[00:00:00] Multiple Voices: Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. , you don’t need to add me in there.

[00:00:31] Alex Aggidis: Hello, hello, and welcome to the Fundraising Everywhere podcast. If you’ve been here before, it’s lovely to have you back. And if you’re new, we hope you enjoy your first episode. Now, before we get on to today’s episode, and if you’re on the lookout for more fundraising tips, tricks, insights, and support, do take a look at our website, fundraisingeverywhere.com. Here you’ll find over 400 fundraising training sessions that spread the breadth of fundraising.

From entry level to leadership. And we always have new content coming in all of the time with free webinars and our monthly flagship fundraising conferences. If you see a few things you like, our super affordable membership might be of interest, which gives you unlimited access to everything on our site, past and future, as well as any in person events we hold, and loads of other amazing benefits like leadership coaching.

[00:01:23] Alex Aggidis: You can find out more at fundraisingeverywhere. com. Now, on to today’s episode.

[00:01:34] Simon Scriver: Hello everyone and welcome to the Fundraising Everywhere podcast. My name is Simon Scriver, I am one of the co founders of Fundraising Everywhere and I’m very happy to be here with you today to talk to you about more areas of fundraising and dive deeper into a particular topic. Um, and the topic we’re talking about today is payroll giving.

[00:01:49] Simon Scriver: And this comes about because we’ve had a few questions from, from members, um, recently about payroll giving, this seems to be kind of one of the most under utilized, um, forms of fundraising out there. Uh, and really something that I know very little about. And actually I don’t really remember being at, um, any events where.

[00:02:08] Simon Scriver: You know, there might be one session on it, but very rarely you see these fundraising conferences talk about it. Um, I know there is a, uh, the CIOF have their payroll giving conference coming up in 25th of March, which both of my speakers today are involved in. Um, but really, let me read you this question from one of our members.

[00:02:24] Simon Scriver: They said, I need, I need some of that music, you know, when, when DJs go into their. The emotional lessons from the audience but here’s an emotional letter from one of our from one of our listeners who says we’re really keen to develop payroll giving as a channel. We found the confidence in our team is really lacking when it comes to how to do payroll giving well and how it all works we’ve got a very basic setup and there’s definitely more we could be doing and so this member is looking for more more details on really how to get started but i’ve got lots of questions.

[00:02:53] Simon Scriver: And so my two guests today are the wonderful, I mean, they must be of the smallest handful of payroll giving experts out there. We have Mervi Slade. Uh, who is the product and program manager, uh, of payroll giving at Cancer Research UK, which is a very impressive role to be in. And then Caroline Gaskin, who is doing amazing things at Together for Animals around their payroll giving.

[00:03:15] Simon Scriver: Um, but Caroline, first of all, I’ll turn to you, are you in charge of all of the fundraising or are you very much payroll giving? You seem to be juggling a lot. Who are you? Who are you?

[00:03:25] Caroline Gaskin: So I’m the sole employee, so yeah, I do all of it. I do our payroll giving, our IG, our legacies, our social media. If you see it and it’s been put out by Together for Animals, I did it basically.

[00:03:37] Caroline Gaskin: With the support

[00:03:38] Caroline Gaskin: of my trustees, obviously. I do have trustees who are really good and supportive. Um, but yeah, the day to day stuff, that’s, that’s down to me.

[00:03:46] Simon Scriver: That’s very impressive. I thought there was more of you. So you’re being pulled in all sorts of directions. And yeah, I’ve got this, I’ve got this amazing stat here.

[00:03:52] Simon Scriver: What is it? Together for Animals receives over 90 percent of its income from payroll giving. That can’t be right. Is that right?

[00:03:58] Caroline Gaskin: Yes, it’s right. Because we were set up 31 years ago as a consortium to concentrate our efforts on payroll giving.

[00:04:07] Simon Scriver: Amazing. So this is what you’re dealing with all day, every day.

[00:04:11] Simon Scriver: Fantastic. And Mervi, how are you? What is your role at CIUK?

[00:04:15] Mervi Slade: Yeah, obviously I have the very impressive title of products and program manager for payroll giving. Um, so yeah, obviously I look after payroll giving, I sit in IG, so I’m definitely not the sole employee. Um, and, uh, do a lot of, you know, a kind of like cross org work.

[00:04:32] Mervi Slade: So work with our like regional fundraisers with our. Corporate partnerships team, and obviously as IT in general, look after like where, where the donors are coming from, but outside of that, I chair the special interest group under CIOF for payroll giving and been involved in payroll giving for absolutely forever.

[00:04:53] Simon Scriver: I mean, it’s fascinating. I’m not sure I’ve ever had a chat with someone who’s so devoted to payroll giving. So I’m really, I’m really interested to crack open your. Your brain. I mean, first of all, let’s start, let’s start with the basics. Like what is payroll giving? And, and I, and we have a lot of international lists as well.

[00:05:08] Simon Scriver: So I’m, I am going to highlight that you guys are both UK based and payroll giving is going to work different in different countries. Um, but, but could one of you maybe explain to me like what, what is payroll giving and what exactly does it exist? Cause it seems to sit in this weird place between IG corporate giving community fundraising.

[00:05:27] Simon Scriver: How do you guys explain payroll giving if you’re, if someone’s asking you from the start?

[00:05:33] Mervi Slade: I think it’s, um, to be honest, you can have very short, um, kind of elevated pitch for payroll giving. So payroll giving is like, if you want to give to charity on a regular basis to your salary, you get tax break. So five or four normal standard rate taxpayer is going to cost four pounds.

[00:05:50] Mervi Slade: And if you are lucky, unlucky to be on the higher tax brackets, uh, kind of like, you know, the benefits is even better. And the charity is actually getting going to get more money because they automatically get all of that tax that that person would be, um, paying to HMRC.

[00:06:08] Simon Scriver: So it’s essentially like the, the people are nominating to have their donation taken out before they get paid.

[00:06:14] Simon Scriver: So the company is the one who’s taking it out of their salary. The company is the one who’s part of the employer is the one who’s passing it across. Uh, to the charity and basically the person just sees like they have donated more in essence, but it’s because they’ve done it before the tax. Is that right?

[00:06:29] Simon Scriver: Is that what I’m, that’s what I’m hearing?

[00:06:31] Multiple Voices: Yeah.

[00:06:33] Simon Scriver: So, so people do it, I guess, because there’s a bit of a, uh, uh, tax incentive there for them. Why, why do companies do it?

[00:06:43] Caroline Gaskin: Well, there’s loads of reasons. Um, they’re helping their staff to make that saving. They’re showing their staff that they care about the causes that the staff actually care about.

[00:06:54] Caroline Gaskin: They’re enhancing their CSR activity. They are doing a scheme that we know from stats helps keep staff, help staff retention, help staff morale. So for businesses, it’s a bit of a win win because it’s, it’s helping on so many levels and it doesn’t necessarily take them that much when it comes to administration or costs.

[00:07:18] Caroline Gaskin: Um, so it adds to their CSR, but it’s also about, for me, it’s also about that thing of like showing staff that it isn’t just about the charity of the year. That everyone’s picked or voted on or one cause that they’re all working towards. It’s that personal touch of saying we’ll help you with the charity that your heart’s closest to, as well as this sort of charity of the year profile that we’ve got going on as well.

[00:07:41] Simon Scriver: And we see that work so effectively in corporate giving and I suppose in other areas where you, you almost create this community of people who are giving together. And that kind of spurs them on and that kind of motivates them and it creates that space. So I guess maybe the smarter question is, why don’t companies do it?

