GREAT WESTERN HOSPITALS NHS FOUNDATION TRUST. Fundraising Strategy

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1 Meeting: Trust Board 25 th November 2010 Title: Fundraising Strategy Executive Summary: Although there is a longstanding tradition of giving within Swindon and Wiltshire, the economic position is very difficult and the Trust s income from charitable donations has fallen in recent years. The economic position and the impact on public services, including health, will present unprecedented funding challenges and could drive public perception about charitable funds. We want to engage with our staff and community not only to raise funds for improvements above those which should properly be funded by the NHS, but also to ensure public and staff influence in the development of services and support for specific projects. At present our approach to fundraising is reactive, supported by an administrative role, one day per week. The post holder provides information and support to local community groups who wish to donate or carry out a fundraising activity for the Trust. Directorates periodically undertake fund raising and charitable events on an ad-hoc basis. This paper sets out background information on how fund raising can work, and how it can support the wider strategic objectives of the organisation, over and above raising money. The paper also sets out at Appendix (B) potential sources of charitable income which a more proactive fundraising approach could enable the organisation to tap into. Members of the Trust Board are asked to note the approach outlined in the paper to develop an approach to fundraising in three stages (1) to develop a fundraising plan for the Birth Centre which will be led by the W&C directorate and direct the existing one day a week resource for fundraising towards supporting the Birth Centre campaign (2) to rebrand GWH Charitable Funds into a named charity to build a presence across the local community and encourage donations 3) to evaluate the success of the Birth Centre campaign to inform decisions by the Charitable Funds (CF) Committee about creating a fixed term post to develop the Trust s fundraising function in the future (funded by the CF Committee). The Charitable Funds Committee has already agreed to fund the rebranding of the CF Committee, developing a suite of materials to give to prospective fundraisers to support them in their efforts. The CF Committee have also agreed to release the current one day a week resource dedicated to fundraising to support efforts to raise money for the Birth Centre. Members of the Board are asked to seek input from the Council of Governors some of whom have experience in the community and voluntary sector and of fundraising in general.. This paper was approved by the Charitable Funds Committee in October Helen Bourner, Director of Business Development Page 1 of 9

2 Approach to increasing income through fundraising activity to support the Trust s strategic priorities and objectives Introduction With the financial challenges facing the NHS, GWH needs to be in a position to generate income through alternative methods to support the Trust s strategic objectives and priorities. With funding for capital projects under review, this paper provides suggestions for a more proactive and strategic approach to fundraising to capture the hearts and minds of the people of Swindon and Wiltshire and to support the development of new services and innovation. It suggests: Developing a proactive and strategic approach to fundraising Undertaking this work in two stages, an initial pilot to fundraise for the Birth Centre releasing the current one day a week resource to be dedicated to raising funds for the Birth Centre Following this activity evaluate the resource required for future appeals with a full time post dedicated to fundraising resourced by the Charitable Funds Committee. Reviewing the current systems and process in place in communicating with current donors to ensure they are informed of how they have contributed to the Trust (which services/equipment they have supported) closing the loop. Aim It is essential that any fundraising plans and activity in the future support the Trust s vision and strategic objectives. The Trust s vision is to: Provide healthcare services that delight patients and satisfy commissioners by meeting or exceeding all local and national standards and providing convenient local services. This vision will be achieved through six strategic objectives: 1. To provide consistently high quality, safe services which deliver desired patient outcomes and in two areas (HSMR and patient experience/satisfaction) we will perform in the top 20% of similar Trusts. 2. To improve the patient and carer experience of every aspect of the service and care we deliver. 3. To ensure that staff are proud to work at GWH and would recommend the Trust to patients and as a great place to work. 4. To secure the long term financial health of the Trust. 5. To adopt new approaches and innovate so we improve services as healthcare changes alongside continuing to become even more efficient. 6. To work in partnership with others so that we provide seamless care for patients. Fundraising can help achieve these objectives by generating income to help secure the financial health of the Trust, support and raise the profile of innovation encouraging staff to think and do things differently to overcome the challenges of the next five years and support the development of new services/capital projects helping improve patient experience. Existing fundraising activity In the past three years income to the Trust Charitable Fund has fallen: 08/09: 286k 07/08: 235k 06/07: 360k Page 2 of 9

