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As technology continues to evolve, the number of data security incidents increases. For the charity sector, the news is not good. Data security incidents have increased more than double year on year. According to information released by the Commissioner’s Office, there were 29 data security incidents reported between April and June of this year. In 2015 during the same period however, only 11 incidents were reported.

Over the last year, ad spend for charities increased as much as 6%, with double the money spent on ads for the cinema and digital realms. Market research firm Nielsen revealed an estimated ad spend by charities of £458.8m in 2015. But how much of that money was well spent, being targeted to already-successful campaigns and used to build new campaigns on that success?

Thousands of UK charities benefit from the Gift Aid Small Donations Scheme (GASDS) each year. Many organisations continue to look for ways to make the most revenue from it. This article will outline some strategies for ensuring your charity claims as much of its yearly GASDS allowance as possible.

Recent research by Third Sector revealed some shocking results with regard to payroll schemes within charities: although 7 out of 10 large UK charities offered payroll giving to their employees, average employee participation was only 1.7%. How can this be? Charities cited several reasons; some placed more importance on staff effort than staff donations, while others opined that it was the pennies that mattered, and not the regular revenue.

Donations are the lifeblood of every organisation, and getting supporters to donate to your cause requires obtaining their consent to contact them. June 2016’s introduction of new data protection laws ensures more protection for charity supporters and require organisations to abandon the ‘soft opt-in’ approach, which previously allowed charities to continue to send their marketing material to previous donors. The new law requires explicit consent to be given by would-be supporters in terms of how they wish to be contacted.

UK charities receive £2bn in legacy donations each year. This already-incredible figure is expected to triple in size over the next several decades. Even so, there is hesitation among many charities about how to go about getting those vital donations with ease and tact. After all, not many people are really comfortable talking openly about their own death. The good news is that there are several ways to speak to your supporters about it, as well as several ways to be successful without causing offence.

Although creating a really great grant application isn’t considered to be rocket science, it requires different things at different times. Because anything can happen to interfere with your application, you need to be prepared to alter your plans if necessary. This will require a degree of flexibility, as well as the ability to respond quickly and to exercise diplomacy, among other things. You will also need to be able to track the responses to your applications over time with different funding bodies. What approaches and projects have been most successful in securing donations? A good quality charity CRM such as SubscriberCRM will be able to help you with this.

Email and direct mail are two completely different methods of fundraising. Yet interestingly, many of the mistakes made in direct mail are also being made in email. When you need to raise money for your organisation email marketing becomes serious business, so it’s important to ensure you’re not making these mistakes.

One great way to get noticed as a charity is to figure out quirky ways to raise money that get people involved and that inspire the donations you want. From slightly off to downright strange, your group can get their inspiration from others who have gone a different route with raising funds. Events such as these are an especially effective way of engaging your corporate supporters by encouraging their workforce to become actively involved in fundraising.

Is it really true that the rich are getting richer? Well, if you look at the most recent Rich List, you’ll see that the flow of money continues to be in favour of the few. But with new fundraising regulations that threaten to place the retention and recruitment of donors in jeopardy, how possible is it to attract the support of that elusive 5%? The good news is that building quality relationships with major donors is definitely within your reach.