We have established a range of successful fundraising courses that have attracted participants from hundreds of charities and NGOS, from all over the world, including some of the largest in the UK. All of our courses have been converted to online learning experiences. They will be relevant for those seeking funds all over the world.
Online Learning: New to Fundraising Training
Fundraising Training have launched the one the largest global programmes of online fundraising training workshops with 26 workshops running from September to December 2020.
As competition heats up those precious grants from trusts, we have curated a series of workshops where the learning will be focused on the specific skills of grantseeking, such as ‘how to ask for funds’; ‘how to network with donors’ and ‘how to develop a pipeline.
You can pick the exact skill you want to learn or improve, and get these new skills in a bite-sized package, with no travel time or costs; and, no need to get to a training room in London. All of our workshops have been adapted from our interactive style of in-person training.
Each workshop will last for 90 minutes and to allow for maximum interactivity, will be limited to 24 participants.
You’ll have opportunities to properly meet and work with your fellow participants – our goal is to minimize passive learning. You’ll also be given comprehensive resource packs and notes for each workshop. In addition to sessions run by Bill Bruty, there will be a wide range of presenters and experts from all over the world, each with varied and significant experience and possessing of a wide range of fundraising skills.
Below is a brief overview of the new online learning modules offered by Fundraising Training:
- Module One: Researching Donors
- Module Two: Proposal Writing
- Module Three: Building Relationships
- Module Four: Planning
Find out more and book your place
The Brutal Facts
A series of events that will challenge our most cherished fundraising ideas
In June 2020, we launched a series of early evening lectures that will change your thinking about some of our beautiful fundraising theories. In each presentation the facts will be lined up before the established wisdom. If our theories lose, we will explore new thinking based upon the evidence.
Session One: Arguing with the Wind. Can fundraising get better year-on-year?
The first of this series ran as a webinar on 4th June 2020. Bill Bruty was the host for this event, sharing the results of his extensive research into trust fundraising. He was joined by David Carrington who has been involved in the world of grantmaking since 1992.
From the original event planned for 24th March, we changed the focus of the presentation to include an analysis of the current situation facing trusts, based upon current wisdom and the lessons from the past:
- The nature of charitable trust giving, the research is based upon our study into 100 donors, from 2004 to 2019, including in-depth investigations of 41 examples of exceptional grantmaking. One of the big questions is whether trust fundraisers can anticipate donors who are going to transform their giving. Also, from the 41 investigations, can we extract any patterns? Other questions are about normal grantmaking behaviour – how often do they upgrade beneficiaries, what are the patterns for finding new beneficiaries?
- What’s going on now, what’s likely to happen? We will draw our conclusions from an analysis of how our 100 trusts reacted to the 2008-9 financial crisis and their financial condition in 2019. We also draw conclusions from the experience of grantmakers and a literature review of recent articles, research and statements.
The second session in this Brutal Facts series will take place as another interactive webinar in October 2020 (exact date TBC) and will be another deep dive into the nature of charitable trust grantmaking, based upon an analysis of 48 examples of exceptional increases in grantmaking across 100 trusts from 2004 to 2019.
We will attempt to answer these questions:
- Why do trusts decide to increase their grantmaking?
- Who gets the extra funding?
- Can you spot a grantmaker who is likely to increase spending?
- How can you position your organisation so that you gain from these opportunities?
The webinar will cost £45 and booking details and dates will be shared in September 2020.
Skilled Grantseeker Programme
Coming in autumn 2020
This programme has helped shape best practice in trust fundraising for hundreds of fundraisers from virtually all of the top 100 charities in the UK, from Cancer Research UK to Blind Veterans. These four courses equip fundraisers with the essential skills required to raise funds from charitable trusts and other high-value donors. Each course is valuable in its own right, but we offer a discounted package called the Skilled Grantseeker Programme. Since 2013, over 300 organisations have put their staff on this programme, and half of our participants complete the full programme, which has spawned dozens of ongoing peer support networks – where people continue learning for years after the programme has ended.
The Skilled Grantseeker Programme is currently available as online webinars for Autumn 2020 and a series of in-person courses in London from November 2020. From our interpretation of the UK Government guidance on conferences and training events, we hope to run our in-person courses from November. We will compress the Skilled Grantseeker programme into four events running from the start of November until mid-December 2020. Dates and venues will be announced shortly. We can opt for a combination of in-person events and online workshops. If you want to select this blended learning approach email us on info@fundraisingtraining.co.uk.
Bid Writing Boot Camp
This two-day online event is ideal for people with experience of grantseeking and a desire to embrace new ideas and the reach the highest standards in proposal writing. We have converted our successful two-day event into a series of four webinars, followed up by an experienced, professional mentor, who can help you with the implementation of your learning.
Find out more about Bid Writing Boot Camp and reserve your spot for the autumn 2020 sessions. We still hope to run this programme as an in-person event.
Financial Skills for Fundraisers
This course is ideal for all grantseekers who have to grapple with understanding funders’ accounts and explain their own with conviction. We will take you gently through the terminology and the numbers. Your understanding of accounts will shift from being a mystery to a powerful fundraising tool. We ran this event in partnership with Moore Kingston Smith on 11th February 2020. We hope to run another event in 2020, but, if this is not possible we will convert the training to an online version.