For a lot of cultural organisations, their starting point for visitor or audience donations is a handful of donation boxes or buckets dotted around the place, with signs that say something inspiring, like “donations welcome” or “please donate”.

Don’t all rush for your coins at once…

If this sounds depressingly familiar, or if you’re keen to review individual giving in your organisation, here are nine steps I use to help organisations develop supporter journeys that actually get people to give:

Focus on a specific target audience – the most successful fundraising messaging doesn’t try to appeal to everybody. Having a specific audience in mind means you can target your message and your offer based on their specific relationship with your organisation – their shared likes, dislikes, values, motivations and experiences. For a lot of cultural organisations, your primary target audience will be the people who walk through your doors every day.

Understand their motivations – people give to different organisations for different reasons at different times. You need to understand what is most likely to motivate people to take action to support your organisation or project. In particular, you need to be clear whether your target audience has a transactional motivation (giving because they are going to get something back) or a philanthropic one (giving to solve a problem, or because they love what you do and want to help you do more of it). (A lot of arts fundraising incorrectly assumes that people will only give if they are going to get something in return, which leads to organisations rushing to set up a Friends or membership scheme.)

Craft an attractive proposition – I always encourage organisations to think of their ‘ask’ as an invitation. Look for the overlap between your funding need and your target audience’s motivation, and use this to find the right invitation. For example, are you inviting them to fight for something? To save something? To join something? To fix something? To be part of something? To believe in something? Remember – the offer or invitation doesn’t need to be a package of tangible benefits or rewards. Don’t force people with a philanthropic motivation to have a transactional relationship with you.

Katch their attention – at any given moment, approximately 99.999% of your target audience are thinking about something other than you and your fundraising message. You need to change that before you can compel them to act. Consider what are you going to say or do to hook their attention and draw them in. Part of this means being bold and unashamed about your need for support. Don’t hide your message in the dark, unexplored corners of your venue/website/newsletter.

Tell a story – having caught their attention you now need to compel them to take action. Stories are a brilliant tool for bringing the need for your work to life. Consider – who or what does the potential donor care about, and/or empathise with? What is their goal? What stands in the way of them achieving it? How can the donor help them overcome this barrier? What emotion do you need them to feel at the point you ask for a gift? Remember – while you might use complete case studies to show the difference your work can make, you also don’t want the potential donor to feel there is no room for them. Leave space for them to be a Helping Hero. After all, you are asking the donor to help write the story’s ending.

Remove barriers to giving – having compelled someone to take action you need to make it as easy as possible for them to give. What channels make it easy for them to give in that moment? How can you reduce the mental and physical effort required to make the gift?

Use SUPER thanking – make donors feel valued and respected by ensuring your thank yous are speedy, unique, passionate, engaging and repeated.

Make them see the impact – having given the donor the chance to help write the ending to your story, you now need to show them what’s changed as a result of their gift. Showing that their support made a difference can help pave the way to talking about their next gift.

Prepare to ask again – encouraging existing supporters to give again is far more efficient than having to constantly recruit new donors. When the time is right, present people with a new invitation that aligns your needs with the donor’s motivations and drivers. And one final tip – don’t fall in to the trap of assuming you need to wait a year before asking again. Memberships might work on the basis of annual renewal dates but philanthropic gifts don’t have to.

Now, if only there was a handy acronym to remember all that…

A big chunk of my summer has been spent writing fictional funding proposals for real charities based solely on the information on their website and in their annual accounts.

​Jealous? Don’t worry – I’m sure your summer was lovely, too.

​While you might be judging me for my slightly unorthodox hobby, it’s actually been a really interesting exercise because, in a lot of cases, I couldn’t do it. The basic information I needed to write a compelling proposal wasn’t available – at least not in a way that was easy to find or understand.

​And I think that’s a problem.

​Because while my choice of holiday activity might seem unusual, I’m not alone in doing this.

​Over the last few years we’ve seen a growing trend of funders taking a more proactive approach to their grant-making.

​Rather than inviting applications, they’re doing their own research. They’re seeking out charities and projects that align with their objectives and using that research to make decisions on who to invite to apply.

​In effect, they’re writing their own applications.

