Growth Graph here - Dave and Phil will need to help us with this
Royal Flying Doctor Service Victoria: Unlocking the power of their cause
In just six years, Scott Chapman, CEO of the Royal Flying Doctor Service (RFDS) Victoria section grew the charity's income to $50M AUD. And this started by applying learnings from Great Fundraising methodology.
For almost 100 years, RFDS has been helping people in remote parts of the Australian outback access healthcare. Despite this great mission, in 2015 RFDS Victoria was struggling to get any growth in their fundraising. And the reasons were obvious – too little investment, low donor recruitment and high attrition.
Focus on growth
To make the right steps towards growth, Scott Chapman and the Head of Fundraising joined a Great Fundraising Masterclass.
After their introduction to Great Fundraising, Scott arranged for all staff to attend a bespoke Masterclass. And it was through these interventions that RFDS Victoria recognised the need to shift the focus of their value proposition to donors. Great Fundraising showed them that by embedding a new culture of storytelling that was focused more on the needs of donors, RFDS Victoria could unlock the power of their cause and inspire many more donors to give.
Introducing donor-led communications
After working with PFI, RFDS Victoria formulated a new five-year plan that saw their fundraising income grow by 145% and with a new focus on meeting donor needs retention increased and remains far above average levels in Australia.
Scott Chapman puts this down to a focus on donor stewardship and embedding the power of emotional storytelling into their communications. By leading a fundraising organization that's focused on a daily ritual of storytelling, Scott is able to bring his Board back to their mission while his senior management team never loses their focus on fundraising growth.
Leading a fundraising organization is a tough challenge
Leading and enabling fundraising growth is no simple task. It takes time, persistence and grit. So that's why we offer CEOs a free online seminar hosted by our own leaders, where you can join to understand how others achieve their goals.
Join us for the next free CEO seminar and explore the Behaviours of the Great Fundraising CEO.
Alan and the team have a way of coaxing you back to your core reason for existing and tapping into that purpose as a starting point. The work we did took place at a whole of organisation level and we were inspired to set a big ambition and stay the course, even when transformation proved challenging.
We always refer back to those early conversations with Alan and are enormously grateful for the inspiration to take the steps to truly embrace Great Fundraising. Our community of donors and our beneficiaries thank you!!