Insights
With the fundraising season over, take time to get your finances in order
We’ve all had that feeling of withdrawal from holiday festivities.
Like many charities, you may be flush from November and December when donations are at their highest. With Christmas and holiday fundraising campaigns nearly finished, it’s time to prepare for the harshness of dry January and February.
Ringing in the New Year, we go over how to save on digital and operational costs as belts tighten after the fundraising period.
It might be time to renegotiate contracts or cancel them all together. Shop around and look for different suppliers, if your current ones are not meeting your needs. This could include switching utility providers, mobile phone contracts, or digital services.
One of the best ways that charities can save on costs is to open contracts up to procurement procedures. The Third Sector observes that charities get more for their money when firms compete for charity business: “By putting services out to tender, often bundled up into larger contracts, charities can find they get more bang for their buck and that existing suppliers are willing to drop prices.”
Changing operational and digital tools takes time and money. Don’t make a hasty decision in January by slashing budgets or cancelling existing contracts. Civil Society recommends that charities take a measured approach and review what may save money in the longer term.
The publication suggests compiling a list of expenses ordered by the return on investment (ROI). From a financial perspective, the ROI metric makes it clear which items to rationalise.
In January, take advantage of the down time to analyse campaign feedback and refine future fundraising initiatives. Planning marketing campaigns is a step-by-step process. The first step is to take a look at how previous campaigns have performed.
Start by leveraging the Christmas campaign’s most recent data points. There may be unexpected trends that your constituent relationship management (CRM) system can help you identify. Running bespoke reports may be the answer to linking data points together.
Once you’ve made an evaluation of how the campaign went, mark that against your targets. Brainstorm with supporters, volunteers and staff for critical feedback. Identify improvements to take forward in your next project.
The shift to hybrid and remote working styles is translating into heavy use of digital tools. With the tools, comes free trials, monthly and/or annual subscription fees. To get the most out of your New Year cost savings, read the fine print and renewal policies.
You may find savings by sharing fewer licenses or users, limiting administrative powers, downgrading or scrapping the contract for a cheaper alternative.
Free, but powerful software is available for charities looking to find savings. For those wanting to enhance content there are free editing tools. Canva offers the best set of all-in-one tools for content creation and editing. The platform is easy to use for beginners and teams. For more formal pieces of work, charity templates and branding are available.
Project management software saves time and costs. Platforms help teams organise the work and many are free to use. For less complex projects Trello is best. The platform allows people to take ownership of task cards as part of the overall project. The free version lets charities use up to ten ‘boards’. For paid subscriptions, Trello offers non-profits a discount.
For consumer goods and office equipment, turn to In Kind Direct. The platform provides charities with goods donated by major corporations. Members simply log in, ‘shop’ online for essentials, and couriers deliver the items.
Take a look at your expenses and see if you can buy in bulk. There could be significant savings for charities stocking up on toiletries, software, or canteen products.
The Charities Buying Group is a resource to know. Dedicated to helping charities cut costs, the group helps smaller charities increase buying power. Membership is free and comes with an expense audit. Members search the database for the products they want. Popular items include Apple computers and mobile phones.
CAN Mezzanine, the office space specialists say non-profits can save money by using resources more carefully. Valuing and making best use out of staff, volunteer, and supporter hours makes sense.
They recommend taking a thorough look at roles and seeing if efficiencies can be found. Removing repetitive tasks, making better use out of unpaid help, and praising staff are just some of the ways to increase productivity.
Join us on the 14th of May for our Q&A session. It will provide a whistlestop tour of Microsoft Copilot’s key capabilities, how they can help charities, and answer all your burning questions around Microsoft’s AI service.