Fundraising and Campaigning Work

Fundraising and campaigning work are both at the heart of any organisation that relies upon charitable donations from the public and/or business. They both require persistence, stealth and a steely determination to achieve your objectives. However, they both represent a crucial aspect of a charity’s ability to operate and without volunteers to work in these areas, many organisations that rely on financial donations would simply die and, therefore, their chosen causes might become neglected as a result.

Are they both the Same Thing?

Although fundraisers and campaigners cannot be strictly defined as one and the same thing, they are both intrinsically linked and one would find it hard to survive without the other as fundraisers rely on campaigners to get an organisation’s message across and the campaigners rely on the fundraisers to collect the money as a result. In certain charities, there is a good deal of cross-fertilisation whereby volunteers will be employed in both aspects whilst, for larger charities, they will often have a separate campaign office with marketing people, press officers and dedicated campaign strategists.

However, for the purposes of this article, it will outline some of the skills, personal qualities and duties required that would cover both disciplines given that many volunteers in charities are involved in both aspects. The essence being that fundraisers raise money, campaigners raise awareness.

Skills Required

All charities are operating in an extremely crowded market place where there is only a finite pot of money to go around. All of us will have several experiences, perhaps weekly, or even more frequently, of being asked for charitable donations and we’re not able to give all of the time. To be a skilled fundraiser or campaigner, you need to be sure that you have initially got your ‘message’ across appropriately to stir the consciences of those from whom you’re looking to raise funds and/or awareness.

Therefore, the types of skills and personal qualities you’ll need if you want to be good at it are:

• Good communication and interpersonal skills
• An ability to relate quickly and easily with people
• A persuasive nature
• Tenacity
• Determination
• An ability to thrive on targets
• Diplomacy
• Tact - especially if you’re at the ‘sharp’ end out on the street collecting, for example, where you’ll need to know the boundaries where people might feel intimidated by your request for money and you must know where to draw that line.

It’s important to remember that one person’s decision not to donate is no reflection on you or the cause you’re promoting and that it’s not worth ruining your organisation’s reputation by being too ‘pushy’. Campaigners also need to be creative and resourceful and be keen planners when it comes to the location, method and timings of a particular event or announcement or the message can end up being lost.

Typical Duties

These might include:

• House to house collections
• Collecting on the town’s main streets or outside shops
• Collecting clothing and other articles from people, which can be used to raise money.
• Leaflet dropping
• Arranging sponsorships
• Writing press releases and putting together press packs
• Writing applications for funding and sending mail shots
• Preparing reports for donors and trustees of the charity,
• Arranging/participating in ‘fun days’ or other events
• Producing posters and newsletters.

If you like the fast-paced ‘buzz’ of being at the heart of a campaign where everybody pitches in to achieve a common goal, usually by a certain deadline, if you’re a good talker and listener and have a ‘thick skin’ when it comes to knock-backs, this might be the voluntary opportunity you are looking for and any charity will always be glad of help from people who can display these types of skills and qualities. It’s then simply a matter of choosing which one.

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