Past Event

Digital Fundraising Conference 2026

Cut through the noise, remove overwhelm, and learn the tools, tactics, and strategies to grow your digital fundraising. Join the UK's largest virtual Digital Fundraising Conference on July 9th 2026

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The digital landscape isn’t slowing down. But you can catch up.

Digital fundraising has never mattered more. Sector reports are clear: digital is one of the biggest growth opportunities for charities right now. But there’s a gap between what leaders know they need to do, and what their teams actually feel equipped to do.

Fundraisers are telling us they’re overwhelmed, under-resourced, and lacking confidence in digital skills. You tell your confidence with email journeys, paid ads, tracking pixels, and social strategy is low while being expected to deliver results across every channel imaginable.

This half-day conference is built to help you succeed – not add more to your plate.

What to expect

Four hours of practical, no-nonsense sessions covering the digital skills and strategies your team actually needs in 2026. No fluff. No theory for theory’s sake. Just real-world expertise you can act on straight away.

Across the afternoon, you’ll get into:

  • How to apply the new ICO guidance on soft opt-in
  • Which social channels are really worth your time and budget
  • How to build Meta Ad campaigns that convert
  • What a solid digital fundraising strategy actually looks like (and how to write the budget to go with it)
  • How to design supporter journeys that work across channels
  • Email sequences that make supporters fall in love with your cause
  • Why digital donors drop off and how to fix your retention
  • The tools saving digital fundraisers hours every week
  • WhatsApp vs SMS, managing social comments, video strategy, AI in practice, accessibility, consent changes and more

Who is this for?

This conference is for fundraisers and digital teams who know digital matters but don’t always have the time, confidence, or resource to keep up. It’s also for senior leaders who want to better understand what their teams need to succeed in a rapidly shifting landscape.

Whether you’re building your digital skills from the ground up or sharpening what’s already working, there’s a session here for you.

Why it matters

The organisations that will thrive in 2026 are the ones investing in their people’s capability now. Digital investment isn’t just about tools and budgets. It’s about skills, confidence, and having a clear plan.

This is your afternoon to get all three.

Busy July 9th? (or can’t get around to watching all your top sessions on the day) – you’ll have on-demand, digital access until the end of August to catch up.

Register today and be part of the digital revolution that puts the power – and supporter relationship – back into your hands.

Want to partner with this event? Email nikki@fundraisingeverywhere.com for more information, or email hello@fundraisingeverywhere.com for general questions.

All of our events are hosted on the Fundraising Everywhere virtual events platform and are subtitled. The platform also provides other screen reader-compatible features and slides are provided in advance in our virtual delegate bag. Let us know if we can do anything else to improve your experience.

 

Programme

Click here for a screen-reader friendly version of the programme

Sessions

Room 1

Digital Benchmarking report: what you need to know
Speaker: Sarah Crowhurst, Hynt

As charities explore new digital channels, time and again they’re faced with gaps in benchmarks, insights, and a clear strategic and creative path forward. This year’s CAF report has shown some strong signals for digital, but other digital benchmarking tools are too big, too cumbersome, or they’re taking a gap year. That’s why Hynt has surveyed the UK charity sector to map out the state of play in email lead generation and cash acquisition through digital. In this 30-minute session, we’ll go through some key learnings from our ‘UK Charity Digital Lead Generation Map’, lifting out key insights and connecting them to clear strategic and creative actions.

Key Learnings:
– A free set of current digital benchmarks to inform strategic decision-making
– A clear plan for turning insight into action in digital

Digital Building Digital Teams That Raise Millions
Speaker: Carmen Barlow, Carmen Barlow Digital

Struggling to structure your digital team for maximum fundraising impact? Carmen has been there—and transformed digital operations from barely breaking even to raising £3.2 million in new supporters within 12 months.

Drawing from a decade leading digital teams and insights from 60 charity leaders interviewed through the Charity Change Collective, Carmen will tackle the questions keeping digital leaders awake:

  • Centralisation conundrum: When does it work, when does it fail?
  • Specialists vs generalists: The right mix for your context
  • Team sizing: The 10% rule and when to break it
  • Future-proofing: Building digital resilience across your organisation
  • Making the investment case: Getting leadership buy-in
  • Whether you’re scaling, restructuring or starting fresh, this session delivers practical frameworks to build digital teams that drive sustainable growth.

