A few months ago, we broke down the incoming UK email soft opt-in regulation and what it could mean for charities. Now, the guidance is finally here – and a lot has changed. Josh Leigh from Hynt returns to the Fundraising Everywhere podcast with three specialists to unpack the latest ICO guidance and the fundraising regulator’s new framework.
Fundraising regulation strategist Cam St-Omer Donaldson explains where the two bodies differ, what third-party platforms mean for your data, and why a Legitimate Interest Assessment should be your first step. People and processes consultant Kirsty Mooney breaks down how to map your data flows, document your decisions, and get your team trained and confident. And digital fundraising strategist Sarah Crowhurst explores the opportunities beyond compliance – from smarter segmentation and welcome journeys to SMS, telemarketing, and boosting supporter retention by up to 9%.
Whether you’re a small charity wondering where to start or a major organisation navigating complex partner ecosystems, this episode will help you turn regulation into opportunity.
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Transcript
Jade Cunnah: Welcome to the Fundraising Everywhere podcast, your go-to place for fundraising tips and inspiration. Love what you hear? Get more insights straight to your inbox. Subscribe to our email list for exclusive fundraising resources, early access to training, special discounts, and more. Just head on over to fundraisingeverywhere.com/podcast to subscribe.
Jade Cunnah: Now, on to today’s episode. Enjoy.
Josh Leigh: Hello and welcome to the Fundraising Everywhere podcast. My name is Josh Leigh. I’m one of the, uh, co-founders and directors at Hint, the digital fundraising agency based in the UK but working with charities across Europe and around the world. We are super excited to be taking over the Fundraising Everywhere podcast this week, uh, to do a bit of a deep dive and a follow-up on a piece we did a couple of months ago with the team at Fundraising Everywhere, chatting about the email soft opt-in regulation being introduced in the UK.
Josh Leigh: For anyone that listened to our podcast a few months ago, you’ll remember that I spoke with three different consultants around a table about the people and processes, the marketing opportunities, the regulations, all the different elements of the fundraising… of the, uh, email soft opt-in policy and what it could mean for your charity and your program.
Josh Leigh: Now, a lot has happened since then. Um, you might remember at the time we didn’t have ICO guidance yet. We didn’t have fundraising regulator frameworks. All of that has now come out. So I sat down to speak with our three different consultants once more to get an update on how we should be approaching the email soft opt-in.
Josh Leigh: Tune in, join me while we chat with Cam Stannard-Donaldson. We’re gonna chat with Kirsty Mooney, and we’re gonna chat with Sarah Crowhurst all once more to hear what they have to say about the email soft opt-in regulation. And stay tuned to the end. There’s a fantastic offer that we wanna make for anyone looking to implement the email soft opt-in at their charity who ne-who needs a bit of support from one of these consultants.
Josh Leigh: So stay tuned and enjoy the show So I am joined by the wonderful, the one and only Cam Sinnott-McDonaldson. Cam Sinnott-McDonaldson, when she’s not working with Fundraising Everywhere by day, by night is moonlighting as a fundraising regulation strategist and specialist. She works with charities across the country getting their, basically their T’s dotted and their I’s crossed.
Josh Leigh: Is that the best way of describing what you do,
Cam St-Omer Donaldson: Cam?
Josh Leigh: Perfect description. Perfect description. Absolutely. Clearly, I have no idea what I’m talking about. So when it comes to understanding the new email soft opt-in and, and kind of the, the new Data Act for charities, I’ve gone to the one source of truth in the entire industry that I know, the wonderful Cam.
Josh Leigh: So Cam, I’ve got a few minutes with you today, and I really wanna ask a couple of really specific questions when it comes- Mm-hmm … to how we can help charities understand the email soft opt-in regulation and what they can do with that information. We know that we’ve had the ICO guidance come out finally.
Josh Leigh: We know that we’ve just had the regulator guidance come out, I think, um, very recently. Mm-hmm. What is your interpretation? What are they saying? Are they saying the same thing? Are they saying something different? What do you think about it?
Cam St-Omer Donaldson: Do you know what? It’s such a good question, and that’s been, like, all the questions I’ve been answering at the moment as well.
Cam St-Omer Donaldson: Like, ’cause there’s been a bit of a misconception that they are two different. Um, and actually they are two different in some ways, because the ICO is giving you guidance. The fundraising regulator is providing you with a framework. They have deliberately not called it guidance, because it’s a framework to support you to implement the guidance that’s been given by the ICO.