​And what happens if they can’t find the information they need on your website?

​They move on to someone else.

​So, here’s a test for you.

​Using just the information on your organisation’s website, see how easy it is to answer the following questions:

1. What does the organisation do? (You’d think this would be obvious, but I was surprised how hard it was to find a clear and concise answer to this question for a lot of organisations)
2. What need or societal problem does the organisation’s work address?
3. What impact does the organisation’s work have? What is their track-record of success?
4. What are the organisation’s current fundraising priorities?
5. What are the organisation’s future ambitions?

​Now compare the answers you’ve got from your website to the information you would normally include in a typical funding application. What’s missing? Which is more compelling?

​If you’ve struggled to answer any of the questions, consider where this information might naturally sit on your website, and who else might be interested in it. For example, perhaps you might want to consider having a number of 1-2 page template proposals for specific projects or initiatives that require grant support on the ‘Support Us’ or ‘Trusts and Foundations’ page of your website.

​In particular, I think it’s worth looking at Questions 4 and 5, as these were the ones I most frequently struggled to find answers to. While the ‘Future Plans’ section of the organisation’s Annual Accounts often included exciting plans for growth or new projects, these were rarely mentioned on the website.

​This is perhaps not surprising. Organisations might be pursuing a “private” or “silent” phase approach, and might not be ready to talk publicly about their plans. Others might feel vulnerable talking about projects that might not happen if the funding is not secured.

​However, if more funders are taking matters into their own hands, perhaps we need to be a bit more open to this vulnerability and to sharing the dreams and aspirations that can only become reality with their support.

​At the very least, we need to make sure it’s as easy as possible for potential funders to find the information they need to pique their interest.

How do you record your grant pipeline if you haven’t got a fancy CRM?

Tracking the status of your relationships with grant funders is vitally important. From keeping track of upcoming deadlines to monitoring your pipeline for different projects, fundraisers rely on having the information they need at their finger tips.

Yet with fundraising databases often costing a pretty penny, this isn’t a solution that’s available to everybody.

(And, let’s face it – while databases are normally brilliant at managing relationships with individuals, a lot of them lose the plot when it comes to grant-making bodies).

That’s why we’ve created a free tool that you can use to capture and track key information on the status of your funder relationships.

Built in Excel, it’s designed to be easy to use, and fully customisable to enable you to keep on top of your grant fundraising.

Can it as powerful as some of the bigger fundraising CRM systems on the market? Nope. Is it a step up from just writing a list of names on Excel? I think so!

Below, you will find a link to download the latest version of the Funder Relationship Tracker, as well as some tutorial videos that explain how to set it up and get the most from the tool.

If you have any questions about using the Funder Relationship Tracker, or any suggestions for how we can improve it, please get in touch by emailing David.Burgess@ApolloFundraising.com

Hopefully, the different fields are quite self-explanatory, but there are a few things that need to be set up before you can fully use it. This short video provides an overview of the tracker, and some tips on getting the most out of it.

We’ve made some tweaks to the Funder Relationship Tracker, with Version 2 uploaded on 19th June 2025. This short video shows what’s changed and why, as well as showing “behind the scenes” to understand how the Projected Income and Weighted Grant amount sections work.

Our next “Mastering the Art of Grant Fundraising” online training course will be running on Thursday 16th January 2025.

And remember – our Proposal Review Service gives you the chance to get bespoke, honest and practical recommendations for improving your funding proposals.

First published on the SOFII website – April 2023

First published on Flight of the Fundraiser – 29th January 2019

First published on UK Fundraising on 10th January 2019. Updated 24th February 2026

How has your week been?

No, seriously. How would you answer that question?

And, more importantly, how quickly did it take you to come up with an answer?

30 minutes? An hour? I mean, going back over the last 7 days/168 hours/10,080 minutes of your life, analysing the good bits and bad bits and then weighing them up to come to a balanced conclusion must have taken you some time?

But, of course, you didn’t do that, did you? You came to an answer nearly immediately.

So, what has this unremarkable observation got to do with fundraising? And, in particular, how could it help us increase the impact of our Thank Yous?