[00:07:58] Simon Scriver: Like, what is, what is the barrier for companies and what is the barrier for people to do it? Do you have strong opinions on this? Because I imagine you’re dealing with this all the time.

[00:08:06] Mervi Slade: Yeah, I think we do. Um, I think there’s quite a lot of it are still misconceptions. The scheme’s been going on since 1987, which is a kind of like a fair whack of time.

[00:08:16] Mervi Slade: Um, there’s still, um, some employers who might think that, Oh, it’s, it’s a lot of work. Um, Oh, it’s going to cost us money. It doesn’t cost a penny to set the scheme up. Uh, you don’t need any new softwares or anything like that. All the, all the modern, modern payrolls have other things that are deducted in the same way.

[00:08:37] Mervi Slade: As payroll giving and, and just kind of like, you know, give perspective to how much time it might take to administer the scheme. So we have about four and a half thousand employees. Um, uh, uh, we have a absolutely fantastic, uh, um, payroll person, Chris, who I do lots of work with. And he’s told me that, um, for us, it takes less than an hour each month to actually administer payroll giving, because it slots into all the other activities that you do each payday.

[00:09:06] Mervi Slade: And it’s like the biggest thing you have to do is like, you know, like, for example, last week we had our internal campaign to promote payroll giving to our own staff at Cancer Research UK. Um, there will be X amount of faff because they have to set those donations. But then each month they just roll on in the same way, unless someone cancels, which is And the cancellations whilst working somewhere is relatively rare.

[00:09:28] Mervi Slade: Normally people drop off the scheme when they actually change jobs.

[00:09:34] Simon Scriver: Yeah, I mean, I want to dive into that because I think that’s a key thing around people changing jobs and I suppose the other opportunities that come from it. You make an interesting point that you said you, you employees for four and a half thousand, something like that.

[00:09:49] Simon Scriver: So, I mean, presumably you have staff turnover within that and stuff. So for smaller organizations, it’s going to be even more straightforward that you’re going to see less than that staff turnover. Well, well, talk me through this. I, you know, I own fundraising everywhere. We don’t have a payroll giving scheme.

[00:10:02] Simon Scriver: And I feel like I shouldn’t be saying that out loud on a fundraising podcast, because now I’m going to be inundated with. But if we were to go and do it, if you had sold this to us, if you had sold this concept to me, uh, as part of your approach, what, what steps do I need to do? Is it a registration? Is it a registration with HMRC?

[00:10:20] Simon Scriver: Is it, and then notifying the payroll person to kind of do, is that it? Or what else do I need to be doing to set this up?

[00:10:28] Mervi Slade: So you would need to, uh, set up the scheme with the payroll giving agency. Mm-hmm . Uh, there’s like a full list on, um, on Gov UK website that has. All the payroll giving agencies. Um, for us, I think the same story for Caroline as well.

[00:10:44] Mervi Slade: The vast majority of the donations that we get is either through Charity SAFE Foundation, Charities Trust or Charitable Giving. So they are all not for profit organizations themselves, unregistered charities. So what their role is, so when you sign a contract with them, and then after that, obviously you have amazing, all bells and whistles, uh, exciting, uh, employee engaging campaign.

[00:11:06] Mervi Slade: To tell your staff about the scheme and get them to sign up. After that, your payroll sends all the, um, all the, um, details of those people who have signed up to the payroll giving agency, and they will then distribute the funds to whatever courses. Your employees want to give it to you. So that’s kind of it in a nutshell.

[00:11:24] Mervi Slade: Caroline, correct me if I’m wrong, because, you know, I’m a bit of a coldy feeling as well. So, uh, my brain might not be the sharpest.
[00:11:31] Simon Scriver: We’re all sick today. But so, so then in theory, uh, could the staff be, they could be donating to different causes. They could be nominating causes.

[00:11:39] Caroline Gaskin: Yeah, whoever they want to.

[00:11:42] Caroline Gaskin: And I think that’s one of the barriers that I know one company raised with me. was that we haven’t got time to make a hundred donations to a hundred different charities, but it’s not. It’s one transfer to the PGA, one set of details to the PGA, and then they do all the rest. They’ll look at each of the hundred employees, see where the money’s going, put that five pounds over to them.

[00:12:04] Caroline Gaskin: So it isn’t intensive therefore for an employer because it, the PGA does that intensive bit of splitting the right amount of money to the right charities and doing all of those transfers.

[00:12:16] Simon Scriver: The employer as an employer, we would just be doing one lump sum transfer across to the company, which makes perfect as a side note and in relation to gift aid, I suppose that in lieu of gift aid, almost because they haven’t paid tax on that donation originally.

[00:12:32] Simon Scriver: So it, it like takes away that extra step of doing the gift aid as well, because it’s already done at source. That’s, that’s right, isn’t it?

[00:12:40] Caroline Gaskin: Yeah. So there’s no gift aid claim to do on your payroll giving donations. But also, um, because there’s no gift aid, it’s the only way that if you’ve got a higher rate taxpayer.

[00:12:50] Caroline Gaskin: you’ll get that higher rate, 40, 45 percent of tax back because you’re not limited by the gift aid
[00:12:58] Simon Scriver: amount. That’s interesting.

[00:13:00] Mervi Slade: And also something to bear in mind, because you know, some employers actually match the donations. So, um, um, we receive, um, in a tune of about a quarter of a million each year in matching alone.

[00:13:14] Mervi Slade: And that’s something that you, you would not get that if those same individuals. We’re doing a direct debit and I’m absolutely not dissing direct debits. They are obviously very important, uh, way of, you know, um, giving to charities and charities receiving income. But I think that’s just good to, um, kind of, you know, um, talk about that as well.

[00:13:33] Mervi Slade: And that’s, again, if a company does matching, they can, um, take basically claim tax back on that because that’s their considered their charitable giving. And it’s a, if an organization is able to do matching. It’s a fantastic USB when someone is talking to their staff about giving through payroll giving because it’s not only are they getting the discount, but the charity is getting even more because their employer is actually putting a hand in their pocket.

[00:13:59] Simon Scriver: I mean, it seems like a really lovely approach because you can almost approach about that payroll giving which doesn’t cost the company money. But the, you know, and it’s still part of their CSR, but then there’s that add on that you can bring in, you know, either in initial conversations or down the road, um, where you’re trying to like increase the income from that company by, by offering that match giving thing, because I think that’s really good.

[00:14:20] Simon Scriver: And I’ve seen lots of stats around that match giving, which actually it increases how much people want to give and how much they give because they feel their donations going further, but it also increases how much the company gives. And it just seems like such a win, win, win situation. So. I mean, I’m enjoying this, but like, what, what are, what are the mistakes people are making?

[00:14:41] Simon Scriver: Like, the sound, the sound’s almost like pretty straightforward, but I’m really conscious not enough people are doing this, or there’s so many charities that aren’t doing them. So what are the mistakes people are making when they do get into this and when they start doing it? Like, where does it fall down for people?

[00:14:55] Simon Scriver: Does anyone come out of this kind of scheme because it doesn’t work for them? Like, what’s, what kind of negativity do you hear from people?

[00:15:03] Caroline Gaskin: I’ve not heard of any charities come out of it, to be honest.

[00:15:07] Simon Scriver: Yeah, I mean, I can’t, I

[00:15:08] Caroline Gaskin: don’t know why we

[00:15:10] Simon Scriver: would, why you would.

