Fundraising Everywhere 2025: Our Bold Strategy for Charity Fundraisers

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Nikki is the co-founder of Fundraising Everywhere, featured in 2021’s Digital Womxn to Watch, and an international speaker about building innovative and inclusive teams.

Earlier this year we shared our 2024 highlights and I realised that for many, this would have been the first time hearing about any of it – which isn’t good for transparency, but it’s also not great for anyone who wanted to get involved in any of it.

So, if you’re a fundraiser changing the world, a charity leader making big decisions, or a sector professional looking to be part of something bigger – here’s what we’re aiming for in 2025. We’d love to have you as part of it!

Our mantra

After getting the team together to plot and plan, a vibe was becoming more obvious.

In 2023 due to a team bereavement, we maintained. In 2024, we grew the team slightly and built strong foundations. And now, with more talent, data, and direction, the vibe is all about LFG.

Let’s F****** Go.

We know what we’re doing well, we know what we need to make better, and we know how to improve it.

So let’s do the thing.

LFG.

Our strategy on a page

In 2024, we had a modest growth in income, which we have put straight back into Fundraising Everywhere’s platform and people.

We have added a new Head of Community Engagement and Relationships to our SLT team, and in early 2025 will be adding two more people to our management team to help us deliver the goals we’ve mentioned here.

A significant investment has been made into our website which you’ll start to see the benefits of in early 2025. Members will be especially excited about this part!

We’re a bootstrapped company meaning we have no investors and are 100% founder-owned. Every member, attendee, and sponsor allows us to pay our speakers, improve the events we host, and invest in the tech we host it on.

We’re hugely grateful to each and every one of you for making that possible.

Objective 1: Grow our community

image of lots of fundraisers in a park behind a big picnic blanket with fundraising everywhere branding

This isn’t about just whacking more people onto our mailing list. It’s about growing community, belonging, wellbeing, and skills.

It’s about sharing content people find useful and want to see in a way that makes them feel uplifted. Sending fewer but better communications to the right people at the right time through our own mailing list or others.

It’s about being clear on what our channels are for and how to use them – and which ones we can do without.

We’re recruiting a new marketing manager who specialises in email to help us nail this and will be keeping an eye on engagement metrics throughout the year (not just the list number).

 

Objective 2: Improve event engagement

Again, this isn’t just about numbers.

Fundraising Everywhere is in its sixth year and has no signs of stopping. Every year we welcome thousands of new people into the community and whilst we receive consistently positive feedback, we don’t want to get comfortable and lose the focus on quality.

2025 is about improving the event experience for attendees.

screengrab of a fundraising everywhere event

We’re hiring a new Events Manager whose role is focussed on supporting speakers to deliver great content by implementing a speaker onboarding process that includes rehearsals and earlier submission of content (so you know what you’re signing up for) and supporting event curators to put together inclusive, exciting, and useful events.

We’ve also refined the conference topics we deliver to support the wider community, offering inspiration and networking opportunities that are relevant to fundraising strategy priorities. We’re also testing ‘Accelerators’, shorter masterclass style events that go into the detail of a specific topic.

You can find our 2025 events here. Future Accelerators will include acquisition, retention, lotteries, and data/CRM management.

A further goal for 2025 is to invest in improving the live virtual event experience to support better engagement and networking for members and attendees. This will obviously take more time and investment, but as our community grows it’s the first place that income will go!

photo of someone's set up to access legacy conference

Objective 3: Increase community impact

Through research and relationships, we’re seeing more of the FE community utilise our on-demand microlearning platform for adhoc training outside of events.

So to help you do that better, we’re investing in the on-demand experience.

In spring 2025, a new and improved members area will be available so members can search and find more relevant content, and be able to save their learning journeys so they don’t miss a learning opportunity.

You will find learning and development resources to support your personal objective setting and development plans, and there will be resources available for charities with an L&D team so we can complement their existing strategies.

We’re also investing in new, specially developed workshops to go into more depth in key topics. These masterclasses will be professionally created and recorded and available as part of your member onboarding journey.

More of the good stuff

Obviously there are some epic things we’re bringing back in 2025 like Picnics Everywhere, key conferences like the Supporter Experience Conference, Individual Giving Conference, and Legacy Fundraising Conference.

We’re also keeping our IRL networking running in the North East, Manchester, London, Dublin, and Edinburgh. Keep an eye on our list or socials for dates and speakers.

Members will continue to receive funded coaching and match-making opportunities, and will be the first people we go to when researching what we should be doing and how.

sceengrab of a selection of the confident leader programme sessions which is available to members

And of course there is continued collaboration with companies, professionals, and existing communities and groups in the charity sector so we can extend our reach, elevate their work, and offer more opportunities for people to contribute and learn.

The team that make it happen

We’re unable to deliver a great experience if our team aren’t invested in, too.

The team each receives €1,000 each to use on training and in 2025 we’ve improved our processes by bringing in personal objective planning – by reviewing our day-to-day against job descriptions, we’re able to see, and support, the gaps in skills or confidence. Some members of staff are on progression plans; working collaboratively on professional growth with a view to promote within FE in the future.

We’re also investing in increased headcount which will improve workloads and processes, and of course, bring new talents and insights to help us move in the right direction.

Existing staff have received a cost of living pay increase and new benefits including private health insurance alongside existing benefits like flexible hours, fully remote working, and a four day work week.

photo of the fundraising everywhere team

Want to join us?

We can’t do any of this alone, so if you want to join as a speaker, help with events (IRL or online – we give free membership or pay those that do!), partner with us, or become an affiliate we would absolutely love to talk to you.

And if you want to be part of a growing community that cares about what you learn and how you learn it, you should definitely be a member. Chat to Cam about getting your whole team involved or sign up here for just yourself.

We hope your 2025 is filled with existing and ambitious plans – LFG!

Voice Your Thoughts 🗣️

Our platform is open to anyone and everyone in the sector that has an opinion, idea, or resource they would like to share to help make our sector better. If you would like write and share something, pop an email over to hello@fundraisingeverywhere.com and we will support you every step of the way to share your voice.