IoF partnership opens insights to fundraisers

Another year on the road almost over 

The donorflex team’s year providing CRM know-how at the Institute of Fundraising’s regional conferences started on a high and shows no signs of slowing or slipping before the season comes to an end in the next four weeks.

Our headline sponsorship of IoF Yorkshire, in May, gave us an opportunity to provide a bursary that allowed Emma Pears, of Skipton’s SELFA charity, to immerse herself in two days of game-changing insight and networking.

Last month’s IoF North-West conference repeated the experience, with Zoe’s Place Baby Hospice’s Mark Pilkington the fundraiser who was able to mix with peers and learn about fresh fundraising ideas that can “make things a little better for the organisation and move forward”.

We’re delighted that the IoF West Midlands and IoF Cymru conferences – both on Thursday, October 24, with donorflex playing a lead sponsor role at each – bring us together with two more bursary winners who can do the same.

'Doing our best to self-generate income'

Elliot Goodger is Nantwich Museum’s part-time sole fundraiser. With his place at IoF WM secured, his objective is to “learn the tools and tricks” from fellow fundraisers.

“We’re doing our very best to self-generate income and apply for grants to ensure that our museum and core activities remain free for the general public. Specifically, I’m looking to develop projects related to funding a Communities Officer to ensure we’re reaching out to everyone in the community. An estimated million older people go a month or more without speaking to a friend or family member. These are the sort of people we want to engage with.”

Development Officer Hannah Beadsworth already knows how she hopes the IoF Cymru bursary will benefit Music in Hospitals & Care’s service to disadvantaged people across Wales.

“The purpose of Music in Hospitals & Care is to improve quality of life using the therapeutic powers of live music,” she says. “In Wales, we arrange around 450 live music sessions a year, on hospital wards, in care homes and at day centres. Our sessions help to create joy and provide distraction from the routine of life in a healthcare setting.”

Those objectives are certainly music to donorflex ears.

donorflex gains so much from the initiative

“The bursary element of our IoF sponsorship is so important to us,” says donorflex’s managing director, Brian Todd. “Fundraisers and fundraising are at the heart of what we do, and we gain so much from being immersed in these events with them.

“It’s great that the IoF organising committees include bursaries in their relationships with sponsors, and it’s great to know how much benefit that brings to fundraisers and organisations who wouldn’t, otherwise, be able to attend.”