There’s no doubt that the UK has gone through some pretty massive transitions over the past few years. From the upheaval of Brexit, to the Covid 19 pandemic to the current war in Ukraine, we’ve kissed goodbye to the normal we used to know. These changes have meant fundraising and the charity sector have had to adapt at an incredible pace. But in spite of the many knocks, there’s been a display of amazing resilience, resourcefulness and creativity from the third sector. With a fresh look at our new situation, we take a look at how charities have risen to the occasion, with a look at which trends in UK fundraising have emerged and which look set to stay for 2022 and beyond.  

Any charity that has survived this far has a great deal to be proud of, especially as there were none that escaped the impacts of Covid unscathed. In our blog ‘How the Charity & Voluntary sector is surviving Covid’ we covered the immense impact that charities and the voluntary sector have endured.

Luckily, the worst of the pandemic seems to be over. So with a tentative sense of stability, charities are left to figure out new strategies to weather the new storms.

Are there lessons learned from Covid that can help charities get through the next challenges?

What we’re seeing in 2022 is a clear set of trends; some still evolving as we respond to our current crisis, some brand new innovations and some a continuum from life prior to the pandemic.

Let’s explore.

Economic trends

In 2021, despite the economy taking a considerable hit, GDP (the monetary value of goods and services in a country) rose above the expected rate and has been predicted to rise again in 2022.

Yet inflation (the rate at which a currency is falling which impacts on the price of goods and services) has meant that the general public are now suffering. Huge increases in the cost of living including everything from petrol to heating bills to food to council tax has gone up.

Charities too should be watching inflation closely, as obviously this can impact on everything from internal staff costs, delivery of services and the increased demand of the communities that the charities seek to support.

So while people are feeling the squeeze, can charities expect continued support from them?

The NVCO report from January ‘The Road Ahead’ summarises the key elements that drive the charity sector. These include:

• Political

• Economic

• Social

• Technological

• Environmental

• Legal

According to the report, the voluntary sector should expect ongoing uncertainly in 2022, along with some drop in donations. In parallel, demand on services will increase as people begin to feel the bite of soaring living costs.

But it’s not all bad news.

The report also states that the sector should still be optimistic about its ability to support society and be confident to continue to highlight issues.

The bottom line is that people are still willing to offer their help, even if they’re feeling the pinch.

The reason why is perhaps linked to the next big trend that has echoed around the world. Undoubtedly it affects the charity sector and fundraising moving forwards too.

Cultural trends

Political drivers from the NVCO report also suggest that the current ‘woke’ attitude is a trend that could actually help charitable causes. This is added to the decrease in trust the British public have in our government post numerous scandals in MP and PM behaviour.

A strong cultural shift about how people view and react to injustice has been reflected in campaigns like Black Lives Matter, Me Too and the incredible response to Ukraine appeals. All of these movements show a strong rejection of injustice with a desire to help and demand for proper action.

So how can charity use cultural trend to help them fundraise?

As we’ve established before, face to face fundraising is the one of the most effective ways to raise money for charity.

By connecting human to human to bring the stories of injustice to life, and upon reflection of these cultural trends, we should continue to see people dig deep to help the suffering, despite the financial squeeze.

Charities would be wise to invest in face to face fundraisers for their causes, who can obtain the financial security that’s so precious to their future planning.

A cashless future?

Whilst on the topic of money, another trend seen in the third sector is our method of spending.

Understandably, cash withdrawals dropped to an all-time low during the pandemic simply because people couldn’t get out and had nowhere to exchange cash.

Whilst we had already seen a shift towards debit card transactions being preferred over physical money, the era of digital payments and a cashless society has well and truly taken over.

As a company that focuses on face to face fundraising, Charity Link looks for regular and long term donors and our modern digital tablets allow for seamless transactions that are both convenient and secure.

Highly valued ‘extras’ like gift aid are a mere tick of a box and as 2022 moves into the future, it’s clear that the days of shaking tins and buckets will be all but gone.

Social media trend vital for charities

Another online trend here to stay for charities (and well, basically everyone else too) is of course social media.

Since the pandemic, online presence is even more important, particularly helping to keep charities connected to their audiences. Many non profits focused efforts on social media with great results.

As a low cost or even free way to gain traction and reach new audiences, social media is undoubtedly a no brainer when it comes to helping charities get noticed and grow.

Depending on the type of fundraising a charity is involved in, different platforms have their benefits.

Linkedin is perfect for corporate fundraising, while Instagram and Pinterest serve a general more visual audience.

YouTube is fantastic for case studies and tutorials, helping audiences gain a deeper insight into what a charity does.

Meanwhile, Facebook, whilst having less organic reach than before, still counts as one of the most cost effective ways to get to targeted audiences. Plus of course, everyone is on there so its expected that any organisation worth their salt will at least have a facebook page.

Finally, Twitter is great for keeping up to date with current affairs and reacting to trends as and when they happen. This gives charities the opportunity to go viral to gain more exposure and also to breathe personality into their brand.