[00:15:11] Caroline Gaskin: Yeah. Um, no, I’ve never had any inquires. I think it’s just the thing of, of possibly it’s that investment in time resource or from a, you know, somebody has got to be looking after this, not necessarily full time, but you’ve got to have.

[00:15:32] Caroline Gaskin: buy in from leaders, trustees, whoever you’re getting buy in from in your charity. So you’ve got to have that understanding, but then they’ve got to give you that resource back. That’s one of the reasons that we’ve got the level that we have. is that buy in and the fact that I can spend 60, 70 percent of my time on liaising with PFOs, PGAs, talking to corporates about it.

[00:15:59] Caroline Gaskin: So somebody’s got to put that resource in and just explaining it as simply as possible to your corporate. It’s, it’s just getting that thing of like knowledge within your team and then that resource and buy in to put that effort into increasing that knowledge with your corporate partners, corporates that you’re approaching, um, and getting it running.

[00:16:20] Simon Scriver: Yeah. I mean, what are those conversations like Caroline? Cause I assume you have a lot of those conversations with corporate. Do you, do you call yourself a fundraiser Caroline? Cause you’re, you’re kind of,

[00:16:29] Caroline Gaskin: I call myself Jack as in of all trade. So no.

[00:16:32] Simon Scriver: All right, we’re going to, we’re going to give you an honorary fundraiser title just for this.

[00:16:38] Simon Scriver: But what, what are those conversations like? Is it very much just explaining the facts and trying to simplify payroll giving for them? Like, it doesn’t sound like something you kind of really have to sell or push much, you know, like, um, because it’s not an immediate, it’s not like an ongoing cost for the companies themselves.

[00:16:55] Simon Scriver: It just sounds like you guys are dealing with misunderstandings a lot. Is that the main bane of your existence? It’s just.

[00:17:03] Caroline Gaskin: And I think it’s getting to the right people as well, because obviously buy in from a corporate charity of the year perspective, we’ll probably just have CSR ESG person looking after it.

[00:17:16] Caroline Gaskin: We’re kind of looking for a buy in on a few different levels, because if you can get the payroll people supporting there, they’re the people that are going to do the grunt work. So if they’re happy from the start and have knowledge and awareness, that’s great. So kind of like that HR perspective, that payroll team perspective, we went to the Chartered Institute of Payroll Professionals conference last year, and it’s amazing how many payroll staff are like, yeah, this, we do this.

[00:17:45] Caroline Gaskin: It’s great. It’s easy. Um, and the ones that didn’t do it were like, Oh, okay. Yeah, we should be doing this. This seems quite easy because they get that processing payroll bit.

[00:17:55] Simon Scriver: Yeah.

[00:17:56] Caroline Gaskin: So it’s just having the conversations and breaking down the information, thinking about the different people that will be involved in it.

[00:18:03] Caroline Gaskin: And then once a company’s got a scheme. actually getting them to promote it. It’s great having that ticks box of like, yeah, we’ve got a scheme. We offer that to our star. Uh, when I started this job, I hadn’t worked in a charity that had done payroll giving before. Didn’t even know existed until my interview.

[00:18:17] Caroline Gaskin: And I was looking at the website. I was like, what’s this? We didn’t, we didn’t do this. We’ll say, um, And two of my really close friends and my husband all worked for companies that had schemes. And when I spoke to all of them about it, they went, what? Because yeah, the companies have got schemes, but actually telling the staff about it, it’s a totally different level.

[00:18:36] Caroline Gaskin: So then it’s getting that active buy in to let’s promote this, you know, give them as many resources as they need to help them promote it. Keep, you know, building that relationship, getting them to do touch points around various. charity days, awareness days, awareness months, you know, to keep that active promotion going on.

[00:18:57] Caroline Gaskin: Um, and February is payroll giving month. And it does work. We’ve seen, you know, just that active talking about it more. We’ve seen an uptake in numbers. We’re only on the 18th, so, you know, that’ll go up even more. So yeah, it’s just getting the companies and to not just do the buy in tick yet. We’ve set a scheme up.

[00:19:15] Caroline Gaskin: That’s great. Our staff can do it. It’s on some portal, 15 pages back from where they book their annual leave or.

[00:19:21] Simon Scriver: Yeah

[00:19:22] Caroline Gaskin: know, print off a sick certificate or something and getting them to actually talk about it, talk about the impact that they’re having and, and having that awareness level so staff know what it is and how to sign up to it.

[00:19:34] Simon Scriver: That’s it. That’s it. I forgot to wish you both a happy payroll giving month, which I suppose is like Christmas.

[00:19:38] Mervi Slade: We should send cards. I was going to say that obviously I have the payroll giving tree up.

[00:19:48] Simon Scriver: Give me, I want to talk about, I want to talk about like donors specifically, because one of the questions from our members is asking about the behaviors of payroll giving donors and do they differ from other donors? Um, Mervi, you’ve talked about how it kind of sits in IG. Are these just like your individual giving donors?

[00:20:06] Simon Scriver: Like is it a similar demographic? Is it a similar behavior?

[00:20:10] Mervi Slade: There are similarities and differences. Obviously, uh, with payroll giving you are talking about people who are, um, working age. Um, so, um, most of our payroll givers obviously are much younger than our regular givers. And also what is quite interesting is that you actually get, um, slightly more men giving to payroll giving than women.

[00:20:32] Mervi Slade: Um, so it’s, I think at the end of the day, they are people who give on a regular basis. It just comes in a slightly different way and, and they are people. Um, so I don’t think payroll givers should be treated in any, any weird and wonderful different way than other people who are supporting a course on a regular basis.

[00:20:54] Mervi Slade: Um, should be thanked, they should be brought on the journey and, um, and, and just, you know, um, consider it as people who want to support your cause.

[00:21:06] Simon Scriver: So, I mean, a lot of the same kind of donor principles are going to apply in terms of good fundraising, what keeps people, uh, you know, that donor love, that donor support.

[00:21:14] Simon Scriver: I guess the, the big hurdle there is that almost barrier about how you get access to these people. I mean, maybe access is the wrong word. But do you, you know, as natural part of the program, are you allowed to communicate directly with individuals? Or how do you get that kind of, how do you get that permission from the organization to put you in front of the people, you know, do you know what I’m saying?

[00:21:34] Simon Scriver: Like, well, what have you seen that’s worked to get you in front of people, front of the staff themselves so that you can kind of have that influence on how loyal they are? What works for you?

[00:21:44] Mervi Slade: Well, um, our vast majority of the donors that we. we get at Cancer Research UK are recruited by PFOs. So basically fundraising organizations that are specialized in promoting payroll giving.

[00:21:57] Mervi Slade: So obviously they are, they are day in, day out in the workplaces talking to people about payroll giving. And obviously the way they do it, that is what differs from, um, let’s say like private side face to face campaign is that they talk about the scheme. As a first point, and then they start talking about what causes people would like to support because people still aren’t necessarily so afraid about payroll giving.

[00:22:21] Mervi Slade: And that’s why we do internal campaigns at Cancer Research UK because, you know, I don’t presume that our staff through osmosis has been fine about payroll giving. Um, you have to kind of, you know, take it to them and you have to make it easy. Well, that’s why we, that’s why they are face to face. Agencies running campaigns on private sites in, in, in shopping centers, doing street fundraising, doing door to door because, you know, speaking to people is the best way of engaging them and actually making it happen because, you know.

[00:22:52] Mervi Slade: I think we all have good intentions, but it just, you know, the good intentions don’t necessarily, um, become the reality and actually signing on the dotted line. Um, unless sometimes you’re, you need someone to actually be there and well, say to them, well, why don’t you give it a go? You can always cancel for some reason you don’t like it or, um, and obviously big idea, big, big thing is that, you know, no one should be signing up to an amount.

