Services/Event fundraising strategy
The night is won months before it happens.
Which lots earn their place. Where the emotional peak sits. What the room is asked for in the ninety seconds after it. These are the decisions that quietly decide your total, and almost nobody makes them on purpose.
Most events are designed forwards. We design backwards.
The usual approach starts from supply. What can we get donated? What might people bid on? Right — that’s the evening.
We start at the other end: what your charity actually does, what a pound of it buys, and what will move this particular room. Every mechanism in the night is then chosen to point at that.
What we decide together
The five decisions that set the total
The target, and where it comes from
How much of the number comes from tickets, from lots, from the pledge, from the games, and from giving that continues after the night. Get this mix wrong and no amount of energy on the night will fix it.
Which lots genuinely earn their place
Some lots make money. Some cost you money to sell — a slot, ten minutes of attention, and sometimes the emotional peak of the night, spent on a transaction you keep a fraction of. We work out which is which.
Whether each pound arrives as a purchase or a gift
Gift Aid can add 25% to a gift, and with narrow exceptions an auction purchase cannot carry it at all. Designing for gifts is worth real money.
Where the peak sits, and what follows it
The Giving Curve, where each giving moment lands across the evening, and precisely what is asked for immediately after the story that moves the room.
What happens the morning after
So this year’s guests become next year’s donors, rather than a list you start again from scratch.
What you actually receive
A written plan for the evening: the target and its breakdown, the running order, the lot recommendations, the pledge structure and script, the games and where they sit, and the platform configured for your event. Then the person who wrote it turns up and delivers it.
The Banked Method in full →Questions
Asked before every engagement
Do you work as a fundraising consultant?
Not quite. A consultant hands you a strategy and leaves. We design the strategy and stand on the stage delivering it, which means we are accountable for whether it actually works. It is also never sold in days or as consultancy. You are buying the event, with a target attached, and the design work is included in it.
How far ahead should we start?
The earlier the better — more lead time means more room to secure the right donated lots and shape the programme. Shorter notice is workable, but the giving mix is harder to move.
Do you charge a percentage of what we raise?
Never. Commission is exactly the behaviour this brand exists to oppose, and UK fundraising regulation treats it with the suspicion it deserves. The fee is agreed up front and does not move with the total.
Do we have to use your platform?
It is included in every engagement, and the strategy is designed around what it can do — pledges, Gift Aid capture, card-on-file, regular giving. Using something else is possible, but you lose some of the mechanisms the plan relies on.
No obligation, and never a percentage of what you raise
Let’s talk about your number.
Thirty minutes about your event, your room and your target, and an honest view of what the night could raise.
Book a discovery call→