July 2024 Round-up

This month I have lots to share with you. We had a whirlwind two days at the start of July for Fundraising Convention and the National Fundraising Awards, a huge thank you to everyone who supported the events and to all those who attended – I think both events really showed how fundraisers are thriving and always wanting to learn and share more.  

If you attended Fundraising Convention, then you can access the resources and presentations from sessions via the CIOF360 app – you need to log in to the app using the email you registered for Convention with. Sessions are available to you for the day/s you were registered for, and we will be adding the virtual session videos for the virtual delegates in the upcoming week. We hope you’ll be able to make the most of the presentations and other resources to continue with your learning.  

Don’t forget to save the date for the next Fundraising Convention: 9 - 10 June 2025. See you there!  

The National Fundraising Awards was also a fantastic event, and a huge thank you to everyone who attended the celebration and made it such a fun evening! You can see a film from the night below, and films about all our winners are available on our YouTube channel. Well done to all the charities and organisations that were shortlisted and to our winners.  

At Fundraising Convention we made two announcements that we want to share here with the wider fundraising community as well. The first is that Harpreet Kondell will become the Chair of the Board of Trustees following our AGM in September. Harpreet is a current trustee and Chair of the Fundraising Talent Working Group. A senior fundraiser with 30 years’ experience within the charitable sector, Harpreet is passionate about diversifying our sector.  

Harpreet has worked with many charities throughout her career, and we look forward to her continuing to shape the Chartered Institute for our members and the wider fundraising sector.  

The other announcement we made was the launch of our EDI Champions Mentoring Programme. The programme will pair mentors with mentees, to provide space to work through understanding of EDI concepts, how to apply good practice, to increase knowledge, confidence and collaboration, as well as fostering EDI within our volunteer-led groups.  

The first intake of Champions will come from five of the Chartered Institute’s volunteer groups: Scotland, London & South East, West Midlands, the Insight Special Interest Group and the Legacy Special Interest Group. More mentees will join the programme later, so the EDI champions can benefit from collaboration with their peers, take learnings and guidance to their volunteer groups, and benefit from the focused support, knowledge and experience of the mentors.  

Something else new that I am pleased to share, is that we have a new on-demand course that’s available exclusively for our organisational members. The course is called Responsible AI and Fundraising and is led by AI-expert Sue Turner. It’s one of the many benefits available to our organisational members, and we have more on-demand courses in the pipeline as well. Our organisational membership is free for some small charities and offers lots of benefits. Find out more and see if it’s right for your charity.  

And finally, I was recently a guest on The Charity Show podcast, talking about what today’s fundraising landscape looks like, the influences on giving, how geography impacts donations and lots more. Have a listen and see what you think.  

That’s been a bumper newsletter – thanks for reading to the end. If you’re not yet a member of the Chartered Institute, do think about joining us, we’d love to welcome you and we have a lot of great benefits for our members.  

Take care,  

Katie.