[00:23:20] Mervi Slade: That is, is too much for them. It has to be an amount that is, is, is, um, manageable. And what I’ve started, I’ve started calling, um, I hope I’m not breaking any trademark rules. I’ll actually call payroll giving kind of Aldi way of giving because you tax discount on your donation.

[00:23:38] Simon Scriver: Hmm.

[00:23:39] Caroline Gaskin: You see, I go for Tesco’s and every little helps, but we’ve both got the supermarket thing going.

[00:23:44] Caroline Gaskin: Like this is the tax saving, like, well, every little bit back in you kind of way helps.

[00:23:49] Simon Scriver: But it’s significant, isn’t it? And especially when you start talking to them as a collective workforce, you know, if they’re doing it together towards the same charity or that, you know, even if they’re doing it, donating to different charities within, it’s like your organization is doing this and, and that tax relief, that tax incentive just makes it go so much further.

[00:24:06] Simon Scriver: So I can see why, I can see why you lean heavily into that. Um, I’m curious in terms of payroll givers, um, what happens to them beyond that payroll giving. So do you see payroll givers as an opportunity to perhaps bring in, you know, conversations about legacies, about writing a gift and a will. Um, I’m also curious about what happens when they, when they, you mentioned it, when they move on from the job, um, how you kind of keep them engaged or how you reignite that, well, what’s, what’s it Caroline, what’s your experience been in terms of dealing with these donors and, and.

[00:24:37] Simon Scriver: Moving them, I guess, up, up the ladder, up the ladder.

[00:24:41] Caroline Gaskin: Yeah, I mean, as I would say with a good donor journey, um, the, if they have been recruited through one of the professional fundraising organizations does bring them a little bit closer. Um, good case studies, all of the norm that you would do, you can, um, because we’ve concentrated on it.

[00:25:02] Caroline Gaskin: A lot of our donors obviously are from that route. We’ve got a lady who we were doing our 30th celebrations last year and she messaged me and said, Oh, I’ve just missed being as old as your charity with you because I, I’ve been giving to you for 29 years. Somebody came around with a clipboard when I worked at DWP and I signed up, I gave to you for my whole career with DWP, then my pension, and now I give to you direct debit.

[00:25:31] Caroline Gaskin: and you’re in my will. She, it just shows it works because yeah, her whole career within government she stayed with us. She transferred the gift to her pension when she decided to stop that she gives additionally direct debit to us every month and we know that we are left in her will. So yeah, you definitely can because that lady’s proof she’s absolutely the perfect payroll giving donor in that respect.

[00:25:58] Caroline Gaskin: The legacies that we get back, one that we had a couple of months ago was an existing donor who was a payroll giving donor. It was coming out of her pension. She passed away. We had a gift and her will left to us. It’s just about taking them on that journey. And then at points in the year, when you’re dropping those messages, you know, explaining the benefits of leaving a little bit in the will, sending them the free will writing schemes if they’re signed up to one as a charity so that they understand and know that that’s a benefit that they can use or a scheme that they can use if they want to.

[00:26:32] Caroline Gaskin: But yeah, we definitely have donors that we have taken on, um, that do fundraising events for us, uh, every so often that send additional gifts at Christmas or when we send a newsletter out, send additional gifts back as well as their payroll giving donation. And, you know, if we’ve got GDPR and contact details for them and they do swap jobs, we will try and get them to sign up to give by card or direct debit and to keep that regular gift going in the sort of usual route that you would do.

[00:27:05] Caroline Gaskin: So yeah, they are, they’re normal donors. They’re not a strange elk of donors. They’re normal donors that you can take. And yeah, that, I mean, that lady that’s given to us for 29 years, she’s casing point of how much you can pull, you know, that donor journey is so vital. Explain to them the impact that they’re having and then engage with your cause and they’ll engage with your cause for the uplifts to things like gifts and more on stuff.

[00:27:29] Simon Scriver: It’s, it’s, it’s really interesting to talk to you guys. And, and, and like, it feels to me like, you know, someone who’s very little experience with payroll giving beyond, you know, just talking about. The giving that goes on around it. For me, it seems like payroll giving is often falls into this bucket where it feels like this very different form of fundraising, where it feels like corporate, or it almost feels like, you know, government funding or something.

[00:27:54] Simon Scriver: But in reality, when you guys are talking and breaking down, it feels very much just like individual giving. It just seems like a new funnel or like a, an extra. Uh, source of donors, you know, people who you aren’t necessarily going to talk to on the street, people who aren’t necessarily going to respond to your TV ads or your mailings or things or social media.

[00:28:15] Simon Scriver: But there are people who are sitting in a workplace and it just might be that you get in front of them. I mean, Mary, you’re very involved with the, with these payroll giving groups and you’re involved with this, uh, with the CIO F event coming up, like what is your. What is your drum that you’re banging when you’re ranting about payrocket?

[00:28:34] Simon Scriver: Like, what is, what is the missing link here? How do we get this into more charities? How do we get this into businesses?

[00:28:41] Mervi Slade: I think it’s really kind of, because, you know, as you said at the beginning, it is one of the few untapped areas of fundraising. And I think, especially at these times, you should really be looking into it because it’s, it is free.

[00:28:54] Mervi Slade: Some, something free when you’re talking to your corporate partners is that it’s free for them to set up. And if you think about it, like, you know, obviously you want people there to bake and run and hop and skip and do these things, but there are people who don’t want to do those things. This is a really good way to kind of be like, um, um, kind of complete the portfolio of asks that you’re going to have for the corporate partners.

[00:29:18] Mervi Slade: And actually if we could get them to. Really run the campaigns, you know, have some face to face activities because, you know, face to face is the way to go to activate those people and if they are able to match the donators, because obviously anything that is raised through pay or giving, you can add it into the, however much you are raising into those, um, stats, raised for your, charity partner and it just, um, it’s really, it’s really add on to what people can do.

[00:29:51] Mervi Slade: And, uh, some people want to do pair giving and Do running, uh, oil do baking, but it’s, it doesn’t take away, because I think that has been one of their red herrings at times is that, oh, we can’t talk about parent giving. It’s because you’re gonna gonna take away from all the other activities. Monitoring.

[00:30:07] Mervi Slade: Mm-hmm. I think that’s, you know, poppycock. Um,

[00:30:11] Simon Scriver: yeah, I, I’d agree. Po poppy CO’s a great word for it because it is, it does seem like a very logical add-on, a very logical next conversation where it’s not messed. Can it cause the employee thing or it seems like the, and for me as a fundraiser, it would be a great initial conversation.

[00:30:26] Simon Scriver: It seems like a really nice, soft ask to go to a corporate that you maybe don’t have a deep relationship with a view to moving them into, into further giving. So I can see exactly what you’re saying. Like it sits really nicely in, in conversation in the fundraiser. It doesn’t seem like a difficult ask about it when no one is listening.

[00:30:42] Caroline Gaskin: And you can even sort of stretch the corporates that you’re talking to because. They might not directly link with your cause in other ways. You know, we’re an animal charity. You would expect us to approach insurance company and pet insurance companies, pet food company, those kinds of things for corporate support.

[00:31:01] Caroline Gaskin: Um, but actually one of them I’m talking to at the moment is a Hoover company, not necessarily particularly linked, but going in with that payroll giving off and using the fact that their employees can give to any charity that’s close to them. Opens that door to a conversation, whereas an animal charity wouldn’t necessarily have that usually.