3 This income is generated through voluntary income, donations, legacies, fundraising events and investments. Fundraising at GWH is currently not supported by a full-time member of staff, ad-hoc donations to the Trust are supported by a member of the Voluntary Services Team, along with donations also being made direct to wards and recorded through the Trust s Charitable Fund. The approach to fundraising at GWH has been primarily reactive with donations made by local charities and individuals with little proactive solicitation for specific appeals being undertaken. Currently there is a tendency for individual departments and teams in the Trust to approach individuals and businesses directly requesting donations. This leads to repeated requests in an unplanned manner, duplicating effort which risks the Trust s reputation and alienating potential donors. By adopting a more strategic and planned approach, requests can be joined up minimising demands on potential donors. Our competitors There is significant scope for developing a fundraising strategy which will assist the Trust in responding to the challenges being faced over the coming years. This is an area where neighbouring organisations have dedicated resource directed towards fundraising which have helped contribute to increased income. For example: Royal Berkshire: The Trust has a turnover of 240m and earlier this year appointed a Director of Fundraising and two fundraisers with an objective of raising several million of pounds over the next few years. Basingstoke and North Hampshire: The Trust has a turnover of 140m and currently has one full-time fundraiser (Band 7) in post. In 2009, they raised 300,000 but are looking to substantially increase their fundraising targets from 2010 onwards which will involve expanding their fundraising team. North Bristol Trust: The Trust appointed a substantive Head of Fundraising in 2009 and in 2009/10 received 3.27million in charitable income. This was largely from legacies and high value donations. The Trust spent 77,000 to achieve this return. GWH will fall behind its competitors in having the resources available to fund improvements in patient services if a proactive fundraising function is not considered. Strategic approach to successful fundraising The Trust will be competing for a share of people s disposable income in a crowded market place at a time when the economic environment continues to be difficult. However, it is clear that there is a significant amount of goodwill and support amongst local people for local NHS services with GWH a focal point of the local community. (See SWOT Analysis in Appendix 1). A clear identity will be needed for the Trust s Charitable Funds which is clear and appealing to the public. For example, North Bristol rebranded their Charitable Funds as Shine Together. This will raise the profile of charitable funds and help local people identify with a campaign for their hospital. To successfully engage with the local population (including businesses and charity organisations) and encourage them to fundraise for the hospital or give donations, it will be important to ensure that fundraising activity is focused around specific high profile projects rather than fundraising for fundraising s sake. This makes the offer to local people a clear one we want to raise a certain amount of money and in return we will provide you with a specific service. Page 3 of 9

