Giving Days Supercharging schools’ fundraising campaigns

Photo credits: The Portsmouth Grammar School

GIVING DAYS

SUPERCHARGING SCHOOLS’ FUNDRAISING CAMPAIGNS

Melanie Bushell explains how The Portsmouth Grammar School used a postlockdown Giving Day to transform its bursary fundraising activities.

About three years ago, hardly anyone in the UK schools’ development sector had even heard the term ‘Giving Day’, but today Giving Days are the number one hot topic, on the agenda for almost every development conference or discussion amongst peers.

So, what is a Giving Day? How did we get here? What do they mean for schools’ development? And are they here to stay?

Big, noisy, multi-channel fundraising appeals like Children in Need and Comic Relief are a form of Giving Day, but in our schools context, a Giving Day is a 24-to 36-hour digitally driven fundraising and engagement campaign which seeks to rally the whole school community behind a particular cause.

Making a lot of noise

i ing ays fi rst emerged in the education sector in the USA (where else?!) just over a decade ago. Schools and universities found they were struggling to make their voices heard on the established Giving Tuesday. Consequently, they decided to take the concept of making a lot of noise on one particular day to focus everyone’s attention on their cause and apply it to a different day in their calendar, often some kind of anniversary or founder’s day.

Five years ago, in 2016, London Business School held their fi rst i ing ay and since then the idea has trickled down into the UK schools’ development sector.

Here at The Portsmouth Grammar School (PGS), we fi rst started to think about a i ing ay around the middle of 2019.

The William Smith Fund

Like many schools, we have been fundraising for means-tested fee support (or bursaries) for a number of years. Ever since the school’s foundation in 1732, some proportion of pupils have attended PGS on free or subsidised places. From 1944 until 1976, we were a direct grant grammar school and from 1981 until 1997 we accepted pupils through the Assisted Places scheme. In 2015, we launched The William Smith Fund, named in honour of our founder, with the primary aim of increasing the proportion of pupils on bursaries. We did so by undertaking our fi rst professionally led telephone appeal that summer.

Telethons have remained our primary mass fundraising activity ever since. We had run three (in 2015, 2017 and 2019) and it felt we were getting into a bit of a rut.

It was also clear that the telethon approach ould miss a signifi cant proportion of our potential donors for a variety of reasons: they fall outside of range for our telephone appeals, due to age or other factors such as we don’t have their current phone number; they have told us that they don’t like being approached by phone; or (like me!) they only ever answer calls from numbers already saved in their phone.

... absolute gamechanger

It was also clear that the telethon approach factors such as we don’t have their current don’t like being approached by phone; or (like me!) they only ever answer calls from numbers already saved in their phone.

Greater scope for creativity

Recognising that different prospects respond to different types of approach, and that a digitally driven appeal would give greater digitally driven appeal would give greater scope for creativity and should therefore scope for creativity and should therefore help us reach new and different donors, our help us reach new and different donors, our minds began to turn to a possible Giving Day. minds began to turn to a possible Giving Day.

Anyone who has read or researched anything about Giving Days will soon learn that matching gifts and fundraising challenges are frequently cited as key factors in the success of a Giving Day appeal. Crucially, they lend credibility, which is especially important with a new fundraising approach. They can help create a sense of urgency, as donors hurry to make their gift before the matching offer runs out. And, of course, they generate momentum as your appeal progresses at double speed. or our fi rst i ing ay, fi nding a donor illing to match our gifts soon became our number one priority. A lot was at stake.

A step change

As part of a review of our strategic intentions, following the arrival of a new Head in 2018, the Governors had determined that our long-term aim should be to

offer means-tested support to one in four Senior School pupils. Over the previous four years, since the launch of The William Smith Fund, we had progressed from having one in nine Senior School pupils on some level of free assistance, to one in seven, but moving to one in four was going to require a step change in our fundraising activity.

We felt that a highly visible appeal such as a Giving Day could be the boost that we needed to super-charge our bursary appeal.

Key donor

e identifi ed one key donor e felt might be susceptible to a matching gift approach. His own place at PGS had been funded by the direct grant system in the 1960s, igniting in him a passion for bursaries, and he was already generously supporting four pupils through the school.

