As the saying goes, “give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach him how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime”. That’s the approach we take when it comes to training the high-impact small charities we support at The Funding Network.

Being a small charity ourselves, we know how challenging it can be to condense all your knowledge into a short pitch – but our 20+ years of experience has taught us that when done right, six minutes is more than enough. 

In preparing charities to pitch at our events, we aim to give them the tools and skills they need to present themselves in the best possible light, both at our crowdfunding events and afterwards. 

On that basis, it’s very pleasing that 95% of TFN’s charity alumni report that the training they received from us has better prepared them to pitch their organisation to potential funders. 

Our work begins when the three charities are selected by our panel of members.  We bring the speakers together to introduce them to our model, paint a picture of the events and what to expect, and to lay the foundations for how to make a great pitch. This includes how to structure their content, proportionality, safeguarding considerations and the use of storytelling. We also use this session to highlight the importance of creating connections with donors and supporters, and how to leverage the experience beyond the funds raised – vital as they are.

Alongside an initial session, we provide communications support through a toolkit and an optional session with our communications manager. Learning how to talk about themselves, educate supporters on the issues they address and using different tools to convey that message is invaluable for all charities, but especially small ones. 

As charities work on their script, we offer guidance and ongoing support to help them shape the pitch. Fresh eyes and beginners’ questions often provide a good challenge to the assumptions organisations sometimes make about the general understanding of the problem they tackle. 

Lastly, around a week before the event, we have 1:1 session with each organisation to iron out final details, do a run through and encourage them to think about all the tools they have available as an organisation to make the evening a success. 

All in all, we want to make sure the brilliant small charities we support get the tools, skills and expertise they need to thrive both as presenters and as alumni. 

In the words of our alumni:
“The training and advice in preparing a pitch, and the experience of the pitching itself, have helped us reshape how we approach other potential funders, and increased our confidence, and this has definitely led to greater success in other forums.”, Daniel Spargo-Mabbs Foundation (funded at Connector and Connector Plus level in 2020 and 2022)

“TFN feedback on the training we received was especially valuable as it required us to consider an audience that is politically and environmentally engaged but not necessarily familiar with some of the specific day-to-day technical and policy issues we face. Examining our messaging, tone of voice and level of detail for this audience was a very useful exercise and a testbed for subsequent presentations.”, Sustainable Soils Alliance (funded at a partner event in 2022)