Cam St-Omer Donaldson: So a really great way to break it down and to separate is that the ICO regulates data protection, uh, PECR, right? The law, essentially. And then the fundraising regulator regulates fundraising standards through the code of fundraising practice. Two separate bits. So whilst you will go to the ICO guidance for what is legally permitted under the charitable soft opt-in, what you go to the fundraising regulator for is therefore how should I apply that law, like, responsibly to make sure- Mm
Cam St-Omer Donaldson: that I am still carrying out good fundraising practice. An example being, like, yes, I can now email people, um, and provide them with an opt-out statement. The charity … So that’s what the ICO is telling you that is possible. Fundraising regulator, however, you might ask yourself, “Is that the thing that I would want to be doing without an email journey?”
Cam St-Omer Donaldson: For example. Yeah. So that when we have those conversations about, like, say, supporter experience and all of that kind of thing, that’s much more within that fundraising regulator space. Like, is this fundraising best practice to do it in this way? Um, and they can investigate things like breaches of the fundraising code, and they can assess whether fundraising has been fair and respectful.
Cam St-Omer Donaldson: Whereas the ICO can investigate and enforce breaches of the PECR and data protection law. So, like, you know, you’ve got one doing the law, one doing the best practice, and they’re the difference. And I think they’re working together to make sure that we together can make those decisions about what’s best for our supporters in turn.
Cam St-Omer Donaldson: Does that help?
Josh Leigh: Exactly. That, I mean, I will be honest, no. But it helps understand where the two different bodies are coming from and the difference between the two. Obviously, this is really complicated stuff. Like, this is something that is … It- there’s so many different sized charities, different sized teams, but it, it sounds like this is such a huge opportunity, but it is really complicated maybe to understand it.
Josh Leigh: Or do you think that with your help, like, charities could really get it? Like, what, where should they start? Oh. What do they … What should they do first?
Cam St-Omer Donaldson: I think it is, I think it is really straightforward. I think what they should be doing first is, A, thinking about- Who is it that they want to be communicating with?
Cam St-Omer Donaldson: We’re thinking about things like journeys. We’re thinking about things like welcome journeys. I know lots of charities are already talking about. I was having a conversation the other day, um, with a couple of third-party platforms, and they named a charity which has completely lost, gone from my brain, who are already using the soft opt-in.
Cam St-Omer Donaldson: Um, and already kind of embedding that into the way that they’re working. So I think firstly thinking about, okay, what is the journey? What is the communication I want to have with a group of supporters, preferably a welcome journey. Um, making sure that you’ve obtained those details directly, and you can evidence that.
Cam St-Omer Donaldson: Um, also making sure that the communication that you want to have with those individuals is solely to kind of progress your charitable purposes. So you’re building that relationship with them ultimately because you want to make sure that they have an opportunity to support the cause that they care about.
Cam St-Omer Donaldson: That’s where you wanna start, right? Mm-hmm. So, like, choosing that audience, picking that audience. Um, making sure that your team are also trained up on ICO guidance and the framework from the fundraising regulator. Um, I know that, um, the other people you’ve got on the podcast today will go on to speak about this a little bit more.
Cam St-Omer Donaldson: But, um, you know, also making sure that you’ve thought about things that we should be thinking about anyway. Yeah. Yeah. Like that supporter experience journey, that documentation of the decisions that you’re making, the reason that you want to communicate with those supporters. Um, and the best way for you to assess that is through something called an LIA.
Cam St-Omer Donaldson: I know people are doing them anyway. Legitimate interest assessment. Get that done.
Josh Leigh: Oh, my God. There you are. I keep hearing about this acronym. I can’t wait. I’m gonna have to ask everyone on this podcast to tell me what that acronym is. I need to hear it five times today before I even- … know what an LIA is.
Josh Leigh: It seems to be the talk of the town, this little LIA- What- … at the minute. Yeah.
Cam St-Omer Donaldson: Yeah … legitimate interest assessment. It’s, like, a really great guidance of, like, again, when we’re looking at the law which says that we can now email these supporters, so that’s the law. In terms of assessing whether that you should be, this is where you use your legitimate interest assessment.
Cam St-Omer Donaldson: Yeah. This is where you work out best practice, and you’re looking at it, and you’re putting yourself in your supporter’s shoes, and you’ve documented it. That’s it.
Josh Leigh: Done. Absolutely. And then I got one more big question for you, is there was so little clarity or maybe so many questions around the first wave of ICO guidance that came out in reference to third-party platforms.
Josh Leigh: So, so much fundraising happens on third-party platforms. People might be collecting data through challenge event platforms or- Or- … community fundraising platforms or even in-memory giving platforms. Their face-to-face and telephone teams might be using third-party platforms as agency suppliers, et cetera. Is there any clarity around that?
Josh Leigh: I know that that is the biggest question mark we still had after the ICO guidance. Has the fundraising regula- client- regulator kind of answered that for you? Do you feel more confident in that?
