Effective fundraising strategic plans need to be carefully crafted and involve internal and external stakeholders from across your organisation. 

Marcus will explore the key features for an ambitious, but achievable fundraising strategic plan. This practical session will give you tools that you can translate into action.

This presentation is aimed at current and aspiring fundraising managers in small to medium-sized organisations. 

What does it mean to be organisationally ready to fundraise? While we may understand and believe deeply in the importance of the cause for which we need to raise funding, the community at large, potential donors, or those who influence the views of others may not.

To be successful, it is essential to take the time to find out whether now is the right time for you to be seeking funding and through which methodologies. This session will cover all the elements of preparing to fundraise, from strong governance and structure, developing a strategic plan, creating a compelling case for support, operating to a realistic budget, performance measurement and how to identify the most relevant fundraising methodologies for your organisation.

Jo will provide the vital steps to ensure your organisation is ready to achieve and exceed its fundraising goal. 

In an overpopulated market of fundraising events, it is vital for organisations to evolve and transform their events. An organisation that has succeeded at revolutionising an annual charity fun run is Red Nose, with the Sunshine Beach Run.

The inaugural Sunshine Beach Run, held in 2012, raised over $80,000 and the 6^th annual event raising more than $100,000 in 2017. Learn directly from the team behind this event, as they share their event transformation story.

This session will inspire you to explore new ideas and examine what’s successful in today’s event market, with tangible takeaways and advice on how you can create or revolutionise your fundraising event.

Major Gifts…. just about every organisation wants them, but where or how do you start?  In this action orientated session we will look at the 4 key pillars of a successful major gift program and how you as the Fundraiser can go about influencing this significant and impactful program within your own organisation.

We will also have the chance to delve in and look at a new and successful Major Gifts program implemented by the Perth Children’s Hospital Foundation and the significant impact this has made.

In the growing non-profit market, it is important for organisations to evolve their marketing to gain cut-through and stay relevant in our rapidly changing society. “The Pitch” will inspire WA charities to explore new ideas, potentially turning traditional fundraising strategies upside down to become more successful in today’s market.

Inspired by ABC TV Show Gruen Transfer’s segment of the same name, “The Pitch” will see three advertising and marketing agencies try to sell the (almost) impossible: BEQUESTS! Participating agencies will share with the audience their ‘pitch’ to provide different perspectives from traditional fundraising marketing activities in this area.

Yes, this is a competition, just like on Gruen Transfer... there may even be a trophy for the winner!

Social media has became an essential organising tool for advocacy, used by leading organisations to engage members of the community and build social movements.

This session will show you how to use social media to reach your goals by teaching you to identify and deliver on what the other person wants. Yes, ‘person’. Even if you have thousands of people following your page, the first step is to realise that you’re communicating with one person, not a crowd. The second step is to work out what that person wants. Social media appeals to many of us because it’s an opportunity to explore and discover new things, and also to maintain our reputations within our social circles. Whether we want people to comment, share, or donate, if people can meet their own needs by completing our actions, they’ll be much more likely to do what we ask of them.

This session will also help you switch your language to encourage people to have long term relationships with your organisation. It might be counterintuitive, but by cutting the ‘s’ word (supporter) and related phrases from your vocabulary, and replacing them with more empowering statements, you will build reciprocal relationships which will be more likely to last. The easiest way to make the transition is to realise that people are not supporting your organisation - people are supporting the same cause as you are. If you treat people as partners, you will find that they invest more and for longer periods of time.

You will leave the session with clear takeaways and practical tips that you can implement straightaway. The best bit? You will see everything working for you when you check your analytics a week later!

Are you new to a grants role, or wishing to seek grants for the first time? Have you been unsuccessful in securing grants for your organisation? If you are looking to win grants for your organisation, then this session is for you.

There is a lot more to a successful grant application than a well-crafted document. In this session, Jo will cover all the keys to a successful outcome. From understanding different types of grants, to getting your organisation and project grant ready through to application writing and relationship building.

Jo has years of experience in obtaining successful grant results through best-practice grant-writing, processes, and strategic advice around grant-seeking and building relationships with funders.