Key Learnings:
– What does a great digital team look like?
– Should your digital team be centralised or decentralised?
– Are digital specialists or generalists better?
– How big a digital team do I really need?
– How to future-proof your organisation in terms of (digital) skills and capabilities
– And making the (business) case to grow digital

What’s working in digital fundraising – 5 things you can do tomorrow
Speaker: Jeff Boachie, Guy’s and St Thomas Foundation

Whether you are leading a small local charity or managing digital growth for a big charity, the environment we are operating in has become incredibly challenging. I want to give you five pragmatic, actionable things that you can implement tomorrow. These are the steps that will help you cut through the noise, ensure your charity is found by the right people, and turn your digital presence back into a tool that helps you punch above your weight, even when the environment is tough.

Key Learnings:
– How do you stay visible when the rules of the game are changing?
– Creative IS the Performance Driver
– Frictionless Giving – The E-commerce Benchmark

 

Using Digital Media & Paid Advertising to Power Smarter Fundraising
Speaker: Morgan Hart, JustGiving & Kris Tan, Platypus

You’ll come away with a practical understanding of how digital ads can support fundraising today and in the future, as behaviours of users online and platforms begin to change.

Key Learnings:
– Understanding that fundraising, alongside digital behaviours, have become more scattered over time.
– How do we at JustGiving respond to this?
– How can charities use what we do and apply it to their own activity?

 

Stop Trying to Be Everywhere: Choosing the Right Social Channels for Fundraising
Speaker: Athar Abidi, Cancer Research UK

A session to help you build a framework for understanding your full social footprint and then break it down to deliver audience, channel and post level insight to inform how best to resource social to deliver your objectives with an emphasis on quality over quantity.

Key Learnings:
– How to treat social strategically as opposed to as stakeholder fulfillment.
– How to use data to inform and explain decision making.
– How to choose if a channel is right for you or not.

How to write a digital budget
Speaker: Joshua Leigh, Hynt

Can’t tell your CPL from your CPM? Don’t know where to start with media spend and ROAS? Stop staring at that blank spreadsheet! Join us for a high-speed, jargon-busting session designed to turn your digital fundraising “guesstimates” into a concrete budget for you to take to your team. In just 30 minutes, we’ll work through Hynt’s Digital Budget Template to prepare a top-line, simplified budget to help you get started, or get better at digital fundraising.

Key Learnings:
– Understand digital fundraising metrics and how they relate to one another
– Learn how to strategically divide media spend between donor acquisition, lead generation and brand awareness
– Explore the balance between digital acquisition and high-yield retention

Room 2

Combining Digital and Offline: A Multi Channel Mini Builds Case Study
Speaker: Ilyaz Hajat, St Mungo’s

When everyone’s fed up of doom and gloom, how do you recruit supporters in a way that sparks joy? St Mungo’s Mini Builds is a new fundraising product combining digital acquisition with a super-tangible, offline journey centred around LEGO-style kits delivered to your door. Honest confession: we haven’t built the slick, fully-integrated journey everyone dreams of (yet!) But we’ve learned a lot from a product that relies on the relationship between digital and physical, and that’s thrown up some surprising wins, a few hard lessons, and one looming deadline we’re racing to solve. Expect an honest tour through what’s worked, what’s surprised us, and what we’re trying next!

Key Learnings:
– Digital and offline shouldn’t be separate channels. How can they reinforce each other into more than the sum of their parts?
– The thing that delights donors offline isn’t always the thing that recruits them online.
– Both online and offline come with their own challenges. But the real fun starts when you combine them together!

The 6 email tactics that make supporters fall in love with your cause
Speaker: Anya Muir Wood, Forward Action

Email is still the most powerful tool in digital fundraising – but most organisations are only scratching the surface of what it can do. Drawing on Forward Action’s experience running high-performing email programmes for charities of all shapes and sizes, we’ll share six tried and tested creative tactics that can transform your email programme. Whether you’re struggling to find the time, the content, or the confidence to send more, this session will leave you inspired and equipped. We’ll bust the myths holding organisations back, share what great fundraising emails really look like, and give you six practical tactics to put into action straight away. By the end, you’ll have everything you need to make supporters fall in love with your cause, and a few reasons to fall in love with email yourself too.

