®Fundraising is a system. It has to be read before it can be rebuilt.
So our work follows an order. We find out what is really happening, help you decide what to change, stay while it changes and make sure the organisation learns from it. Most clients start with one part and add the rest when they are ready.
Everything we do falls into four stages
Diagnose
An honest, evidenced picture of your fundraising system and what it is costing you. Not opinions, and not a review of the fundraising team. A score you can take to a board.
Design
Decide what the system should look like: how income is built as a portfolio, who decides what, where capability has to go and what stops.
Deliver
Put it all together. We stay in the room while the change meets real life. Most change programmes skip this stage, and it is the one that decides whether anything holds.
Learn
Build the feedback loops that make the system get smarter instead of repeating itself. The aim is that you never need us again for the same problem.
You choose the combination
The stages are a sequence, not a package. Some organisations want a diagnosis and nothing else, and that is a good outcome. Some already know what is wrong and need help making the change happen. We will tell you honestly which part you need, even when the answer is none of them.
Get in touchWhat we bring, in whatever mix the work needs
- Diagnostics and scoring
- Executive team facilitation
- Income portfolio design
- Decision rights and governance design
- Capability and capacity planning
- Leadership support through system change
- Board and trustee sessions
- Masterclasses and workshops
- Self-serve tools for teams doing the work themselves
We start with what you have right now
Every engagement starts the same way, because guessing is expensive.
The Fundraising System Audit™ gathers evidence across the whole system, scores it, and reports to the executive team and the board on what is helping and hurting your growth and your return.
- Self Audit
You do it yourself, as one person.
- Guided
You do it as a leadership team, and we work through the results with you.
- Full
We come in and do it with your whole organisation.
Then we build a system that can scale
A diagnosis nobody acts on is an expensive document. Unstructured change is where return drains away and growth breaks charities. This is the work that follows, bringing the right people and resource together in the right order.
- 01
Design and delivery engagement
The main body of our client work. We take the diagnosis and rebuild the parts of the system holding income back, with the leadership team rather than the fundraising department alone. Then we stay through delivery.
- 02
The prioritisation day
One facilitated day for a leadership team trying to do too much at once. You leave with a short list everyone has agreed to, and a clear list of what stops. Often the fastest return a busy organisation can get.
- 03
Targeted executive support
Ongoing support for the chief executive or fundraising director carrying a system change through. Not fundraising coaching. Support for the specific job of changing how an organisation works.
- 04
Board and trustee sessions
Governance is where a lot of fundraising quietly fails. A board that understands the system asks far better questions of it.
Build the capability yourselves
Not every organisation wants a consultancy. Some want the thinking and the tools.
View the public programme- 01
Public masterclasses
Our open programme for charity leaders. A day in the room, then a ninety-minute session six weeks later to check what really happened.
- 02
Public workshops
Short, focused sessions on single parts of the system, run in public and in-house.
- 03
Toolkits
The diagnostic tools we use in client work, for your team to run, with guides to help. See the toolkits.
- 04
The book
The whole method, written down, so you can read it, argue with it and decide for yourself whether we are right. About the book.
When to bring us in
You do not need all of these. Two is usually enough to make the conversation worth having.
- The executive team is not aligned on priorities or approach.
- Finance controls both the income target and the investment needed to hit it.
- Fundraising keeps being asked for more against a flat budget.
- You are mid-rebrand or planning a campaign, and the cracks are showing.
- Departments cannot agree on data, reporting or who decides what.
- Projects collapse because operational and fundraising needs pull against each other.
- A CRM change is failing because the organisational design was never fixed.
- The culture feels tired, tense or suspicious, and performance is following it.
- People quietly say something deeper is wrong, and nobody wants to be the one to name it.
What we don’t do
Knowing what we are not saves everyone time. In this sector it is often the more useful half of the answer.
- We do not run campaigns, write propositions or deliver direct marketing.
- We do not design brands, websites or creative.
- We do not handle recruitment.
- We do not write strategy documents to order. We will happily help you work out why the one you have is not turning into action.
- We do not teach fundraising technique.
Good people do all of that, and we can point you to some of them.
One more, and it matters most. If the leadership team is not willing to look at itself, this work will not succeed. A diagnostic that may only find fault with the fundraising team will find nothing useful. We would rather say so now than take the fee.
A national UK charity had flat income and a tired, capable team. The Audit showed the binding constraints were governance and strategic clarity, not the fundraising team. We reset decision rights, capped competing priorities and protected capacity. Within six months forecasting had steadied, delivery had sped up and the team had stopped firefighting.
We draw on real engagements. We never name a client without their permission.
Not sure where to start?
Start with an honest read of your system. It takes an afternoon, and you will know which stage you need.