supporter centric charity is dead.
Your supporters are 100% amazing. They need your love, understanding and appreciation more than ever. But they’re also not the heroes of your story…
The way we raise money has the power to inspire, engage, and mobilise people as a collective force for good. But some of the tactics, techniques and language that are often still seen as fundraising best practice, continue to supported damaging stereotypes and assumptions about the communities we each serve. Bolstering systemic issues that cause many of the injustices the sector exists to help overcome.
At the heart of problem is the issue is power. Who has it and who doesn’t.
For decades, the supporter has been at the centre of each fundraising story and ask. Also known as supporter-centric fundraising. Sounds so right it can’t be wrong? But what started out simply as a desire to show supporters how important they are, has encouraged stories of helplessness, indignity and pity while chasing short-term financial targets. It’s not that supporter’s role isn’t vital or inspiring. It’s just they’re not the only heroes of your story.
This idea, of a more just form of charity isn’t new. And conversations about representation are nothing new either. See the “Piss on Pity” campaign to Block ITV’s Telethon ill-judged fundraising TV show in the 1990s. Or even further back the Blind Trade Unionists March in 1920s. But this is no longer about pioneering groups. The disconnect between traditional approaches to charity story-telling and the modern values and beliefs of supporters, communities, service users and staff alike is real. And it’s growing.
Fundraising traditionalists might dismiss this thinking as wrong headed or sector naval-gazing. (Ever heard something like “That’s all very nice but if you want the money, you need to stick with what works”.) But that’s to deeply misunderstand what’s at stake here.
To stay relevant, the sector needs a new guiding philosophy of giving: a radically different idea placed at the heart of charitable giving. One that refines donors as vital partners not superheroes.
A really visable example of this tension between the old and new ways of fundraising right now is in international humanitarian aid and development, where the long overdue shift to decolonise is pushing many to re-think how they ask for money. And they’re not the only ones. From cancer care to mental health many others are picking up where those pioneering trade unionists left off in demanding justice not charity.
One thing is clear to us: the “our supporters are the heroes” fundraising philosophy - the one that’s defined individual giving for decades - doesn’t have a future. But that doesn’t mean supporters aren’t amazing, vital and inspiring. It’s not the zero sum game.
At Optimist, we’ve been partnering with charities to put a more equitable power dynamic at the heart of their appeals. It’s a strategic creative approach based on 20+ years of debate, mistakes and success working inside and outside the charity sector.
We’ve been calling it citizen*-centric fundraising. For us this idea sums up a new kind of charity power dynamic.
It’s a fundraising philosophy rooted in equal participation in solving the world’s problems. In shared power and working for the common good together. In the communities you work for, your frontline staff, volunteers and supporters uniting for the future they’re creating together. In solving the biggest problems facing the world today, not as individuals, but together.
It’s not simple. And we’re definitely not saying we’ve got all the answers! But we’re convinced that your community, supporters, service-users, staff and partners do. And sticking solely with the past doesn’t have a future.
To find out more about how we collaborate on fundraising narrative, proposition development and direct marketing, read this case study on our work with Oxfam International.
*We’ve been massively influenced by the amazing work of Jon Alexander and especially his “citizen shift” thinking on how people not institutions hold the power to change the world. Find out more at: https://jonalexander.net/
The ‘Community-Centric Fundraising’ Movement: a more recent discovery for us is the powerful and inspiring work of the movement for community-centric fundraising which has been building since 2015! Lots in here to get stuck into here but we’d recommend starting with their ten principles: https://communitycentricfundraising.org/ccf-principles/
Optimist Works x Oxfam International:
See how this citizen-centric thinking led our approach to developing a new fundraising proposition for Oxfam International:
https://www.optimist.works/works/oxfaminternational