Cam St-Omer Donaldson: I do feel more confident in that, and I have spoken to other third-party platforms who I know have direct contact with the ICO and are continuing that conversation.
Cam St-Omer Donaldson: I’ve spoken to the CIOF, who have direct contact with the ICO and are continuing that conversation. Um, and whilst, um, you know, I think that there are… And I think the bit that maybe isn’t as clear in that gu- in the ICO, um, in, in the ICO guidance is that third-party platforms are different. Um, they’ve just labeled third-party platforms under one umbrella, right?
Cam St-Omer Donaldson: But they are different. Mm-hmm. So, if you are working with a third-party platform such as, um, uh, I don’t know, we had, say, Social Sync on our platform the other day. We had Care2, um, and we had another organization who I can’t remember the name of, and, like, they were talking about the fact that they are not the data processors, right?
Cam St-Omer Donaldson: Mm-hmm. So, the charity is, so therefore using their third-party platform is absolutely fine. Um, and the people then asked us, like, “What is the… How do you find out if your third-party platform is the data processor?” Well, you’ll do that in your data agreement, in your contracts, in your terms and conditions. So, where they are not going to be processing that data and it is still the charity, that is absolutely fine.
Cam St-Omer Donaldson: Um, the change comes from if it is that third-party platform that looks and breathes and smells like that third-party platform that is collecting that data, then as much as I think there’s been debate about whether that’s fair or unfair or what we want or what we don’t want, the rule is, then we can’t use it.
Josh Leigh: Um- Okay, brill. And tell me, what does the third-party platform smell like?
Cam St-Omer Donaldson: It’s hard.
Josh Leigh: It’s hard.
Cam St-Omer Donaldson: Great. Great,
Josh Leigh: I would say. Honestly, smells great. Smells amazing. We do love, in the sector, we do love the partners we work with and the suppliers that work with, of course. Uh, brilliant. And, I mean, that gives me one final question.
Josh Leigh: I won’t take up too much more of your time, but- The regulations have come out, the frameworks have come out. Are you excited about email soft opt-in? Yeah. I know when we spoke a couple of weeks ago, a couple of months ago, you were excited in that first podcast we did. We’re a couple of months later, we’ve got so much more information.
Josh Leigh: Are we still excited? How do we feel about it?
Cam St-Omer Donaldson: Yeah, I’m excited. Um, I think it’s a great opportunity, especially for some smaller organizations as well, to test and learn. Um, and I think it’s a great opportunity to go back to basics of the things that we should have been doing before, um, and hopefully still are doing, um, in terms of looking at your supporter journeys, how data is segmented, all those kind of, you know- Mm
Cam St-Omer Donaldson: those big words we were using before about silos and all that kind of stuff. Like, actually no, like, no supporter belongs to anybody. And I think- No, that’s
Josh Leigh: it. Yeah … it- that
Cam St-Omer Donaldson: kind of stuff that I think we’re going back to, the basics of thinking about the supporter journey, your supporter cycle, and how quality assurance makes up part of that.
Cam St-Omer Donaldson: Are your team trained on what regulation is, on what the law is? Do your team know how to implement that? Do they know how to monitor that? Do they know how to document that? So it’s a real chance to go back to basics on both your kind of compliance quality assurance, which is something that I work with organizations on a lot, um, but it’s also a real opportunity to go back to basics on that supporter experience, on what, yeah, the journeys that your supporters are going on.
Cam St-Omer Donaldson: So I think it’s still a really, really great opportunity. Um, and I think it’s still very exciting. And I think as we’ve said many times, it still sits amongst consent, um, as well. Consent only hasn’t disappeared, right? Um- … that still exists.
Josh Leigh: Exactly. And I think, you know what, this really, I think, springboards us into my next chat, which is the, with the wonderful Kirsty Mooney, who I’m about to introduce directly after this, where we’re gonna dive into people, processes, consent, and really understanding what’s right for your charity.
Josh Leigh: No one’s enforcing this upon every charity. It’s an opportunity, and it’s about finding what’s right for you. But first, thank you so much, Cam, for joining me today.
Cam St-Omer Donaldson: Oh, thank
Josh Leigh: you. Thank
Cam St-Omer Donaldson: you so much- No worries … Josh. Thank you, and- Brill …
Josh Leigh: nice to,
Cam St-Omer Donaldson: nice to speak about it.
Josh Leigh: Brill.
Josh Leigh: Okay, so next I’m gonna have a chat with Kirsty Mooney. Kirsty is a fundraising strategist, a fundraising specialist. She’s a people and processes expert in the fundraising industry. She’s got 20 years experience in the UK market, now working internationally as a consultant, really helping charities understand the power of the people that they have in their teams, building skills and confidence, and just getting their processes under control so they can do the best possible fundraising.
