At the RNLI we've seen firsthand the tangible value that Chartered Institute membership brings to our fundraising team and our organisation as a whole.
We joined the Chartered Institute primarily for the continued professional development of our fundraising team, and it's delivered on that promise.
The access to best practice guidance, learning and development opportunities, and sector knowledge around changes to our landscape has been helpful. What we particularly appreciate is the peer networks and being part of this community connects us with colleagues from other charities who are facing similar challenges.
Updates and guidance relating to sector changes is an important part in keeping our policies up to date and assists with our policy and compliance horizon scanning. In addition to this, colleagues attend online sessions to get support with up-and-coming change.
One aspect we value most about our membership is that with an organisational membership, your staff can sign up for information individually so that everyone who wants to is hearing from the Chartered Institute directly. This means our team members can tailor what they receive to their specific roles and interests, rather than everything being filtered through one person.
Our fundraisers are involved many ways with the Chartered Institute, which speaks to how embedded membership has become in our practice. We've attended and spoken at a variety of CIoF conferences, and we've been in conversations with CIoF colleagues around changes to Gift Aid, the DMCC Bill, and donations acceptance.
If you want to be a committee member of a group, you need to be a member to participate. Getting involved with a group makes it easier to meet people across the sector on both a formal and informal basis.
Getting involved with policy work is about making a positive difference for our charity and the wider sector. We contribute our experiences and insight to try and help the sector benefit from what we have learned.
This matters because we can give real-life examples of what the impact of proposed changes will be. Providing feedback via the CIoF has two benefits: firstly, the CIoF is in direct conversation with policy makers so can access the right people to influence change; secondly, by going through the CIoF, the Institute represents all charities and therefore prevents your brand from reputational risk. If a brand was singled out that could cause a negative impact on fundraising for your cause if it reached the public domain.
If you're thinking of joining, our advice is simple: understand the benefits of membership and share it widely with your teams. They will see opportunities that you don't in the range of things that are available to engage with.
Membership isn't just about what you can get from the sector – it's about what we can achieve together when we pool our expertise and speak with a collective voice.