Category: business planning

Australia, Benchmarking, business planning, Business Strategy, Economy, fundraising, goal-setting, leadership, Not for Profit Sector, partnerships, philanthropy, Strategic Planning, Women in Business

45% of charities receive funding from Government

Pamela Sutton-Legaud CFRE

With all the current debate about the amount of funding governments provide to private and public schools, it made me think about about how much of our charities’ revenue comes from government. I revisited research by the ACNC (Australian Charities and NFP Commission) particularly the 2016 Charities Report  I was surprised to be reminded how much charities funding comes from government and in comparison, how little from individual donations.

In 2016, charity revenue totalled $142.8 billion with just one per cent of charities’ revenues accounting for well over half (54.9%) of the whole sector’s total revenue. This is perhaps surprising enough in itself.

Over 45% of charities received funding from government grants and 70% received income via donations and bequests however this latter source of income made up just 7.3% ($10.5b) of all revenue.  Government funding represented 43% of all revenue.

Apart from government grants, many charities stated that they received ‘other’ income and this was a significant proportion of their income (49.5%).  However, in the 2016 report this ‘other’ income wasn’t broken down but could include income from Trusts and foundations, income from raffles, lotteries and gaming, membership and other fees as well as sponsorship, interest, rental income and dividends received.

Much media, industry and community attention is paid to fundraising to solicit gifts from individuals while the amount is comparatively small compared with government and ‘other’ funding.  Should there be an even greater reliance on individual philanthropy? Should the focus shift or does government get a ‘cheap’ deal by funding charities to do work they would otherwise not do or could not afford to do? Should the government provide this level of funding to charities? Or should we expect charities to rely on charitable donations in order to deliver their goals? Something to think about .

Source: Data for the 2016 Charities Report comes from Australian charities registered with the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission (ACNC) at the end of each charity’s 2016 financial year. Where financial information was not reported by charities it was estimated. Visit australiancharities.acnc.gov.au/ .

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Change is good

Pamela Sutton-Legaud CFRE

Mono Negative

Keeping one’s blog up-to-date is important and the same is true with the associated website! I felt mine needed a good refresh so I’ve implemented an upgrade and reorganised my site. I’d love to hear your feedback. If you think it’s better than before let me know.

As I’m not so active on Facebook I’ve moved my bird photos onto this site and you’ll find them here  I like taking time to write about the things that interest me – and my interests are varied and on occasion, unrelated – but  I want to spend less time online … this is a challenge for all of us I’d say.  I find Facebook has become just a series of anonymous videos for the most part as many friends ‘follow’ but do not post or like so therefore communication has become a bit one way. So I’m putting my efforts into this site. Such as they are.

I have new projects I’m working on and hope to share them here soon. Less time on line (I’m hoping) means more time for real world projects to be completed.

If all of this makes sense to you, please let me know. We’re all friends here.

Benchmarking, business planning, Business Strategy, fundraising, leadership, Not for Profit Sector, partnerships, philanthropy, Strategic Planning, Uncategorized

Online fundraising and Regular Giving increases: findings by M+R Benchmarks Report

Pamela Sutton-Legaud CFRE

It’s refreshing to see some solid benchmarking on the trends in the NFP sector.

In this 10th edition M+R Benchmarks has created some highly useful data on trends in online fundraising. It involved 105 participants in eight sectors.

Interestingly, it shows a decline in response rates to emails; revenue growth increased by growth in email lists.

The report shows an increased trend in monthly giving which is very positive as this is a great way to provide sustainable revenue for organisations.

You can read the whole report here and I’ve quoted some highlights below.  By the way, the report includes some useful and illuminating graphs particularly about which sectors are growing and which are declining.

  1. “13% of online gifts came from mobile devices

  2. For every 1,000 email subscribers, nonprofits have 355 Facebook fans, 132; Twitter followers, and 19 Instagram followers. In 2006, those numbers were basically zero, zero, and zero: Facebook was limited to .edu email addresses, Twitter was just about to launch, and Instagram’s founders were still in college.

  3. Nonprofits invested $0.04 in digital advertising for every $1 of online revenue. This might not seem like much, but considering that overall online revenue grew by 19% in the last year, digital advertising is an increasingly important market for acquisition, conversion, and retention.

  4. The volume has been turned way up: the average nonprofit in our study sent the average subscriber on its list 49 email messages in 2015.

  5. Monthly giving accounts for 17% of all online revenue – monthly giving is growing quite a bit faster than one-time revenue. In the first Benchmarks Study, only about half of the participants had a recurring giving program at all.”

 

angels, business planning, Business Strategy, goal-setting, Strategic Planning

Is life really what happens when you’re making other plans?

Pamela Sutton-Legaud CFRE

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John Lennon had a point when he sang ‘life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans‘ – when it comes to every day life, it does seem like we plan one thing and end up doing something completely different . The thing is, these ‘plans’ are often not really plans at all. They are more like vague aspirations into which we put little effort so guess what, we end up doing something else (or nothing at all!)

When it comes to businesses, it can be much the same. We think we have a plan of action when in fact what we have is a germ of an idea that we might do something about later on… or maybe tomorrow… our plan of action becomes one big procrastination (or to be more polite, we put it off to do something else).

That’s why writing down our plans is a very good idea. Ever wondered why when you write a list you actually get things done? It works the same way for a plan. Get something on paper and start ticking off the action points. The written word has incredible power and a plan of action is a great way to make your goals come to life.

So why don’t more of us write a plan? Some of the reasons given for not writing down goals and objectives seem reasonable until we explore them:

“A goal without a plan is just a wish” – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

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Objection 1: I might change my mind – this is in fact a self fulfilling prophecy.  You will almost certainly change your mind about your goals and plans but even more so if they are not written down – partly because you’ve already forgotten most of what you wanted to do! When they are written down, you can amend, embellish, clarify but you still have a plan.

“You can’t plow a field simply by turning it over in your mind.”, Gordon B Hinkley

Objection 2: I don’t like committing my ideas to paper

I love this quote.    How many times have I done this? Turned an idea over and over in my mind and never actually made it to the ‘field’.  The thing about just thinking about idea is that it is very easy to persuade yourself that the idea isn’t a good one. You work with the knowledge you have in your head only.  When you write up a plan, you can isolate those areas that need more research, where you have just made assumptions, where you know the truth of the idea… it’s liberating as once it’s written down, you can actually stop thinking about it for a while! And then get on with it when you’re ready.  There’s really is something fun (believe me!) about updating a draft plan you’ve written and getting all the detail into it so that you can figure out how you do.   You can share it with a good friend or your partner and start to get their feedback in an objective way. Try it it’s fun!

 “In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.” ― Dwight D. Eisenhower

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Objection 3:  I don’t like planning, I prefer to be spontaneous!

This is interesting because it is the act of planning (and not the dreaming about planning)  that is the whole point.  Planning, in my view makes you consider all possibilities and look forward. You consider the alternatives, you play with how you utilise your resources, you consider options. You can consider what your obstacles might be (in business, how the competition might react).

“Unless commitment is made, there are only promises and hopes; but no plans.” ― Peter F. Drucker

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Final word.  Get out there. Take your best plan (and the best plan is the one you have right now) and do something with it. Commit to your goals and objectives and get on with the things that are most important to you.  Get your business moving, learn that language, travel to the Pyramids.  Plan your work and work your plan.   Life is waiting for you. Unless you have some other plans 🙂