Having worked for several years on charity projects with Pilotlight, I thought I’d share a few observations and tactics that might help your funding efforts be more effective, whether you are part of a charity or a Pilotlighter supporting your charity.

Head shot of Graeme Ballantyne

Main challenges

Many charitable organisations face increasing cuts to their budgets from commissioners and government agencies. On top of that there is the growing demand for their services, more pressure for evidence of impact and outcomes, and limited opportunities to access funds from other sources.

Passion and enthusiasm go a long way towards gaining airtime for your charity; however, on their own, passion and enthusiasm don’t convert into hard cash – relationships do.

So, what can you do to improve those relationships?

You might refer to this as stakeholder management or account management or something else, but the bottom line is you need a laser beam focus on this area to maximise the opportunities available. The goal is to create a situation where not only are you the last organisation to be considered for a budget cut, but also the first to be considered for that annual uplift that will help you deliver more.

The key question to address is the level of your relationship with all the people that potentially influence your funding applications.

To improve your effectiveness in raising funds you need to match up contacts within your organisation with contacts in your funders on a strategic, tactical and operational basis. Here, there may be opportunities to enlist the help of your board at a strategic or tactical level. The better you understand the goals and objectives of your key contacts, the better you will be able to demonstrate that your proposals contribute to those objectives. It is highly likely they will be accountable for delivering specific objectives for their organisation, your role is to understand how they are managed/measured so you can provide appropriate data to allow them to support your proposals fully. This simple contact matrix will help you keep track of these efforts.  

The best way to build commitment to your cause is to be empathetic to the challenges faced by your funders and give them the information they need to make a positive decision. This will only happen if they see alignment and compatibility between both parties’ objectives. Be intentional and proactive in your approach to demonstrating alignment – create a win-win relationship.

Now, how do you deal with corporates? Is it any different?

The basis of relationships is the same, but before submitting a request for funding from a corporate via their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) budget, make sure you’ve done your homework:

  • Do you understand their CSR objectives?
  • What is the focus of their support?
  • What type of initiatives or groups of people are they looking to support?
  • How would supporting your charity enhance their standing in the community?
  • Do you need to apply using a specific form or format?

Reviewing the corporate’s website is a great place to start and you might even be able to meet someone in the firm to help you with your application. As above, someone in the organisation will be managed against a set of objectives that are aligned to the corporate’s goals. Your goal is to use the best of your ability to align your funding request to those objectives to make the decision as easy as possible for the decision maker.

I’m not saying it will be easy, but having a real focus on these two areas will help you stand out from other charities fighting for the same funds.

By Graeme Ballantyne, Business Consultancy Manager, PruConsulting, Prudential.

Graeme Ballantyne (pictured) has over 35 years’ management experience in leading blue chip organisations in the areas of sales, marketing, operations and people development. Graeme has an MBA from The University of Edinburgh, is a founding member of the Strategic Sales and Customer Management Network at Warwick Business School, holds the Certified Management Consultant award from The Institute of Consulting and has proven success as a business coach. Graeme has been a Pilotlighter from 2011-2015.