Working for a less-attractive cause doesn’t have to be a barrier to successful fundraising, say Louise Farnell and Paul Farmer

Fundraising can be challenging at the best of times, but it’s doubly difficult when your cause is an unpopular one. Louise Farnell and Paul Farmer know this better than most, having worked together at the National Schizophrenia Fellowship (NSF). Paul was the director of public affairs and recruited Louise as head of fundraising. Their target was £236,000 and, with schizophrenia the cause, it felt as though they had a mountain to climb. Within five years, however, they had broken the £2million barrier for the charity. Paul has gone on to become chief executive of Mind and, in that role, asked Louise to lead a bid to the Big Lottery Fund. The bid raised £16 million and created Time to Change, the campaign to end the stigma associated with mental illness. Louise looks back on her time at NSF (now rebranded to Rethink Mental Illness), while Paul explains how Mind, which had a more established fundraising programme, keeps the message fresh.

National Schizophrenia Fellowship
Louise Farnell, Director and Founder, Capidale Consulting

If you are in your mid-30s or older, you will probably remember the sad case of Jonathan Zito, who was fatally stabbed on a tube platform in 1992. His attacker was found to have schizophrenia and this prompted a prolonged frenzy of news reports painting a completely false picture of the public danger posed by people with mental illness.

Much as sections of the press today seem to pin all society’s ills on asylum seekers, so in the 1990s those in search of a headline, despite all the evidence to the contrary, seemed determined to make people with schizophrenia public enemy number one.

It was, therefore, with a sense of trepidation that I climbed the stairs above a scruffy Surrey pub to begin my role as Head of Fundraising for the National Schizophrenia Fellowship.

“What do I have to do to be a success?” I asked one of the Trustees, expecting him to say “beat your targets”. “Stay in the job for more than 6 weeks” he replied, pointing to a succession of short-lived predecessors. Fundraising income was rock bottom and expectations were lower still.

I might have turned and fled, but buoyed by the relentless optimism of my boss, Paul, decided to give it a go. After all, in the least popular position in what felt like the least popular cause, the only way is up.

But popularity – or lack of it – is in the eye of the beholder. This summer, Paul and I ran a session on ‘Fundraising for unpopular causes’ at the IoF National Convention. We had expected a small number of downbeat attendees, but we were amazed to see queues out the door.

Much as it hurts my ego to admit it, it wasn’t our legendary oratory skills that drew the crowds. It was the title. A surprising number of us consider our cause tough to fundraise for. Attendees that day included delegates from the NSPCC and Shelter, neither of which might immediately be associated with a lack of popularity.

As fundraisers, we tend to focus on what we don’t have and not what we do have. I now run a fundraising consultancy and I can think of few, if any, of our clients who give thanks for the popularity of their cause.

But I’m delighted I didn’t follow my instincts and back down the stairs of that pub. I stayed five years and, in that time, Paul and I grew income by more than 1,000%. More recently, we began the process that has raised £40 million for Time to Change, the campaign to end the stigma of mental illness.

So how did we do it? We started by reviewing the performance of all of our fundraising and decided to scrap our loss-making Christmas cards, large events and expensive donor acquisition programme. They were costly distractions.

Then we looked at our supporters. We were lucky enough to have six wealthy supporters who cared passionately about the cause, and our major donor programme started with just these names. A couple of years later, it was the same number, but those wonderful people had organised two events, netting £70,000, and we received our first ever five-figure donation.

But we also actively cultivated new donors. We carefully identified a small number of trusts and foundations, and Paul and our CEO did the rounds armed with some inspiring projects and case studies. Within a year, we’d increased trust income by 800%.

Equally important was winning the confidence of our trustees. Once I’d passed the six-week barrier, I knew I could make a success of the job – but I continued to work hard to win over the trustees, shouting about each and every success. NSF had 7,000 members. Most were carers – poor and off limits to fundraisers, according to the board. But, to me, they were people who cared passionately and would want to help. Gradually I gained the trustees’ confidence and, eventually, they let me give NSF members the opportunity to donate. Members immediately became our best performing segment.

