Accessing little know trusts

We had a most interesting character, Robert Pike, give a session for the fundraising students last week about the "invisible grantmakers".

Many people assume that if a trust isn't in the DSC directory they're hardly worth bothering about. However Robert, who runs a small agency called "Social Partnership Marketing" has been researching those who remain below the radar but still make significant grants. He's been doing this for 12 years and, it seems to me, that his directory published each year deserves to be seen by others with the tenacity to look beyond the usual sources. Check it out you might just find it more valuable than Prospecting for Gold (sorry Andrew).

Meanwhile, like all good fundraising, it starts and ends with RESEARCH, RESEARCH and more RESEARCH.

21st Century Philanthropy

There is some really interesting research begining to emerge about how and why people are giving (or not). My pal Beth Breeze has just published the 2010 Million Pound Donors report which follows hard on the heels of Cathy Pharoah's Family Foundation Report. The latter comments that the top 100 family trusts account for £1.4bn of donations whilst the former talks of £1.5bn of £1m+ gifts in last year alone. Some hefty numbers indeed and an indication that giving, at high levels, is remaining buoyant even if the seriously well off feel poor when their portfolios have fallen from £100m to £80m.

What does seem to have slipped below the radar is a Report from CAF about British Indian Donors. At 1m of the UK population with the top 200 accounting for £7bn (and growing 5% a year) this is a section of the population largely ignored by UK charities large and small.

Me thinks that we could be doing a whole lot more about our multi-cultural society.