[00:31:24] Simon Scriver: Yeah.

[00:31:25] Caroline Gaskin: So you can kind of look a little bit differently at your corporate pipeline. Um, look at more local companies that maybe wouldn’t engage with your type of charity and just talk to them about it very generally. If you’re the charity that’s introducing that scheme and it’s your materials and you can put your messages in, chances are you’re going to get eyes on, you know.

[00:31:47] Caroline Gaskin: So members of staff are going to get eyes on your name, maybe look into you, your chances are you’re going to pick up a few. I

[00:31:53] Simon Scriver: love that. Yeah.

[00:31:54] Mervi Slade: Something I wanted to add as well is like, you know, think about the, the kind of like, uh, legacy of a corporate partnership is that, you know, if you are running payroll giving campaigns there, um, and you run payroll giving as a part of it, um, of the charity, of your activities, um, people are not going to drop their donation to you just because of the charity.

[00:32:15] Mervi Slade: The year is changing. You were more than likely going to get those donations from those individuals as long as they stay with their employer. And, and I think they are like, you know, I think the most powerful example of that I’ve heard about, because, you know, I think Auspice UK back in the day was the first, uh, charity partner for Royal Mail.

[00:32:35] Mervi Slade: And they run very massive, you know, face to face campaigns for payroll giving. And I think it was like 10, 15 years after the partnership had ended, they were still getting few hundreds of thousands.

[00:32:51] Mervi Slade: So I think it’s good to remember it’s not just for the duration of the partnership with the employer. It is more than likely going to be yes to coming.

[00:33:00] Simon Scriver: Yeah. And it actually feels like, I mean, I don’t have stats in front of me, but I’m, I feel like the retention is going to be better. And many other forms of regular giving or individual giving just because it is that kind of formal thing that you’re locked in, obviously the job change risk, but, but I think while they’re in that position and I think case studies like that really, really proves that that’s, that’s interesting.

[00:33:22] Simon Scriver: Well, I think

[00:33:23] Caroline Gaskin: for the moment, I’m sorry, I think at the moment we’re looking at seven to eight years is the average. Lifetime of a payroll giver 8. 4. Sorry. So if you think about your average direct debit or your average charity of the year cycle, do you know what I mean? Like sometimes I’d extend them to two, maybe three, but not usually as long as eight.

[00:33:43] Simon Scriver: Yeah.

[00:33:43] Caroline Gaskin: Um, God, I wouldn’t,

[00:33:45] Simon Scriver: I wouldn’t even think people stay in a job that long anymore, but maybe, um, um, okay, we’re, we’re coming to an end here. I could actually unpack this a lot, a lot longer with you guys, but, um, I just, as we start to wrap up. People listening to this will probably be thinking, okay, well, what do I do next?

[00:34:02] Simon Scriver: Or what’s the first step? So whether they’re, they’re maybe have never touched on this or it’s like, it’s there, but they haven’t really utilized this. So, so just to ask you guys this in terms of what you would recommend people go away from here and do. I mean, my, my feeling you’re saying is like, first we’ll be looking at these, these agencies or these organizations that recruit the payroll givers.

[00:34:24] Simon Scriver: Well, what, what else should, should listeners to this be doing as soon as they switch this off to get this going, what’s the, what’s the priorities?

[00:34:32] Mervi Slade: I think first thing I would start doing is like, you know, uh, looking at how much payroll giving are you already receiving? And, uh, that is something that you could, um, if you could see that you have income coming from the payroll giving agencies.

[00:34:45] Mervi Slade: Uh, if you are not already signed up, sign up to get disbursement statements that they send monthly, um, to charities where they are. sending donations to because that gives you details of who’s giving and where they are giving. So that’s going to give you a like list of employers where you have supporters.

[00:35:03] Mervi Slade: And that

[00:35:03] Mervi Slade: could be a really interesting way to look at that. Okay. So who are we actually targeting? And if there are any, any matches that you could then use it in a conversations that, well, actually we already have support amongst your staff. If you’re having initial. Um, new business style conversations with that, with a particular employer.

[00:35:22] Simon Scriver: Yeah, that’s cool. Caroline, anything to add? What would you, what would you be recommending to people?

[00:35:27] Caroline Gaskin: Um, wherever you sit, IG, corporate, make sure both are on board. Get a conversation because. Yes, these are going to be, to me, these are individual givers. They’ve reached donation is just through their pay.

[00:35:41] Caroline Gaskin: But if, uh, if you can work closely with your corporate team or if you’re corporate, you can work closely with your IG team for the donor journey. That’s how you’re going to get the best results for your charity is to form that relationship and get the two teams working together.

[00:35:57] Simon Scriver: Yeah, I think, I think that’s great, but I don’t, I bet Caroline, you don’t have many problems with silos in your organization.

[00:36:03] Simon Scriver: I find my team

[00:36:04] Caroline Gaskin: to be quite amenable to my ideas a lot of the time. Yeah, it’s weird.

[00:36:11] Mervi Slade: Yeah, I was just going to say that, you know, please, please don’t get hung up on, uh, Oh, I don’t want to talk about payroll giving because the money doesn’t sit in my area because you think, uh, at the end of the day, it’s more important what your course can. Actually gain from that. And that’s why I think it, because it’s one of those, uh, forever asked question is like, Oh, should he sit with IgE?

[00:36:34] Mervi Slade: Should he sit with corporate partnerships? It needs both. It should really be like a floating Island that touches base with both of those parts. Um, and, and, and a beautiful relationship blossoms from that.

[00:36:47] Simon Scriver: Yeah. I, I think, I think I’m going to get on the t shirt because I think that goes beyond payroll given.

[00:36:51] Simon Scriver: I think like so many organizations fall down because they think of. This fundraising and this one, but our donors are, they’re not like that. They live their lives and they watch TV and they read their email and they do fun runs and they earn their pay. And so, yeah, I mean, nothing, nothing sits in one place.

[00:37:08] Simon Scriver: So I think that’s, I think that’s an excellent point for us to finish on. That’s great. Um, For people who want to follow you guys and want to know more, um, first of all, you’re both speaking at the, uh, at the CIOF payroll giving conference on the 25th of March in London. Um, so people can go and see you live.

[00:37:25] Simon Scriver: I expect it’s a big light show, lots of really pyrotechnics and fantastic.

[00:37:29] Mervi Slade: We hired the dancers, there’ll be red carpets, all the usual fundraising, you know, uh, conference activities. So you won’t be disappointed.

[00:37:40] Simon Scriver: And in the meantime, where, where do people find you? What’s your, what’s your social media? Does your, how do people reach out to you?

[00:37:46] Simon Scriver: Um, Caroline, what’s the, where do you sit these there?

[00:37:48] Caroline Gaskin: I just sit on LinkedIn to be quite honest. Um, yeah, if you have a look on LinkedIn under Caroline Gaskin, I’m not the menopause specialist. It’s under together for animals. It’s quite freaky to find somebody of your own name, . Yeah,

[00:38:01] Simon Scriver: I saw the first Simon Scriver in my life the other day.

[00:38:04] Simon Scriver: It was like, no way. Some kid in Scandinavia, there’s a new Simon Ver on, on, on the block.

[00:38:09] Mervi Slade: Oh no. We have a peer reviewing group on LinkedIn so you can basically sign up to that so we do do put all the details of events and like that so everything like that but also really good thing what you can do is basically um go on a CIOF website you can basically uh register without being a member as well and you can basically choose to receive emails about peer reviewing so we have monthly newsletters that obviously lists about anything new that’s going on and um and all the events, but also for those who are proper newbies to payroll giving.

