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A podcast for fundraisers who want ideas, examples and inspiration to help you raise more money for your charity or non-profit.
Rob is an author and award-winning fundraising trainer. Each week he and his guests share examples of successful fundraising, as well as lots of practical tips to help you apply these techniques in your own job.
Hi. This is Rob. Welcome to another episode of the Fundraising Bright Spots Podcast. This one is all about how to run a successful emergency appeal. My guest is Kusalaraja, who is fundraising and communications director at Future Dharma, a small Buddhist charity that funds projects all over the world.
Speaker 1:Kusalaraja came on our major gifts mastery training, and partway through the six month program, he discovered he had to respond to a genuine crisis. The charity needed to raise £90,000 fast or face closure. I loved hearing the story of how he responded, and I hope that you enjoy it too.
Speaker 2:Like many charities, we found ourselves in a situation where we just didn't have as much income as we would like. So we had a shortfall and we found ourselves with very short timeline that we had to pull together to raise £90,000 otherwise we would have faced the closure of our charity. We're dispersed as an organization, but we're dispersed as a community. And so we put together an online event. The event itself was an opportunity to be really clear and honest about exactly what has happened and to explain what we're going to do about it.
Speaker 2:But even for those people who didn't come, the opportunity just to have contact with them and invite them to something and then if they couldn't make it you had the chance to follow-up again with them to say yes so sorry you couldn't make it here's a recording if you want to know more get in touch Our target was 90,000. Very ambitious for us. So we raised 74,000 overall which now outstripped what I thought we would achieve.
Speaker 1:Thanks for making time to chat Kusalaraja. Congratulations. You did an emergency appeal recently, and I was so impressed, a, with the success of it. Your organization needed some funds and you managed to create this appeal very quickly and it was successful. I would love your ideas about how you achieved that and it might just help some other organizations that need to do something similar.
Speaker 1:So before we start, what's your name and what's your job?
Speaker 2:My name is Kusalaraja. I'm the fundraising and communications director for a very small charity called Future Dharma. We're small but we deal with Buddhist projects that we fund all over the world.
Speaker 1:And it's a very important organisation. I've really enjoyed getting to know it a little through our Major Gifts Mastery programme. Today, I'm just interested in this story and and what I can learn and maybe others can learn. The headline to the story is for things beyond your control, the organisation had a shortfall. Could you just tell us the gist of that and what the result was?
Speaker 2:I guess, know, like many charities we found ourselves in a situation where we just didn't have as much income as we would like. It's probably quite a common thing to happen. There are a few that I mean we're a small charity within a fairly small community being a religious charity it's a particular sort of set of circumstances. Anyway things within our situation meant that people were just finding money a bit tight actually and and you know other things that people were giving money to I guess. So we had a shortfall and we found ourselves with very short timeline that we had to raise £90,000 otherwise we would have faced the closure of our charity and so it meant taking basically two kind of main steps one is making some cost savings within our organization but there was also no other way to get around the fact that we needed to raise a big sum of money and we needed to do it very quickly, both in terms of like because we needed that money to run and to give the grants out, which is part of our main reason that our charity exists, but also to get back to a place we could give confidence that we would be functional and viable for the future to our supporters.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that makes sense. So congratulations that you were successful. I'd love for the rest of this conversation just to be me picking your brains on what you think are some things that were valuable in achieving this result. So where does your brain go to first? Is there one of the first important chunks?
Speaker 2:Yeah, had massive advantages that I was doing the course with yourself and had access to a coach at the same time because I wouldn't have felt quite as prepared to do this without that. And I think the first thing that stands out to me as being incredibly helpful is about making just the right preparation. I guess because also, you know, you're under pressure, you've got to respond really quickly and probably, you know, my temptation was just to get running with something, just anything, just to try and get something out there to try and get some money in and make an impact, but actually just to kind of clear the decks and prepare very carefully for what was going to come up in the appeal and what was needed and how to timeline that. And one of the key very key bits of preparation I think was to produce a very exhaustive FAQ. So, to go and think what are going to be the questions that we're going to be asked by our supporters, by stakeholders, by other key people within our kind of wider community, even within the organization.
Speaker 2:And they're all sort of all variations on three main themes, guess. They're sort of like, how did you get into this mess? What are you going to do about it? And how are you going to make sure this doesn't happen again? With a mixture of different ways to break that down.
Speaker 2:But having that worked through, I worked it through with Linda, my coach, and then went away did an exercise of my own and then went into the rest of the organization to sort of see everybody else's perspective on that to come up with this really good list so that I did feel very confident then if I was on the phone if I was writing something I did a briefing online where I spoke to major donors and key stakeholders and I just felt very very clear about exactly what has happened and exactly what we can do about it and then that confidence was able to run through the whole rest of the process.