The only real disadvantage to social media is that it needs constant attention and that can take an enormous amount of time for it to work properly. Gone are the days when you could post a generic image and grow an audience with a few hashtags.

These days there is a lot of noise and competition. Social media giants continually change the goalposts, with algorithms changes making it difficult to keep ranking using the same techniques.

Both content and strategy must be regularly updated and adapted to stand a chance of being seen in the feed.

To really have success with social media, a charity should have a dedicated social media team who continually engage, create original content (mainly video) and have a clear strategy to grow their ideal audience.

Choosing which platforms based on where your ideal audience is, is a good start. It’s always better to focus on one social media platform at a time and personify that, rather than trying a blanket approach.

It’s also important to understand the different demographics of each account. The classics (i.e. Facebook and Instagram) are generally considered to include a more mature audience, but if you want to appeal to a younger crowd TikTok or Snapchat are clear front runners there.

Gaming and fundraising trends

You would be forgiven for not knowing this was a thing, but another online trend is in the gaming community with a campaign called ‘Gaming for Good’.  

Rising in fame and popularity in 2021, the pandemic saw people spend much more time playing games online.  

A few of the more savvy charity organisations saw an opportunity here to fundraise and before long ‘Gaming for Good’ was created and went mainstream in fast succession.

Whilst gamers did what they loved best, some live streamed themselves in action, which in turn attracted large audiences who tuned in to watch. It was here that gamers became influencers and anyone in digital marketing will tell you influencers means opportunity.

The more popular and talented the gamer, the larger their audience and the bigger the influence. Gamers were able to easily add a ‘donate’ button to their favourite charity and those watching were invited to make a donation.

Trends showed that when the gamer did something particularly impressive or were entertaining in some way, viewers tended to donate more.

Oxfam, Cancer Research UK and the British Red Cross have all latched on to this growing epidemic which is showing increased promise for a fundraising stream in 2022 and beyond.

For a taste of what’s been going on in the gaming world, here’s a highlights video from charity ‘End Youth Homelessness’

Fundraising with email marketing trends

Email marketing is a brilliant way to communicate with current and potential donors and this is definitely going to continue to be a hot fundraising trend in 2022.

The average person checks their inbox 15 times or more a day. Showing up in emails put a charity ahead of thousands of other stimulus a person is subjected to each day.

When compared to even the most popular social media platforms, being in someone’s inbox has a much higher return on investment. In fact, According to lead generation software masters optinmonster, email marketing has the potential to give up to a 4400% return on investment.

Engagement on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter is just 0.6%. When you look at the average open rates of an email, with click through rate of 3.71%, you can see that it’s a no brainer for charities to focus their efforts on email marketing.

In addition, with over 3.7 billion email accounts, that means emails triple the amount of Facebook and twitter accounts combined.  

Well thought out email marketing gives charities a huge opportunity. Personal emails that have been crafted to appeal to hundreds of thousands of potential donors within an hour or two surely has more effect than the hours and hours of social media engagement.

What’s more, an email database is owned by the charity rather than facebook or twitter, so is essentially worth more than trying to reach data owned by a giant organisation. With email lists you’ll get greater overall control.

The dual impact of redirecting traffic from emails back to a website and capturing email addresses of new website visitors, means a cyclic system that can be of huge benefit to a charity’s fundraising strategy. From branding to campaigns, emails can be tailored exactly according to a charity’s message and their audience.

Charity events trends

The return of charitable events from gala balls, conferences and fundraisers are all back in full swing for 2022.

However, if the lockdown has taught us anything, it’s how accessible online activity is.

Virtual events mean a wider reach for audiences, the end to extensive travel costs and time constraints and the opportunity to listen to all members of the online community, since as we’ve learned, only one person can talk at a time!

In addition, communicating online is relatively simple, provided one has a camera, the zoom app and a reasonable microphone – which can be as simple as plugging earphones in for the end user.

For this reason, it’s expected that almost any future charity event by hybrid. This means there will be options for people to attend either in person or online via zoom or similar.

Of course, not everyone feels as positively about online events. There is nothing quite so effective as human to human contact. On screen can feel quite disconnected and non-personal which means an emotional response is less likely. Relationships are harder to build without the exchange of energy and nuances that make up human communication. That’s obviously bad news for charity!

Other negatives are that people find it harder to concentrate, with the potential of distractions when not in a room with others listening.  

Regardless, having the option for both physical attendance and virtual will tick all the boxes, giving much more opportunity to satisfy a whole audience both near and far.

So as you can see, the trends for 2022 contain a mixed bag of exciting digital advancements with a need to apply extra attention and care from charities when thinking about fundraising and the current economy.

Fundraising is a challenging and rewarding role which our professional fundraisers get real pleasure from.

If you think you might be a good fit as a professional fundraiser, why not email our recruitment team with your CV? We are always open to conversations with motivated and hardworking people who love to learn.