Amber Strategic Fundraising Consultants case study: Garden Organic ­ Royal garden party and a fundraising strategy 1. Major Donor Cultivation at Highgrove "Julia came to work for us on a particular high profile major donor event, where we wanted some overall co‐ordination and some training for our management team. Julia's professionalism was combined with a persuasive approach when working with senior managers with a range of different skills and outlook! She ran one particularly effective coaching session which several members of staff fed back was one of the most constructive training events they had ever attended.” Myles Bremner, Chief Executive, Garden Organic Ryton Garden Organic (G.O.) is a charity that has the Prince of Wales as their Patron. His Royal Highness (HRH) offered G.O. the opportunity to use his beautiful gardens at Highgrove for a cultivation event. They could invite one hundred and twenty guests for a private tour of the gardens with the highly knowledgeable garden guides, who reveal the secrets of Highgrove and the ideology and thoughts behind many of the small gardens within a garden. 1 | w w w . a m b e r c o n s u l t i n g . o r g . u k This event was a wonderful opportunity for Garden Organic to demonstrate what can be achieved in a fully organic garden and to invite some potential future supporters for the charity. In addition to the garden tour Prince Charles agreed to host the event himself and meet all the guests, greet each guest individually and speak about his passion for this ground breaking charity. Garden Organic had little experience of organising and running an event of this calibre, with HRH as the host it needed to be executed perfectly. The Chief Executive, Myles Bremner approached Julia Worthington of Amber Consulting who had previously worked on royal events. The consultancy had been recommended as a company that would be able to manage this event, Amber would be aware of and understand the requirements of the royal household and would be able to assist with the post event cultivation due to their wealth of experience prospecting, cultivating and converting major donor support. Amber consulting became involved 6 weeks prior to the event. G.O. had already identified who to invite, mostly current and previous supporters. There was a limited amount of research on the invitees, and the charity had been unable to attract a sponsor for the event from their corporate supporters. Amber Consulting ‐ •
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reviewed and rewrote the sponsorship materials, using their contacts, recruited a sponsor who covered all the costs for the event and provided excellent goody bags for all 120 guests. researched the guests so that G.O. were able to identify those that were the greatest prospects this meant that they were some of the first to meet HRH Identified the prospects most likely to fund Garden Organic Briefed the hosts of each guest cluster on who were their top 3 guests for cultivation Provided briefing notes on each guest The week before the reception Amber provided a training session on networking for all the staff who would be at the event. This gave people tools to use to enter a conversation and exit, but also the confidence many were lacking around how to look after prospective supporters at this high profile and important event. After the event at Highgrove Amber Consulting continued to work with G.O., following up attendees, developing prospect plans and advising on face to face approaches to prospective supporters. 2 | w w w . a m b e r c o n s u l t i n g . o r g . u k 2. Interim Fundraising Manager Shortly after the Highgrove reception, Garden Organic needed some additional fundraising support following the departure of their Head of Income Generation. Rita Rich (Head of Organisational Development) stood in as Head of Income Generation, but with no knowledge of fundraising it was felt that until a full time permanent fundraising manager could be recruited that a safe pair of hands with fundraising experience was needed to provide this crucial knowledge. Julia Worthington of Amber Consulting was asked to become the interim Fundraising Manager whilst they sought a permanent employee. Julia managed the fundraising team to ensure the momentum that was started with the Highgrove tour was continued, with follow up meetings arranged with guests and suitable projects matched to their interests. In addition the ongoing work to bring in funding for Ryton Gardens and some of the important development and educational work that Garden Organic are part of was progressed in conjunction with the operational teams. During the time that Julia was managing the team she developed strategic plans and processes around the organisations approach to fundraising, reviewed the team targets and, after a very difficult year for grant fundraising, she developed a new process for monitoring and developing trust and foundation applications in association with the operational teams. “We continued to use Julia after the Major donor event at Highgrove and she gave us some strong strategic planning support during an interim period. Thus her work for us has showed she can both 'talk' the job and 'do' the job!" Myles Bremner, Chief Executive – Garden Organic “I was sceptical that an interim post holder could make any difference to the organisation, but you have shown that even over a short period an experienced fundraiser can have an impact on how a team performs.“ Rita Rich, Head of Organisational Development and Interim Head of Income Generation – Garden Organic 3 | w w w . a m b e r c o n s u l t i n g . o r g . u k