Josh Leigh: I’m having another chat with Kirsty. If you, if you listened to our podcast a few weeks ago, you might have heard Kirsty’s initial thoughts on email soft opt-in. We’ve had so much more clarification, as we’ve just heard. I’m gonna have a chat with Kirsty and just get to know what she thinks of the new light that has been shed on the charity regulator’s opinion…
Josh Leigh: or sorry, the, the fundraising regulator’s opinion on email soft opt-in, and what we might know more of from the ICO. So without further ado, bring to the stage Kirsty Mooney. Kirsty, how you doing?
Kirsty Mooney: I’m good, thanks. Thanks for having me back.
Josh Leigh: No, I’m so glad to have you back. When I think of people and process, of course I think of Kirsty Mooney.
Josh Leigh: Uh, so let’s have a chat about email soft opt-in. Are you ready?
Kirsty Mooney: Yeah, definitely.
Josh Leigh: Yes. So as we’ve heard, the guidance has come out from the fundraising regulator. We now know much more about how we can implement email soft opt-in, how we need to get started. I will admit there are some acronyms in the guidance.
Josh Leigh: I have no clue what they mean, LAA et cetera, so I’m gonna ask you a lot about the processes we need to follow, how we can run a really tight ship around email soft opt-in. But I think you’ve, you’ve told me before, you think that this clear… uh, this, uh, this third-party… the thing around third-party data capture and this, this, um, confirmation around how and when we can collect data and then apply legitimate interest to it is so much clearer now.
Josh Leigh: Is it clearer? Do you feel it’s clearer? Do you think we’ve got everything we need as a- as a sector?
Kirsty Mooney: I think that things are a lot clearer than when the first initial ICO guidance came out. So the latest update from the fundraising regulator, regulator came out on the 7th of July, so very recent. Um, and they dove into a little bit more detail, I guess, about the mechanisms by how charities work, which I think is really helpful.
Kirsty Mooney: I mean, the ICO guidance was a little bit higher level, and people were struggling to understand actually how do I- Mm … translate this into my day-to-day, which is obviously the key with lots of these, uh, regulations when they come out. Um, one of the bits that they have di- uh, dove into a little bit more is that question around how third-party data is collected.
Josh Leigh: Yeah, yeah.
Kirsty Mooney: What can fall under soft opt-in and what can’t. So we know now, for example, that onli- online fundraising platforms, um, JustGiving, Enthuse, those platforms that lots of people in the sector are using, you cannot apply soft opt-in to the data that is collected through those platforms, which is obviously- Oh, wow Big shift for a lot of people in terms of thinking there may be a, a huge opportunity there.
Kirsty Mooney: So definitely something to think, think about in terms of, um, what that looks like for your organization and how your data is coming in. They have a couple of notes around, uh, third parties and, and, and how you can or can’t use data. Um, and again, a b- a big piece of it, though, is how is it gonna work for your charity in practice, and I think that’s really the next bit- Yeah
Kirsty Mooney: that needs to be looked at.
Josh Leigh: Well, that’s one of my big questions, is, is when I talk to charities they don’t really know where to begin, and a lot of them, I think they either think they have to implement it or they can’t implement it, et cetera. But I think that one of the biggest things they have to decide is what’s right for them as a charity.
Josh Leigh: And, and are you kinda having that conversation with anyone? Is that kind of where your thoughts are?
Kirsty Mooney: Yeah. And I think that is, when I was in-house at my charity, that’s exactly what I would’ve been thinking. How does this translate to my charity, and what are the opportunities for my charity? And that’s the bit, I think, that sometimes people are expecting the regulators to give you that understanding about what the opportunity may look like.
Kirsty Mooney: And I think the emphasis here, really, from the fundraising regulator is that that thinking has to sit in-house. So lots of people may not have done this before, and that can feel really overwhelming, especially if you might be a small or medium-sized charity and you don’t have lots of skills in-house about how to do that.
Kirsty Mooney: The great thing is there are lots of podcasts and information and, and, uh, conferences you can attend where you could- Much
Josh Leigh: like the Fundraising Everywhere podcast.
Kirsty Mooney: M- much like, exactly. Quick little plug. And, and digital conference and all sorts of things, where lots of people really are thinking about how can you help translate the regulation into practice, which I think is what people struggle with.
Kirsty Mooney: One of the big things that- The regulator starts off by explaining is that you need to be looking at what’s, what, what are called legitimate interest assessments. You mentioned- Mm-hmm … LIAs earlier, and that’s, that’s what it stands for. What that piece of documentation is, is what are the benefits to the person?
