How to raise more money?

That's the holy grail or the question to the answer 42 (sorry Douglas Adams) yes?

Well, perhaps not. I did an interview with John Bingham at the Daily Telegraph about the latest OECD report discussing the question of whether, "are we in the UK becoming more generous?" There is some evidence, but my take based on the research and personal observations is that the jury is still out. Consequently any increase in generosity is much more likely to be a legacy of the recession. After all, how many of you really feel better off now than 12 months ago?

So maybe we need to be thinking more about those crucial questions of capacity to give and propensity to give before we try to home our fundraising techniques. Just because somebody appears in the Sunday Times Rich List and so is worth at least £85m (used to be around £10m)does not mean that they are interested in, or will ever be interested in your case for support no matter how potent or powerful your ask. That said, recent experiences of Crowd Fundraising (Claire Squires and Steven Sutton) show that asks can go viral if everything fits. Though how do you make it fit?

I think therefore that my session at the DSC fair next Friday "Marketing Strategy for Effective Fundraising" is going to pose some particularly jucy, pertinant questions and what's more I'm going to have a go at winkling out some of the answers! So I do hope to see some of you there. Meanwhile what are your thoughts on the question of whether we are indeed becoming more generous? After all, if it is true, it's sure going to make fundraising even more effective.

To the regulars, I'm sorry that I've been away for some time with family problems but hope to be updating regularly from now on.