If the sector could have one wish granted, what would you want it to be? Our experts reveal their greatest fundraising wishes.

Mark Astarita, director of fundraising, British Red Cross

Hundreds of millions of pounds go back to high-rate tax (HRT) payers in Gift Aid reclaims every year. A few, sadly, bring the good name of charity in to disrepute attempting to fiddle the system for personal gain. The vast majority of ordinary rate tax payers, however, receive no incentive to give. Why is it that we assume HRT payers need an incentive to give, but ordinary folk do not? There is sparse evidence that donors are motivated by the tax breaks either here or in the USA when they give. I personally have never been asked about tax, even for the biggest million-pound-plus donations, and often have to mention it. Generous people would be delighted if even more went to the charity or their CAF account if all Gift Aid goes to charity. Give all high-rate Gift Aid back to charity now; it would be worth millions to us all.

Alan Gosschalk, director of fundraising, Scope

As a fundraiser, the first thing I’d ask for would be for two wishes! It should be no surprise that my first would be for charities to improve how they communicate their work and better demonstrate impact, which would really help donors and the general public to understand the role of charity. This would be matched by greater transparency about how the money raised by charities is spent, as well as how decisions about funding are made by grant makers. It would also be lovely to see charities and trade bodies working together better for the good of the sector – this would make a massive difference to both effectiveness and public perception. Secondly, it would be fantastic if event organisers charged charities the same amount for places as they do individual entrants, and that no VAT applied! As our sporting events are so successful, this would generate a six-figure gain for Scope, and would obviously have a much bigger impact across the sector.

Joe Saxton, founder and driver of ideas at nfpSynergy 

I would like the government to give corporate Gift Aid back to charities. This would mean that its treatment is similar to individual Gift Aid. At present, if a company makes a donation to charity the company claims the donation as a tax relief. This system was introduced in 2001; before that, the charity got the Gift Aid.
Now, our calculations have estimated that if this change was made, it would be worth around £230m to charities in corporate Gift Aid each year. That is considerable extra income for charities - and it shouldn’t cost government a penny, because it’s a tax relief that will be taken off companies and given to charities. While a charity will really notice the benefit of corporate Gift Aid – because corporate donations are, say, 10 per cent of a charity’s income – a company won’t, because only around 0.5 per cent of a company’s costs are donations.

Giles Pegram CBE, fundraising consultant 

I would wish that boards of trustees, and top charity management, would realise that fundraising is about connecting the donor to the cause, and not about measuring income raised in the year compared to expenditure on fundraising. Fundraisers should be encouraged to think long term. The process of cultivating a prospect for a major gift may well take longer than a year. Fundraisers should be encouraged to invest in stewardship and retention; areas that won’t show results in the year, but that will produce significant increases in the longer term. Satisfaction => commitment => loyalty => lifetime value: the one key measure we should be looking at. We could be raising shedloads of extra income if donors felt valued and encouraged to experience the joy of giving, not just treated as a short term ATM.

Lyndall Stein, independent fundraiser

I wish that the expert knowledge fundraisers work with everyday could be more effectively shared across the sector – that we all made a real commitment to mentoring the small but important organisations who do not even have the resources to employ professional fundraisers. I wish that our colleagues in other teams had more respect and understanding of the evidence and rigour we need to apply every day in order to raise money for the work we do, and that trustees would recognise that their leadership must including contributing and donating to set a positive example of why others should give.