When it comes to remembering and assessing our experiences it’s safe to say humans aren’t particularly rigorous in their evaluation methodology. Take this example, shared by Daniel Kahneman in “The Riddle of Experience versus Memory”:

In the podcast, Kahneman recalls a conversation with one of his students who had been listening to a recording of a piece of classical music. At the end of the recording there was “a dreadful screeching noise”. The student wasn’t happy, passionately telling Kahneman “it ruined the whole experience”.

Kahneman points out that this statement can’t be accurate. The screech wasn’t until the end of the recording. By the time the unpleasant noise occurred the student had already enjoyed an incredible performance. However, when it came to recalling his experience the quality of the performance counted for nothing. The student’s perception of the whole experience was solely defined by one negative moment.

While this might seem irrational, Kahneman attributes this to the fact that, when it comes to remembering and evaluating experiences, we have “Two Selves”.

The first is the Experiencing Self. This is the self that lives in the present. It perceives each of the detailed individual moments that make up the whole experience. The student’s Experiencing Self listened to every note of the recording and could, if encouraged, recall that detail.

The second is the Remembering Self. This is the self we use to summarise all of those individual moments, converting our detailed experience into a simple story. This enables us to make an immediate judgement when we are asked to reflect on past events (such as when someone pops up in our inbox asking how our week has been).

Entrusting this task to your Remembering Self is a lot quicker and easier for your brain than relying on your Experiencing Self to go back and assess every single moment before you can reach an answer. In Kahneman’s story it is the student’s Remembering Self that has created the damning review of the recording.

The Two Selves are not equal partners. As Kahneman says, when it comes to evaluating past experiences, the Remembering Self is the one that makes decisions.

And, thanks to a number of mental shortcuts, it does so at great speed.

One of the shortcuts our Remembering Self relies on is considering how we felt at two key points:

• The point in the experience when we had the strongest feeling (the peak). (This could be a positive, pleasurable feeling, or a negative, painful one.)
• The end of the experience

The Remembering Self considers the average of our feelings at these two moments. In the case of the student, the screech was both the end point and the peak – the student experienced a strong feeling of anger and disgust that outweighed any delight he had felt during the performance. This explains why this one negative moment was so instrumental in defining his memory of the experience.

I’m glad you asked. You see, I think this phenomenon helps to explain one of fundraising’s great mysteries – why so many donors complain about not being thanked when the vast majority of fundraisers say they religiously thank every donor for every gift.

When fundraisers create thanking processes and supporter/donor journeys they do so with the Experiencing Self in mind. So, they might come up with a process that includes:

• Sending an automated receipt following the donation
• Sending a follow-up letter, thanking the supporter for the donation
• Subscribing the supporter to a regular newsletter
• Segregating future mailings so they include a line acknowledging their previous support
• Sending a physical or digital copy of the annual report at the end of the year

There is nothing wrong with any of these approaches – they all have a role to play. However, this entire approach is based on the idea that each interaction has a cumulative effect and that the donor’s experience and satisfaction will increase with each new touchpoint. As we’ve seen, that would be true if the Experiencing Self was in charge.

But it’s not.

And, with no pleasure-boosting peak or end to engage the more influential Remembering Self, the experience becomes forgettable (or, worse, defined by some other pain point within the donation journey).

As we’ve seen above, if we want the Remembering Self to take note, we need to plan for the supporter’s experience to have a positive peak and an excellent end. The good news is that your Thank You has the potential to fulfil both of these roles.

As fundraisers, we don’t tend to think of donations as having endings. We talk about our relationships with supporters as being ongoing and long-term. However, the reality is that many supporters (especially first-time donors and impulse givers) will view the experience of making a donation as being a self-contained action. For your supporter’s Remembering Self at least, the Thank You marks the end point. So, if we can provide the supporter with a positive peak at this point it will have a disproportionate impact on how they remember their experience of making a gift.

So, what makes a positive peak?

When it comes to peaks we can think of the Remembering Self as being a bit like a car dashboard camera. When things are going normally, or as expected, the Remembering Self sits inactive in the background. It only starts to record when something significant or unexpected happens.