[00:38:48] Mervi Slade: Um, we haven’t started advertising yet, but on 14th of May, we have beginners workshop to payroll giving. So, um, do sign up, do come along. You can, um, hear lots of things about payroll giving and ask any questions that you might have.

[00:39:02] Simon Scriver: That sounds juicy. And what was the name of the LinkedIn group? Remind me of the name of the LinkedIn group for payroll giving.

[00:39:07] Simon Scriver: Hey, that’s nice to see you. We’re simple. Um, Mervy, Caroline, thank you so much for your time today. I know you’re both very busy juggling lots of different things. So I really appreciate you coming and unpacking that. Um, I do, um, I’m going to encourage people to reach out to you if they have more questions or reach out to the groups.

[00:39:25] Simon Scriver: I know you’re busy and you might not want that, but I’m still going to encourage it. Um, but it’s left for me to say thank you very much to you both and, and wish you a final um, happy payroll giving month. I hope you have a very merry payroll giving month.

[00:39:38] Caroline Gaskin: Thank you.

[00:39:40] Simon Scriver: And to all of our listeners, I just want to say thank you very much for listening to the Fundraising Everywhere podcast.

[00:39:45] Simon Scriver: Please do check out the session description. We’ll have some of those links mentioned in there. Um, do check out Mervi and Caroline on LinkedIn and their groups and their events that are coming up because this is such an untapped area and there’s a wealth of knowledge there that we can really draw upon.

[00:39:58] Simon Scriver: Um, but otherwise, uh, from my side is to say goodbye to everyone. You can find out everything that’s coming up at fundraisingeverywhere. com. Don’t forget to subscribe. Don’t forget to share. And, uh, and for me, Simon, the co founder of Fundraising Everywhere, wishing you all the best and see you again soon.

[00:40:14] Alex Aggidis: Thank you so much for listening to the Fundraising Everywhere podcast. If you’re enjoying this podcast, why not share it with a fundraising friend? And if you would like to give us a little like or subscribe, it really helps more fundraisers like you find us. Thank you so much. See you next time.

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This transcript was created using AI. If you spot any mistakes, please reach out. Thank you!

Multiple Voices: [00:00:00] Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere.

Multiple Voices: Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere, you don’t need to add me in there.
Jade Cunnah: Welcome to the Fundraising Everywhere podcast. In this episode, we’ll be taking a look at one of our favourite on demand sessions in celebration of our first ever FE accelerator, Grant Writing. This accelerator will be an in depth masterclass to improve success. Efficiency and impact in your 2025 Trust fundraising.

Jade Cunnah: Our FE accelerator is coming up on Thursday the 20th of February. Now onto today’s episode, enjoy.[00:01:00]

Suzy Edington: Today I’m gonna be taking you through insights from the Just Giving events fundraising report that we have just launched. This is hot off the press and I’ll cover the key trends that’ve. seen on JustGiving, as well as some fascinating insights from our expert partners to give a holistic view of the events fundraising sector.

Suzy Edington: And throughout, I’ll be suggesting some tangible ways that you can take these learnings and apply them to your planning for 2025. So just a bit of background before we get going today. I am Susie and I look after partner programs at JustGiving. So I work with our amazing partners who integrate with the platform to deliver exciting new features and functionality and insight.

Suzy Edington: Alongside this, I deliver some fundraising consultancy either in a one to many way with insights and reports like today, or by working directly with charities in workshops to tackle challenges they face in their fundraising. I have been around in the sector in one guise or another for a very long time, um, and thanks to the fact that I work for an organisation who are remote [00:02:00] first, I’ve been able to move out of London to the lovely, slightly damp west country, uh, with my two kids.

Suzy Edington: So I’d love to hear your takeaways from the session today. If you’re posting on socials, please do tag us in your comments. We’d love to hear what you have to say. You can use at jgcauses if you’re using X or at JustGiving on LinkedIn. So what am I going to cover today? So first up, we’re going to get straight into some highlights from the new events fundraising report and take a look at the key trends that we’re seeing.

Suzy Edington: We’re then going to do a bit of a deeper dive into running as it’s such a critical part of so many charities event, event portfolios. Um, so we’re going to understand a bit more about why we’re seeing the trends there. We’ve gathered insights from our expert friends and partners in the sector to give a bit more context to this area.

Suzy Edington: We’re then going to move on and take a look at the world of virtual or social fundraising, so you’re thinking your month long challenges for that area. And I don’t want to be setting too much homework, but I will be sharing some key [00:03:00] actions for you and your team to take away and consider after this.

Suzy Edington: The session today is day to day and quite heavy on stats, so if you’re struggling to digest it all in one go, then don’t worry, you can always download the JustGiving fundraising report afterwards, which includes All of this plus much, much more. So to finish up, we’ll be taking a quick look at what’s inside the report and where you can find it.

Suzy Edington: So let’s get started and look back on the trends that we saw in 2024. It was a pretty great year for events fundraising, to be honest, and it feels like we’ve really come out of the fog of the pandemic and in person and virtual events are really having their day, which is so great to see. On JustGiving, we’re so proud to have seen continued growth in the number of pages created for sporting events.

Suzy Edington: So we’re up 3 percent on pages created year on year, and we’ve seen even higher growth in donations, so we’re up 6 percent in donations. So digging into what has driven that 6 percent growth in donations, we’ve [00:04:00] got two main metrics that we can look at. How many people started fundraising on their pages, and also, also known as the activation rate, and then how much those fundraisers went on to raise, so that’s the average page value that we’ve got here.

Suzy Edington: And I’m pleased to report that both of these were in growth through 2024. So not only did we see an increase in the number of pages, that was up to 3%, but we saw more people start to fundraise on those pages too. So we’re now up to 70 percent of those pages activating. This has been a really key area of work for us on the platform this year, improving the onboarding flow to encourage more supporters to update their pages and start fundraising straight away.

Suzy Edington: So it’s really great to see that this translates into real numbers for charities. We also saw the average page value increase. That’s now up to 741. 31.
Suzy Edington: So let’s explore what makes up the sporting events category. What are we talking about when we’re looking at these numbers and what drives those donations? Unsurprisingly, [00:05:00] uh, the most popular events are running events and they make up 43 percent of pages in this area and drive 59 percent of the donations.

Suzy Edington: 2024 was just a bumper year for running events, really, with field sizes increasing and more entries than ever. And this translated into fundraising, which is brilliant. So we’ve seen a significant 12 percent increase in total donations for running in 2024. Walks are the second most popular event type, and they make up 33 percent of pages.

Suzy Edington: As they have a lower page value than, say, something like running or triathlons, they only make up 14 percent of donations. However, again, we’ve seen a really strong year for walks in 2024, and they’ve seen a 7 percent increase in donations compared to 2023. So in our main sporting events areas, we’re seeing growth, which is hugely positive.

Suzy Edington: With running still dominating, we dug into the detail here a little bit more. We know that running as a hobby has grown since COVID with [00:06:00] running influencers, online running groups, running content, they’re all rising significantly. In fact, 22 percent of the population now report running between one and three times a week.

Suzy Edington: When we break down the percentage of event pages created by distance for our top events, it’s clear to see that half marathons are the absolute crowd favourites. They’re making up 62 percent of all fundraising pages created on JustGiving for organised sporting events. But importantly, when we review the percentage of total donations by event distance, it’s the full marathons that are the clear winner.

