Photos: Nicole de Khors and (insert) Matthew Henry, Burst
This area of the site was written for very experienced trust fundraisers.
Professional development
- There’s loads more that an experienced trust fundraiser can do to keep learning, beyond this website:
- Bill Bruty, Rob Woods and Jen Shang are well worth looking at
- It’s well worth keeping an eye out for professional conferences
- At any one time, at least one of the email or Facebook groups is usually having discussions of some substance
- In terms of subject matter that goes beyond trust fundraising, I’d start with project management, diversity and a deeper understanding of the work of your own charity. All will pay dividends at some stage
- There are plenty of other blogs and courses, but you’ll need to be picky if you really are looking for material that will take an experienced trust fundraiser forwards in their practice.
As you’ll gather, I’m a complete cheerleader for the many excellent sources of professional wisdom there are out there. The following are ones I know and admire in different ways. (If you Google them, they should come up very quickly):
Studying the subject matter
I’ve always found it useful to read about project management – somehow, the more you know, the better you can deal with the issues that come up. I’ve subscribed to Get Abstract and other project management sites and podcasts.
Equal Opps is also a good one, as Services don’t always have the required level of expertise. It’s also useful to know the underlying theory, so that you express things well.
I’ve tried to retain a bit of a growth mindset in terms of the subject of the charity’s work. The more you know, the better able you are to reconcile trusts’ and Services’ interests.
Bright Spot Fundraising
Rob Wood is the UK’s leading expert on the more major donor, WOW-the-funder approaches to trust fundraising. As of August 2021 he only really does that one niche, but he’s great at it. I haven’t personally done his training courses, though I’ve heard very good things about them. For example, an experienced trusts manager had attended his major donors course and told me she thought it was brilliant and had a lot of cross-over with trusts (especially, relationships with bigger trusts).
I’m not sure the Bright Spot Members Club material behind his paywall represents value for money if you’ve digested the content in his blogs, but they are great points and if you haven’t listened to a dozen or more of his blogs, it is likely to be worth your signing up.
Bill Bruty’s Fundraising Training programme
It’s worth looking into Bill Bruty’s courses. I’d recommend his target setting course. I’d love to have included what he does in this site, it’s better than what’s here, but I felt that was unethical and I’ve just given you what I learnt at Age Concern and what Bill has said in public fora. His actual course is better.
Bill has been doing this for 37 years. He assesses for a couple of foundations. He’s also done a lot of statistical research into trusts’ patterns of giving, which I suggest you ask him about if can see how it would help you.
Institute for Sustainable Philanthropy
These guys do some very evidence-based training on the psychology of philanthropy. There are short online courses and a longer one for over £1k that gets Beth Upton’s vote (mentioned in her regular talks – see below).
Sheng and Sargeant aren’t at all trusts specialists, but their insights into the psychology of giving are profound. (To see how: look at the sections in this website on thanking trusts, on the psychology of giving under the Trustees section and some bits in the “emotions in writing” videos.)
Other courses
There are a lot more courses out there. However, those are the only ones I know where an experienced trust fundraiser won’t be sitting doodling and waiting in case something original gets said. It’s probably hard to make money pitching to a more experienced audience. Hence, we are where we are in terms of CPD.
Beth Upton’s half hour reviews of her Facebook Group
Beth Upton has been convening a Facebook discussion group for some time. It has a lot of members. Something she does well is to have a monthly review of it with another trust fundraiser and to answer other questions sent directly to her consultancy. The past meetings are on Money Tree Fundraising’s YouTube page.
Some of it is a bit basic for this audience, but it does go deeper than your typical course and you’d get a bit more out of it than just skimming recent questions on Facebook.
KEDA Consulting’s blog and reports
They have a blog, reports and guides. Mostly, it’s pretty standard, basic stuff. However, sometimes they do genuinely interesting things, like surveying trust fundraisers.
Caroline Danks (LarkOwl)
Caroline Danks’ blog is a bit basic, but engagingly written and I very much enjoy getting it sent to me in a regular newsletter. She seems to believe doing the basics well are what it’s all about and I suspect might be a good antidote in person to this site! If you can hear her in person addressing a trusts audience, she’s also full of good nuggets of wisdom based on sound experience.
Alicia Grainger
Alicia Grainger has a nice, clear blog, if it’s again more basic. I’ve had staff who’ve used her training and got something from it. The Competitor analysis piece below was a good example of what she does well.
Caroline Hamilton
Her Real World Fundraising newsletter isn’t that active, but she sends occasional, thoughtful emails of ideas.
Apollo Fundraising
This blog’s not too active, but it has a bit of trusts-specific content on it and a few other items are also very relevant (e.g. regarding thanking). The associated podcast is very focused on the arts.
Fundraising HayDay podcast
This is a US podcast and some of the legislation underpinning the sector is particular to that country. Once you bear that in mind, it’s a clear, slightly more basic, very enjoyable podcast, covering a LOT of specifics in our field 🙂 Part way through the episodes there seems to be a short section of professional tips for more expert fundraisers.
Chartered Institute of Fundraising
From what I’ve seen, their Trust Fundraising Conferences are a mixture of genuinely advanced material and people doing basic sessions on stuff not covered in the main courses.
The Trusts Special Interest Group also occasionally runs one-off events, which can be good. For example, there was one on fundraising during lockdown near the beginning of the pandemic which was probably the best event I saw.
If you’re in London, there are First Thursday events once or twice year that are directly relevant to trust fundraising. These have been in the evening when in person, during the day when virtual. They have varied between being good for a few useful points of learning (a couple I’ve attended) to very useful indeed (Caroline Danks’ session).
Fundraising Everywhere
This private company also ran a good conference that combined genuinely advanced material and people doing basic sessions on stuff not covered in the main courses. Keep an eye out for what’s next.
Online/email discussion groups
There are Trust fundraising groups on Facebook and general fundraising groups on Facebook and LinkedIn. The problem with the Facebook ones is the format doesn’t work well – material shoots past, so it’s very hit-and-miss as to whether you get a considered response. However, the size of the audience is great and it seems to be where a lot of considered discussions now happen, as of August 2021.
There’s an email-based discussion group for trust fundraisers under the banner of the Chartered Institute of Fundraising. It’s not currently what it once was, but I’ve kept many years’ results in a separate email account and keyword search it sometimes. You’ll probably find the amount of really good, useful discussion will fluctuate over time.
In person peer support groups
The Trust Fundraising Network has been an active group in London for some time. Other groups have popped up occasionally.