Fundraising Bright Spots Rob Woods, Bright Spot

One of the best ways to grow fundraising income is to find ways to add value to relationships with supporters and partners. This makes sense in theory, but how do you do it in practice, and with consistency, especially if your resources are limited?
Events can be very effective! Though many charities use them to raise funds directly, it is less common to regularly use events for stewardship and to inspire subsequent support or partnerships.
In this episode Chris Salt describes the event strategy that his relatively small charity uses to inspire existing and potential corporate partners. The approach has helped fuel his charity’s best ever year of corporate fundraising results. To help you weigh up whether something similar could help your own fundraising, Chris shares how they do it and what they’ve learned.
We’d love to know what you think! And thank you for supporting our show, for example, by sharing it with colleagues or on social media. We are both on LinkedIn and on X / twitter Rob is @woods_rob.

There are many ways to deepen relationships with people who care about your good cause. At Bright Spot, one of our favourites is to create Wow Moments - something that makes them feel great or helps them connect with your charity at a deeper level compared to what most would expect.
Sometimes this involves a creative, ambitious approach that other charities wouldn’t even think of. But just as often, the ‘wow’ is experienced by your supporter because you do something thoughtful and bespoke, rather than something especially surprising. What’s great about this is that these ideas are very do-able! And what’s difficult about it is that they are also easy to not do, (or manage to do regularly). They often take a little extra effort.
To give you new ideas, and maybe a nudge of inspiration to make time for your existing good idea, Ben and Rob share various Wow Moments that have inspired them recently. They share examples of smart fundraisers taking part in Bright Spot’s recent Corporate Mastery and Major Gifts Mastery Programmes.
We’d love to know what you think! And thank you for supporting our show, for example, by sharing it with colleagues or on social media. We are both on LinkedIn and on X / twitter Ben is @benswart and Rob is @woods_rob.

When you concentrate more effort developing relationships with a relatively small number of supporters or corporate partners with high potential, it becomes much easier to grow high value income.
We’ve also found that although this idea makes sense to many people in theory, it can be hard to apply in practice. So what can you do to overcome the various barriers to more focused and effective relationship-building with partners / supporters / funders?
Using examples of successful partnerships and major gift fundraising growth from people on Bright Spot’s recent mastery programmes, in this episode Rob and Ben share techniques to help you harness the power of highly focused effort.
We’d love to know what you think! And thank you for supporting our show, e.g. by sharing it with colleagues or on social media. We are both on LinkedIn and on X / twitter Ben is @benswart and Rob is @woods_rob.

An effective way to grow fundraising income is to add value to relationships with high value supporters. But how do find ways to do it? One approach is to start looking at your existing resources differently.
When you ask yourself what potential assets you could make use of, rather than what is difficult for your charity; and what you can give (to relationships with supporters) rather than what you can get from them… amazing things become possible.
To help you look again at opportunities (that might be under your nose), Rob and Ben share stories of creative, determined fundraisers doing things a bit differently and creating WOW moments for their donors / supporters.
We’d love to know what you think! And thank you for supporting our show, e.g. by sharing it with colleagues or on social media. We are both on LinkedIn and on X / twitter Ben is @benswart and Rob is @woods_rob.

What can fundraisers do to increase our chances of securing large, multi-year donations from trusts and charitable foundations?
Rob was delighted to talk to Caroline Danks, a wise fundraiser with 20 years’ experience of working with Trusts and Foundations. In the last two years, three different charities she’s worked with have received six-figure, multi-year grants. Caroline noticed a clear pattern across all three examples.
Caroline and Rob discuss the four factors common to all three successes and explore ideas and tips to help you make use of them in your own fundraising with trusts and foundations.
We’d love to know what you think! And thank you for supporting our show, for instance by sharing it with colleagues or on social media. We are both on LinkedIn and on X / twitter Caroline is @LarkOwlUK and Rob is @woods_rob.

One greatly under-estimated tool for building relationships with potential funders, corporate partners and major donors, is LinkedIn. But what’s the most effective approach?
Rob was delighted to talk to fundraising and LinkedIn expert Michelle Benson. After many years as a fundraiser and grant giver, Michelle has found that most fundraisers are failing to make the most of this potent tool for success in major donor / trusts / corporate partnerships fundraising.
Michelle and Rob discuss an approach which is different to what most people usually do. Rather than you chase them, a better way is to attract your ideal funders and partners to seek you out and want to develop relationships with you! She explains exactly why it’s so effective to do things differently, as well as a few simple habits that will help you get conversations with the right partners and funders for your charity.
We’d love to know what you think! And thank you for supporting our show, for instance by sharing it with colleagues or on social media. We are both on LinkedIn (!) and on X / twitter Rob is @woods_rob.