INCOME GENERATION STRATEGY DEVELOPMENT

The Chief Executive of Victim Support (NI) identified an urgent requirement to work with the trustee board to understand the need for an Income Generation strategy.

The board of VSNI needed to work through their particular organisational challenges to identify the need for voluntary funding and then the ability for the charity to raise these funds.  Ann worked with the trustee board over a period of months - running workshops during which the board members were encouraged to view their own role in IG in a more active way as well as working through the opportunities and threats they faced.

Susan Reid, Chief Executive of VSNI said "working with Ann has been a really positive experience.  Her energy and enthusiasm encouraged VNSI board members to engage in the issue of income generation and what this means in reality to VSNI.  The board responded very well to Ann's style of working and have continued to debate and consider the Income Generation strategy which she was able to present at the end of this piece of work"

The Chief Executive of Stop the Traffik realised that they needed to look at income generation as a big picture - not only in the UK but across their existing regions - Belgium and the Netherlands - and have their strategy for raising income, particularly revenue funds, in place before other regional connectiosn were developed and the worldwide charity grew without specific requirement in place. 

Ann Paul worked with both of these charities to instill an understanding of income generation and an action plan to move them forward.

FUNDRAISING ADVICE

Several of the Ann Paul Associates have been involved in fundraising for many years.  Whilst we are able to facilitate the fundraising itself for many organisations, our fundraising ethos tends to the Biblical learning - instead of fishing ourselves we believe in "teaching a man to fish".  In other words, we strongly believe that we must leave our clients with the knowledge and ability to raise funds to suit their own needs.

Alice Reynolds and Ann Paul have extensive expertise in the development of Capital Appeals.    Anna Salaman,  Director of Public Programmes and the Capital Appeal Project Manager at Bishopsgate Institute said "Ann Paul has proved invaluable in helping us at the state of the capital campaign for our £7 million development project at Bishopsgate Institute.  Ann is an excellent communicator and a fluent writer.  These combined skills have enabled us to have, at all times, absolutely confidence in Ann and in the work she produced for us"

Alice continues to advise the Institute in their fundraising endeavours.

Ann's Major Donor fundraising expertise has been a significant part of the work she delivers. 

Myeloma UK set out to develop and grow their Major donor programme and in late 2007, they held their 10th Anniversary Gala Dinner (see Event management below).  Ann worked very closely with the Chair of MUK , Judy Dewinter, who led on their Major Donor programme.  Judy said the following about working with Ann:

"Ann was recruited by Myeloma UK to review and strengthen our major donor development.  Ann helped us achieve this through our 10^th Anniversary Gala Dinner in November 2007, where we established a patronage scheme.  Ann was involved in all aspects of the dinner, which resulted in an extremely successful event and an outstanding result, which far exceeded our expectations. 

Ann’s considerable knowledge and experience of working with major donors, combined with her ability to understand the inner workings of a charity, in my opinion, enables her to deliver an extremely valuable service to the charity sector. "

FUNDRAISING TRAINING

Ann Paul Associates designs and delivers bespoke Fundraising training programmes for small and medium sized charities.  StoptheTraffik grew out of a very effective campaign during the 200th Anniversary of the Abolition of Slavery.  But like so many small charities, their growth did not allow them to stop and plan for future fundraising activities.  Ann worked with the UK, Dutch and Belgium offices to work out ways that they could each attract funds as well as engaging funders with the International organisation

The Hansard Society has asked Ann to design and deliver a Fundraising Masterclass for the entire staff group.  This will encourage every member of staff to view fundraising as an integral part of their daily work.

We are able to assist with writing funding proposals - from small grant-making trusts to large Government documents.  Ann, Gillian and Alice have many years of experience of writing applications.

EVENT MANAGEMENT

Events are often a fundamental part of a charity's fundraising or awareness raising campaigns.  Ann works closely with the charities to ensure that the events are precisely what is needed by the charity in order to meet their needs and always to remain within budget!

Victim Support (NI) decided that to honour the outstanding work of their volunteers.  Working with Ann, they decided on a Christmas event in Belfast Castle.  Ann was able to assist them in identifying appropriate individuals to become an independent judging panel for the volunteer awards.  The event went off without hitch  .. Susan Reid, CEO of VSNI said "Ann's attention to detail left nothing to chance.  The evening was a magical success, in no small part due to Ann's ability to visualise the end result and then make it happen.  Our volunteers were truly delighted by this event and have become enthused to do even more to help the victims of crime who are our main focus of attention."

One of the participants said "For the first time I really felt I belonged to a special organisation, being able to catch up with "old" friends from my almost 10 tears of volunteering with Victim Support. I do hope that this will be repeated!"

The Chair of the judging panel, Eamonn McCarten (Chief Executive of Sport NI) said

“Kathryn - just a quick note to thank you for your kindness and professionalism concerning the Victim Support NI Awards evening last night.

I thought the evening was a great success and that was in no small part due to you, Ann Paul and many others. Please forward this to your Chair, Chief Executive and others whose e-mail address I do not have.”

“ Ann - just a quick note of congratulations on a wonderful event last night.  It went very well and you and your colleagues deserve great credit.”

 In November 2007, working with Myeloma UK, Ann managed an event at the Dorchester Hotel which resulted in MUK achieving more than double their original target - they raised a net income on the night of £850k!  The photo below shows Judy Dewinter, Chair of Myeloma UK with ladies from the 10th Anniversary Gala Dinner Committee

However, we are all conscious that times have changes - and the events which are now proving to be the most successful are the quiet private donor events.  Ann and the team work closely with their clients to deliver such events.  In September 2008, such an event was hosted for Kingwood by Dame Stephanie Shirley.  Many new supporters were introduced to work of Kingwood for the first time and a small number of new, and very influential, donors committed to working with Kingwood into the future.  We believe that small, targeted stakeholder events will be the more effective use of events to raise income in the coming months but will be happy to work with our clients on events of all sizes