All of the touchpoints in the example above can be described as normal – they follow the script for what someone might expect when they make a donation. They probably expect to receive confirmation their donation has been completed. They probably expect to receive a basic thank you. They probably expect to receive further marketing from the charity. On the face of it there is nothing unexpected there for the supporter. So there is no need for the Remembering Self to get involved.

If we want our Thank Yous to be remembered we need to add something unexpected to the mix.

Something out of the ordinary.

Something worth remembering.

In their book The Power of Moments, Chip and Dan Heath give some great tips for creating memorable moments, including these suggestions for creating positive peaks:

• Boost sensory appeal – create an element of theatre that maximises the impact on the senses and emotions.
• Raise the stakes – “up the ante” for supporters. For example, create a sense of pressure through competitions, games or public commitment
• Break the script – “defy [your supporter’s] expectation of how an experience will unfold”

When it comes to fundraising, peaks that strengthen the connection between the supporter and the beneficiaries, charity and/or fundraiser can be particularly effective. For example, the actors in a theatre company I worked with years ago had a tradition of wearing stripy socks during performances. They realised that sending stripy socks to donors was a powerful way of signalling that those supporters were part of the family. This simple act of initiation breaks the script and boosts the sensory appeal in a way that is relevant for that organisation.

One particularly memorable Thank You email from MAG (Mines Advisory Group) included three recipes that had been shared from MAG team members working around the world. As well as breaking the script, this simple act helped to create a bond between the supporter, the MAG team and the beneficiaries. It humanised people on each side of the relationship and gave an insight to their life. It also tapped into that powerful ritual that occurs when we share a meal together.

​Importantly, creating a positive peak doesn’t have to mean spending a lot of money. The simplest of touches can elevate a moment to become a memorable peak. More important than having a huge budget is having a fundraiser with the imagination and the drive to break the mould. Someone prepared to look beyond the status quo, to take responsibility for creating peaks for their supporters and to fight internally for the importance of defying supporters’ expectations.

So, what unforgettable peaks will you conjure up to elevate your donors’ experiences?

Seen some great experiences of unforgettable peaks? I’d love to hear about them! Get in touch to share some of your most memorable examples.

For “Part Two – The Curse of Embarrassment”, click here

For “Part Three – The Curse of Boring”, click here

Before arranging any meetings with potential supporters (or prospects), make a plan of everything that needs to happen before you can make “the ask”. Start by putting yourself in the prospect’s shoes. What does their brain need to know before they can agree to support? What does their heart need to feel before they can agree to support? Then slip back into your own shoes. What do you need to know to ensure you make the best possible ask? Remember – your answers will be different for different prospects.

The answers to these three questions give you a checklist for each prospect. It is only when all of these things are in place that you can move from “cultivation” to “making the ask”. Your plan should set out the steps you need to take to get from your current position to where you need to get to.

These steps genuinely focus around “touchpoints” – moments of contact and engagement between you and your prospect that seek to build the relationship. Touchpoints can take a vast number of forms, but some of the most common include formal and informal meetings, invitations to events, site visits (to see your work firsthand), emails and phone calls.

Your plan should include details of what touchpoint is needed, what the purpose of each touchpoint is (i.e. what aspect of your initial checklist the touchpoint is designed to address), who is responsible for ensuring the touchpoint happens and when it should happen.

Your plan is likely to include a number of touchpoints to build the relationship to the point that you can make the ask. One touchpoint is unlikely to be enough for either you or your prospect, so don’t let yourself feel pressured into thinking you have to do everything in one go.

When it comes to meeting with prospects, check back to the plan. This will remind you what the aim of the meeting is – what information you need to give, what you need to find out and what you want the supporter to feel at the end. Having a clear objective for the meeting can relieve the pressure and help you to prepare.

When we think about meeting with supporters we can fall into the trap of seeing ourselves as a sort of Oliver Twist figure, going bowl-in-hand to beg for more. We frame the situation as one where the fundraiser stands to gain and the supporter stands to lose. The perception of this as an unbalanced relationship can lead to fundraisers feeling uncomfortable, embarrassed and apologetic.

To overcome this you need to change your mindset. Rather than focusing on what you are asking for, focus on what you are offering the supporter. During the relationship building stage (often called ‘cultivation’) you are trying to find out about their needs so that you can make them the best offer for them. When it comes to ‘making the ask’, if you have done your research and really got to know your prospect you should be confident that what you are offering them is the opportunity to address a need they have.