He was also interested in the mechanics of our fundraising e had recently asked hether there ere any professional services that he might fund to help us fi nd more alumni, reasoning that the more alumni e were in touch with, the more money we would raise. We had already invested in all such services that we were aware of, but his interest in helping us reach more people seemed to link perfectly ith the key ob ecti es of a Giving Day and we started to put together a proposal for him. his as in early nd e all kno hat happened next struck

COVID

uddenly e ere all teaching, learning and orking at home, unable to meet face to face. Everyone aged over 70 (our largest donor group) was being advised to ‘shield’, to stay inside and even avoid doing their own

... democratisation of digital communications

food shopping if at all possible. People were disinfecting their mail and anything else that was delivered to their home.

These dramatic developments rendered our traditional methods of fundraising, such as face-to-face meetings or direct mail appeals, complicated or even impossible to pursue.

At the same time, the use of social media went through the roof, with the volume of WhatsApp messages increasing by over 50% in some parts of the world. People across the globe, from Hollywood A listers to tech-shy grandparents, were using their phone or tablet to broadcast their face direct from their home to yours often from un attering angles

The democratisation of digital communications had taken a huge leap for ard and the need to dri e more fundraising activity into the digital space could not have been clearer. ur ma or donor said an enthusiastic yes to our proposal and the countdown to our Giving Day was underway.

Culture of philanthropy

ne of our ob ecti es as to de elop a greater culture of philanthropy in the current school community and bring the topic of bursaries into our daily conversations. For this to happen, the Giving Day would need to be a whole school celebration with every pupil given the opportunity to take part member of the teaching staff was seconded onto our small development team for a day a eek to create and o ersee an acti ity plan for pupils and staff.

Meanwhile, we chose the campaign strapline Be the ifference, re ecting both hat e aim to do for talented local youngsters from modest backgrounds through fee assistance and also what we consider to be the school’s broader role for the communities in our city. e set to ork gathering stories and testimonials from bursary recipients past and present, donors, parents and staff who are passionate about being part of a di erse and inclusi e school community hinking of all our various audiences – young and old, pupils and parents, staff, alumni, and others taking care to ensure there would be something for everyone.

Giving Day dawns

entually, in arch , ust t o days after schools in ngland reopened from the inter lockdo n, our i ing

Day dawned. I won’t even try to describe what it was like to li e through the next hours, but suffi ce to say, our amazing pupils, parents, staff and alumni exceeded all our hopes and expectations with their enthusiasm and generosity.

A staggering 653 individuals made donations, against our target of 250 donors. 412 of these people (63%) ere donating to us for the fi rst time e had fi e times more donations from colleagues than we had ever had before, and twice as many gifts from current parents. Some former parents whose children left many years ago even made gifts and 5% of donations were from people previously unknown to us.

Impact

t is no eight months since our fi rst i ing ay, so what have been the other impacts?

There is no doubt that fundraising and the important subject of means-tested support are now much more widely understood and discussed in the school. Previously, all our fundraising had taken place behind closed doors, literally – either in one-to-one meetings with major donors or, in the case of the biennial telethons, in an empty school during the summer holidays y contrast, the i ing ay as highly visible and took place in the heart of our busy school in the middle of the fi rst eek back after our threemonth lockdown. he ongoing impact of the i ing ay communications’ campaign continues to be felt in our alumni and parent communities who are continuing to donate at a higher rate than previously. In our telephone campaign during the summer of , the i ing ate as , up from in , and it as e en higher for i ing ay donors, 60% of whom made a further gift when called.

Our major donors have also responded to the obvious increase in support across all our constituencies: two very large gifts which were previously intended as legacies were made to the school this summer.

And, of course, the major donor who was prepared to take a chance and support our fi rst i ing ay is absolutely thrilled at the impact that his gift has made. o, do think i ing ays are here to stay es, ur fi rst and it on t be our last as an absolute gamechanger for us. ●

MELANIE BUSHELL is the Development Director at The Portsmouth Grammar School.