You don’t see many blog posts these days from the great and the good in the fundraising sector on how to convert cash donors to Direct Debit, and there’s a reason for this – it’s not easy to do. The days are gone where you could send out a Direct Debit conversion mail pack and … Continued

It’s always satisfying when a test proves your instinct to be right. It’s even more of a relief when a test proves something you’ve held to be fundamental to good practice in fundraising to be right. So the lovely folks at Blue Cross have kindly allowed me to share the results of an email test … Continued

It’s not easy for charities to raise funds and recruit new donors using press advertising, but at ChangeStar we’ve achieved consistently excellent press results for a range of clients over many years (examples here), and continue to do so now. So, we thought we’d share seven of the key insights we’ve learnt over the years: A … Continued

Last week I ran a very interesting and enjoyable* workshop for a wonderful non-profit organisation whose work I have long supported and admired. The aim of the workshop was to show the charity how to write better direct response appeals – whether these are asking for money or encouraging people to take part in a campaign, … Continued

Charity events make me emotional. Just play the opening bars of the London Marathon BBC theme music and I well up. It’s good that I’m passionate about fundraising, as this is my job! #luckyme. I’m an Account Director at the fundraising and social change agency ChangeStar. But thus far, I have mostly been a serial … Continued

You – and the charity you work for – need to get involved in politics, and do so right now. For many years now in the UK, the political wind has been blowing to the right, and the ideas and policies that have followed from this (such as massive cuts in social services budgets) have … Continued

There are a whole host of ways in which you can screw up a fundraising appeal. Here are just a few examples (with some guidance from ChangeStar on how to avoid each mistake): Ignore the basics – the joy of direct response fundraising is that it is a science, and has basic techniques that have … Continued

We live in difficult political times. From the poisonous, xenophobic rhetoric around the Brexit referendum to the rise of Donald Trump and the far right, political changes are taking place that are threatening some of the basic values of modern society. Although the most dramatic of these changes have occurred in the last year, the … Continued

In 2015, we published a blog post containing a list of charity fundraising events and awareness days for the year. We thought it would be a useful little resource for people to be able to see what’s on in the charity world – partly to help the public decide what fundraising events they could get … Continued