For companies, that will probably be a business need – you could be offering them the chance to promote their product or brand to a new audience, or maybe you are offering them the chance to boost staff morale and increase staff retention.

For individuals, you could be helping them to address a societal challenge that they have a passionate need to solve. Or you could be offering them the chance to meet an ideological need or a need relating to their sense of identity, values and self-esteem.

Your supporters and prospects are busy people. They appreciate it when fundraisers are well-prepared for meetings. This means you need to take time to do your homework.

For an individual supporter you should remind yourself what you already know about their interests and motivations? What is their existing relationship with the organisation? Have they given before and, if so, what to? Are any of their friends/family/colleagues/peers involved? Who else do they support and why? If this is not the first meeting, do you know what has already been agreed or discussed so that you do not waste time unnecessarily covering old ground?

For businesses, you should go in knowing as much as possible about the business need(s) you believe you can help them to tackle. What successes have they had recently? What challenges are they facing? What are their priorities? What are their sponsorship and CSR aims? Which other companies or stakeholders are also involved with your work and what is the relationship like?

Showing that you have done your homework shows the potential supporter that you are taking this seriously and that you value them.

You’ve done your homework. You’ve made your plan. You turn up to the meeting knowing how it is all going to pan out and…WHAM…they say something you weren’t expecting. They’ve decided they want to give more money this year, or they are looking to cut back. Or that long-standing interest in supporting education projects for young people is so last year and they now want to focus on alleviating loneliness in older people.

Supporter relationships are two-way and, while you might think you know what is going on in their heads you should never underestimate their capacity to surprise you. Before the meeting, spend time thinking about some of the different options and projects, and what impact donations of different levels will have across your organisation. Being aware of the different options will enable you to adjust and go with the flow when your prospect takes the conversation in a whole new direction.

Fundraising is a team game. As you look at the objectives set out in your plan you will probably realise that you need different people to help with different touchpoints. For example, if one of your touchpoints is to ensure your potential supporter knows you are well governed and financially stable you might want to arrange a meeting with a trustee and/or your Finance Manager. On the other hand, if the aim is to ensure the potential supporter feels excited about the exhibition you are asking them to support you might want to involve the curator and/or designer.

While personal relationships are hugely important in fundraising, as an organisation you should never take the view that fundraising is the sole responsibility of one person. In setting up the touchpoint, look at the aims for that meeting and decide who on your team is best placed to achieve them. Who can convey the information with credibility? Who can build rapport with the supporter? Who is the supporter most likely to relate to?

Avoid having too many people there – you don’t want to overwhelm your potential supporter. (Also, the more people there are, the harder it is to build personal relationships and trust). However, if you are nervous about your meeting, it might be because you know you are not the best person to achieve the required aims. If you are not, that’s ok! It is better to ask someone else to come with you than to feel you need to shoulder all of the burden yourself.

Like most things in life, one of the best ways to build confidence and ability is to practice. It may seem strange but finding someone to help roleplay the meeting in advance can do the world of good.

Obviously, your meeting is not scripted so this isn’t about writing out word-for-word speeches. What is more important is to think about the possible scenarios that might occur and how you will respond if these situations arise.

Remind yourself what the aim for the meeting is. If it is to share information about something, try explaining it to your willing assistant. Can they clearly and accurately summarise what you have said?

The other thing to practice is your responses to questions. What questions might your potential supporter ask? What answers might they give to your questions and what does this mean for taking the relationship forward?

In an ideal world, your practice partner will be someone who understands fundraising from the perspective of the supporter and who has a similar level of understanding of your organisation and your project as your potential supporter. Alternatively, you could practice with multiple partners – a fundraising colleague to practice likely questions and an external friend to check that your explanations are clear.

If there is nobody that can help you, you can still practice on your own. Put yourself in the supporter’s shoes and brainstorm all the questions they might ask. You can then practice responses. Try answering the questions out loud in front of a mirror to get used to giving your responses.

Taking time to think about the questions and challenges you might face, and practicing your responses will prepare you for your meeting and reduce the chance of you coming unstuck on the day.

