Pulling together
Whether they come together out of a financial imperative or not, a well-handled merger can give charities a new lease of life. Hannah Gannagé-Stewart reports
No Smoking Day joining with The British Heart Foundation (BHF) is the most recent high-profile third sector merger. As funding cuts continue to reap their savage impact on small charities, the option to merge seems increasingly appealing.
Vishnee Sauntoo, marketing director at No Smoking Day, is enthusiastic about the merger. The charity is one of the most cost effective anti-smoking campaigns in the country, she explains. BHF has done a lot of work on tobacco control policy over the years, but they’ve never run a campaign to rival No Smoking Day and Sauntoo is keen to show them how it’s done.
Millennial mergers
When Imperial Cancer Research Fund and Cancer Research Campaign came together to form Cancer Research UK in 2002, there were fears that the overall funding of cancer research in the UK would decline as a result, but that hasn’t been the case.
The Terrence Higgins Trust (THT) has undergone approximately 30 mergers. The charity still holds the annual Lighthouse Gala Auction, from its first high-profile merger with Lighthouse in 2000 and last year THT merged with Crusaid, a well-known fundraising charity for HIV. Genevieve Edwards, THT’s director of communications, is confident that, handled the right way, mergers are a positive move for charities wanting to sustain their impact in the long term.
Cath Lee, chief executive of the Small Charities Coalition (SCC), suggests not only that merger is just one of many options, but that there are many types of merger. “Certainly, we’ve noticed a trend for charities wanting to collaborate more, and wanting to collaborate on all sorts of levels.” she explains.
It is clear that as money becomes scarce there is a far greater pressure on charities to identify the points of similarity that they can join forces on. Trusts and foundations have been promoting joint working for some time now and joint funding applications are also on the increase.
“It sounds quite easy but when you’re talking about a joint fundraising bid, you come across some of the same issues that you would if you were merging,” Lee explains. So what are the considerations are critical to a successful merger or collaboration? Lee goes on to ask: “Are your values in tune? Do you share objects? Then there’s culture and sometimes egos. Are the people involved able to work together? You need to be honest and upfront before you get too far down the line.”
Lee should know, the SCC underwent it’s own merger with the Charity Trustees Network (CTN) in March. With around 80 per cent of CTN’s trustees operating in small charities, it was apparent that there was a substantial crossover and collaboration seemed the obvious course of action.
Maintaining focus
Paul Farthing came on board as director of fundraising at Age UK, just as the charity’s new identity launched. There is, he says, an inevitable period of stasis in any merger where much of the organisation’s resource is channeled into the merger process.
Farthing suggests that you continue to invest in donor recruitment and maintain your core programs. It is difficult he says, because you’re tied up with the day-to-day management of internal expectations and people’s reactions to change within the organisation. But it seems that if you fail to take your donors with you on the journey through merger, the whole exercise might be doomed to fail, leaving you pretty well where you would have been if you’d never attempted it.
There are two particularly crucial elements to taking your donors with you. Firstly, you need to come up with a message for both groups of existing supporters that sets up a new proposition for what will essentially be a new charity going forward. Supporters are generally loyal to the cause rather than the individual organisation, so keeping them on board should not present too much of a problem providing the message makes it clear that merging is for the good of the beneficiaries and will save more money that it costs.
The practical side of retaining all your existing donors is then merging the two databases. Twyla Jenner is head of individual giving and legacies at Prostate Action and lead the charity’s fundraising department through its merger between Prostate UK and Prostate Cancer Research last year. In retrospect she see’s that the charity was not fully prepared for huge the job of combining the databases would be. “We tried it on our own at first and then we realised we really needed a hand and got somebody in from the consultancy, Purple. They made the process a lot easier and were really reassuring” she remembers.
Jenner admits she was anxious that their direct debits would fall as a result of the merger or that they would have complaints. But the response from donors was positive, they had a few donations as a direct result of the communications they sent out and overall the regular giving remained stable. However, she warns against being over ambitious; “Just because you merge two charities doesn’t mean that you’re going to double your income. It would be premature to have raised expectations about your level of income in the first year of a merger because there’s so much that you need to put in place.”
Words from the wise
You need to get legal advice. Many charity lawyers do pro bono work or good rates from small organisations. If you’re merging with a larger charity, it might have a legal team but here does come a point when both sides need independent legal advice”.
Cath Lee, chief executive, The Small Charities Coalition
“Work closely with your press team to proactively manage the message. Get out there with the good news story first rather than responding to criticism”.
Genevieve Edwards, director of communications, The Terrence Higgins Trust
“Look at key stakeholder groups and define how you are going to take those people with you”.
Tony Elischer, managing director, THINK Consulting Solutions
“You need as much time a you can get to properly prepare and get a data plan together. When you’re merging your databases, keep as much information as possible, within the data protection remit, don’t throw any data away, just organise it smarter”.
Twyla Jenner, head of individual giving and legacies, Prostate Action
“It’s a pretty unique opportunity to question everything you do and to reset all the relationships you have. Look at the activities you do and see what has long-term value”.
Paul Farthing, director of fundraising, Age UK
This article was published in full in the October 2011 issue of The Fundraiser. To read the full article, subscribe to The Fundraiser by clicking here or email jlindfield@wilmington.co.uk
Author: Hannah Gannagé-Stewart
Hannah Gannagé-Stewart is the editor of The Fundraiser.
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