When we set out on a community-wide fundraising campaign in early 2020 at Radley College, I must admit that we were a little nervous. For the last five years, our development function had been mostly a major gifts operation – with about £1.7m raised each year and an average gift size of £10,000 from a select few high-net-worth individuals.
For this campaign – for bursaries and to fund the extension of the Chapel – we wanted to shift our focus: this was to be all about increasing participation. We had two years and an 805 donor target – a far cry from our annual 170. A tall order!
“We had two years and an 805 donor target – a far cry from our annual 170.”
We are incredibly lucky at Radley to have a 7,000-strong alumni community that is passionately loyal to the school. Up until this point, most community engagement came through the Radleian Society’s communications and event programme. Meanwhile, the Foundation only wrote to select groups on an ad-hoc basis, and any regular giving programme was virtually non-existent – so awareness of what we do was low. But there was a great opportunity to build on.
It was clear from the outset that any community wide fundraising campaign would mean engaging with all of our alumni, parents, staff and friends in ways we had not done so before.
The campaign basics
The key features of the community-wide campaign were:
- Two calendar years – 1st January 2020 – 31st December 2021.
- Target of 805 donors (the number of seats in the extended Chapel).
- Unpublicised target of £2 million.
- Two funds – Chapel extension and endowed bursary fund; donors could choose one or both.
- Building the culture of giving
Where were we to begin? We clearly knew that a soft fundraising message (as opposed to “hard asks”) would have to be woven into everything our office did. One piece we are really pleased with is the short series “Foundation Conversations”. This consisted of recorded Zoom conversations between the Warden (headmaster) and a mix of donors to, or beneficiaries of, our funded places programme. Some were young, some old, some in the UK, some abroad, some alumni, some parents.
These conversations were light-hearted discussions about the school, the Foundation, and what they mean to each of us. We had a few starter questions – “Why do you donate to Radley?”, or, “What has a bursary meant to you?”, for example – and then we let the conversation flow naturally. This was then edited down to a 10-minute video and shared to all in the community via email and social media.
“We knew that a soft fundraising message would have to be woven into everything our office did.”
The best part about the conversations was their authenticity – they weren’t a polished, glossy, lauding of the school and its fundraising. It was just a group of people, chatting away about something important to all of them. And it cost practically nothing.
The series also marked, for me as a fundraiser, an unusual way of measuring success. I found myself trawling through Google Analytics, looking at clicks, watch times, bounce rates, all to better understand how our community responded to our content. We better understood their behaviour and it altered what we did next.
Speaking on a level
Getting the soft message right was vital. But we also needed donations. I mentioned authenticity, and this idea was mirrored in our approach to asks. One piece I remember warmly was a short video asking for support for funded places which was to be shared with the whole community. What made it exciting was that this was led by current students and a couple of younger alumni, with just a little creative input (and sense checking) from our office. The script, actors, cameramen and editing all came from the students.
The result was a two-minute video that I can only describe as “jazzy”. With jokes, laughs and just the right amount of chaos, the students effectively communicated the case for support, the importance of the funded places programme and confidently asked our alumni for support. It was brilliant. For the first time, donors were being solicited without the formal, corporate voice of the office getting in the way. Current students were directly asking former students to chip in and help out.
“For the first time, donors were being solicited without the formal, corporate voice of the office getting in the way.”
To share this, we decided to avoid email. Following the analytics from the Foundation Conversations series, we had learned that our click rates weren’t quite as high as we hoped. This was a video too special to be left in the Junk folder.
So, to our alumni younger than 60, we mailed an A5 postcard with a single image: the hands of a student, holding a hymn book in chapel, unmistakably Radley. On the reverse, a single QR code with the simple instruction “Scan me”. And that was pretty much it. We wanted to create a sense of intrigue and give alumni the fun task of whipping out their phones to engage with this strange, almost wordless mailing.
This proved to be one of our most successful asks of the campaign. The goal was to make giving fun, and we feel this was a success.
Internal buy-in
We undertook a variety of initiatives to engage with staff, including holding focus groups and making announcements at staff meetings. We worked with heads of departments across all areas of the school to really get our message out there and make the donation process easier. Some examples include creating physical sign-up sheets for departmental offices or making it simpler to donate via salary.
In the end, we were thrilled to have had strong support, with about 90 staff donating. This included many teaching staff, but a decent 55 per cent of the total were operational staff.
Recognition
Over the last five years or so, we have been slowly dipping our toes into publicly recognising our supporters. Prior to this, Radley was extremely averse to any lauding of donors. Most notably, we have begun listing all donors in our annual Impact Report. Here we record all names by entry year but with no indication of size of gift; nor do we have any benefactor circles or similar.
“It would not make sense to trumpet those who have the means to make larger donations.”
We are immensely grateful for all the help given to the Foundation in all sorts of ways – and that does not always mean via financial support. Consequently, we decided in the campaign’s second year – and for all years going forward – that we would also record those who volunteered time and talent to help us achieve our goals.
Central to the campaign itself was the donor board. All who donated to the campaign, at whatever level, were to be recognised on a permanent donor board just outside the entrance of the Chapel.
Like in our Impact Report listing, we specifically avoided donor circles and tiering on the board.
If the whole campaign was about community and equality – that everyone who gives, in whatever way they can, makes a difference – then it would not make sense to trumpet those who have the means to make larger donations.
Our biggest lesson from the donor board is simply this: don’t be afraid to innovate. If we are sensitive to the core values behind a certain tradition, then surely these new initiatives will be welcomed.
The results
At the close of the campaign we were delighted to have received the support of some 1,125 donors – 139 per cent of our target. We met our financial goal, raising £2.16 million in cash and pledges. My favourite stat, however, is that we received at least one donation from every single alumni year group – from 1939 to 2016, aged 18 to 96.
“We have never felt so close to our stakeholders as we do now, and I am confident the feeling is mutual.”
All of this will be packaged in a neat campaign report to display the fabulous success the community has achieved. We will send this to everyone, non-donors included, and we are so looking forward to sharing the tremendous impact that has been achieved.
What next?
Starting out on this campaign was a daunting task in early 2020, made even more nerve-wracking with the advent of the pandemic. We need not have worried. These anxieties were soon submerged by a warm response from our community. And by this I am not simply talking about the figures. My colleagues and I agree that we have never felt so close to our stakeholders as we do now, and I am confident the feeling is mutual. We as a development office have better understood their hopes, wishes and feelings for the school. And at the end of the day, it is more their school than ours; we need to get it right for them.
So, we used our friend-raising to boost our fundraising. We felt that because we really listened and learned from our community in our fundraising efforts, and sought to involve boys, staff, Old Radleians and friends as much as we could, that we actually made friends through our fundraising.
The next stage is about attrition and the launch of a regular gift programme. But I won’t bore you with those plans. The point is this – whatever we might do, we will do it with greater confidence, greater friendship and greater kindness with our community. Sure, we will sometimes get it wrong. But if we are genuinely listening to them, things can only get better.
There were times when we would put out a campaign communication, and a lovely email from some far flung “dormant” Old Radleian would pop into the inbox, reading something along the lines of “Keep up the good work!”. For them, I hope we will.
This article first appeared in the Independent School Management Plus summer 2022 print edition, out now.
