Winners of the IDPE Development Awards 2023 in the Ambition and Progress category, Loughborough Schools Foundation initiated a new development strategy to take their fundraising to new heights, enabling the creation of 35 new bursary-funded places.
Sarah Musgrave, interim head of development and alumni engagement at Loughborough Schools Foundation, alongside development team members Emma Fraser and Laura Woodhouse, share why the new strategy has been so successful:
Loughborough Schools Foundation has a long-established development office but has had limited fundraising success. We had spent several years focusing on alumni relations, merging two external alumni associations and bringing their management in-house.
During this period of change, active fundraising was on the back burner with the knowledge that a step change would be required once the alumni programme was more established. Up until September 2021, our average annual philanthropic income was around £85,000.
“For every place offered, several more were being turned away.”
Meanwhile, the demand for financial assistance to attend our schools was increasing. The foundation had already committed substantial funds to provide financial support, but for every place offered, several more were being turned away. We knew the transformational impact a Loughborough Schools education could have and wanted to provide that opportunity to more young people.
In October 2021, a new director of development was appointed to initiate a major gifts programme that would enable us to generate a meaningful philanthropic income stream, to support bursary provision and opportunities to enhance the student experience. The major gift approach was adopted due to evidence from the sector, including the IDPE Benchmarking Report, which proves that this yields the best fundraising results.
We aimed to create diverse opportunities for people who care about our schools to make philanthropic investments that are meaningful to the donor and support the institution’s mission and goals. Moreover, we wanted to become the kind of organisation that people make major gifts to, but in order to do this we needed to make some changes.
“Colleagues across the wider school community were delighted to join us on the philanthropic journey too.”
We needed to have clear fundraising priorities and create a culture of philanthropy within the alumni and school community. Alongside this, we developed our alumni engagement practices to become more professional and strategic with data-driven communications, philanthropic messaging throughout those communications, an increased presence on social media and new alumni events.
Changing the culture from a primarily alumni engagement function to a philanthropic vehicle was undoubtedly challenging (change is never easy!). The encouragement and active involvement of senior leadership have been vital. Despite difficulties at first, once the results had started coming, colleagues across the wider school community were delighted to join us on the philanthropic journey too.
“We wanted to become the kind of organisation that people make major gifts to.”
In just 18 months, alumni, parents, staff and friends have donated a record-breaking £3.3 million for the Loughborough Schools Foundation. This has enabled us to offer scholarships and bursaries that don’t come from much-needed school funds. The impact on the pupils who receive the scholarships or benefit from other gifts is amazing to see.
We’ve also enjoyed seeing the relationships between our schools, the alumni, and the donors themselves blossom. Their enthusiasm and support go way beyond philanthropy, and our relationship with them is now a force for change.