Speaker 1:Yeah, this kind of situation, obviously lots of strategy and things one can do, but none of that will be very effective unless there is some level of confidence which you're able to find in yourself and to project to help others get as well. If those are in place, then these other conversations or case for support or whatever can succeed. If that confidence isn't there, then it's very, very difficult to encourage someone to have faith and make those generous donations themselves and also the colleagues. So that makes sense. What else?
Speaker 2:Yeah, this was next for me. It's about having a really clear timeline. So, what are you going to say and to who, at what point and in the way to manage it over time. So, the way that we did that and it's probably quite a common approach but to just get very very clear and get down to real detail down to the weeks and days and how it's going to unfold but you know manage my own time my own limited resources effectively to get the message out in a well managed way so we did this over one month to six weeks of contact with major donors sharing you know quite a lot of information and then doing some public online events that was a really big key part as well and then moving into a public phase and again the way that that public phase unfolds up to the sort of final point of thanking and congratulations, celebrating the achievement at the end.
Speaker 1:And then within that, was there an element of deciding who you really needed to get alongside more to have more two way conversations? And if so, please share anything about how you decided that bit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so probably like most places you did exactly that. Yeah, so part of that preparation and then the time lining was yeah, who are we going to talk to when and selecting very clearly people. Mean, we're usually running an end of year appeal or this situation just happened to coincide with we could turn our end of year appeal into an emergency appeal. So we looked at people who regularly responded to our emergency appeals and given more significant gifts and also people who who regularly respond when we ask and give large contributions and so for some of those people depending on what we knew about them we determined whether just to reach out to them individually and then we also I sent a an invitation, again this is a great thing that came out of the advice from Linda from my coach, to put together an online event, you know, we're dispersed as an organisation but we're dispersed as a community and so we put together an online event. The event itself was an opportunity to be really clear and honest about exactly what has happened and to explain what we're going to do about it.
Speaker 2:But even for those people who didn't come, the opportunity just to have contact with them and invite them to something and then if they couldn't make it, you had the chance to follow-up again with them to say, yes, so sorry you couldn't make it, here's a recording, if you want to know more get in touch. It gave extra points of contact to have time with those donors, those key people who wanted to have conversation and we you know and I definitely had donations, significant donations that just came off the back of inviting somebody to an event like that.
Speaker 1:That's really interesting. And we don't need to know exactly, but roughly how many people did come to the event? How long was the event really top line? I'm guessing there was no fee or donation required to attend the event. It was a free event.
Speaker 1:Can you just really top line paint a picture of how it worked?
Speaker 2:Yes, free online event in total we had something like 30 to 40 people attend out of a contact list of maybe 150 people that we invited come online. So that's pretty good attendance we've not done anything like it before we kept it short and succinct so it was forty minutes long and we had two runnings of it so an evening run and then a lunchtime run and so build it kind of as an opportunity like have a cup of tea, come listen, find out what's going on. It was actually so successful and so good that we're going to use that just in general anyway to bring people in to have a conversation about what we're up to.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's fantastic. And within that, you're telling the story of where we're at, what challenge we face, reassurance in answer to the other questions you mentioned earlier, and the opportunity if you want to solve this challenge, and if you want to donate, here's what you can do. And then again, opportunity to follow-up after that. It sounds like that led this channeling lots of communication into this particular thing rather than lots and lots of emails and letters asking for money. Channeling anyone who could care towards this made quite a big difference and that's strategically a key reason why the overall appeal works.
Speaker 1:Is that too strong for me to say that or is this tactic was really crucial?
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And I think it stopped that thing which is people just being hammered by the we're in danger. Please help us. Give loads of money.
Speaker 1:Something you mentioned earlier, having these conversations, you know, by emails and letters as well, that tone of voice, but truthful and transparent in those conversations. Do you want to talk a little bit about what your approach to that is? And I sense that it's a major reason why you're confident to have these chats and potentially why they were successful.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I mean, think I feel like, you know, that person said, if I am going to get behind something, I have to believe it. I have to believe it. It has to be ethical. I have to be confident that it's truthful and so I need that for me to get really behind it and I guess that also then comes through when I'm talking to people deciding just to really bring people alongside in whatever way was appropriate for them.
