fundraising support

Last week, I took to the stage at the Pizza for Losers. It’s a safe space where we strip away polished LinkedIn updates and shiny results decks at conferences, to talk about the messy, and sometimes painful, realities of failure.

I shared a story about burning out in a role, a time defined by 60 hour weeks, office bathroom panic attacks and the erosion of my self-belief. When I finally made the decision to resign with no backup plan, a director handed me a parting gift. He told me he’d never liked me, weaponised the time off I’d taken during my time at the company, and told me I’d never make it as a freelancer.

I did make it. It took me a long time to build my confidence and self-belief, but I’ve now  co-founded a thriving digital fundraising agency, Hynt. 

But when I stepped off that stage, the conversation shifted from a personal story to a systemic one.

The charity sector is built on purpose, fairness and a desire to make a positive difference. But there is an uncomfortable truth we still need to acknowledge. As a sector, we’re not as diverse as the communities we exist to serve.

Recent research from Charity People and Oxford HR, Beyond Representation: How diverse is the charity sector?, shows that while some progress has been made, momentum has slowed in key areas. For fundraisers, this is not just an internal people issue. It directly affects income, influence and long-term sustainability.

The to-do list for your charity’s upcoming auction is likely miles long. Securing high-value items for attendees to bid on, finalising the menu, and tracking registrations as they come in are all critical tasks, but they’re only the first steps in running a successful event. For your charity, the true challenge lies in maintaining momentum in the room from the opening bid to checkout. 

In this guide, we’ll explore practical, scalable ways to design an auction experience that engages and excites guests throughout the entire evening. By implementing the right pre-event workflows and on-site tactics, you can keep donors actively invested, competitive, and closely connected to your mission.

Con­fused about the impli­ca­tions of using AI-gen­er­at­ed imagery in your fundrais­ing? The Salt­ways recent­ly pub­lished a full research report and a set of use­ful free guide­lines to help your char­i­ty nav­i­gate the legal require­ments. You’ll also learn the prac­ti­cal steps your team can take today to ensure you’re using AI images ethically.

What does it actually feel like to be a donor — and why does it matter more than you think?

In this episode, host Simon Scriver is joined by Steven Dodds (Managing Director) and Paul Seabrook (CEO) of Beautiful Insights, a full-service market research agency specialising in the charity sector. Together they explore one of the most overlooked challenges in fundraising: how do you measure the emotional experience of your supporters, not just the financial data?

The conversation covers:
Why satisfaction alone doesn’t predict donor loyalty or generosity
The SAFE Index — Beautiful Insights’ benchmarking tool for measuring non-financial supporter KPIs
How donors often vividly remember why they first gave, but rarely recall anything about the ongoing supporter experience
Why feeling “useful” might actually be a warning sign in your donor data
How charities can compete with commercial brands that have mastered emotional advertising
The difference between transactional stewardship and communications that genuinely move people
This episode sets the scene for Steven and Paul’s session at the upcoming Individual Giving Conference, where they’ll dive deeper into the specific emotions that drive donor retention — and which ones should have your attention.

Find out more about the SAFE Index and Beautiful Insights at beautifulinsights.com
Join us at our Individual Giving Conference 2026

In this episode, host Simon Scriver is joined by Natasha Evans (About Loyalty & Your Experience May Vary podcast) and David Amos-Reeves (Prostate Cancer UK & Experience Hub) to reflect on Fundraising Everywhere’s recent Supporter Experience Conference.

Together, they unpack some of the conference’s key themes – including the “relevancy crisis” facing charities, why so many organisations struggle to turn their commitment to supporter experience into real organisational change, and what it truly means to reflect a supporter’s motivations back to them.

They also explore the differences between large and small charities when it comes to delivering great supporter experiences, share standout moments from the conference (including a powerful session on storytelling from Lisa at Fireside Fundraising), and look ahead to what’s coming; from AI’s role in closing the relevancy gap, to protecting the irreplaceable human element in fundraising.

In late 2024, Cassie asked Lime Green Consulting if they knew of any good mental health resources available specifically for fundraisers, based on a hunch that this might be a gap for the sector. They agreed – and Cassie very kindly offered to write this blog as a way of starting a conversation about the topic. Over to Cassie…

We’ve gathered our top 5 On-Demand sessions this month so that you can see what’s been popular in our community. You can check out the sessions by clicking on the thumbnails below.

Here’s a session from Community Conference 2025, hosted by Nikki Bell.
With speakers: Bushra Ahmed from Lloyds Bank Foundation, Kerry Thomas from Pancreatic Cancer UK, Gemma Sherington from Refuge, Lauren Williams from Age UK

Community Fundraising can help kickstart your career. Don’t believe us? Then hear from four sector leaders, each with very different and inspiring careers as they share how their experiences working in partnership with communities and in community fundraising have helped them be where they are today.

From CEO to board member, to heading up fundraising teams and working across services, our four panellists will share their insight, expertise and learnings that we hope will inspire you in your career path. This session is not to missed!

It takes a lot of different things to ensure that fundraising is successful in an organisation: talented people, adequate budget, a convincing case for support and often a drop of good luck. But there’s something else that too often gets overlooked: organisational culture.

During our training courses and strategic planning work, we talk a lot about the importance of having a whole-organisation approach to fundraising and a fundraising-friendly culture – but it can be difficult to explain what this really means.

For me, a fundraising-friendly culture is when everyone in your organisation – whether that’s five, 50 or 500 people – recognises the importance of good fundraising to the bigger picture of your work, understands all the little things they can do to support your fundraising efforts, and feels motivated to play a part.

The charitable soft opt-in ICO guidance has just landed.

For many charities, this is the biggest shift in supporter communications rules in years.

And our inbox and membership chat are already full of questions:
Does event attendance count as expressing interest?
What about volunteering, buying a raffle ticket, or clicking a link?
Can we now contact people we previously couldn’t?
And just as importantly…Where are the grey areas charities need to tread carefully?
To help the sector unpack all of this quickly, we’re hosting a session with Mark Burnett from Hope & May.

Get access to the full webinar & 30 minute Q&A.

If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to hit follow and enable notifications so you’ll get notified to be first to hear of future podcast episodes. We’d love to see you back again!

And thank you to our friends at JustGiving who make the Fundraising Everywhere Podcast possible.

In this episode of the Fundraising Everywhere podcast, host Nikki Bell, Co-Founder of Fundraising Everywhere and Creator of Pizza For Losers is joined by Josh Leigh, Co-Founder of Hynt and Matt Middler, Transformative Coach to discuss the transformative power of embracing and learning from failure.

The trio dives into their personal experiences, share impactful stories from previous Pizza for Losers events, and highlight the significance of creating safe spaces for candid conversations within the fundraising sector. Get ready for an honest, inspiring, and fun-filled conversation that also teases insights from this year’s exciting Pizza for Losers event.

We’ve gathered our top 5 On-Demand sessions this month so that you can see what’s been popular in our community. You can check out the sessions by clicking on the thumbnails below.

A new generation are redefining what generosity looks like. Fia Ewings explores how charities can close the Gen Z engagement gap through transparency, digital-first experiences, and authentic relationships that turn values into action.