December 17, 2024 - Fundraising Everywhere

Written by Nikki Bell, Co-Founder of Fundraising Everywhere

Nikki is the co-founder of Fundraising Everywhere, featured in 2021’s Digital Womxn to Watch, and an international speaker about building innovative and inclusive teams.

As we (fruitlessly) attempt to clear our inboxes for Christmas and look to a new year, I wanted to pause for a moment of reflection and gratitude for what has been an incredible year.

Going into 2024 we set ourselves modest growth goals to allow space to test new ways of reaching fundraisers and well, some went great…others didn’t.

This might not be the most exciting read for many of you. But, for transparency, I want it to exist somewhere so you can see behind the curtain.

Before I get into the stats though, I want to say ‘thank you’.

We couldn’t have achieved any of this without you.

Whether you’ve joined as an attendee, have chosen to push your professional development forward with us as a member, shown your support on social media, or partnered with us as a sponsor; it’s all noticed and appreciated. Thank you.

The good stuff

After a year ‘on pause’ in 2023, 2024 was all about bringing to life those new ideas we’d had bubbling – and most of it focused on creating offline spaces to deepen connections and bespoke learning programmes to deepen learning.

In June 2024 we hosted our very first Picnics Everywhere, a national (turned international!) day of getting together in outdoor spaces to share connections over shared food. In the end, we had 23 fundraiser picnics popping up in local parks with 389 people heading along to take part; a beautiful example of combining the outdoors with relaxed networking opportunities for people to relax and have fun with work events.

Keeping with the IRL theme, 2024 was the first year of trialing our IRL networking events which popped up in Newcastle, London, Manchester, Leeds, Edinburgh, and Chichester. It was a wonderful way to continue those conversations we’d started online and put faces to names after so many virtual conferences and webinars. A particular highlight was feedback from a fundraiser who had recently joined the sector from the private sector who said, ‘this is by far the best networking event I’ve been to, and I’ve been to a lot! You’ve nailed the energy and it feels so good to be here’

We’ll be continuing with both of these in 2025!

I should highlight here that both of these would not be possible without the people who gave up their time to help us organise and host these – we’re a relatively small team with only two of the three of us on the ‘fundraiser facing’ side of FE living in the UK, so we’re genuinely grateful to every picnic and IRL event organiser and host who has made all of this possible; special thanks to Josh Leigh who went above and beyond to actually ‘be’ me at our second London event when my train was delayed by 5hrs…and to the patience of the Manchester Picnics Everywhere attendees who ended up hostless due to illness!

And when it came to improving how we supported fundraisers with their professional development, three things stand out from this year.

First, the Digital Learning Grant (DLG) funded by JustGiving – the DLG pilot allowed us to support 102 fundraisers with their digital fundraising skills by providing a specially curated training programme alongside six months of Fundraising Everywhere membership. The pilot ended in May with email marketing skills up 44.4%, digital fundraising strategy skills up by 90.7%, and small charity tactics skills up by 104%! You can read more of the outcomes here. We’ve just welcomed 200 fundraisers to the next cohort and will do it all over again from January 2025!

Next was our research into how and how much access to learning had an effect on a fundraisers ability to do their job – we expected positive results but the actual outcomes were amazing! Not only did we discover that providing access to learning (which most people accessed adhoc and online) improved their potential to reach their targets, but staff were more likely to have better well being and want to stay in their jobs. You can download your free copy here if you’d like to get the backing you need for investment in your development for 2025.

And finally, our new events. In 2024 we launched the Face to Face and Telephone, Supporter Experience, Fundraising Innovation, and Charity Digital Skills Conferences; as well as hosting our annual favourites including the Individual Giving, Trusts and Major Donors, Corporate, Legacies, and Events Fundraising Conference.

I’m always amazed and grateful for the support of our conferences; from the collaborators who help us curate or promote, to the speakers who lend their time and talents to teach; all of it is possible thanks to them and it’s brilliant to see how it helps people jump ahead in their work or career.

Who we reached

It was another cracking year for training and five years in, our community, reach, and impact still continues to grow.

Over the year, we’ve streamed the equivalent of 617 days worth of content, way up on previous years which reflects the preference highlighted in our research where fundraisers favoured the ease and accessibility of virtual. However, live conference views were down to 8,125 in 2024; a reflection of learning habits where fundraisers are choosing to learn adhoc and on-demand rather than booking out afternoons. More of that in our improvement section.

Our membership has grown to almost 2,000 and 63 organisational members (thank you, Cam!) and 515 people have joined us at our IRL networking events.

We platformed 239 speakers this year and have paid out over €30,000 either directly to them or to their favourite charities. Of these speakers, 38% described themselves as LGBTQIA+, 31% were from minoritised backgrounds, and 13% described themselves as disabled. All of these are increases on previous years, and I’m proud that alongside ‘seasoned’ speakers we are able to support and platform brand-new speakers who have gone on to feature elsewhere or progress in their career – definitely more of this in 2025!

What we need to work on

Obviously nothing is perfect and whilst everything we do comes from good intention, it doesn’t always go the way we expect.

In recent years, our focus has been on hosting amazing conferences for fundraisers. Whilst this still stands, recent research shows the majority of our community accesses our training on-demand – and with that there needs to be improvements.

We’ve been working with an agency on redesigning our on-demand experience for members which will go live in spring 2025. This will enable you to receive personalised recommendations for your learning journey, as well as the ability to track and save what you want to watch.

From our research it was apparent too that giving access to training wasn’t enough to help people use what they’ve learned, so we’ll be developing resources for our members to help them set and follow their own professional development goals. For our Organisational Members, we’ll be working alongside their Learning and Development teams to ensure what we do is complementary, for teams without this function we aim to be there as that support.

We’re also working really hard to improve how content is tagged on our website so you can search and find easily, and our email journeys are being updated to make sure you’re told about the learning opportunities that are right for you.

These are quite lengthy and costly projects so please bear with us, and give us feedback, as we navigate it!

Another area we’re improving in 2025 is our conference and webinar experience; both what you see as you attend and the content we host. Our aim is to confirm speakers and get their session information sooner so you’ll know exactly what you’ll be learning and when, and both speakers and sponsors will receive onboarding training so they’ll know how to deliver the best possible content to help you succeed. We’re recruiting an Events Manager to help us out with this so if you’d like to join us in the new year, please do apply!

We’ll be sharing more about our 2025 strategy in the new year which will share more about how and when we’ll be making these improvements, as well as what else we’ve got going on to help you succeed both in skills and confidence.

For now, please know how much I and the Fundraising Everywhere team appreciate you.

With each year brings new insights, challenges, and high points; and getting thorough stronger and better is entirely down to you and the community we support.

We hope your 2024 reflections fill you with the same gratitude we’ve had doing ours, and that we’ll celebrate even more successes in 2025.