The event series, which gives speakers just seven minutes to celebrate a fundraising campaign that they wish they’d thought of, has travelled the world, with editions in the UK, Australia, Canada, the USA, France and New Zealand. This Summer, IWITOT 2021: UK & Europe was delivered online, with many case studies from the event now available at SOFII.

With an audience vote from the 400+ viewers, the winning presentation was delivered by Rebecca Wilson, corporate development lead at Mencap in the UK. Her passionate talk centred on a powerful and important social media campaign by The Salvation Army, which took an online debate about the colour of a dress and used it to highlight the horrors of domestic violence.

The runner-up was Fatima Talidi-Marrero of Parkinson’s UK, who shared a video from the Born Free Foundation and Aardman Animations, which lent the voices of humans stuck in lockdown to animated animals. The resulting film shines a bight light on how awful it must be for animals to live constantly in captivity.

More inspiration came from Simona Biancu of ENGAGEDin (Italy), who celebrated the agility of a newly-founded disability charity called La Casa Delle Luci. When everything, from accessing services to fundraising, was thrown into disarray during lockdown, this organisation pivoted so they could keep on helping young people and adults with disabilities.

Fundraising consultant, Lianne Howard-Dace closed IWITOT UK & Europe 2021 by celebrating Marcus Rashford’s superb campaign to end food poverty in the UK and how Rashford used his voice and platform to achieve huge success in both campaigning and fundraising. All the presentations will be shared online at SOFII.org over the coming months and a full recording of the event is available here.

Joe Burnett, SOFII’s contributing editor, says:

“We are thrilled to have been able to keep inspiring fundraisers in these most difficult of times, and are hugely thankful to all our speakers who have stepped up to share their passion, tips, ideas and inspiration at IWITOT.”

SOFII has more IWITOTs planned and is currently exploring showcasing fundraising success in new markets and new language. Find out more at SOFII online or by contacting Joe Burnett.

Beginning with a joint presentation previewing the findings from EFA’s multilingual survey on the impact of Covid-19, the first session also presented insights from Salesforce.org’s Nonprofit Trends report. The session articulated the importance of digital for nonprofits, particularly in pandemic times, and of being transformative.

Market research drove the content of many of the sessions, with the latest charitable giving and philanthropic trends in the Czech Republic, Poland and Brazil, helping to build delegates’ understanding of the international fundraising environment.

Jan Kroupa of the Czech Fundraising Center, illustrated the long-term growth of philanthropy, celebrating the news that entrepreneurs are now starting to become more open and more vocal about their giving. Meanwhile, João Paulo Vergueiro of ABCR – Brazilian Fundraisers Association, explained how the pandemic has shone a spotlight on charitable giving in Brazil and inspired the biggest generosity movement of all time.

Other highlights included a session on virtual donor engagement during Covid-19. Delivered by Tomasz Kierul and Tanja Sarett of the Polish Fundraising Association, the presentation offered insightful and practical tips for building a successful online donor engagement programme.

And Katarína Bartovičová of the Slovak Fundraising Centre explored how important storytelling has become in driving donations in Slovakia, particularly when it comes to emergencies, which often yield a highly emotional response.

All speakers kept delegates engaged with short presentations, responding to questions and sharing their tips at the end of the session.

The European Fundraising Tour forms part of EFA’s flagship Skillshare event programme and, after positive feedback from delegates, will be repeated in 2021.

Aiming to ensure that fundraisers maintain the highest ethical standards, the Italian Fundraising Association (ASSIF) has developed a Memorandum of Understanding addressing the way in which fundraisers are remunerated and deterring organisations from running payment on commission schemes.

All those that adhere to the memorandum are awarded the fundraising ribbon, as a symbol of quality and of the organisation’s commitment to its donors, partners and the wider public. To date, 50 nonprofits have been awarded with or have applied for the ribbon.

While ASSIF states that fundraising and ethics usually go hand in hand, the association set out to reward Italian nonprofit organisations that are willing to commit to guaranteeing a remuneration structure that encourages and incentivises long-term supporter relationships.

Jara Vernarecci, ASSIF Board member and coordinator of the initiative, says:

“Since the ultimate goal for fundraising is to develop long-term relationships and strategies capable of securing the organisation’s financial sustainability, the right pay structure should reflect this approach and should not be fully based on results.

“Nonprofits are the main allies in guaranteeing the high ethical profile of our profession. Any work paid exclusively as a percentage of commission sends the wrong message to fundraisers and also to donors since it’s rarely transparent and it aggravates the investment burden that every organisation should guarantee for its own development.”

The association is working in partnership with Italianonprofit and with the support of sector suppliers to encourage nonprofits across the country to commit to the new standards.

Photo credit: Photo by Christopher Czermak on Unsplash