Marketing skills even more essential for fundraisers, says survey

Howard Lake | 12 March 2007 | Blogs

It’s time to brush up on your marketing qualifications and experience if you want to get ahead in fundraising, according to a new study by customer communications specialists Broadsystem.
They have found that the third sector “is more dependent on the expertise of marketers than ever before”.
Analysis of The Guardian’s appointment pages over the last few months show that the number of charitable organisations advertising for fundraising personnel stipulating marketing experience as “a must have” has risen by 12% since the same period last year.
Caroline Worboys, CEO, Broadsystem, said: “I am unsurprised by these findings as consumers are increasingly being bombarded by advertising messages meaning that charities have to fight their commercial counterparts for share of voice, which is where the expertise of the marketing profession comes in.
“To reach younger audiences whilst retaining and strengthening existing donor relationships charities must adapt their fundraising strategies to include three vital components: increasingly utilise and enhance existing data to devise optimised contact strategies, expand the scope of all marketing programmes to include both web and mobile interaction and maximise return on investment by allocating spend on prioritised basis to support overall funding objectives – all of which is the domain of a marketer.”

About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale. He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.