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Macmillan restructures fundraising in drive for 11 per cent increment
07.07.2008

Macmillan Cancer Support has written a new strategy that aims to turn it into a 'supporter-centric' organisation while at the same time increasing revenue by at least 11 per cent.

The new strategy has resulted in the restructuring of its community fundraising team and the development of a new customer relationship management (CRM) system.

Amanda Bringans, director of fundraising at the charity (pictured), told Charity News Alert: 'We realise that the only way forward is to have a truly supporter-centric strategy. We know people in the sector talk about this all the time, but what does it mean, does anyone actually do it yet and how can we do it? We want to do it properly so that we can know our supporters, our donors and our service users better than ever.'

While the fundraising strategy begins in, and has been driven by, the fundraising senior management team, a customer-centred approach to planning and delivering products and services will eventually be implemented across the whole organisation.

All supporter data has been analysed and segmented and it is hoped that the information gleaned from this exercise will help the organisation develop products and services likely to generate the best possible return and deliver the best possible supporter experience.

Streamlining regional teams Central to the implementation of this strategy is the community fundraising team, which has been restructured to allow easier flow of information. Prior to 2008, Macmillan had four regional fundraising teams that each reported to a regional fundraising director. A review of this structure established that the use of different systems by each director was wasting time and money.

'We have reconfigured the regional fundraising teams, which now report to just one head of community fundraising, and have created a fundraising support team, which has freed up the time fundraisers were spending on administration.

'We've also taken away the stuff that ties them to their desks, such as trust applications, so that they can get on with the stuff they do really well like working with local groups and companies,' said Bringans.

Seeking income growth of up to 15 per cent It is hoped that the new strategy and restructure will help increase income by a minimum of 11 per cent year-on-year so that the charity can meet its objective of reaching and improving the lives of the 1.2 million people known to be living with cancer. Over the last year expenditure has risen 24 per cent as the charity increases the number of services it delivers.

'If we can achieve 15 per cent in this economic climate I'll be delighted,' said Bringans.

Source: Becky Slack, Professional Fundraising Magazine www.professionalfundraising.co.uk

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