FAQs

We work with not-for-profits and charities across Australia and New Zealand to help them become truly fundraise-able. That means going beyond tactics and campaigns to address the strategy, leadership alignment, data, culture and capability that determine whether fundraising really works. Depending on where you are, that might start with a diagnostic audit , a fundraising strategy, campaign development , or all three.

We work with not-for-profits and charities at every stage of their fundraising journey, from organisations just starting out to well-established programs that have stalled. Our clients include Board members, CEOs and Heads of Fundraising who know their program can do more, even if they’re not yet sure where to start. If the cause matters and the commitment is real, we want to know how we can help/support.

Our fundraising consultants have partnered with Australian and New Zealand based charities and NFPs across many causes and spaces. These include fundraising for health and medical research, disability services, social justice and advocacy orgs, community and social services and homelessness, environment and conservation, international development, arts and culture, animal welfare, food relief, legal services, youth, and mental health, and more. We believe the fundamentals of great fundraising are universal…context changes, strategy adapts, but the commitment to your purpose always stays in our focus.

We work with NFPs and organisations of every size, from small charities building their first fundraising program to some of Australia and New Zealand’s largest not-for-profits. What we’ve found is that the core issues affecting fundraising effectiveness look remarkably similar, regardless of size or scale. We tailor how we work to your context and capacity, but our approach to fundraising strategy and the depth of thinking stays the same.

Yes. We work with not-for-profits and charities across Australia and New Zealand. Paul and the team have extensive experience in both markets and understand the differences between them. This can be around donor culture, sector dynamics or even the funding landscapes.

It varies. Some engagements focus on a specific piece of work, like a fundraising audit or a campaign. Others are longer-term partnerships where we stay with an organisation through strategy, implementation and beyond. We work at whatever pace and level of support makes sense for where you are. Our initial conversations will give us both a clearer sense of what’s really needed and achievable.

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BASIS is Amplify Fundraising’s structured, evidence-based methodology developed over 20+ years of working with charities across the UK, Australia and New Zealand. It stands for Baseline, Ambition, Strategy, Implementation and Sustainable Success and is a complete pathway from understanding where you are to building something your organisation can grow from for the long term. It’s not a generic consulting framework; it was built specifically for the not-for-profit sector.

It’s our way of describing an organisation that has the right conditions in place for fundraising to work. It encapsulates more than just best practice fundraising, a good campaign or a talented fundraiser; covering strategy, leadership alignment, internal culture, data foundations and team capability that make growth sustainable. All the organisations we work with have real potential; becoming fundraise-able means closing the gap between where they are and where that potential could take them.

Not quite. A fundraising audit tends to imply a narrow review, focused primarily on what you’re already doing and whether it’s working. At Amplify Fundraising, we use assessment because what we do is broader than that. Our fundraising assessment looks at your programs, data, team capability, leadership alignment and internal culture but it also looks outward at the landscape around you, including the opportunities you’re not yet across. It’s holistic by design and while you may have seen the terms used interchangeably elsewhere, for us they actually mean different things and the distinction matters.

A fundraising audit, or assessment as we call it, is where we typically begin. It’s a structured, holistic review of where your organisation stands in relation to fundraising – whatever that might look like for your organisation. That could mean established programs, a donor database and a dedicated team, or it might not yet mean any of those things yet. The assessment meets you where you are, looking at your capability, leadership alignment and internal culture, as well as the broader landscape around you, and tells you what’s working, what isn’t and where the real opportunities lie. Most importantly, it tells you what your strategy will need to address.

A fundraising strategy uses the findings from your assessment as its foundation. It’s built around your very specific and unique situation. The result is a prioritised plan, investment roadmap and implementation approach that takes you from where you are to where you want to be.

Many clients begin with an assessment and move into strategy from there.

A fundraising strategy developed by Amplify Fundraising is a clear, prioritised plan your team can own and execute. It’s foundation lies in your own data, benchmarked against sector performance, and built around your actual constraints: budget, team capacity, board readiness and organisational context.

It covers where you’re going, what it will take to get there, which programs to prioritise and in what order, and what a realistic investment and return looks like. Every strategy we build is shaped by our BASIS Framework and customised to your specific situation.

A fundraising audit is worth considering any time your program isn’t performing the way it should but you’re not sure why. Common triggers include declining revenue, heavy reliance on one funding source, a change in leadership, an upcoming strategic planning cycle, or simply a sense that there’s more potential in your program than you’re currently realising. We also work with organisations whose fundraising is going well but who want to understand what’s next. A good audit doesn’t just identify problems, it maps the opportunity ahead.

Both. We work alongside organisations from diagnosis through to implementation and beyond. We stay until the results are embedded, your team and systems can sustain them, and the work is yours to build upon.

We also offer fractional fundraising support, where an experienced fundraising professional works alongside your team on a part-time or contract basis, without the cost or commitment of a full-time hire.

Whether you need end-to-end fundraising support from strategy through to implementation, or a steady hand during a specific chapter, we can help.

Yes. Regular giving can be one of the most valuable programs a charity can build, and one where the strategic foundations matter enormously. Get them right and the economics compound over time; get them wrong, retention suffers, and the investment rarely pays back.

