Oxford Homeless Pathways

Trust Fundraising Support

The Brief:

Oxford Homeless Pathways (OxHoP) is a small but incredibly effective organisation – the leading homelessness charity in Oxfordshire providing a host of vital services despite its relatively small annual turnover of £2.5 million. They are a charity who had historically benefitted from statutory grants, with only 6.5% of their total income coming from fundraising. However, the departure of their main fundraiser alongside changes to the panorama of state funding gave the organisation the time to reflect on the need to invest in fundraising to make sure they could stay ahead of their game and keep on delivering their incredibly valuable services.

Action Taken:

Money Tree Fundraising was invited to tender and successfully bid for outsourced trust fundraising to include the research, preparation and submission of trust applications to the value of £100,000, over a three-month period.

Difference Made:

Initially, we spent time with OxHoP to get know the projects they run, and to understand what was funded and what needed funding. There were some issues in that some projects were partially funded so we had to look creatively at how to plug gaps. Following this, we set about delivering.

We really enjoyed working with OxHoP – they are a fantastic charity and were great to collaborate with. Given this, we were delighted when the Chief Executive commissioned another 3 months’ work with us even before the results from our initial programme were in, in recognition of the need to keep irons hot in the fire. This was a really positive decision on their part and allowed us to keep on building relationships and sending off applications.

Results

All in all, the £10,000 they paid for 24 days outsourced trusts fundraising yielded a return of £104,000 – a return on investment of 10:1.

We were subsequently commissioned for another chunk of work the year after – similarly successful and with positive results.

Following years of outsourcing their fundraising, OxHoP eventually decided that it was of such a positive benefit to the organisation that they would create a permanent fundraising role.