E231 - 2023 Fundraising Trends with Hannah Akitt

“…The number one rule… is looking at your audiences and understanding them. This will help you decide if a trend is right to follow…” – Hannah Akitt

In this episode, we sat down with Hannah Akitt, Strategist at the social impact agency, Raw London to discuss her predictions on some of the fundraising trends for the year ahead. Unfortunately societal uncertainty and instability is often a huge obstacle for charities. Despite the donor giving trend being down, there are still ways that we can be thinking strategically to help with income generation. Hannah gives practical tips on a range of channels that charities of all sizes can adopt.

1. Be brave

History has shown that those organisations that are brave enough to continue running fundraising campaigns during times of economic crisis, tend to come out faster at the other end so really think about what your organisation can be doing to keep income generation strategies at the fore.

2. Destination of donations

Giving the donor more flexibility and transparency on the destination of their donation may feel like a daunting and complicated process but investing in new technology in this area could have great benefits for both the retention and growth of your regular giving audience. Think of communication methods such as WhatsApp and SMS which have far higher open rates than email.

3. The evolution of fundraising through gaming and streaming

The next step in fundraising through gaming and streaming is about how to sustain this revenue stream. The key is differentiation and a great way to do this is keeping your cause front and centre. The gaming audience is actually incredibly varied so don’t shy away from talking about who you are as this why they are engaging with you. This is more important than making something looking “cool” for gamers as they’re digital natives who are very independent and creating these things themselves.

4. How to use TikTok

TikTok has been dubbed the new Google so think about how you can use TikTok to make supporters feel part of your organisation through things like behind-scenes footage as well as showing the cause. Need to be authentic and not just do funny dances if that isn’t linked to either your organisation or your audience.

This episode of Charity Chat has been brought to you by our platinum sponsor Work for Good. Work for Good is a fundraising platform helping businesses raise funds for charities through their sales. The platform makes the legal agreement needed for businesses to sales

fundraise quick and simple. Saving charities time and resource, and enabling them to raise

more unrestricted income.

Pop to www.workforgood.co.uk to learn more and book a free demo.

We hope you enjoy this week’s episode.