4 There are some areas of the hospital which already enjoy good support from the local community in terms of donations Children s Unit, Maternity Unit and Cancer Services. It is common in hospitals that some of the most emotive areas already have good relationships with local groups. What we need to do is capture that support and seek to utilise it to support projects of strategic importance to the organisation rather than ad-hoc fundraising. Whilst reactive donations will continue to be important they will not reap the biggest dividends in terms of helping develop new services. People will donate money for a service/building that they can physically see the benefit from. Criteria will need to be identified to determine suitable projects for fundraising for example: a physical output (a new piece of equipment or service) clear benefits in terms of patient experience clear costs support from local people and potential donors support from the local media. The Birth Centre is a good example of a project with a strategic aim. Proactive fundraising on issues such as this makes the fundraising process much more likely to succeed. Given this will be a new approach to fundraising at GWH it is important that activity is manageable and achievable. By focusing initially on one specific projects, time can be given to careful planning, monitoring and evaluation of the results before longer-term decisions are taken about the size and scope of fundraising activity in relation to the Trust s plans. Success in smaller projects gives confidence to tackle larger ones; smaller failures can be more easily managed without exposing the Trust to high levels of risk. Fundraising activity at GWH should pursue two specific objectives: Donation solicitation activities undertaken by the Trust where groups or individuals are proactively asked to donate money for specific projects (pure philanthropy) Income generation opportunities to generate income through activities such as a staff lottery or shop sales etc, where a commercial transaction takes place (both parties benefit) To successfully increase income through fundraising, the Trust will need to develop efficient administration and processes with dedicated resource in the Business Development team to develop and manage fundraising projects. For our fundraising activity to be successful we will rely on the efforts of staff in departments and teams to make themselves available to meet potential donors and get involved directly in any activity. Support can be provided by the Marketing and Communications Team but without the ownership and direct involvement of the staff concerned the Trust will be unable to generate the levels of income needed. We will also need to ensure that sufficient resource is dedicated to relationship building to increase the return on investment. If we are to match the success of other Trust s income generation, this function cannot be an add on to the day job and will require its own dedicated resource. An initial scoping exercise to identify potential opportunities for fundraising to support priority capital project was undertaken earlier this summer. It was also undertaken to understand the fundraising activities of other Trusts to learn from their experiences. This exercise highlighted the breadth of fundraising opportunities which exist in the Trust and a demand from staff to have a central resource to support them in their fundraising activities Page 4 of 9

5 in a planned and strategic way. It also highlighted the need for dedicated resource for fundraising to be truly successful. With limited resources currently at the Trust s disposal to support fundraising (at present one day a week of one member of staff is dedicated to fundraising), the scoping exercise highlighted that there are significant projects, such as the new MRI scanner which could have a dedicated campaign to support them. However due to the scale of the funds the Trust would need to raise for a project of that scale, the fundraising activity would require significant pump priming from Charitable Funds to resource this activity. There are however smaller projects, such as the Birth Centre interior which provide better opportunities which we could use as a pilot to evaluate the resources and investment required for future campaigns. The Birth Centre requires 50k to fund the interior refurbishment to fund many of the fixtures, fittings and furnishings which will create a less clinical, more comfortable environment for mothers. It is therefore suggested that we approach future fundraising activity in two phases: Phase one: Develop a Fundraising Plan for a proactive fundraising campaign to support the Birth Centre which has the active involvement of staff within the Directorate to help the Trust assess the resources required in the future to fundraise for larger scale projects. We will use the funds made available to the Women and Children s Directorate by the Charitable Funds Committee to support these initial fundraising activities. To support this work it is recommended that the current resource of one day a week providing through Voluntary Services is directed towards supporting the Birth Centre fundraising activity. Aligned to this the Trust should look at developing an umbrella brand for our fundraising activity under which all activity and appeals will be undertaken. This is a similar approach taken by many other neighbouring organisations and over time will help build a presence across the local community which is identifiable and projects the right image. This would cost circa 5k which would be used to develop the brand and update our generic fundraising marketing collateral which is currently out of date. Phase two: Undertake an evaluation of the Birth Centre fundraising activity to determine what resources the Charitable Funds Committee would need to invest to undertake long term, sustained proactive fundraising campaigns in the future. Based on the experience of other organisations and given the limited resource available it would take approximately one year to raise the 50k without dedicated resource. Engaging key audiences Successful fundraising is about building successful relationships with individuals, organisations and businesses. For fundraising to be truly effective significant effort is required to build, manage and service these relationships. To undertake long term, proactive fundraising campaigns, the Trust should work in partnership with other registered charities which have an interest in particular appeals. For example, for Radiotherapy this could be Macmillan or Cancer Research, this reduces the Trust s effort, maximises the reach of specific campaigns by drawing on the experience of experts in the field. An active and engaged membership base will be an important part of any fundraising initiative. The Trust should seek to capture the imagination of members around a particular issue and encourage them to act as advocates. In turn this help members feel more involved with the Trust. Page 5 of 9