You’ve probably got lots of facts and figures about your work – your reach, your need and the impact you have. This is important information to have to hand. However, facts and figures in isolation can be meaningless if the potential supporter has nothing to measure them against. They can also be difficult to remember. So, while some people thrive on facts and figures, you need to be able to bring this data to life.

Telling stories is a powerful way of bringing your work to life in a passionate, emotive, memorable way. Before the meeting, think about the stories you can tell that bring your work to life and show the impact of your work at a human level. These are likely to be real examples or case studies, but told in an emotive way and focusing on the impact on the beneficiary. Where possible and appropriate, try and put the potential supporter into the story in the role of the hero.

“Generally you ain’t learnin’ nothin’ if your mouth’s a-jawin’!”

Listening is a vital skill for fundraisers. Each touchpoint with a prospect is an opportunity for you to learn. But your ability to do this is limited if you are doing all the talking. Instead, prepare questions that encourage your potential supporter to do the talking and, in particular, give you a greater insight to their motivations and how they make decisions. This means your questions are likely to be focus around “why?” rather than “what?”. Your questions should also focus on getting as much detail as possible to help you build up the clearest possible picture of their interests, needs and motivations.

Remember, you are listening to understand rather than listening to respond. You need to try and rid yourself of any other distractions so that you can focus 100% on your potential supporter and what they are telling you. (This means putting your phone/laptop out of sight so you are not distracted by the thought of other incoming messages). This level of active listening requires more than just your ears, as a lot of this information won’t be communicated verbally.

Listen to the subconscious messages your prospect is sending – what is their body language saying? What is their tone of voice saying? What are they NOT saying? This will help you to identify how engaged or interested they are, and whether there are any underlying concerns or issues that need to be addressed.

Part of the purpose for any touchpoint is to build a personal connection and trust between you and your potential supporter. One of the ways you can build rapport is by showing that you share the same interests and passions as the supporter.

You are meeting this person because you believe they have a passion for what you do. You wouldn’t be there if you didn’t think they had any interest at all. Remembering that you are there to talk about a shared passion can make the situation seem less intimidating. Sharing your passion for your organisation’s work can help build rapport while also bringing your work to life. This excitement and passion will also rub off on the potential supporter.

However, you need to find a balance. You don’t want to make the meeting about you – that’s not what you are there to talk about. The excitement also needs to be genuine and matched to the situation and your potential supporter. Too much excitement and passion can become overwhelming or appear insincere.

Part of the purpose for any touchpoint is to build a personal connection and trust between you and your potential supporter. One of the ways you can build rapport is by showing that you share the same interests and passions as the supporter.

The more time you spend meeting potential supporters, the more confident you will become in these situations. You can strengthen this development by taking time to reflect on the meeting and your own performance.

Firstly, make sure you have updated your notes on the potential supporter to reflect what you have learned and how the relationship has advanced. This needs to be shared with other members of the team that are involved in looking after this prospect. Go back to your original plan and consider whether any of the future touchpoints need to change in light of what you have learned. You should also follow up with the potential supporter to thank them for their time, to confirm what was agreed and to agree next steps.

Having evaluated the relationship with the supporter it is now time to evaluate your own performance. Think back to the meeting. Start by identifying all of the things that you did well. Be kind to yourself, rather than rushing to identify the faults. Creating a list of the positives will help you to solidify this behaviour for future meetings.

Once you have identified all of the positives, think about the things that didn’t go so well. For each negative point clearly identify what you would want to do differently next time. You can then revisit the list of both positives and negatives to help you prepare for your next prospect meeting.

In evaluating your performance it can help to consider things from different perspectives. How did it look, sound and feel from your perspective? How do you think it looked, sounded and felt from your potential supporter’s perspective? How would it have looked, sounded and felt for a neutral observer?

Individual giving to the arts is on the rise. The oft-quoted ‘Private Investment in Culture’ Survey valued individual giving at £245m in 2014/15, meaning it accounts for over half of all private investment to the sector. With corporate support diminishing and ever-greater competition for support from trusts and foundations you can expect this growth to rise as more and more organisations start turning to individual supporters for help.

