Kathryn Welch believes that sole fundraisers can be just as innovative as big charity fundraising teams and now she wants your help proving it

As fundraisers, how important is innovation? For those of us working in smaller charities with limited resources, how do we balance the desire for innovative, exciting new approaches to fundraising with the pressing need to just get on with the job in hand? How can we find time to think up new and ever more engaging initiatives to connect supporters with our cause? And where do we look for our inspiration?

Earlier this year I was delighted to be offered the chance to explore some of these issues, as part of a Creative Scotland-funded research project entitled ‘Innovation in Fundraising’. In the initial stages of research to focus down this rather intimidatingly-broad title, I was struck by the extent to which we perceive brand name charities as leading the way in the development of new fundraising ideas. As a sector we’ve tended to look upwards to bigger charities for our innovation inspiration.

Could our smaller, lower profile innovations offer a more realistic, replicable model of fundraising success?

Kathryn Welch

Whilst larger charities often have the resources and profile to make more of a splash with their innovations, their approaches aren’t always applicable to the realities of fundraising within smaller, less well-resourced charities. On the contrary, sole fundraisers in small charities frequently have the freedom and opportunity to champion brilliant new ideas, but their successes often remain under the radar, their learning invisible to the sector as a whole.

Rather, than hoping the innovations of brand name charities trickle down to the rest of us, could we smaller charities learn from one-another and collectively showcase the distinctive successes of those of us who work with tighter budgets and more limited resources? And could our smaller, lower profile innovations offer a more realistic, replicable model of fundraising success? Working together to collect and share our fundraising stories, could we smaller charities combine our experiments, our ideas and our trials-and-errors to collectively progress as fundraisers more quickly than any of us could individually?

These are the issues I hope to explore over the coming year and a half. But the theory only works if you (yes, you!) join me in sharing your stories, your triumphs and (just as importantly) your great ideas that just didn’t quite work out. What’s been the most effective thing you’ve done to really engage your supporters with your cause? Have you trialled something new to reach a group of supporters who weren’t previously engaged with your cause? If you could share one lesson from the innovations you’ve tried, what would it be?

With your input, this project could be genuinely exciting for us all, and help widen the range of voices and experiences we get to hear about as our fundraising inspiration. Please do drop me an email to share your stories, and let’s collectively tell the stories of innovation, experimentation and creativity amongst small charity fundraisers.

Kathryn Welch is the development manager at the MacRoberts Arts Centre in Stirling. Contact Kathryn by email