Kirsty Mooney: What are the benefits to the charity? What are you using the data for? What do you need data for? And then how do you decide where your balance is? So, um, is it of benefit to the person that you decide to use soft opt-in, or is it much more of a benefit to the charity? And it’s about a balancing act in that thinking process.
Kirsty Mooney: Different charities will have different levels of balance, and so you have to decide from your organization where are you going to sit within this, uh,
Josh Leigh: new- Yeah, absolutely … new- It’s, it’s giving me panic PTSD flashbacks to GDPR being implemented in May 2018, and I think a lot of charities, you’ve, you’ve mentioned there, especially small to medium sized charities, it, it will come down to capacity and confidence.
Josh Leigh: And, and we’ll talk about that in a second. But I think it’s that critical thing of it’s the documentation, and it’s, it’s thinking about what you wanna do first, and then starting to document it, really make sure it’s clear. And, and from kind of your understanding of the guidance, et cetera, um, it’s critical that it’s documented, right?
Josh Leigh: Like, these are some of the most important parts, is just knowing what your position is before you’ve actually put pen to paper on implementing it.
Kirsty Mooney: I think e- exactly that. So there are two things with what you’ve just said. One, you don’t have to make any changes to the way that you are operating. Soft opt-in- Mm
Kirsty Mooney: is a new regulation that has come out that allows you an opportunity to think about doing things differently. That will vary from charity to charity. Some people, as, as you just said, may not have the capacity to be able to think about diff, d- uh, uh, different ways of doing things. They may just- Mm … not have the ability.
Kirsty Mooney: But then there are lots of charities who do want to do something differently, and so they w- they’re gonna need to spend a bit of time thinking about this. The documentation piece is could not be clearer, I think, in terms of the regulations. So what the fundraising regulator and ICO is saying Is do some thinking, as I said, about that balancing act.
Kirsty Mooney: So if we want to use soft opt-in as our reason why we believe we can contact these supporters, and I would always argue it’s great to contact supporters more. You get to build a relationship. You get to engage with them. Lots of commercial organizations already use this. Mm. So people are quite used to receiving communications.
Kirsty Mooney: So that’s definitely something to, to factor into your balancing act, um, documentation. But essentially it’s just is, is there an opportunity for us to do something differently? How is data coming in? What processes would have to change? And if you can’t answer that question, there’s probably a piece of work to spend a bit of time thinking about how data flows into your organization, how supporter contact happens, how your consents are managed.
Kirsty Mooney: Mm. That piece is, is also really key anyway. Lots of people maybe don’t have that documented, but it’s, it’s a piece of work that’s really valuable, I think. Because without that you can’t decide what you may want to change. So that’s, that’s what I referenced last time, I think, which was your as is and to be processes.
Kirsty Mooney: As is- Yeah … is just what’s, what’s there now?
Josh Leigh: Yeah, I love that. And I think it’s- it- it’s also critical to think not just within the charity but outside the charity as well because charities work with so many partners. And I know that that- that third-party data capture thing has tripped up a lot of the- the regulation and the understanding of it.
Josh Leigh: But charities work with so many partners. They’ve got so many different tools they implement internally as well, your CRM, your email tool, your SMS tool if you’re using SMS, et cetera. Um, so yeah, obviously you- you’ve gotta really do that pa- that piece internally as is and- and what comes next. But also, that extends to your partner management too, right?
Josh Leigh: Like, uh- Absolutely … when it comes to the platforms you’re using and the, and if you’re with face-to-face agencies, et cetera. So is there- there’s a big piece of work to map that as well.
Kirsty Mooney: Really, what you need to do at the start of this, I think, is to understand where all of your supporter data is coming into the organization.
Kirsty Mooney: So that absolutely touches on what you were talking about in terms of partners. Very few organizations, in my experience, are just running their website, which collects all supporters’ data. You would- you might have a partner that takes website donations, online fundraising platforms. You may use platforms where you do community and social fundraising.
Kirsty Mooney: As you said, face-to-face agencies. You know, there’s a whole ream of suppliers we work with where data is being collected and brought into the organization, and I think that- that is absolutely key to understand that, again, before you can look at what may be okay to look at soft opt-in being referenced to.
Kirsty Mooney: As you said, the fundraising regulator has definitely been a bit clearer in terms of what third-party data may or may not be included. But I would still… There’s probably still a- a few conversations that need to happen internally- Mm-hmm … about where that lands.
Josh Leigh: Yeah, yeah. And as you’ve said a few times as well, I think it’s deciding what your position is as an organization.
