Covid and the landscape of fundraising

Nigel Carter explains how the pandemic has impacted the work of charities.

Fundraising has always been an essential part of a charity’s income. Some charities rely solely on fundraising while for others it’s a smaller piece of a wider income stream. No matter how heavily a charity relies on fundraising, its importance remains critical to its financial security, as well as its ability to achieve goals – whether they be research, support, or awareness. Businesses have had to overcome an incredible series of financial and logistical challenges over the last two years. These have also been felt by charities, particularly in how they approach fundraising. Less disposable income for individuals and corporates has led to reduced donations while the practicalities of managing a highly transmittable virus has forced charities to abandon their traditional avenues of fundraising and service o ering. During this time, a new approach to fundraising has been essential for charities, not only to survive, but to thrive. As we come out of the many restrictions placed upon us over the pandemic, and as business income starts to recover, we will emerge with a di erent fundraising landscape that embraces traditional forms with exciting new innovations led by an ever-important digital world. Charity commission research has shown us that most charities (60 per cent) saw a loss of income, and a third said they experienced a shortage of volunteers. The research also shows that over 90 per cent have experienced some negative impact from Covid-19 – whether that’s on service delivery, finances, sta retention, or sta morale, from the months of frustration and uncertainty. Charities which are reliant on community fundraising and smaller local charities have been arguably hit the hardest. Smaller charities and local charities who previously may have lacked the infrastructure to deal with delivering services digitally have had to spend funds, most likely out of their reserves, to make sure that their service would be able to stay in operation throughout the pandemic, and unfortunately the pandemic has seen many charities fold. It’s not just small charities which have been forced to adapt – we have also had to make sure our services can be delivered completely online. For the last two years our awareness campaigns, like National Smile Month and Mouth Cancer Action Month, have been entirely digital. Both campaigns have a long history of delivering support, education and resources in person through community events and activities. During the pandemic, this has simply not been possible for either us or our volunteers. Changing the way we deliver campaigns has reduced the amount of direct face-to-face support we are able to provide. There are many positives switching to digital, however, we cannot escape the fact that it excludes some people from accessing vital information. These are often people more at risk of oral disease, such as the elderly or those who are socioeconomically disadvantaged. Covid also changed the scope of grant funding dramatically. With help from government grants, we have seen so many trusts and community funds o er extra support and grants for charitable organisations which helped people directly a ected by coronavirus. This came as much needed support to nonprofit organisations who rely heavily on raised donations to operate. They helped fill a gap when the industry wasn’t sure how digital fundraising would develop.

Nigel Carter is the CEO of the Oral Health Foundation.

At the Oral Health Foundation, we are fortunate to have such good relationships with our campaign sponsors, and supporters from within the dental and health community. We were able to continue to work closely with them to make sure we had the resources to make awareness campaigns like National Smile Month fully digital, while retaining strong engagement from participants. Much of our charity’s income comes from our online shop, which provides dental practices with educational resources for patients. Reduced dental activity along with practice closures at the beginning of the pandemic led to significantly decreased funding through the sales of oral health promotional products. Two years later, sales continue to be below pre-Covid levels, however, as more dental practices resume to normal levels of activity, we are slowly seeing signs of economic recovery.

A di erent approach

Covid-19 has changed the way our charity tackles fundraising. We are not alone in needing to adapt to the new normal. Many charities have discarded fundraising strategies to make way for the changing climate – through the pandemic and beyond. During this time, our charity has taken on two new members of sta with fundraising experience, to help us navigate the ever evolving fundraising landscape. During the pandemic, 11.7m UK employees were put on furlough, while over 1m people were made redundant. For many people, there was less money in their pocket. Less disposable income naturally led to a fall in charity donations. Many of the businesses that struggled were also the same one that would support local charities as part of their wider CSR values. Charities were hit from falling corporate and individual donations.

Being a healthcare charity was partly a saving grace. Never has the nation valued their health as much as it has done over the last few years. Those charities with a direct link to the e ects of covid initially saw donations increase – which was incredibly important to provide support for those directly impacted by the disease. Whilst oral health was not directly associated with covid, we did find our niche. At the beginning of the pandemic, many doctors and support sta were being asked to stay in temporary accommodation and inpatients were not able to have visitors, so with hospital sta and patients not having access to any family or friends as visitors this meant they had little to no oral hygiene products. Our appeals began to change from asking for financial donations, to contributions in the form of oral health products. Oral care manufacturers were exceptionally supportive and as a result, we were able to provide dental packs and other oral health supplies to hospitals and vulnerable people across the UK. As a charity, it is easy to fixate on money being the driving success of a fundraising appeal, but this does not have to be the case. Just like we have seen in Ukraine aid e orts, donations of clothing, health supplies, food and shelter are an equally e ective way to provide much needed support to groups in need of help.

The return to pre-pandemic fundraising

Charity giving has changed. Charities and fundraisers alike have been forced to be more innovative when raising money during the pandemic – adapting to the digital age. It’s an evolution that was needed and has added to the depth of fundraising opportunities donors can explore. We are starting to see traditional fundraising events, like running, reappear, but these will not replace what has been achieved during the pandemic. It will be added to a more all-encompassing set of fundraising activities – a hybrid approach between the traditional and the digital. We know also that hybrid fundraisers can be incredibly popular especially if you’re making the most of the apps and digital functions available to you. In the past, events like a sponsored run would just be a one-day event, but now with the popularity of livestreams and workout tracking apps, you can involve donors in every step of your training, using this opportunity to boost donations. A member of our sta previously set out to fundraise by running in the London Marathon for a charity close to them and used livestreams and digital activity to gain an extra two thousand pounds in donations, which for any charity can make a monumental di erence.

The digital innovations we have seen emerge in the last two years open a range of possibilities for corporate supporters too, with audience interest in digital activities like webinars, podcasts and livestreams growing massively.

Conclusion

There is no doubt that fundraising has been challenging for everyone in the charitable sector. Motivations and disposable income have been low, event and gathering restrictions have been ever changing and a level of uncertainty over how services will adapt and operate has hung over us. However, the digital innovations which have been created and continue to be made across fundraising platforms, open us up to a range of creative ideas and a level of engagement which we wouldn’t necessarily have had in previous years. Personally, I am excited to see what new innovations come from this digital fundraising boom and can’t wait to work with individual group and corporate fundraisers, to both get the most out of fundraising e orts and have them come away from the experience satisfied and fulfilled.