Fundraising

General vs. specific appeals


Each time we make a gift to charity most of us like to know as precisely as possible what the money is going to be used for. From the charity’s point of view, it is often easier to raise funds for a specific project or item (something that is easy to picture and think about) than to ask people to give towards something less well defined.

Sometimes a charity does face a one-off need, and launches an appeal to meet this. An example would be an appeal to build a new wing for a hospice. These are called ‘capital’ appeals, and donors can be assured that their donations will go towards meeting that particular need.

However, most of the time charities need to raise money (‘revenue’) to support their work more generally – for instance, the same hospice would also need funding to pay for a mix of core costs - equipment purchase and maintenance, staffing, transport, catering, drugs, rent etc., which would be different month to month.

Putting together an attractive appeal to meet these less clear-cut and more mundane needs is much more difficult, and to get around this fundraisers often illustrate appeals with examples of what a gift might be used for – ‘£10 could pay for a pair of boots for a lifeboat volunteer’, ‘£50 could pay for a nurse for a day’.

Problems and misunderstandings sometimes arise if it is not made clear to supporters whether their gift is actually going to be put towards a specific purpose, or whether this is just to give them an idea of the sort of work that is being done.

Read appeals and advertising carefully to establish which is the case, and contact the charity if you are in any doubt – but also remember that often the hardest money to bring in is the cash that is needed to pay for the less glamorous, run of the mill items.