It's just a few Simple Steps to a Personalised Experience for your Donors - Ralph Bates
Main Room

The marketplace you’re competing within is changing. Donors are more connected, more mobile, and therefore more informed than ever before. To attract and win donors in this market, you need to adapt and transform.

Traditional marketing approaches no longer work in this context. There is information and context everywhere. The content they’ve looked at online gives clues about their interests. The contact they’ve had clearly contextualizes them as prospects or donors.

The advancement in technology and data make that easier than you think. This session is about looking at how you can simply start to personalise brand experiences to drive and optimise greater revenue.

Hot off the presses: Top 10 trends from Giving Australia - Wendy Scaife FFIA
Breakout Room

From mid-2015 to the end of 2016, a landmark effort to chart and investigate giving has been underway. 

One hundred plus philanthropists and foundations have contributed, so too professional advisers to philanthropy. Fundraiser voices have been active from bequest fundraisers to digital fundraisers and across the spectrum. More than six thousand individual givers and volunteers have given input along with volunteer managers, board members, consultants and many others. Large business and small to medium enterprises have had their say. 

There are hard numbers to report and many messages and trends. This study is designed to help the non-profit sector do what it does better and to know more about future strategies. It holds important data for fundraisers, their boards and CEOs. It is a vital evidence base with which to interact so come along to ask your questions.

Devoted to your Donors - Bianca Crocker MFIA CFRE
Main Room

The relationships we have with our donors are vital to our organisation’s fundraising success, but still, many charities are not investing the time and care in growing, or even keeping, these connections.

Just like all relationships in our lives, we need to nurture them to sustain and strengthen them, and it’s no different with our donors.

This presentation will examine the importance of good relationships and donor engagement, how we can do it better without breaking the bank.

We’ll focus on cultivation, stewardship and acknowledging our donors to ensure they continue to support us in the longer term. 

Naming it as it is…volunteers as changemakers: challenging perceptions of volunteering - Jennie Loveridge & Kate Fina 
Breakout Room

Volunteer action is a most powerful catalyst for change and yet many people in our community still understand volunteering in idealistic notions of ‘doing good’, within long held, traditional views of voluntary work. Volunteering is unquestionably ‘doing good’, but this increasingly dynamic and diverse practice is also being viewed and enabled through different lenses of activity, technology and language.

The change in volunteering patterns is rapid and significant although much of the activity generally remains cause and values-driven. But change is also giving rise to the purposeful asking for and giving of professional expertise, skills and knowledge in a range of new and innovative ways.

So, let’s talk about the ways in which contemporary volunteer activity is still volunteering, although in many different guises…

15.50 - 16.15

Significant Changes to our Sector – Are you ready? 5 Key Steps to get you Ready - Rob Edwards CEO FIA

Following an extensive review, the FIA Board has approved a new Code of Practice for fundraising in Australia. The FIA Code was last updated in 2010. As codes are 'living documents', they need to be reviewed from time to time to remain relevant, reflect best practice and meet community expectations. The latest review under taken by our Substantiality Task Force has identified a number of areas where fundraising practices could be improved in order to help ensure Australians continue to give generously to charities.

This important session will provide an overview of the changes to the FIA Code across three broad areas:

1. reduced in length by removing duplication and by using plain English drafting;
2. new protections for people in vulnerable circumstances have been proposed, including help to be removed from contact lists;
3. a new compliance framework has been proposed involving 'spot checks' and compulsory Code training for all professional fundraisers.
   
   
   

How to Revive Supporters from a Dying Program - Ashlie Marshall  EMFIA
Main Room

Winner: FIA WA Young Fundraiser of the Year 2016 and Highly Commended FIA National Young Fundraiser of the Year 2017

Workplace or staff giving programs tick all the boxes. They raise employee pride and loyalty, they demonstrate philanthropic commitment to the external community and they have the power to raise substantial funds.

But how do you start one from scratch?

Through perseverance, Simone implemented and grew Curtin University’s staff giving program to become one of the most successful programs in the Australian education sector.

Hear Simone’s key leanings and take an in depth look into how she established Curtin’s inaugural staff giving program in a time of organisational change.