6 Understanding the needs of donors Like any relationship building process, research is required to generate insight into their behaviours so that fundraising activities best address the needs and expectations of donors at the same time as addressing our own objectives. To support this work the Trust would need to undertake routine prospect research. According to the Institute of Fundraising this is the identification of, and subsequent research into, prospective major donors and influencers - individuals, trusts and companies - with a view to maximising their support for your organisation. It involves the gathering and analysis of biographical, financial, corporate and philanthropic information from a wide variety of sources, both publicly available and those unique to your organisation (such as your supporter database). Prospect research is invariably time-consuming and complex, as each piece of research needs to be tailored to the individual prospect being researched and relevant to the requirements of your organisation, but it is a proven cost-effective way of raising significant funds. Potential sources of charitable income Detailed below are a number of tactics GWH can use to increase donations to support the development of new services. These are tried and tested tactics elsewhere in the NHS: Corporate giving - Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has led to an increase in charitable donations by corporate organisations over the past decade. Being associated with an organisation such as the Trust, which is an important part of the local community, would improve a corporate organisation s image and reputation. Support from a corporate sponsor can help fund a more expensive publicity campaign or particular fundraising event. However, it is important that the Trust approaches organisations that have similar values and support the hospital s image. Whilst the recession has impacted on corporate giving there remains an appetite for this type of activity in the private sector. There is also potential for staff within these organisations adopting GWH as their charity of choice. Direct marketing and direct mail appeals Direct marketing is commonly used by charities to solicit donations and has a proven track record of generating substantial income to the third sector. However, it is important to use direct marketing (particularly direct mail) carefully. With the advent of web 2.0 technology the web is increasingly used to make these types of appeals but direct mail still generates significant income. Sponsored events Sponsored events such as Race for Life in aid of Breast Cancer research generate significant income for the third sector whether they are sponsored bike rides, runs or walks, they all capitalise on an appetite amongst the public to raise money for good causes at the same time as giving individuals a goal to achieve. Auctions, raffles and other opportunities also present a good opportunity to raise additional funds. High profile individuals The support of wealthy and well-connected individuals can add credibility, free publicity or even glamour to the Trust s fundraising activities. Again, any individuals that are approached should have similar public values to the Trust. Legacies Local people may be keen to support the hospital and give something back for the care and treatment they received whilst at GWH. Although a longer term option, research by West Norfolk Voluntary and Community Action has shown that the average time from a charity being named in a will to receiving a legacy is five years. 6% of income from large charities comes from wills. Page 6 of 9

