akt, national LGBTQ+ youth homelessness charity

akt (Albert Kennedy Trust) is at the forefront of supporting LGBTQ+ young people facing homelessness or living in hostile environments across the UK. As a successful, well-established charity, its values of inclusion, equality, community and accountability drive an energetic staff team dedicated to ensuring that no young person is forced to choose between a safe home and being who they are. The charity provides essential services and support with the goal of empowering young people to embrace their identity with pride and build a future free from the fear of homelessness.

Fundraising forensics

Our work with the charity fell into two distinct parts. Firstly, it involved a forensic look at where the fundraising potential lay, both within the organisation’s existing database and in terms of new donors likely to be aligned with the charity’s ambitions.

“It has been fascinating speaking to some of the charity’s current supporters, to understand the relationships and how future communications could be improved,” said Gifted’s Chief Executive, Amy Stevens. “Particularly so with the corporate partners, who all had very different motivations for supporting akt, and varied opinions when it came to recognition required for their donation.”

Designing effective donor communications

Secondly, there was a focus on donor stewardship with the design of an entirely new donor journey and related communications plan. This is all about making sure that stewardship activities are on point and personal. As we often say to clients, attention to detail is key. This includes claiming Gift Aid on donations and taking the time to keep givers up to date and aware of the charity’s impact.

“We identified flaws in the various CRM, email client and fundraising platforms, not ‘communicating’ effectively together, and have implemented a series of changes which will mean akt’s communications can now be a lot more focused, allowing segmentation and targeted messaging to different groups,” said Gifted Consultant, Konna Beeson. “Being able to drill down into the back-office challenges at the charity and find workable solutions that will have a big impact has been hugely rewarding.”

In addition, Gifted was engaged to assess specific income levels for the coming years and advise on any changes to fundraising targets.

“Being able to clarify these targets and guide akt’s leadership on delivering them is an important part of the brief,” said Amy. “We are really pleased to have supported akt at such a pivotal moment in the charity’s growth and, from the outset, have been inspired by the life-changing work that they do.”

Client perspective

“We appointed Gifted to help us with some strategic planning and to understand how we might better serve and communicate with our supporters. The work Gifted has completed for us has given us real clarity and confidence for the way forward - we now have a direct plan for both the short and medium-long term, with realistic and achievable goals. We are sure that the deliverable recommendations in the report Gifted produced will have a huge benefit to us as we grow the charity over the coming years.” said Amy Heritage, Director of Marketing and Communications at akt.

If your organisation is looking for support with its next strategic fundraising challenge, why not get in touch and request an exploratory conversation with one of our Directors.