Individual giving comes in lots of shapes and sizes – from a small number of committed supporters making transformational gifts (either during their life or through a gift in their Will) to building an army of passionate supporters who each give smaller amounts. This latter group can take many forms – one-off appeals, crowdfunding campaigns, donation boxes and the “ol’ faithful” of arts and culture fundraising – the Friends or Membership scheme.

From the largest national companies to the smallest, volunteer-run organisations, the Friends scheme has become a fundraising staple. While the specific rewards of membership may change, the premise is usually the same – a Friend pays a monthly or annual subscription in return for a package of benefits.

The problem is, just because something is popular doesn’t meant that it is right. In fact, many of the Friends schemes I see are inappropriate, inefficient and inhibiting. Ultimately, they are not fit for purpose.

So, how do you know whether a Friends scheme is right for your organisation?

Before we go on, I should clarify – there are times when a Friends scheme is appropriate. The types of membership scheme offered by Tate, the Donmar Warehouse and Glyndebourne are examples of schemes that are fit for purpose.

Membership schemes are, by their nature, transactional – the member is buying a package of benefits that can range from free tickets and priority booking to newsletters and exclusive events. At the point of asking someone to become a Friend you are asking them to make a ‘value for money’ judgement – is the package of benefits worth (at least) the amount I am being asked to pay?

The memberships of the three organisations above work because they enable the member to overcome a barrier that would otherwise prevent them from accessing the art on offer.

In the case of the Donmar Warehouse and Glyndebourne, that barrier is availability. Both organisations have a reputation for quality and relatively small theatres. The result is they regularly perform to full, or near-full, houses. (Ticket sales at Glyndebourne during the Festival regularly average over 94%). The demand for tickets exceeds the number of tickets available. A membership that offers priority booking has obvious value for people keen to guarantee their seat for the performances they want to see.

For Tate, the barrier is financial. Each year, the four venues deliver a diverse programme of temporary, ticketed exhibitions. Buying a ticket to every exhibition could end up being costly. A membership card gets you into every exhibition. If I know I am going to visit more than a certain number of ticketed exhibitions each year, the membership represents value for money. It is cheaper than the cost of buying individual tickets.

Memberships can also bring other benefits to an organisation. As a result of my Tate membership I go and see exhibitions that I probably wouldn’t otherwise pay to see. For an organisation that aims to increase the public’s understanding and enjoyment of art this is a positive result. For some organisations, the discount I get in the shops and cafes might mean I actually end up spending more per visit than I would without the discount. (I’d like to think I am not so easy to influence, but the large number of unopened exhibition catalogues and posters suggests otherwise…).

A membership scheme also gives you a structure for communicating with your most loyal attenders, providing additional channels to promote your work while also providing a vehicle to thank them for their support.

In the right circumstances, a Friends scheme is a very effective way of generating income.

However, a large number of Friends schemes are set up in a way that makes it almost impossible for the organisation to fundraise effectively. Here are five conditions where a Friends scheme probably isn’t the best approach for your organisation:

The membership schemes above work because the benefits meet a need. However, many schemes offer benefits that have little or no value to the member. For example, if I know I can walk up five minutes before the start of a performance and buy a ticket in the price band I want, a membership scheme offering me priority booking has no value.

Similarly, offering an annual membership based on priority booking for a touring company that only visits my local theatre for two nights of the year is unlikely to be attractive (especially as the local theatre probably has a similar offer that offers priority booking for all shows across the year). (If you are thinking “That’s exactly what our scheme looks like and we have lots of members, thanks very much!”, I would politely suggest they are giving in spite of the scheme, not because of it. See reason 5 for more details…)

Remember – with a transactional scheme you are selling people benefits based on the perceived value for money. Before launching a transactional scheme, ask yourself – is there really a demand for the benefits you can offer? If people don’t want to pay for the benefits on offer, don’t make the benefits the thing you sell.

Membership schemes can be expensive to run, usually requiring staff time to administer, marketing activity to promote the scheme and the costs (or loss of income) of offering benefits. If you are sure that a transactional scheme is the most appropriate approach for your organisation you need to be sure that you are going to see a profit from it – either directly, or by using the membership scheme as a first step on a longer supporter journey.