Josh Leigh: There is still some nuance. There’s still some gray area, and it’s not being enforced. It’s all optional as well. Um, and I think that brings me to my last question for you. Being a people specialist, kind of we’ve talked about processes, we’ve talked about partners, we’ve talked about data, but m- your passion being the people in fundraising and building really high-performing teams, what do we have to think about there?
Josh Leigh: There’s obviously training. There’s skills. There’s confidence in this new regulation. What did, what do charities need to do in that regard?
Kirsty Mooney: That is, I mean, yes, definitely my passion. And also, without doing that piece, having, as anyone will know, having processes that are written and stored on SharePoint and never looked at are pretty useless-
Kirsty Mooney: unless your team is actively using and working with them. Um, one of the other big things that came out from the fundraising regulator actually, which I love to see, was a huge section around people. So there was a big emphasis on, um, I guess data literacy, so people understanding what their current processes are and how data works and if they’re responsible for those LIAs that we talked about, those, those mapping documents, helping them gain that understanding.
Kirsty Mooney: But then there’s another big piece, which is if you decide to change what you’re doing and work with soft opt-in, there is a huge part in helping your teams who are having conversations with supporters and using data, requesting data for mass mailings or emailings. They have to have a really solid understanding about the guidance and what it actually means to help them with their engagement and income generation.
Josh Leigh: Mm.
Kirsty Mooney: The other thing I would say, just to, to, uh, lead on from that, is the fundraising regulator also talks a huge amount about ongoing review. So this is not a one-stop shop. This can’t be. It’s the same as any data protection, uh, work that you would do in-house. There is a real emphasis on ensuring your people and processes and systems are reviewed.
Kirsty Mooney: Training is rerun. Um, you may need to do a bit of audit to make sure things are working, and there’s a big piece you mentioned around confidence. Without confidence, a huge amount of people feel scared by this kind of regulatory change. They don’t know- Yeah … how it needs to work and what it needs to look like.
Kirsty Mooney: And so there is a big piece there, as you said, around increasing people’s confidence and skills and understanding. But that cannot be something that’s done and then left. It has to be something that is reviewed and regularly looked at.
Josh Leigh: Absolutely. And I think e- everyone in the sector knows, like, that it’s really hard to carve out time for training and confidence and skills, but it is critical.
Josh Leigh: I really love that the regulation addresses people. Like, any regulation addressing people and not just data is amazing. That’s so cool.
Kirsty Mooney: It’s, um, yeah. It’s literally point two after their kind of, um, review on kind of assessing things. It was literally one of their second points. How do you train and not only just your, um, your staff, if there’s any crossover with anyone who interacts with what your service is there to do, your volunteers, any professional fundraisers.
Kirsty Mooney: It’s much bigger than just your employees. So it really, again- Mm … is about that mapping of who is out there having conversations with supporters that could be collecting or engaging with supporter data and how you also do that piece of training. And again, the crucial thing here is reviewing and analyzing to make sure it’s working.
Josh Leigh: Amazing. Well, look, Kirsty, I won’t take up too much more of your time. Thank you so much for joining me today. Any final words? Are we excited about email soft opt-in for charities?
Kirsty Mooney: I think the reason I would be really excited is I think it gives people an opportunity to hopefully spend some time reviewing things that probably need to be in place already.
Kirsty Mooney: How does data- Yeah … come in and how do we ensure teams feel confident around that and giving people the ability to do the best job possible. You know, we know from all the latest giving reports, CAF giving report, retention is really key. Supporter data, you know, cleanliness and accuracy is so key to how we are building relationships as fundraisers.
Kirsty Mooney: Mm. And I think things like this, sadly, the processes and, and people part of it is a really necessary part of that, that sometimes, as you said, people don’t have time to do. So I see it as a massive opportunity.
Josh Leigh: Amazing. Well, look, thank you so much to Kirsty Moon for joining me today. I’ll see you next time.
Josh Leigh: Okay, now our third and final person, my third and final expert I wanted to talk to in the world of digital and fundraising and all things digital fundraising is the wonderful Sarah Crowhurst. Sarah is my co-founder here at Hint. And what I want to talk to you about, Sarah, is a very important question.
Josh Leigh: Let’s say, for example, that a charity has implemented the email soft opt-in. They’ve read the ICO guidance, they’ve looked at the fundraising regulators’ framework, as Cam put it, really, really critically put it as a framework, and maybe you’ve gone through the processes that Kirsty talked about. You’ve done your legitimate interest assessments, your LIA, you’ve got your team in, in order, you’ve got your team trained, you’ve got your skills, your tech, your tools, everything’s in the right place and you’ve implemented email soft opt-in.