Suzy Edington: They’re bringing in 57 percent of the donation value. So I would recommend that you, um, look at your portfolio of events that you’re offering your supporters on your website. You want to make sure that you’ve got some of those half marathon options in there. They’re likely to be your best sellers. But I would recommend that you make sure you do have some marathon options in there as well.

Suzy Edington: We know that London Marathon places are like gold dust, but on the platform we saw growth across Belfast, Edinburgh and Manchester Marathons in 2024. So it’s worth looking at some of the options [00:07:00] around those events as well. Now moving on to take a look at page creation trends for running. So through 2024, we saw a 2 percent increase in the average page value for running events.

Suzy Edington: And this appears to be driven by pages being created earlier, with 29 percent increase in pages being created six months or more before their event date. So we’ve got a real sort of uplift around that eight, nine months before the event date period. The change of the London Marathon ballot date is going to have changed some of this behaviour, but it seems to be a wider trend that we’re seeing across running and other events types.

Suzy Edington: Um, interestingly, Run for Charity have seen that younger participants tend to sign up closer to the event date, while older participants have a bit more of a lead in time. With runners signing up early, it’s worth reviewing your stewardship journey and making sure that you’ve got some really good early touch points planned in.

Suzy Edington: If you can get people engaged with their pages early, they will go on to fundraise more. So make sure that you’re including the link to their fundraising page in emails, especially those welcome emails, um, [00:08:00] encouraging them to post updates, uh, onto their page and also linking their page to their fitness device nice and early on.

Suzy Edington: Um, and tracking those early painful, just getting back into running, uh, events that they’re doing. It’s all great content for them to be sharing and getting out there to boost their fundraising. Now helping us understand more about who those runners are, we have some insight here from our partners. Let’s do this as the go to platform for the

Suzy Edington: UK’s largest selection of endurance, endurance events. They have a unique view on the changes in the event marketplace and the view is really good. The UK running market is very buoyant, with running events growth growing significantly over the past two years on Let’s Do This. 2024 was the first year that event participation levels outpaced pre COVID levels, and there are early indications they will continue to grow rapidly through 2025, so we are still in this running events bubble.

Suzy Edington: This growth has been driven by an influx of younger runners. And [00:09:00] just so I can get all of the twos in a sentence that I possibly can, the percentage of runners in their 20s has increased by 22 percent in the last two years, up to 22%. Um, and this is particularly good news because according to the Let’s Do This Insight as well, these runners are also the ones that have shown the greatest interest in fundraising for charity by taking part in their event, with 10 percent of people in their 20s saying they would like to fundraise as part of their event.

Suzy Edington: Run for Charity also has some interesting insight on the demographics of runners. So Run for Charity enabled charities to gain places in challenge events without the commitment to having to buy places up front. Um, overall, they’ve seen the average age of runners drop very slightly. So they were 35. 6 and it’s down to 34.

Suzy Edington: 6. So we’ve lost a year in 2024. And as with Let’s Do This, they’ve seen the biggest area of growth in the younger participants in their 20s. Well, we can see on average that the 10K runners tend to be slightly [00:10:00] older. It’s interesting that the influx of younger runners are most likely to take part in 5 and 10Ks.

Suzy Edington: They’re also more likely to be female, with 69 percent of 5K runners being women. But interestingly, they have also seen that the percentage of women taking part in 10Ks, half marathons and full marathons has increased. Um, there just seems to be a lot more women getting into the running space at the moment, which is really positive news.

Suzy Edington: And there is more focus than ever on ensuring the quality of basic requirements at events to make these spaces safer and more appealing to women as well, which is great to see. If you’re putting on your own events and want to appeal to women, it’s worth not only making sure that you’re considering these things, making sure you’ve got good toilets in place, that you’ve got thought about the safety around getting to and leaving the event, etc.

Suzy Edington: But making sure that you’ve actually communicated that up front and it’s clear that that has been considered because you’re then removing a barrier of entry for women joining your events. So while younger runners doing these events at these shorter distances may have [00:11:00] less fundraising potential in the short term, it’s worth thinking about how you can increase your charity awareness in this cohort.

Suzy Edington: As they progress their running journey and increase their net worth, they have the potential to be amazing future fundraisers if you can really engage them with your cause. And crucially, these shorter events are likely to be events where you can pick up own place runners, so there shouldn’t be like a high upfront cost to acquiring the places.

Suzy Edington: So I’d recommend making sure that you’re working on partnership opportunities that might elevate your brand awareness in this area. Levering, leveraging relationships with influencers and considering your marketing channels as well. And then within that, thinking about how you can make your, show your causes appealing to this demographic.

Suzy Edington: Does your marketing messaging need tweaking a little bit to make sure that it’s, it’s pulling in this, this audience.

Suzy Edington: Now moving on to look at some of the insights from the latest Massive Pulse report. It’s obviously a central reading for all events fundraisers, and there’s loads of interesting insight in there. But [00:12:00] right now I want to focus on the insights they’ve got around barriers to event participation. So while events have had a bumper year, it’s clear that the cost of living crisis is still having an impact on people’s lives and their ability to take part in events and fundraise.

Suzy Edington: In 2023, the Pulse report showed that lack of fitness was the main barrier to increased participation on the back of COVID. However, that’s nearly halved since last year and it’s now only reported as an issue by 24 percent of respondents compared to 43 percent in 2023. Having less disposable income is now the biggest single factor in people cutting back on event participation.

Suzy Edington: Of those people who are participating in fewer events in 2024, 46 percent said that this was due to having less spare cash. So it’s really useful information when you’re looking at the price positioning of your events.

Suzy Edington: And sort of staying on this subject, now moving to look at ultramarathon events. Our partners at Action Challenge, who run the really popular Ultra Challenge series, have also shared some interesting insight with [00:13:00] us. Thanks. brilliantly successful year in 2024. They were up 10 percent in participant numbers, uh, and saw a 20 percent and a massive 20 percent increase in the number of participants choosing to fundraise.

Suzy Edington: And this is looking to grow, um, throughout 2025. They’re already up to 25 2020. five events. Um, it’s interesting to note that for the longer distance options, the majority of fundraisers choose the full sponsorship option, which involves a lower registration fee, but a higher fundraising target. But for the shorter distances, supporters are more likely to cover the full registration fee and then just fundraise what they can.

Suzy Edington: It appears that where there is a high cost to entry, people choose to offset this via fundraising. So that ties into the insights before from Massive that a lack of cash is still a bit of a barrier to people taking part in events. So it’s worth being aware of the price point that you’re putting your events in at.

Suzy Edington: Interestingly, run for charity see a higher dropout rate for events with no upfront cost. So there is a [00:14:00] benefit of asking for a fee to secure a place, but it may be worth setting the fundraising target higher and keeping the registration fee lower. If you’re trying to balance out and make sure you’re hitting your ROI.

Suzy Edington: Now we’re going to move on to virtual and social fundraising. So under this category, we’re talking about any charity created owned events, but where participants are taking on a challenge in their own way in their own time. So this includes things like crafting challenges. Marathons in a month, 10, 000 step challenges, you know, the sort of thing.

Suzy Edington: Now, I know Helen AF is also talking today about the rollercoaster that has been social fundraising over the last few years and whether they are in regression or resurgence. And I hate to steal her thunder here, but I’m going to call it now as a resurgence. Our partners at GivePanel have seen social challenges raise over 33 million in 2024.

