International Benchmarking Case Study

The brief: Our client, an international welfare charity based in Europe, had undergone a phase of market expansion in the late 1990s leading to the creation of fundraising operations throughout in Europe and Asia Pacific. The majority of offices were thriving and contributing to the net income of international office particularly through a range of individual giving activities.

But one office in Europe had failed to thrive financially; although well known nationally, it had failed to turn its public image into funds for the charity and was potentially facing bankruptcy in a market where others in its sector had grown substantially. Many reasons were given for this failure from inadequate investment to simply “it won’t work here”. The headquarters of the charity wanted an objective view on whether to invest or to close down this national office.

Our thinking: We needed to achieve 3 main areas of knowledge to be able to help the charity to assess the future viability of the national office in question:

  • Benchmarking of the fundraising market
  • Benchmarking of the competitor organisations
  • Understanding the role, skills and competencies of the national office and its interaction with the international office.

Our approach: Firstly to benchmark the fundraising market we carried out an in depth study on the state of the fundraising in the country. This considered the maturity of the market, possible future trends, the methods and techniques used for fundraising from individuals, companies, foundations, groups and statutory sources, plus the appeal of the charity’s cause and the opportunities for fundraising development.

We then undertook a detailed competitor study to assess “space” the market for our client. We looked at the evolution of their sector to see where and when the main growth in the sector has occurred and why the major players were more successful.

Following these 2 external areas of research, we carried out a full fundraising audit with the staff of the national office to understand their skill sets and competencies, the support services they were able to access from suppliers and the role the international office had played in their development.

Outcomes: The project revealed a range of important factors that had held back the national office’s development. These related to the level of the maturity of the market itself, the direction and competencies in the national office, and the inconsistent support that the national office has received from the international office over the years. In particular the criteria for investing in a market were absent.

These factors were formulated into a plan of action for communication and strategic planning between the international and national offices, and so benefited the whole organisation as well as offering a way forward to the national office that was in trouble. Specifically the international office introduced:

  • Joint annual strategic planning for fundraising with the national offices
  • Guidelines for the use of and prioritisation of the central investment funds so that they were allocated according to the strategic goals
  • An international fundraising team dedicated to supporting national office’s fundraising development through strategic advice, planning, training and sharing best practise.

And for the national office that triggered this work the charity developed a 2-3 year plan of investment against a plan with incremental goals, supported by the necessary consistent support in funding and training the office.

Share this thinking
[del.icio.us] [Digg] [Facebook] [LinkedIn] [Reddit] [StumbleUpon] [Technorati] More »

Enter your E-mail address below to subscribe to Think Consulting Solutions by E-mail.

Close