Client Overview
​
The Brain Tumour Charity (TBTC) is the world’s leading brain tumour charity. Their work falls into three core areas: funding the best research to find treatments and cures, supporting patients and their loved ones, and making sure patients and family voices are heard by healthcare policymakers.
Katrina Shaw, Head of Corporate Partnerships, commissioned Fireside to help the charity grow their confidence and skills to secure major partnerships, as well as to develop the organisational culture to ensure that partnerships can thrive.
‘It was all about building momentum into our programme. We chose to pause after a team member left and, rather than keep doing what we had been doing, develop something new. We asked Fireside to help us make sure that when we do go out to recruit, we will be ready as an organisation to hit the ground running.’
Background
​
When Katrina approached us, the corporate team at TBTC was a ‘small but mighty!’ team of 2. They knew that there was potential for major partnerships, but they needed some help to develop ideas they could take to these partners. As an experienced corporate fundraiser who was relatively new to the organisation, Katrina saw huge opportunities. But she knew that before they could realise it, they needed to build their toolkit and work with the rest of the organisation to elevate the fundraising proposition.
​
Katrina Shaw, Head of Corporate Partnerships, said:
​
‘Repurposing salary costs into this work was ‘a very deliberate stage in our plan. It felt like it would be a more valuable use of that money to get us further along. Investing that budget, building momentum, getting to a stage where we knew that we had a pipeline and products ready to go.'
​
Approach
​
Fireside worked with TBTC in 3 key phases: creating their story-led fundraising strategy, building their corporate pipeline, and developing a products and pricing strategy.
‘Fireside really took the time to understand me as an individual as well as us as an organisation. They matched my ambition and shared in my belief of where we could get to - and delivered a programme that we all trusted would get us there. Although it felt like a lot of work to manage alongside the day job, the way it was structured meant that we were really clear about what was needed and when, and we could effectively plan to make sure that the right people could be brought into the right sessions. Fireside were always clear on deliverables and managed our expectations so it was relatively smooth to slot this work into everyone’s diaries and commit to it.’
Results
​
While this foundational work is still being fully embedded, the successes are stacking up already.
‘There was a moment when I saw the list of prospects that we were generating and realised that I didn’t recognise 80% of them, and I knew this work was going to be transformational for us. Trustees said that, while they had been asked to share contacts before, the way that this work was framed made them think differently about who they knew, and more comfortable to share their network.
We were coming to the end of a large partnership and were able to directly implement some of this work to make sure that the partnership ended well for us and for them. We have been able to go to them with our specific ideas for the future and they loved the ambition - and they are keen to introduce us to their wider networks, too, based on what they have seen.
We also recently received a donation from a new company and are ready to proactively follow up and take ideas to them to develop the relationship. In the past we might have put off following up for fear that we weren’t ready and might waste the opportunity, but we’re ready to jump on and make the most of this new connection!
We have shifted into a more proactive mindset when we are looking to frame stories: we know that we have a range of stories to share and we think more carefully about what we want the outcome to be to help guide which story to tell. The work with the wider organisation has really helped grow the level of trust: there’s a deeper understanding that we are all shared custodians of our stories, and that stories can be used sensitively for fundraising.’
Client Insights
​​
‘The prospect mapping workshop with trustees was a game-changer. As they started filling out the spreadsheet and I realised that so many of the names they were sharing were new to us, I felt so excited. That moment of knowing that we had so many potential new connections was a real high point!
I would really recommend this work to anyone, particularly if you are either starting corporate fundraising from scratch or looking to change the makeup of your partnerships. It builds great habits and sets brilliant groundwork in place for the future. It would also be a fantastic process for anyone in their first Head Of Partnerships role: it can be hard to make that move into strategic thinking, but working through something like this really helps you to operate at that level and build personal discipline, as well as working cross-team and building internal trust. It would be a great career foundation opportunity!’
Get in touch
Want to find out how Fireside could work with you to create your emotional, logical and credible way of explaining why an individual or organisation should support your charity? Contact us today on andy@firesidefundraising.com
To find out more about Wikimedia UK please visit wikimedia.org.uk