Seven Steps to Increasing Your Trust Fundraising Income

Whether you are just starting a career in trust fundraising or need some guidance with your trust fundraising work – these ideas will help you to begin planning to increase your trust fundraising income. The following seven ways are a good start to help you find connections, develop relationships with funders and find new ideas to increase income.

Engage With Your Trustees

An important initial exercise is to begin a mapping exercise with your trustees, patrons and staff. This exercise will discover if they have any important connections with trusts and foundations on your pipeline. Sending them a list of key contacts from your prospect list could find that vital connection that can help develop your income. Working with key members of your charity could open up a crucial link to a trust or foundation and begin a lasting relationship.

Build Relationships With Trusts and Foundations

Developing a relationship and stewardship with key individuals at charitable trusts and foundations is vital to increasing income. Thank them for donations on the phone, invite them to visit and to see your project first-hand. Ask them if they would attend a meeting to discuss possible future applications. These are all key ways to build that relationship which will increase your confidence levels when applying to trusts and foundations.

Use Social Media to Engage With Trusts and Foundations

Charitable trusts and foundations are using social media more frequently especially Twitter and LinkedIn. If you have a communications and marketing team, work with them to follow and engage with existing and potential funders. Thank them on Twitter for their donations, retweet their content, provide information on projects they have funded. Engaging with them this way will develop a far greater connection with them.

Work on Your Case for Support

Once you have undertaken your initial work such as your research, the case for support is a crucial document to highlight your cause. Ensure that you highlight your need, focus on impact and show how you consult with beneficiaries. Other important aspects of a case for support are how you monitor and evaluate your project and provide them with a good fundraising plan. Use case studies, quotes and photos to make the case for support more appealing to funders. Share this document with someone external from the charity to get a different perspective.

Increase Your Trusts and Foundations Research

Ensure that you keep researching potential sources for new charitable trusts and foundation prospects. In addition to well known websites such as DSC & Grants Online, there are many others that will provide you with new prospects (Invisible Grantmakers, Funding Central). Search the internet for new sources, use social media and talk to other trust fundraisers to find websites or publications that will increase your prospect list.

Learn More About Your Cause

The more you engage with your cause, the more enthusiastic you will be when discussing your charity’s projects with trusts and foundations. Speak to staff at your charity face-to-face if possible and see your project in action. This will help bring your case for support and your pitch to funders to life. In addition, this will help you develop relationships with key members of staff.

Improve Your Planning

Being organised and having a process is essential in trust fundraising. Whether you use an internal database, gantt charts or an app like Trello, make sure you have a process. This will ensure that you don’t miss deadlines, and have a path to secure those important grants for your charity. Set actions and reminders and have a user-friendly dashboard to plan your schedule to achieve your goals.

If you need support with increasing your pipeline of potential funders, application expertise or support with increasing your trust fundraising income please contact me for more information. We can schedule a free consultation to see how I can support you with your fundraising needs.