Key Learnings:
– New creative ideas to make supporters look forward to your emails
– How to sidestep the pitfalls that are impacting your email performance
– Simple changes that drive more opens, more clicks, and more donations

Beyond Hand-raisers: Quizzes, Digital Value Exchange Guides and more
Speaker: Sarah Crowhurst, Hynt

Lead generation isn’t just about collecting emails anymore — it’s about offering something meaningful in return. As the digital landscape evolves, charities are finding success with fresh formats like quizzes, digital value exchange guides, and interactive journeys that do more than capture data: they build trust, deliver value, and prime supporters for action. In this session, hear from fundraising and engagement experts using creative tactics to turn passive audiences into active participants. Discover what’s working, what’s next, and how to go beyond the basic hand-raiser to build deeper, more dynamic supporter relationships.

Key Learnings:
– Understand how to design digital value exchange campaigns that drive both lead generation and income
– Learn how to approach developing audience-first lead magnets that work

Pixels, Postbacks and Pizazz
Speaker: Eoghan Beecher, iRaiser

Tracking and analytics to raise more money! In this session, iRaiser will explore the concept of attribution from a critical perspective and advise charities on how they can increase digital visibility for themselves as fundraisers, and increase board buy-in for future investments in areas that produce results.

Key Learnings:
– How to create an attribution policy
– How to deploy tracking
– How to use data to increase fundraising activity
– How to convince your board to invest more money in your fundraising

Whatsapp vs SMS
Speaker: Simon Varley, Conversr

With the “double marathon” challenging many fundraisers to support twice as many runners as planned, building genuine supporter relationships at scale has never mattered more. In this session we’ll explore the strengths and weaknesses of WhatsApp and SMS for supporter engagement and what handset-based channels offer that email, social and other digital channels simply do not

Key Learnings:
– The five questions every fundraising team should ask before the WhatsApp-vs-SMS debate even begins
– How the “postman principle” reveals why; what you say will always matter more than where you say it
– A practical framework for deciding when mobile messaging earns its place in your supporter journey – and what you’ll need to have in place before ever sending your first message.

 

Tackling hate and misinformation online
Speaker: Helen Alderson, SocialAF

In an age where misinformation spreads faster than ever, charities are facing increasingly hostile digital spaces. In this practical and eye-opening session, Helen from Social AF will share strategies for moderation with regards to tackling hate, misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation across social platforms. Drawing on Social AF’s experience with charities such as Shelter and The Salvation Army, this session explores how online falsehoods can cause direct harm, damage public trust and threaten a charity’s reputation.

Whether it’s harmful myths about homelessness or conspiracy-fuelled attacks on fundraising efforts, Helen will unpack how to spot the warning signs, choose the right response style and protect both your community and your team.

Expect insights on moderation tactics, tone of voice, wellbeing safeguards and how to turn even hostile conversations into opportunities to educate and build support. This session is ideal for digital leads, social media managers and comms teams.

Key Learnings:
– Understand the difference between misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation, and why it matters.
– Learn moderation frameworks that prioritise supporters, accuracy and brand integrity.
– Discover the importance of tone, timing and team capacity in your moderation response strategies.
– Actionable steps to improve your own charity’s readiness to tackle misinformation online.

 

Room 3

The Digital Skills Fundraisers Actually Need in 2026
Speaker: Quarina Sultana, Digital Strategist

Digital fundraising has evolved far beyond “send an email and post on social media”, yet many organisations are still operating with digital skillsets built for a very different internet. This session explores the digital skills fundraisers actually need in 2026 to build stronger supporter relationships, improve retention and create fundraising experiences that feel human rather than transactional. From audience psychology and supporter journeys to accessibility, data interpretation, AI, automation and digital behaviour, this session looks at how fundraising teams can move beyond siloed tactics and start thinking more strategically about the full supporter experience.

Expect a practical, honest and slightly playful session exploring why so many digital journeys quietly fail, what modern supporters now expect from charities online and how teams can adapt without needing huge budgets or becoming “tech experts overnight”.

Designed for fundraising, digital and communications professionals working across charities and nonprofits, attendees will leave with practical ideas they can apply immediately across campaigns, content, supporter journeys and digital engagement strategy.