Another successful relationship was cultivated with pharmaceutical companies. They aren’t allowed to advertise prescription products to individuals and, as a result, were keen to work with us. As we campaigned against the high cost of drugs, we were very careful how we worked with this group. But we found a way that preserved our position and worked for both sides – even becoming Eli Lilly’s charity of the year.

Mind
Paul Farmer, Chief Executive, Mind

A strong fundraising strategy is essential to success. Looking at how you approach potential donors and focusing your energies can have a huge impact on return on investment. But you still need to ‘sell’ your cause. In the crowded work of charity fundraising, how can you make the case for support?

This isn’t necessarily about standing out – at least, not in the traditional sense. Most of us won’t have the budget to break through public consciousness with a huge advertising campaign. What matters is making your cause relevant and engaging: getting people’s attention and drawing them in.

Two years ago, Mind embarked on a project to refresh our brand and communications. Like many charities, we felt we weren’t making our case strongly enough. People knew our name, but the general public were unclear about what we did and what we stood for. We were finding it difficult to recruit new donors. We knew what we did mattered, but the message didn’t seem to be getting across. Our fundraising needed a refresh.

The first thing we did was research. We spoke to our supporters, our potential supporters and people who’d never heard of us. We asked them what made them give to charity, and what would persuade them to give to Mind. We asked them what they thought we should be doing – and breathed a sigh of relief when this pretty much matched what we were doing.

Then we took a long, hard look internally. We asked ourselves what Mind was all about. What did we believe in? What do we stand for as an organisation? And, crucially, why do we do what we do?

Next we asked ourselves whether our existing communications reflected that. We found that, in general, they didn’t.

So we reviewed our positioning and messaging. We overhauled our visual identity and, more importantly, our verbal identity and tone of voice.

We knew we had to start telling a more compelling story. Making people care about your cause means making them care about the people it affects, and helping them understand how your work makes a difference.

Mind has always focused on people – how mental health problems can affect individuals. But, somehow, we’d forgotten to put that at the heart of everything we said. Our new brand strategy emphasised that we should focus on real-life experiences, rather than policy or diagnosis. This approach works for all our audiences, from service users to campaigners to donors. Although the stories might change, the values don’t. We use quotes and case studies wherever possible and we’re not afraid to shy away from the emotional impact of the issues.

We were also mindful not to overload people with information. Given the huge number of communications people see every day, and the relatively short amount of time you have to get their attention, it helps to repeat the same, simple messages, rather than bombard people with reams of informative detail.

Of course, agreeing what those key messages are requires some negotiation, and there will always be teams that feel they’re being overlooked. Deciding what gets top billing will require some internal discussions. At Mind, we went back to the research that told us what our audiences were most interested in. And we used that to get their attention.

We were also keen to put fundraising at the heart of our business. Too often, ‘fundraising’ is seen as a dirty word; it’s surprising how often charity employees will admit that they feel rude or pushy asking for money. But without funds coming in, we wouldn’t be able to support anyone. So, as part of the new guidelines, we include a fundraising ask as standard on all materials. We tell everyone we’re a charity, all the time, just so they don’t forget. It sounds like a small thing but, actually, why would someone give you money unless they know you need it?

Fundraising doesn’t stand alone from the communications strategy of the organisation; it should be an integral part of it. By ensuring your brand and key messages support the story you’re telling to donors, you can ensure all your communications are working harder.

As well as working together internally, collaborating with other charities is worth considering. Time to Change is a partnership between Mind and Rethink Mental Illness, and funders are increasingly looking for partnership working.

Cross-working with other organisations, both in policy, campaigning and fundraising, is beneficial to all the charities because it raises the issue clearly. Certainly, mental health charities have benefitted both from increased income and improved public attitudes as a result of this.