We support organisations at every stage of the regular giving journey, including:

• Building a program from scratch: developing your regular giving strategy, proposition and business case, including ROI modelling and investment return scenarios, so you go in with clear expectations and a plan that stacks up.
• Acquisition: designing and implementing lead generation, face-to-face programs, two-step acquisition (first action and conversion), telephone fundraising and cash-to-committed conversion strategies that turn single gift donors into regular givers.
• Onboarding: building the early donor experience that sets retention up for success from the first gift.
• Retention and reactivation: regular giving only work when donors stay. We develop retention strategies, lapsed donor reactivation programs and the supporter journeys that keep givers committed.
• Upgrade and conversion: helping organisations with an existing regular giving base grow average gift value through structured upgrade and conversion programs.
• Email strategy: supporting the digital communications that underpin acquisition, onboarding and retention across the program.

We also build the business cases, investment models and ROI timeframes that help you make the case internally, staying with you from inception through to implementation and beyond.

Read more about our donor programs.

A bequest program, sometimes called a Gifts in Wills, Planned Giving or Legacy/Legacies program, is a structured approach to inspiring and stewarding donors who choose to leave a gift to your organisation in their will. For many charities it becomes their single largest source of philanthropic income over time, yet it’s consistently underfunded and under-resourced.

We work with organisations at every stage of the bequest journey. If you’re starting from scratch, we help you develop the strategy, case for support, stewardship program and internal confidence to build a charity bequest program that works for the long term. If you already have a program but aren’t seeing results, we’ll help you understand why and what needs to change. And if you’ve inherited a legacy or bequest program from a predecessor and aren’t sure what you have or where to take it, we can help you get your bearings and build from there.

Yes. Major gifts is often where the biggest untapped potential sits, particularly for organisations that have been focused on other donor programs and haven’t yet built the systems, relationships or internal confidence to make significant asks. We work on major gifts readiness, prospect identification and qualification, solicitation and cultivation strategies, and the case for support that makes giving at that level feel compelling and inevitable.

Yes. We plan, develop and manage fundraising campaigns from brief through to post-campaign analysis across direct mail, email, digital and integrated multi-channel approaches. Our fundraising campaign management approach is built around co-creation, which means your team’s capability grows alongside the results.

Whether you need end-to-end campaign delivery or support at a specific point in the process, we work at whatever level makes sense for your situation.

We help charitable organisations think strategically about how they grow their donor base. That includes donor acquisition strategy, data modelling, investment and return scenario planning, digital lead generation, two-step acquisition programs, and strategic support for face-to-face and telephone fundraising. We focus on donor acquisition that brings in supporters worth keeping, not just volume.

Yes. Acquiring a new donor costs significantly more than retaining an existing one. We help charities understand their retention data, identify where and why donors may have lapsed, and build the donor care, communication and stewardship programs that keep supporters engaged for the long term. Lapsed reactivation is also something we work on, as we know that when it’s done well, it can deliver strong returns at relatively low cost.

Yes. A compelling case for support is the foundation of almost every donor program we build. It’s the story and the argument that makes giving feel inevitable, connecting your organisation’s purpose to the donor’s values and showing them exactly what their gift will make possible. We develop cases for support for individual giving programs, major gifts, bequests, capital campaigns and specific projects and can also help you write your own case for support.

The first step to hire one of our fundraising consultants is a brief conversation with Paul, typically from 15 to 30 minutes. He will chat through where you are, what you’re trying to achieve and whether we’re the right fit. Most people leave that call with more clarity about their situation than when they started. There’s no obligation and no pitch. Get in touch via the contact page and Paul will get back to you directly.

Fees vary depending on the scope and nature of the engagement. We’ll always give you a clear picture of what’s involved and what it will cost before anything is agreed. What we don’t do is lock organisations into retainers or prescribe a solution before we understand your situation. Get in touch and we can chat through what makes sense for you.

Yes. We work with organisations, big or small, and at all stages, including those where the CEO is carrying the fundraising brief alongside everything else, or where one person is doing the whole job. In fact, that’s exactly the kind of situation we often encounter. We tailor our support to your actual capacity and context so what we map makes sense.

Yes. For organisations that need hands-on fundraising capability without the cost or commitment of a full-time hire, we offer fractional support, acting as an outsourced fundraising function for an agreed period. This can cover day-to-day fundraising activities, campaign management, donor program development or leadership of a specific initiative.

It can be a practical, cost-effective option for organisations navigating a vacancy, maternity cover, or a period of transition where internal capacity is stretched.

A few things. We’re 100% focused on not-for-profits and charities. We’re a specialist consultancy, working right across the whole organisation, not just with the fundraising team, because we know that’s where lasting change actually happens. Our BASIS Framework gives every engagement a clear, structured pathway rather than a bespoke-but-vague consulting approach. And we’re founder-involved. Paul is across every engagement, not just at the pitch stage. We’re also genuinely down to earth. We’ll tell you what we think, not what you want to hear.

Paul is the founder of Amplify Fundraising and a fundraising and philanthropy specialist with more than 20 years of experience across the UK, Australia and New Zealand. He’s worked with some of the leading not-for-profits across both countries — advising boards and CEOs, developing major fundraising operations and building expertise across every significant revenue stream. He founded Amplify Fundraising in 2016 because he believes fundraising should be treated as a strategic capability, not a bolt-on function.