Suzy Edington: So it’s a huge area of fundraising. The give panel, just [00:15:00] giving integration enables fundraisers to seamlessly create, just giving fundraising pages directly from Facebook and then use this page for their fundraising. And Give Panel is seeing cross platform fundraising on the rise with fundraisers flipping from using Facebook exclusively to using just giving to get donations to fundraisers who choose to use Just Giving and Facebook.

Suzy Edington: Um, to raise money Rose from 34% to 56% in 2024. And this is also helping to mitigate risks for charities. As we know, Meta is a bit of a fickle beast and likes to throw charities curveballs every now and again. I know there’s more on that this afternoon as well. And that can have a huge impact on fundraising.

Suzy Edington: Gift panel are also seeing that just giving fundraisers raise significantly more on average. So we’re seeing an average paid value on just giving of 168. versus 101 on Facebook. So one of the big benefits of fundraisers creating just giving page is that they can be shared across multiple platforms and networks with what’s whatsapp being one of [00:16:00] the most popular.

Suzy Edington: So my recommendation is to ensure that you’re providing tools to enable your supporter to be able to share their pages. easily across different platforms. So from JustGiveIn they can really easily share their page to WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook. So just make sure that you’re working on guidance to support them with that and maybe doing some nice pre written copy so they can do a copy and paste job to get it out to their various different networks.

Suzy Edington: Essentially, the more places they share it, the more times they share it, the more they’re going to fundraise.

Suzy Edington: Now, towards the end of 2024, uh, JustGiving, we surveyed supporters who’d set up fundraising pages uh, to take part in a social of, uh, virtual fundraising event. So this includes those fundraisers that came via the GivePanel integration, but also people that came directly to JustGiving, came to a campaign page, or through one of the branded microsites that our charities have.

Suzy Edington: with us. And what we saw was really interesting. So 77 percent of respondents said they hadn’t previously fundraised for that charity that they’d done the virtual event [00:17:00] for. But after the event, 97 percent of respondents said they would fundraise for the charity again. So this is clearly a great way to increase your reach to new audiences for your organisation.

Suzy Edington: We went on and asked them how they would like to go and support that charity again, and we saw 59 percent of people say that they would be interested in events and community fundraising in the future. So that included doing another virtual event, uh, or in a personal sporting event, hosting a community event like a bank sale, or setting up their own event doing a DIY event.

Suzy Edington: But 22 percent said they were interested in making a direct donation to the cause, either as a one off gift, um, or a regular gift, or getting involved in a lottery. And 11 percent were interested in volunteering opportunities. So we know that virtual events can be a really important part of your portfolio.

Suzy Edington: They can go for deliver a great ROI and net income for charities. But I wanted to highlight from this research was that they should be viewed as so much more than the initial value of the events. [00:18:00] I really want to encourage charities to think about all events fundraising really as a huge pipeline opportunity.

Suzy Edington: For a period of time, your charity has these people as a real captive audience, and you can build up this amazing relationship with your supporters, often in a one to one way, so they might be via email or phone calls. I started out, my first job was doing welcome calls to people doing cycle rides, and also obviously with social fundraising through your Facebook groups.

Suzy Edington: And they just don’t get that when they make a one-off donation to a charity via the website. So through these events, you can give them that like nice warm, fuzzy feeling, um, from supporting your cause. So make sure you’re thinking about what they might wanna do next. How can you keep that nice altruistic feeling alive for them?

Suzy Edington: And lifetime value should be the real measure that we are looking at here when we’re, uh, appraising virtual events. So that is all of the insights I’ve got to share with you today. If you enjoyed this session and found it useful, then I think you’re going to love the JustGivings event fundraising [00:19:00] report.

Suzy Edington: We want to help make 2025 your best year yet for events fundraising. We just launched our brand new free events fundraising report packed with even more insight and even more detail from JustGiving and our expert voices in the sector. So inside, you will find more about the trends and insights to help with your events fundraising season.

Suzy Edington: This includes more of a deep dive into fundraiser demographics and their behaviour. We’ve got more insights from us here at JustGiving what we saw on the platform. Uh, and we’ve got some more specific insights and actions from those expert partners. And there’s tons more. We’ve really put everything into this report.

Suzy Edington: So I hope you found it useful. Uh, you can find the link to download it in the delegate bag below, or you can head to the JustGiving resources area. So to wrap up this insight section, I wanted to highlight a few key actions your charity should consider and point you to a few more helpful resources. So the key takeaways and actions I’d love for you to take [00:20:00] from today.

Suzy Edington: So there’s been an influx of younger runners and they are keen to start fundraising. So the takeaway I would recommend is to look at how you can increase your brand awareness across a variety of different event types. What partnerships have you got that you can build on and make sure you’re building that base of fundraisers for the future.

Suzy Edington: We’re in a bit of a bubble at the moment for events and specifically running. Let’s make sure we can pull that out as long as we can by building up those relationships with these great new fundraisers. The cost of living is still a big barrier to participation. So while the events sector is booming at the moment, there’s still plenty of people that are feeling the crunch and are making the choice to cut back on their participation.

Suzy Edington: Supporters may be more willing to tackle a high fundraising target rather than forking out their own cash up front to take part in your events. And we’re still seeing page values increase. So that is a strategy that could well pay off if you can give them the support and love to try to meet those fundraising targets.

Suzy Edington: And in that vein, uh, I’d recommend that you review your stewardship activity. Fundraising pages are being created earlier than [00:21:00] ever, and this is having a really positive impact on page value. But don’t leave your fundraisers out in the cold, not hearing from you for months because you haven’t planned this out in your stewardship.

Suzy Edington: Plan in a nice multi channel touch points throughout that journey, and use that time to build up the connection with your cause and share their story with their network. Onto virtual and social events, they’re also performing really well at the moment. But Kometa is continuing to constantly move the goalposts, so it’s a good idea to be able to manage this risk with using the JustGiving integration as an option in this type of fundraising.

Suzy Edington: And when you do, make sure you’re thinking bigger than just social platforms. Make sure your supporters know where they can share their pages. They can share them pretty much anywhere. Um, A new development. I don’t know if you knew that every JustGiving page now includes a downloadable poster with a QR code that you can scan to make a donation to that page.

Suzy Edington: So fundraisers can even go old school and put up posters. And finally, make sure that you download your free copy of the JustGiving events fundraising report for even more juicy insights and tips. [00:22:00] Plus, don’t forget JustGiving resources to help you maximise your fundraising this year. The blog is really great.

Suzy Edington: There’s lots of good stuff in there and they help you keep up to date with trends and tips and developments on the platform. Um, so you can go to blog. justgiving. com have a read, like, and subscribe. Uh, our charity resource area has additional resources, including guides and webinars. The webinars are great.

Suzy Edington: If you’re new into fundraising as well, I recommend going back through the backlog of those. There’s lots of information in there. Um, our expert charity support team are on hand to help you with day to day questions. You can email them at charities at justgiving. com or contact them via the live chat. Um, and we’ve, if you’ve got just giving a charity account and want to talk to us about how you can make the most of that account, the tools available, whether that’s for an individual campaign events that you’re setting up, you can talk to our lovely success team.

Suzy Edington: We’ve got Ollie and Pav and they are brilliant and you can contact them at successteamatjustgiving.com. And we also have a fundraiser help area and dedicated fundraising, a fundraiser and donor support team. So your supporters can email or live chat with a member of our team for quick responses.

Alex Aggidis: Thank you so much for listening to the Fundraising Everywhere podcast. If you’re enjoying this podcast, why not share it with a fundraising friend? And if you would like to give us a little like or subscribe, it really helps more fundraisers like you find us. Thank you so much. See you next time.

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