Special Feature: The IoF - What next for the Institute of Fundraising?

Third Sector

18 June 2008

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Helen Barrett looks at the institute's plans for Gift Aid, payroll giving, campaigning and increasing membership.

As the Institute of Fundraising passes its 25th anniversary this year and prepares for its annual convention in early July, it can look back with some satisfaction at its recent achievements. But it wants to do better, and in April it announced that it was searching for an executive director to overhaul its marketing strategy and improve communication with members.

The institute may have increased membership by 27 per cent to 4,700 in the past three years, but Lindsay Boswell, its chief executive, is far from complacent. "That's chicken feed compared with the potential," he says.

It recently published a review of the unsatisfactory state of payroll giving, which called for a single, publicly accountable payroll giving agency. It also faces the continuing challenge of reconciling its role as a supportive membership organisation with regulation of its members through its codes of practice.

Part of the problem with membership recruitment, Boswell believes, is that fundraisers often don't understand how the organisation's lobbying activities are relevant to their working lives.

"We're not as good at explaining the benefits of membership as we should be," he says. "We need to put a clear and compelling case for membership and to explain our activities around lobbying government, the Treasury and HM Revenue & Customs. We need to persuade people that lobbying and campaigning will help us achieve growth as a profession."

The institute is keen to boost its profile with ministers. It raised its lobbying game last year when it called on the Treasury to uncouple Gift Aid from income tax after Gordon Brown's announcement that the basic rate would be cut by 2p in the pound. Brown's announcement caused consternation in the sector when the Charities Aid Foundation estimated the total loss of charitable income at £71m.

But the institute's assertiveness nearly backfired when it found itself isolated in the early months of the campaign with its demand to allow charities to claim a flat rate of 28p in the pound from eligible donations. Other umbrella bodies - the Charity Tax Group, the Charity Finance Directors' Group, the NCVO and Acevo - pressed for transitional relief for charities to offset the losses. Some felt the institute was trying to turn Gift Aid into a government grant.

Boswell is unrepentant. "We felt that nobody else was arguing about the loss of money the sector faced," he says. "Everyone else's arguments were simply accepting that loss."

The groups eventually reached common ground, calling for an accounts-based system for charities to calculate their rebates. "We saw that it made more sense to put forward a proposal that was backed by the whole sector, and we did our share of stepping down," says Boswell. "But we are very proud of the joint proposals we eventually came up with."

Joe Saxton, the institute's departing chair, backs Boswell's view. "The important thing is that six sector bodies agreed in the end," he says.

Chancellor Alistair Darling announced in March that charities would be allowed to continue, in effect, to claim Gift Aid at 28p for every pound of eligible donations for the next three years. Boswell says this was achieved only because the sector aimed high.

The institute has also aimed high with self-regulation. It was the chief architect of the scheme and of the Fundraising Standards Board, which was eventually launched last year. It has recently published a hard-won code of practice on direct mail.

Boswell is confident that there is no tension between the institute's dual roles of membership organisation and rule-maker. He says it exists to promote the integrity of the fundraising profession rather than individuals' interests. "That was the decision when we changed our name in 2000 from the Institute of Charity Fundraising Managers," he says. "It's about the 'ing' rather than the 'ers', and about supporting members to give the profession a voice."

Saxton says: "Our income base is sufficient, in that we are not beholden to one particular group of members. We have income from training courses, from government and from other sources, so we're not worried about upsetting one particular group if we take a stand on something that we believe is important enough."

The institute knows it has work to do on Gift Aid, payroll giving and raising the status of fundraising as a profession through qualifications and training. It must also persuade many more fundraisers that membership is not only worth their while, but an essential facet of their working lives.

"If someone's membership lapses, I want them to feel as if their right arm had been cut off," says Boswell.

A POTTED HISTORY

1983: Institute of Charity Fundraising Managers established as a professional body for fundraisers.
2000: Lindsay Boswell takes over from Stephen Lee as chief executive. Lee departs to join accountancy firm Kingston Smith.
2002: Changes name to Institute of Fundraising to "include those who are involved in fundraising but don't work in charities".
2005: Joe Saxton, founder of nfpSynergy, takes over as chair of trustees from Simon Burne. A scheme for the self-regulation of fundraising is drafted.
2006: Fundraising Standards Board begins recruiting charities in preparation for its public launch, delayed to give more charities time to sign up.
2008: A staff reorganisation begins at the institute's south London headquarters. A marketing director post is created to oversee a membership drive.

PAUL AMADI: 'FUNDRAISING IS MY CALLING'

The regulator's new chair tells Helen Barrett about his plans for the year ahead

Paul Amadi is overcome with laughter. "I've just been described as the Barack Obama of fundraising," he says with palpable glee.

The comparison has been drawn by Joe Saxton, departing chair of the Institute of Fundraising, on the morning of this interview. Amadi is a few weeks away from taking over the role, and Obama has just won the Democratic nomination.

Amadi's position may be more modest than Obama's, but it is one of the most senior and influential in the third sector. The fact that he is black should be incidental - but, as in US politics, the charity sector has a dire track record when it comes to diversity at senior level: a 2006 Third Sector report found that only one chief executive of the UK's top 50 fundraising charities was not white.

Amadi, who is group director of fundraising at the RNIB, received unanimous backing from the institute's trustees when he stood for chair. And he is unabashed when describing his love for the profession: "It's my niche, a calling - what I'm here to do."

He feels a sense of responsibility to his fellow fundraisers and has taken on extra work in the past to help develop the profession. He joined the institute in the early 90s. In 2005, he set up a special interest group, the Black Fundraisers Network, and has chaired the institute's professional development committee for three years.

Unusually, Amadi is happy with the tag 'career fundraiser'. "I'm a practitioner," he says. "I've lived the life that all our members are living at the moment. I've worked for large and small organisations. I know what it's like when colleagues ask you when the money is coming in."

During his tenure, he wants to increase membership and diversity and build upon the institute's recent achievements in self-regulation and standard-setting.

He admits that one of his biggest challenges will be to boost professional membership. "We need to create a proposition that persuades fundraisers that non-membership is not an option," he says.

But he is more sanguine on the thorny issue of self-regulation. "I think the argument has ultimately been won," he says. "There is no intellectual tension between self-regulation and the role of the institute. Establishing transparent practice is in everybody's interest."

The sector's record on diversity clearly rankles. "I know there is a wealth of talent among black and ethnic minority fundraisers knocking on the door, but they need support," he says. "The visibility of my position will encourage more to come through with effort, application and talent."

Like many senior fundraisers, Amadi has a tendency to slip into management-speak when explaining strategy or goals. He talks of creating propositions, facilitating communities of fundraisers and embedding the codes of fundraising practice in our DNA. Unlike many others, however, he is also able to explain with clarity - and with gracious good humour - what these organisational idioms actually mean.

Amadi - rather like Obama - is setting out what to expect from his style of leadership in high office. "The institute has had a mature and frank debate about transparency with its members and about Gift Aid with the Government," he says.

"It's my responsibility to build on that, but with the Paul Amadi dimension - the legitimacy of a practitioner's perspective."



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