WWF Norway:
Aligning culture and overcoming conflict
By educating all staff about fundraising WWF Norway has been able to align its ambitions with its ability to raise more money, overcome internal conflict about messaging and increase monthly donors by 150% to achieve mission-driven, sustainable income growth.
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With an ambitious Board and CEO, Ina Toften, Communications and Fundraising Director, was aware that the scale of the organization’s aspirations far outweighed the funds at their disposal.
As a first step she pinned down the cost of their vision to show them, in stark terms, just how much money would have to be raised to realize their plans.
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Ina then set about changing the whole organization’s thinking by instigating fundraising training to all staff, including the Board. With a target of increasing monthly donors by 525% knew that she needed everyone on the same page to have a chance of achieving success.
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Communications conflict
The main challenge that Ina faced was with the intrusion from program staff who viewed fundraising communications about ‘furry animals’ with disdain. Preoccupied with concerns at how the non-profit would be perceived they attempted to make fundraising campaigns more rational, focusing on the technicalities of climate change, and a myriad of other issues, stripping them of all emotion.
Ina and the team persevered, focusing on the issues that engaged their donors – namely protecting the environment to give a home to vulnerable animals – always referring to Great Fundraising as evidence that this was the right approach.
Out of the shadows
From fundraising being something that happened in the corner of the organization, now everyone knows the importance of it.
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To maintain good-will towards fundraising Ina makes sure that the team relays their successes back to the Board and, ultimately, to the rest of the organization. Everyone knows that they will only achieve their ambitions if they have more money.
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Building on success
Thanks to her drive and determination, Ina has helped WWF Norway to overhaul the internal culture, steadily increase income and grow the number of monthly donors by 150%.
And she is keen to continue building on this success. Ina, views now as a pivotal moment and is already making plans to reinvigorate her team and set them on another big surge of growth. This time with the whole organization behind them.
We struggled hard to reach our ambitious goals because there was no real internal understanding of what it takes to do Great Fundraising. After working with PFI on an ambition we managed to turn this around. Today there is a very different view internally on fundraising and the science behind it, underpinned by a steady growth in income.
Ina Toften, Communications and Fundraising Director, WWF Norway