This June we’re excited to be unveiling the Chartered Institute of Fundraising’s new ten-year strategy – one we’ve developed with fundraisers to support fundraisers over the next decade. While there will be a formal launch at Fundraising Convention 2025, ahead of that I thought I’d share some of the work, and the thinking, that’s been taking place to get us to this point.
When the Chartered Institute set out our 2023-2025 strategy, as a sector, we were just emerging from the pandemic and navigating our recovery at the same time as new challenges were coming into play. The focus, by necessity, was very much on the here and now.
Two years on, and we’re all only too aware that for many the pressures have intensified. Costs keep on rising and funding avenues decreasing, while charities’ services are needed more and more. Fundraising can provide a solution, by bringing in the funds needed to keep not only vital services going but ensure charities can pay the bills. But at the same time, we know that many charities are struggling with recruitment and budgetary freezes that are making it impossible to adequately resource their teams, with the corresponding increase in workload also impacting retention and wellbeing.
So how do we move forward? Charity leaders and fundraisers, as well as organisations like ours, are all seeking solutions. For some, it's wondering how they’re going to continue coping with all of this. For others, it's more about how to grow their organisation – and grow giving. On an individual level, many are also considering how they can best advance professionally.
The central question for us at the Chartered Institute is always ‘how can we help?’, and over the past 18 months we’ve been focusing on developing a new strategy that will provide at least some of the support needed. A framework that will take us all forward – the CIOF and the sector – across the next decade, by helping charities thrive and enabling fundraisers to have a lifetime of impact through this very special career.
The first step should always be to listen. From staff and trustees having insightful conversations with fundraisers and fundraising leaders across our community, and regular member surveys and newsletters, we’ve learned what our community see as priorities for us as a Chartered Institute. Our brilliant community of volunteers operating across the nations, regions and through special interest groups have also been great at sharing insights from fundraisers in charities across the UK, constantly providing feedback and reflections on our work while helping us cocreate guidance and support for our members and the wider community.
This has all been invaluable. From those insights, we developed our initial ideas and responses for where we think our work over the next decade needs to focus. And for how we, not just as the CIOF, but as a sector, can work together to solve these shared challenges, and take advantage of opportunities that can help, like AI. We then finetuned them with the support of our Board and tested what came from those conversations with groups of members and others in the sector to get us to this stage: a new ten-year strategy that we can't wait to get to work on, with you.
This is a sector that stands out for how we collaborate to find solutions to common challenges, so one of the most impactful things the CIOF can do as an organisation is provide a platform for this to happen – one where we can all bring our knowledge, skills and expertise, and work together to drive the changes we’re looking for.
We’ll be launching our strategy at Fundraising Convention, which this year takes place on 9 and 10 June. We’d love you to be there to hear more about what’s behind it, and of course what we’re planning and how you, and your organisation, can get involved – we’ll be talking through it in detail. We look forward to seeing you there!
Members will also hear about the new purpose post-Convention for those unable to attend.