The Brief
Christian Aid recruited me on an interim basis for an initial 18 months to create a regular giving recruitment program from scratch. For many years they had been losing around five thousand donors a year and my brief was to change this.
What I Did
I researched Christian Aid’s audience, their interests and then developed fundraising products in line with those interests. Combined with budget planning and business case development I was able to work through to the launch process of these products within the overall budget I had created. Aligned with an operational plan that allowed us to pivot to where we achieved success, over three years I led a small team that I recruited to return the charity to regular giving income growth.
The Results
Regular Donor recruitment grew from below a thousand donors a year to around 7,000 a year. An always on program of Value Exchange and Lead Generation petitions was supported by improved digital fundraising. We did DRTV as well which supported our campaigns especially around Christian Aid Week. Additionally working relationships between departments improved as we were able to deliver a program inline with the values of the charity through Value Exchange and include our colleagues in developing the assets such as Prayer Books for Children and Journals for adults.
Testimonial:
"James is an Individual Giving expert with a strong specialism in acquisition. At Christian Aid the job was to rebuild the regular giving acquisition programme. James confidently and skilfully navigated the internal and external challenges to getting the programme going again. This included restarting DRTV and launching Lead Generation Campaigns and, at the time of writing, the initial results for the first two months of this financial year look really promising. He is motivated by results and seeing a charity make progress and improve. James enjoys working as part of a team, and is always willing to help, advise and contribute wherever he can. When a gap opened up in the brand team, James took on responsibility for managing the media agency and effectively deploying the brand budget. His experience was invaluable in the swift re-planning of marketing activity for Christian Aid Week 2020, following the coronavirus outbreak. He is an experienced and supportive manager, who always wants to see members of his team happy and motivated. I recommend him as a great colleague, with a depth of knowledge in acquisition strategy and planning and a commitment to working together to enhance and develop the fundraising programme." Peter Cashman, Individual Giving Lead, Christian Aid