Happy New Year!

2013 is going to be a good year for lots of reasons. But the one I’m thinking about today is that I’ll soon be starting a new project on the art of fundraising, kindly funded by the Leverhulme Trust,

The main reason that people give money to charity is because someone asks them to – but despite an increasing body of research into donors, we know next to nothing about those who do the asking. My 3-year study will examine the finest  volunteer and paid staff fundraisers in the country to try and work out what it is they do and say that makes this magic transaction happen.There’s an article about my study here on the ESRC website if you want to know more.

I don’t get going on this study until May, but couldn’t resist an invitation from the good people at Civil Society, who publish Fundraising magazine, to write this column about the ‘secret ingredients’ to fundraising success. The article is published today and contains not just the results of a survey of fundraising directors but  a joke too. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.