Speaker 2:So, to be truthful with people, to be very transparent about what was happening and in a way that was appropriate. So, for our, you know, major donors, people who'd made really big commitments, basically we decided that for that time they were basically in the organization we shared near enough everything you know our financial information what's happened all those details what the money that we were hoping to fundraise would achieve what you know the details of what we would do to make sure this didn't happen again in the future including details about changes we were making in the organization changes in strategic focus you know we shared everything and a lot of detail particularly in the in the online event People responded really well to it and then working out how to do that to maintain that idea of being very truthful and transparent with people, but in a way that was then appropriate for their level of engagement with us. I mean, people were not going to want a whole strategic document and policy via email, but how you know my kind of challenge then I thought was how do I convey the truth of what's happened in the situation and tell stories to people to kind of really connect with them through them when we moved into like the public phase with people who are given smaller amounts but who we still needed to engage in the appeal.
Speaker 1:I think some organisations wouldn't have succeeded, they'd have been doing their best to cover all the details, absolutely got every t crossed and so on, but wouldn't have worked so hard to translate for it just to be a forty minute meeting is amazing to me, but within that you must have been going top line and somehow bringing it to life with chunks or stories, and then in the other communication. How did you manage to find that simple enough chunking and or stories? How did you do it?
Speaker 2:Well, so I mean to quite a big extent I did rely on the things that I picked up in the course, you know, I definitely structured things around things like the magic formula and then those those kind of key things we had to bring in stories, but bringing stories in those kind of really pithy key ways you can bring in a story just to create a bit of emotional connection.
Speaker 1:Yes. How many people donated in that couple of months? And roughly, what proportion of those was less than 10 pounds? What proportion was up to 100 pounds? What proportion was a thousand?
Speaker 1:Like, really top line. So we've got a sense of how it was skewed to a few people giving more?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so our target was 90,000. I always thought it was very ambitious for us, so we raised 74,000 overall, which I was incredibly pleased and outstripped what I thought we would achieve. We'd raised 50,000 by the end of our major donor phase, if you will, so before we went public. So, to give you an idea, that was four or five gifts in the £5,000 sort of area. Gifts under that then in the sort of £500 to a thousand pounds some you know a few £100 which for us would be is a major donor for us and then we went when we went into the public phase then you know that was then the remaining $2,425,000 pounds and that's a whole mix of, yeah, some people giving a few £100 to people giving £5 £10 20 pounds whatever.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Thank
Speaker 1:you. That makes sense. Anything else, just before we finish, that you found interesting as you look back on it? Is there anything you learned really, anything you discovered that's not necessarily obvious or is obvious,
Speaker 2:but the cliche is right? You really have to do this thing? Even though being under pressure, take as much time as you can to truly be alongside. Like, don't like just resist the temptation to go into panic. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Like, we can do what we can do, and it's better to do some of it really well than try to cover every base I guess is to think even though it's an emergency yes so there's that the other thing is something like it's your one shot so if it's your one shot it has to be done as well as it possibly can I mean maybe we all know that it has to done as well as we can but it is it's you know, and it's important to treat it in that way and so therefore that I suppose that ties into what I was just saying that it's just so important to take our time and try and get a bit of breathing space even though the time is limited and plan it well? I created a document from the writing to influence section of the course but the base became my kind of template for planning all of all of my conversations and communications that went out because I have a tendency to waffle and I thought well we you know again it's that kind of managing that time where we want to get as much information across in the clearest way and I think that's what helped to really manage you know sharing what was appropriate for each level know each level of kind of support.
Speaker 2:In order to still get across as much information as we could through the particularly through the public phase we try to communicate a huge piece of you know information and how we're tackling it and put a story in there. The only way we could do that is by being very very clear and precise and deliberate and so to have a template and a format in order to do that again just to give me the confidence to go right this is this is how I know that I'm going to get across the key information that I need to share So that whole phase is built on that and kind of bringing down this key information just and distill it into the kind of absolutely just essential pieces.
Speaker 1:Yeah this makes sense. Kusalaraja thank you so much for sharing your take on ways to make an emergency appeal succeed. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 2:Thank you. I really appreciate it. I really appreciate all the help.
Speaker 1:There you go. I really hope you found Kusalaraja's story and insights as helpful as I did. A few things I'd love for you to take away. First, even in an emergency, take the time to prepare well. Resist the panic.
Speaker 1:Second, get truly alongside your donors. Open, honest, and personal. And third, a well planned online event can be a surprisingly powerful way to create connection and generate gifts at the same time. And if this story resonates with you and you're thinking about ways to boost your own major donor fundraising, then why not do what Kusalaraja did and book yourself a place on our famous Major Gifts Mastery program. To find out more, head over to brightspotfundraising.co.uk.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for listening and for supporting the show. And if you found this show helpful, please don't keep it a secret. I'd be super grateful if you'd share it on with a colleague or on LinkedIn. I look forward to sharing another Bright Spots story with you very soon.