Woods Valldata are privileged to have been a part of these two great conferences this Autumn. Here's Helen Halahan's quick take outs from just a few of the sessions... 

CIOF Scottish Conference

5-Step Storytelling with Andy King from Fireside Fundraising

• • Key insights:
    • Emotional decision-making drives donor behaviour. While logical reasoning follows, emotional engagement is key to inspiring action.
    • Focus storytelling on the problem, not the solution, eliciting a stronger emotional connection.
    • Key storytelling elements include: identifying the individual, emotional impact, simple interventions, and avoiding pity-driven narratives.
    • Aim to tell stories that prompt the audience to want to "change the ending," fostering greater engagement.

"Honey, I Shrunk the Database!" – Tackling Database Decline with Helen Daw from Woods Valldata, Jon Kelly from Sequoia Insights and Kate Mulchrone from St John of God

• • Key insights:
    • Declining databases stem from multiple factors: GDPR, changes in communication due to COVID-19, and rising costs.
    • Address recruitment and retention issues by segmenting data and analysing lifetime value by channel and product.
    • Investing in longer-term data health is critical for sustained donor engagement and lifetime value.
    • Data segmentation is key to tailored communication strategies for active and lapsed donors, ensuring relevant messaging to maximise engagement.
      
      

Maximising Individual Giving with Data with Jamie McIntosh and Nuo Liu from Scottish Love in Action

• • Key insights:
    • Consistent data collection across channels enhances personalisation, boosts Gift Aid, and optimises donor engagement.
    • Using personalised asks based on previous giving behaviour (like Mode-based asks) increased response and donation value significantly.
    • Regular updates, tailored channels for communication, and flexible giving options led to higher engagement, reduced cancellations, and positive feedback from supporters.

Affinity Lottery: Regular giving made easy with Helen Halahan and Helen Daw from Woods Valldata and Steff de Simone from St Vincent de Paul Society (SVP)

Oh yes, I got to speak at this conference about the benefits of weekly lottery to enhance any charity fundraising income generation. 

• • Key insights:
    • Weekly lottery is now accessible to charities of any size with the introduction of entry level lotteries offering low risk and low hassle such as Affinity Lottery
    • The perceived risk of problem gambling can be a blocker for many charities to start a weekly lottery, but the risk is very low and with all the checks and measures provided by Woods Valldata the charity can be assured that everything possible it done
    • SVP are able to provide a digital-first unrestricted regular giving product with little investment - with break even with the first year

CIOF North West Conference

Community Fundraising Panel

• • Key insights:
    • Community fundraising is about relationship-building, linking donors and volunteers to the charity’s mission.
    • Challenges include maintaining connections post-pandemic and managing volunteers' expectations.
    • Collaboration between teams is essential to ensuring a supporter-centric approach, and success requires tracking and attributing results to secure internal recognition.

Artificial Intelligence in Fundraising with Stephen Shirres

• • Key insights:

    • AI tools such as predictive analytics, natural language processing, and recommendation engines can improve efficiency, but require clear goals and oversight.
    • Compliance is critical, ensuring AI applications align with data protection regulations and ethical standards.
    • AI tools can help streamline processes like communications and transcriptions, but always ensure human review and data protection.
      
      

Reigniting Passion for Stewardship with Chloe Jones from Autism Together

• • Key insights:
    • Stewardship starts before a donation and is about building long-term relationships through relevant, personalised communication.
    • Personal touches, such as handwritten notes and event invitations, help deepen donor connections.
    • Regular updates, segmentation based on interests, and genuine, thoughtful engagement can significantly enhance donor retention and elevate giving levels.
      
      

Innovative Events with Ainsley Briscoe from Nugent

• • Key insights:
    • Innovative event fundraising is crucial to stand out, particularly post-COVID-19.
    • Successful events require collaboration, creative thinking, and a data-driven strategy.
    • Engaging corporate sponsors and leveraging ESR/CSR through volunteering can boost event success.

Affinity Lottery: Regular giving made easy with Helen Halahan and Gemma Ward from Woods Valldata and Lottie Jordan from Together Trust

OK - we were speaking about Affinity at both conferences. In the North West we were joined by Lottie Jordan who gave her honest account of what it means to get started with Affinity as a replacement for an existing in-house lottery.

• • Key insights:
    • Affinity Lottery means that a lot of the manual work of running your own lottery is taken away - giving you lots more time to focus on other things which is so important when you're managing so many different activities
    • It's easy to report on how the lottery is performing as you have all reporting in one place 
    • You don't need a massive amount of investment to make lottery work. Organic channels are enough to get you going and start creating income for the charity.

Both conferences underscored the importance of using emotional storytelling, data-driven insights, and personalisation to enhance donor engagement and grow individual giving. They also highlighted the growing relevance of AI and innovation in fundraising strategy.

Getting more insight

We loved getting to know more fundraisers at these two conferences and would like to thank  the conference teams from the North West and Scotland for making us feel so welcome and curating such interesting content. 

We know not everyone can make a conference this year. If you're interested in more insight, why not pop across to our events and webinars page to see what's coming up and what's available on demand from Woods Valldata's free insight sessions.