Hospice In The Weald

Interim Trust Fundraising

The Brief:

The Hospice In The Weald was in the process of undertaking a review of their trust fundraising activities, and required additional capacity to support with this work whilst they recruited a new team member. Support was specifically requested with a review of their current trust prospect list, which was significant in scale. Following completion of this first stage of work, the charity requested support with the development of an initial action plan for the most promising prospects, including preparation of a template appeal letter and template report document.

Action Taken:

The charity’s prospect list, containing 700 entries, was reviewed and an assessment was made of each prospect. This review considered affinity and alignment with the work of the charity, potential gift size and identification of any existing or recent connection. Alongside this up-to-date contact information and accompanying notes were provided. Circa 400 prospects were identified as being eligible for removal or archiving from the database due to closure or ineligibility. This exercise also saw new trusts prospects added to the pipeline where appropriate.

Suggested actions were identified for around 300 of the most relevant and priority trust prospects. This included identifying trusts:
• Requiring a report or stewardship
• Suitable for immediate applications
• Suitable for larger or more strategic applications.

Support was then provided to begin implementing these next actions, including creation of a template report, appeal letters and an indicative work plan to aid continuation of the work following handover. Money Tree Fundraising provided the capacity to progress this work which constituted important groundwork in the charity’s work to redevelop it’s trust fundraising programme. Money Tree Fundraising’s support also enabled some trust application work to continue whilst the organisation considered and developed it’s longer term trust fundraising strategy and recruited an additional in-house trust fundraiser.

Difference Made:

The working prospect list was refreshed and can be used to support future planning activity. Outstanding stewardship reports were drafted for a significant number of trusts which were recent or ‘live’ donors and did not have formal reporting requirements. 55 applications were prepared for submission by the fundraising team to trusts for core and core service costs. A discrete prospect list was drawn from the updated main prospect list for a new children’s service and an initial appeal template was created and will be progressed independently once the service’s strategic plan is finalised. A headline trust workplan for the next 12 months was created, including identification of timebound priority prospects for larger, more strategic or project-based applications, as part of the handover package.