Key Learnings:
– a clearer understanding of the digital skills most needed in modern fundraising
– practical insight into supporter psychology and behaviour online ways to improve supporter journeys and reduce friction
– a better understanding of accessibility as a fundraising and engagement issue
– confidence navigating AI, automation and digital tools more strategically
– practical approaches to building more human, emotionally intelligent digital experiences
– insight into why retention and engagement often fail beyond the campaign layer
– ideas for improving digital fundraising without needing huge budgets or large teams

 

Rethinking Supporter Growth in a Changing Consent Landscape
Speaker: Rhiannon Sullivan, Care2

The introduction of the charitable soft opt-in marks a fundamental shift — moving organisations away from a model focused purely on reach, and toward one centred on relationship, relevance, and long-term value.

In this session, Care2 will explore what this means in practice. We’ll share new insights from across our community, alongside recent UK and US case studies, highlighting how leading organisations are already adapting — and where the biggest opportunities lie.

Key Learnings:
– How to identify and engage supporters already aligned with your cause
– What high-performing campaigns are doing differently in this new environment
– How platform choice and data capture models will increasingly shape long-term growth This isn’t about short-term gains — it’s about building supporter journeys that convert, deepen, and sustain over time.
– You’ll leave with a clearer understanding of how to navigate the soft opt-in era — and how to position your organisation for stronger, more resilient growth.

 

 

Meet The World’s First AI Fundraiser
Speaker: Ben Cohen, Good Innovation

What happens when you hand your fundraising campaign over to an AI? Ben Cohen, AI Lead at Good Innovation, talks about a bold experiment he ran during his London Marathon fundraising campaign. Rather than host another bingo night or curry evening, Ben built Zosia; an AI agent – and gave her one job: raise £500 in a month. Ben shares how he set Zosia up with her own email address, a website, a newsletter, and even a Telegram connection, then gave her as much autonomy as possible. The results were remarkable (she raised nearly £2,000), but not without a few surprises along the way – including the moment she tried to break into his WhatsApp. This session explores what it really means to build an AI agent, why personifying your AI can actually make it work better, and what this experiment reveals about the future of fundraising.

 

The Digital Fundraiser’s Toolkit: The Tools That Save You Hours
Speaker: Tereza Litsa

Digital fundraising teams are under pressure to do more with less: launch campaigns quickly, understand what is working, report on results, and keep supporter journeys moving without adding more manual admin. The session is designed for fundraisers, marketers and comms teams who want a clearer understanding of the tools behind digital campaigns: what they do, when to use them, and what questions to ask before relying on the data.

Key Learnings:
– Understand which tools help with automation, tracking, testing, and reporting.
– Spot common campaign issues before launch.
– Leave with a simple “before you launch” toolkit checklist.

Cyber Security: the basics
Speaker: Patrick Burgess, Nutbourne

In this session, Patrick Burgess of Nutbourne explores cyber security fundamentals for charities and not-for-profits and why it’s now a question of “when,” not “if.”

The session challenges three common assumptions: that an attack won’t happen to you, that your data isn’t worth stealing, and that security only gets in the way. You’ll see why each underestimates the real risk, given that donor details, beneficiary records, payment systems, and grant data all carry value, often guarded by lean teams with limited defences.

Drawing on current figures most small organisations have faced a breach, many struggle to recover within six months, and around a third have met regulatory consequences under GDPR and Charity Commission rules the focus stays on preparation rather than alarm. You’ll learn how to prioritise with limited resources by identifying critical assets, building an information asset register, and concentrating on the highest-impact actions. The session closes with practical support, including NCSC tools and the role of a trusted IT partner, helping you benchmark where your organisation stands today and build a realistic roadmap to strengthen your defences and protect your mission.

Key Learnings:
– Change the mindset
– Know what matters
– The five non-negotiables
– Use available resources that can help close gaps.

3 steps to creating viral videos/building a winning strategy with video.
Speaker: Emily Semmens, Praxis

Cartwheels. Ghosts. Biscuits falling in cups of tea. What do these have in common?

Join this session on how to create viral short form videos and find out. From engaging hooks (we know people’s attention spans aren’t that good) to keeping people watching until the end, the way to create a good viral video is like a recipe.

Learn how to build a successful content strategy using video, as well as top tips from planning and scripting to filming and editing.

You’ll leave feeling like the next influencer, or at least knowing how to build short form videos into your digital fundraising plans and see results.

Key Learnings:
– Why video is important, and the current big thing
– How to craft a viral video from planning to posting
– Simple top tips to drive engagement and watch time

 

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