Josh Leigh: I want to talk to you about what comes next. Why is this such a big opportunity for the digital fundraising space or for the fundraising space generally for individual giving programs, charities of all sizes? Tell me. Welcome to the podcast. Why is this so important for charities?
Sarah Crowhurst: Hey, Josh. Uh, big, big question.
Sarah Crowhurst: Big outline.
Josh Leigh: Big question, as if we don’t see each other every single day, but yes, big question, big outline. But this is the biggest part. Like, it’s the most- Yeah … exciting part, I
Sarah Crowhurst: think. It is the most exciting part, and I think having more people to speak to is the most exciting part here. So obviously we could be really, really blunt about it and say, if we’re able to triple the amount of, of data that we’re getting in terms of email addresses, then obviously we’ve got more opportunities to ask for money.
Sarah Crowhurst: You could raise potentially more income. Yeah. Obviously, that’s quite a blunt and stark way to look at it. The, it, it doesn’t necessarily mean that quality massively goes up, but we don’t know this yet. Mm-hmm. It is so easy for someone not to opt in at the moment. Um, and so yeah, we could be improving quality of our data.
Sarah Crowhurst: We will have more people to speak to. We’ll have more data to test with as well, which I think is also really exciting.
Josh Leigh: Yeah, absolutely, and such a big part of digital specifically as well. And I think this has really put digital fundraising, I don’t know, back into the conversation in a really interesting way.
Josh Leigh: So what are some of the things that people could do once they’ve implemented this? Uh, Cam talked a bit about the supporter experience and email welcome journeys and, and kind of making sure that’s a critical focus. So we’ve got welcome journeys, we’ve got ongoing comms. What are some of the exciting things that you’ll be talking to our clients about?
Sarah Crowhurst: I think definitely looking at, uh, email frequency and contacting, uh, supporters more frequently, and also looking at the different segmentations that you might be able to do within that. So now- Yeah … you’re able to get consent from people who’ve made a donation, have expressed interest in your organization in a certain way.
Sarah Crowhurst: You’ve got lots of different pockets of data where people are gonna put their hand up and say, “Yes, I do want to hear more from you.” So being able to segment that data and, and look at those different kind of like communications you can send them based on their interests that they’ve come through on.
Sarah Crowhurst: And I’m not talking about necessarily setting up preference centers, I’m talking about being smart with your email program and segmenting and using dynamic, um, content and things like that. But there is so much more that you can do in that sense. At the moment, we’ve only mentioned email. There are other opportunities in terms of SMS as well, and telemarketing.
Sarah Crowhurst: So I think we have, every, the conversation that I’ve heard mostly has been quite hung up on email consent. Yeah. But actually, there’s other options here as well. SMS, how can that also integrate into a program? I’m definitely gonna be looking at more of that, and how we can integrate that into welcome journeys.
Sarah Crowhurst: Um- Mm-hmm … how you might be able to use it for emergency responses as well. And I don’t mean just, you know, if you’re, um, a humanitarian organization. There are other kind of like more timely and relevant things that you can respond to that are in the news. Um, so those kind, kind of like quick moments where you can get communication, um, out.
Sarah Crowhurst: And then there’s also telemarketing, um, as well. So I think I’m really excited to build more comprehensive journeys based on lots of different data points of where I can speak to my supporter. Because the more contact that we can have with a supporter and we can tell our stories in engaging ways, the more likely they’re gonna be give, gonna give when we ask them to.
Josh Leigh: Yeah, absolutely. You mentioned telemarketing there at the minute, ’cause I know that you’ve been doing some testing recently looking at how additional SMS and email touchpoints within the first couple of weeks of someone’s journey as a regular giver can actually really significantly improve their retention.
Josh Leigh: Is that right?
Sarah Crowhurst: Yeah. So, um, a client of ours actually introduced, um, a really great welcome journey as someone, as soon as someone had converted to a regular gift through telemarketing. Um, and it improved their attrition rate by, I think it was almost like 8 or 9%, uh, within six months, which is significant.
Sarah Crowhurst: Like, if you can- Yeah … go from kind of like 80% up to 90% retention rate in the first few months, um, that’s a really good start for a program. Um, and also within that, sending emails before they get the telemarketing call as well. Um, so adding in all of those additional touchpoints to enhance the journey.
Sarah Crowhurst: Um, and it’s- Yeah … simple to experience at the end of the day.
Josh Leigh: I think that’s the key thing. It’s the supporter experience. This is what Cam talked about and what Kirsty talked about as well. I mean, it’s- it may sound like quite a dry data and regulatory conversation, but at the crux of it, it’s about the supporter experience.
