quickly, smoothly and in the most cost-effective way possible. This has enabled charities such as Refuge, Disasters Emergency Trust, FareShare UK, Cancer Research UK, and Women's Aid to welcome supporterships from businesses who can't meet the minimum threshold for a corporate partnerships, as well as accept lower value but regular donations from sole traders and small businesses.
Charities that use our platform to support their sales fundraising simply need to direct their business supporters to our website, where within minutes the business can pledge their donation and create their Commercial Participation Agreement via the donation form; therefore complying with charity law. Work for Good then provide regular follow-ups to keep in touch with the business and check-in with how their fundraising is going - taking the work, hours and legal costs away from the fundraising team.
Learn how Tommy's, Refuge and WWF-UK have used our platform to increase income on our charity success stories page.