One of the ways you can make your scheme particularly expensive to deliver is to create new, artificial benefits to incentivise the scheme (usually because there wasn’t demand for anything else you could offer). Again, if you haven’t got a transactional offer that motivates people, this is probably not the right approach for you.

Different people engaging with your organisation will all have a different capacity to give – for some an annual gift of £25 would be a serious commitment. Others could give £2,500 without thinking. If your individual giving programme consists of one ask at one level you are probably not fundraising efficiently – especially if the amount you ask for is lower than the average gift people would make if you didn’t specify an amount.

At a number of organisations I’ve seen membership schemes priced at £5 and £10 a year. I love the fact that this means that everybody can play a role in supporting the organisation. However, if that is the only proposition you are offering people, you are selling yourself short. Even with the apparent sector standard of £25 a year I am certain that there will be a significant body of people who – when presented with the right proposition – could and would do more to help.

Not everybody that supports your work has the same level of commitment. The most efficient and effective individual giving schemes offer opportunities for those supporters looking for a relationship with the organisation to get more involved. In doing so, their commitment to the cause grows which, in turn, leads to larger, more frequent gifts.

However, transactional schemes alone rarely provide opportunities for progression of this nature. Within this framework, getting people to upgrade usually requires you to offer a more attractive package of benefits – most likely at an increased cost to the organisation.

By having a uniform ask and a uniform identity across your membership you also make it very difficult to distinguish between a benefits-driven member (someone who gives because it is good value for money) and the committed supporter (who gives because they love your work and who would do more if you asked). A transactional offer on its own is likely to make it nigh-on impossible to identify your most committed supporters, preventing you from building personal relationships and limiting your ability to secure major gifts.

I’ve saved the most important reason until last. Most Friends schemes are set up because that is what the organisation has seen other people do, rather than because that is what their potential supporters are looking for.

There are lots of reasons that people to give to charitable causes. Receiving benefits for personal gain is just one reason. The most ineffective schemes are the ones that impose a transactional proposition on the people that want to support because they love your work and just want to help. These are the people that give because they believe in what you do and want to help you do more of it.

It is a failing of arts fundraisers (or their organisations) that many feel the only way people will support our work is if we offer incentives for doing so. This shows a lack of faith in both the quality and the value of the work we provide, and the generosity of the committed individuals that love what we do.

I have seen countless examples of people wanting to give philanthropically being forced into transactional schemes because it is the only proposition available. In forcing them into a membership scheme you are denying them the chance to build a deeper relationship around a shared passion, while also wasting huge chunks of their gift providing them with benefits they don’t want.

Your best prospects for individual giving (at any level) are people with an existing connection and commitment to your organisation and your work. In deciding what individual giving approach is most appropriate you should always start with your potential supporters’ interests and needs. Never launch a Friends scheme just because you have seen other organisations taking that approach…and certainly don’t do it just because it’s what you’ve always done!

Before you design the scheme, take time to understand what motivates those people closest to your organisation. What excites and inspires them about your work? What makes them angry, sad or fearful? What would they change if they could?

If you decide that a transactional scheme is the most appropriate for your organisation, go for it! However, don’t be afraid to offer your members the chance to also support in a philanthropic way. Glyndebourne invites members to support its Annual Fund appeal, making donations to support the organisation’s work. Tate recently asked members to help support the conservation of Audrey and her Goats – a painting by Arthur Melville which was due to be displayed at Tate Britain. In doing so, both organisations enabled their members to meet other motivations they might have. For those that donated, it enabled them to signal that they had a greater level of commitment than the average member and that they might be looking for a deeper relationship.

If you decide that a transactional scheme is not appropriate for your organisation, don’t panic! The lack of incentives doesn’t mean there is no hope for you. It just means you have to change what you are offering. Rather than selling a package of benefits, you can sell the chance to make a difference. The chance to support an organisation they care about in responding to exciting opportunities and overcoming challenges. The chance to fulfil their own needs and to feel great while doing it.

A small number of committed supporters giving philanthropically can make a huge difference to your organisation. And the great news is there are people out there who want to help. You just need to show them that there is a need for their support, show them how they can help and then show them how the world is a better place because of their gift.