A fundraising marketing plan for a small charity with a big job

The brief

The Focus Foundation supports Jewish adults with learning and physical disabilities in Manchester. Their fundraising marketing relied on a handful of brilliant people doing far too much, with no plan holding it together. They asked for help with social media. What they needed was a little wider than that.

What I actually did

I wrote a complete strategy the leadership team could act on without needing me in the room every week.

• An executive summary and a simple marketing framework
• An annual content strategy and content calendar
• An events strategy that kept their best events as they are, and offered new ideas as optional extras rather than more work
• A day to day operating guide for the team
• A 30 day quick win plan
• A free, ownable digital tool idea that gives local businesses something useful and puts the charity in front of new supporters

The thinking

Small charities don’t fail at marketing because they lack ideas. They fail because nobody has the time. So every recommendation was tested against one question: can this team realistically do it? Anything that couldn’t pass that test, including Google Ad Grants, came out.