Josh Leigh: It is about fundraising as well. It’s about fundraising for charities. And, uh, just to flag, Sarah did a really brilliant talk at the telemarketing conference on Fundraising Everywhere’s telemarketing conference earlier this year. So if you are a fundraising member, you can access that on demand and see Sarah share the results they were achieving with that amazing, did you say 8 or 9% increase in retention in the first six months?
Josh Leigh: So definitely check that out on the Fundraising Everywhere on-demand section on the website as well. To wrap us up, I’m gonna ask you the same question I asked Cam and Kirsty. What are you most excited about when it comes to email soft opt-in regulation? What, so what are you most excited about when it comes to ICO regulations?
Josh Leigh: But really, like, what are you most exci- why is this exciting to you as a fundraiser, a digital fundraiser, and a strategist?
Sarah Crowhurst: I think it’s the opportunity to, to test and try other things. Um, we can, we can control and see all of the data behind the communications that we send when we’re talking about digital channels.
Sarah Crowhurst: So if we are building, you know, uh, more comprehensive email journeys or whether that’s, um, SMS journeys and things, we can get that data and we can analyze it. So having, like, an outlet to be more creative with our journeys and look at supporter experience and those different touchpoints, and then also being able to analyze all that data and make really smart decisions based on what we’re seeing.
Sarah Crowhurst: Um, and it could be, you know, we don’t know what the outcome will be. All organizations might implement this in a slightly different way. Um, but I think there’s lots of different opportunities. Um, and I think that’s what I’m excited about is, is how we can use it for different organizations.
Josh Leigh: Oh, that’s brilliant.
Josh Leigh: And that’s what Kirsty talks a lot about is there isn’t a one-size-fits-all. It really is what’s right for your team, for your organization, for your cause, for your program size, for your budget. It’s quite a flexible opportunity, but there’s so much we could do with it. So we’re looking forward to working with our clients on that, aren’t we?
Sarah Crowhurst: Definitely. Imagine if she said no. I’m like, come on. I’m like, let’s get moving with this so that we’ve got those opportunities to talk to people and test these different ways that we can communicate. And it’s like you can send different content in different ways when you’ve got more options with your channels as well.
Sarah Crowhurst: So I think that’s, that’s really exciting to me. So I’m looking forward to building that into client programs and seeing if we can improve, uh, response rates and improve average gifts and things like that. So many opportunities.
Josh Leigh: My God, there’s so much. Well, look, thank you so much, Sarah, for joining me today.
Josh Leigh: Enjoy the rest of your day, and I’ll chat to you somewhat soon, I’m sure in the office.
Sarah Crowhurst: Thanks, Josh.
Josh Leigh: Now that is it. That has been a fantastic chat with our three favorite consultants in the space of the email soft opt-in regulations here in the UK. As I said at the top of the session, the top of the podcast, thank you for hanging around.
Josh Leigh: We do have a special offer that we wanna make to anyone who’s made it this far into the Fundraising Everywhere podcast this week. Hynt, uh, is partnering up with, uh, Cam Synor McDonaldson, who is a consultant, um, in the fundraising regulation space, and with Kirsty Mooney, a fundraising consultant in the people and processes space.
Josh Leigh: And the three of us are looking to offer you, yes, that’s right, you, the opportunity to work with us to implement your email soft opt-in across your organization. Now, you could be a small team with a very small email file and an even smaller email lead generation program, or you could be a major UK charity with huge files, huge things to consider, a lot of different partners, vendors, third-party platforms, et cetera.
Josh Leigh: So we wanna work with you. If you reach out to hello@hynt.studio, that’s hello@hynt.studio, and quote “Fundraising Everywhere podcast,” we’ll give you a discount on our final agreed package fee, which we’ll slide depending on what you’re looking for. So we’re more than happy to find a price that works for you to make sure that you have the right consultants helping you build your email soft opt-in process and make sure that you engage with the right partners, engage with the right platforms, and make the most of this huge opportunity.
Josh Leigh: So email hello@hynt.studio and quote “Fundraising Everywhere podcast” for the chance to get a custom price with a discount added to that as well. Now, thank you so much for sticking with me. There’s a lot you could do right now today to start learning, implementing, even just documenting the conversations you’re having about the email soft opt-in.
Josh Leigh: So go get started, and do reach out if you need any help. Otherwise, thank you so much to Fundraising Everywhere for letting us take over the podcast this week. Enjoy the rest of your week, everyone.
Jade Cunnah: Thank you for listening to the Fundraising Everywhere podcast. If you’re enjoying this podcast, why not share it with a fundraising friend? And if you’d like to give us a little like or subscribe, it really helps fundraisers like you find us.
Jade Cunnah: Thank you so much. See you next time. Bye