7 Community fundraising At Christmas the hospital is regularly contacted by many local community groups to make donations of presents etc to areas such as the Children s Unit. However the Trust does not actively seek their support or provide them with advice and support on how they may be able to raise bigger donations. Harnessing the power of community groups and the relationships they build with local people is one of the ways we will be able to reach the public without needing to go to them directly. Regular giving encouraging people to give regularly to the hospital via direct debit. Income tax can be reclaimed if the donor is a UK tax payer but will involve some administration for the Trust. Payroll giving The average donation made to charity through payroll giving is 7-10 a month according to the Institute of Fundraising with the average longevity of a donation lasting between five-eight years this provides a potential area for generating income. Linking with local business to encourage their staff to give via their payroll or be the named Charity of the Year will help generate further income. The Trust already offers employees the opportunity to donate to charities via payroll giving. The employee has the net amount deducted from their salary but the charity (the Trust) would receive the gross amount including tax. Staff at GWH may also be keen to support specific projects around the Trust. Celebration gifts individuals can opt to have a donation made to their favourite charity in lieu of a birthday gift or gift for another celebration. Gift aid the Trust will be able to reclaim the basic rate of tax on donations. The Trust will need to investigate whether it can register as a charity. Staff sponsors Members of staff /friends and family should be encourage to raise money for the Trust through sponsored walks, runs and other sporting challenges. Resources and expenditure To effectively support proactive fundraising activity, funding will need to be allocated for specific appeals. Funding will be required for items such as expenditure on; print and publications, advertising, marketing, events and administration along with the active support of dedicated staff/volunteers. Charitable Funds could pump prime this investment in the short term. In the longer term, following an evaluation of the success of the Birth Centre activity, agreement would need to be reached in terms of the investment to be made in staffing to ensure the effective administration of all fundraising activity. Training will also need to be provided to those undertaking fundraising activity. To oversee and coordinate specific fundraising activity a small appeals groups should be established with representation from key areas in the organisation. Any increase in proactive fundraising activity will result in increased activity for other areas of the Trust. Directorates involved in specific appeals will need to devote time to planning the fundraising campaign, agreeing the case for support and cultivating potential donors. This will require attendance at planning meetings, making staff available to talk to potential donors, through face to face meetings or helping make presentations to larger groups. Measuring success If a post is funded in the future, the Trust s measure of success for fundraising activity should be measured against the following set of KPIs: Income against target Expenditure against budget Cost to income ratio Page 7 of 9

8 Number of potential major donors researched Number of people on a donor register Number of face to face meetings with funders/donors (when applicable). Activity will then be benchmarked against 2009/10 fundraising income and targets will be set over the next three years. November 2010 Page 8 of 9

9 Appendix 1: Fundraising SWOT analysis This analysis looks at the strengths and weaknesses of the Trust which impact its ability to raise income through fundraising. It also provides a brief assessment of the opportunities available to the Trust to increase charitable income and external threats which may impact the Trust s ability to develop further streams of charitable income. Strengths Strong local links with local communities along with a dedicated and motivated staff base. As part of the NHS, the NHS brand clearly sends a message about what we do as an organisation and as a result the Trust benefits from significant goodwill. GWH is a high performing Trust and has a number of potential fundraising areas which would benefit from public support. Weaknesses Due to a lack of fundraising support and expertise, historically GWH has had a reactive approach to fundraising. There is no long term strategy for fundraising in place and specific opportunities have not been clearly identified. The Trust also lacks experienced staff who are able to support fundraising activity in a strategic manner. Income has declined over recent years and funds raised previously sometimes go unspent as staff are not aware of the process of requesting charitable funds. Donations are generally not directly linked to specific projects and areas of the Trust and donors are not made aware of what their donation has funded which discourages repeat giving and does not foster a feeling of loyalty and affection for the Trust. Opportunities Over with next few years within a more challenging fiscal environment the risk to the achievement of key strategic objectives grows. Fundraising presents an excellent opportunity to identify other income streams to support important projects. There is also a willingness from the Business Development team to support this area of work. Fundraising will support Trust projects which are at risk of failure in a flat cash environment and support their delivery by bringing new income to the Trust. There are a number of potential fundraising projects that would generate positive public support i.e. Birth Centre, Radiotherapy and MRI. Fundraising for a specific issue will offer excellent media opportunities to raise the profile of the specific issue and in turn GWH. It will offer a number of media opportunities to feature members of the public, members etc who are fundraising on the Trust s behalf. Fundraising for specific campaigns will encourage repeat giving and have a stronger emotional appeal for donors. Threats The impact of the recession is still being felt and will affect the Trust s ability to raise funds during this time. The fundraising market place remains crowded and it therefore makes it more challenging to compete for attention. The Trust currently has over 1m in charitable donations but is unable to use it for one specific project as many of the donations have been gifted with restrictions. A disjointed or reactive approach to fund raising increases the chances of funds not being used to support strategic objectives. Failure to plan fundraising activity and resources appropriately will impact on success. Page 9 of 9