Author: willw

Universities in Factary Phi

Posted on by Chris

Factary Phi, our database of donors and supporters to UK nonprofits, is beginning to reveal an interesting picture of philanthropy in the UK. The database only covers donations that are recorded in the public domain, so it is emphatically not a sample of all philanthropy.

But working within that limitation, the Factary team has been analysing donations to Universities and education, and we’ve come up with some surprising, and some reassuring, results.

Reassuring, for example, is the fact that over 95% of publicly acknowledged donations come from individual people – that means a good wide base of philanthropic support for UK universities. Surprising was the fact that we have found trusts and foundations to be particularly keen to list their donation value on University websites.

We have also demonstrated, we think for the first time in the UK, that academics are an important group of donors to UK Universities – representing around 12% of donors and 17% by value of publicly recorded donations.

We have written a brief report on these statistics as an aid to development teams in universities and the education sector. You can download the report here.

There is more about Factary Phi at here. If you would like to talk to a human being about Factary Phi, call us in Bristol on 0117 916 6740, or email at research@factary.com.

Download the report.

Thanks from the Arts

Posted on by Chris

More than 36,500 supporters are acknowledged publicly by arts organisations in the UK, according to new research by Factary. And most of the donated income is from people (not from companies or trusts, as you might have expected.)

A summary research note is available for download here.

The research is based on data from Factary Phi, the database of donations and donors reported in the public domain. Factary Phi currently contains more than 160,000 records of donors and supporters to UK nonprofits who have been publicly thanked or reported.

Factary’s research shows that while only one in three publicly-acknowledged donors is an individual, almost three-quarters of publicly-acknowledged donated £s are from people as donors.

Our research seems to show that grant-making trusts and foundations are shy of public acknowledgement – with few arts organisations listing the donation value of their trust supporters. By contrast, companies seem more willing to allow their arts organisation partners to report donation values on arts websites.

To build Factary Phi, Factary researched donors by name from public domain sources, and Factary Phi shows the organisation they donated to with that organisation’s location and the web address of the source we used to find this data. Almost half of the records show either the amount of the donation or a gift band, and we are currently reporting on more than £13 billion in known donations to UK nonprofits, from 161,896 donors and supporters.

For further information contact David Hughes, Editor of Factary Phi.

Download the research summary.

We’ve just raised £3 billion!

Posted on by Chris

Factary announced today that it has identified £9.4 billion in donations to UK organisations. All of these donations are featured in Factary Phi, the database of publicly recorded gifts to UK nonprofits. This figure is up by more than £3 billion from last month’s total of £6.2 billion, thanks to new research into UK donors.

Factary Phi is a database of more than 150,000 publicly recorded gifts to UK nonprofits. Users can log in to the database, search for specific gifts, or gifts to causes, and extract detailed records showing the donor’s name and the URL or website where we found the gift. Factary Phi is a subscription service available to any UK nonprofit. Click here for more details, including screenshots.

Background

Factary is a research and consultancy service for nonprofits. We offer research and consultancy services in fundraising from ‘strategic donors’ – major donors, trusts and foundations, companies and government. Factary was founded in 1990 and is based in Bristol, where we have a research and consultancy team, as well as in Barcelona, Brussels and Boston where we have consultants.

Factary Phi is a database of donations to UK nonprofits. We research and compile the data from public domain sources and currently show 155,276 records with a total gift value of £9,488,310,271. These figures change regularly – we have a fortnightly update cycle for Factary Phi.

Factary Phi shows the name and registration number of the nonprofit (charity, university, arts organisation etc) that received the gift, along with the donor’s name and the URL, or website, where we found the gift. Around half of the gifts show either an actual amount donated, or a range within which the gift falls (e.g. £10,000-£25,000) The total amount donated for which we show an actual amount donated is £9.3 billion (£9,314,557,955) and where we show a range is £173m (£173,752,316, the sum of the lower end of the donation ranges.)

Any UK nonprofit can subscribe to Factary Phi. Subscribers get 24/7/365 access to the database, unlimited searches, unlimited search time and a monthly newsletter on major gifts.

Factary Phi is one of a number of services provided by Factary, including data screening and analysis, prospect research, feasibility studies and major gift consultancy, as well as training.

Note for those wary of statistics:

The total amount given by individuals in the UK is approximately £9.9 billion per annum [Source: UK Giving 2009, Charities Aid Foundation.] The same source indicates that 26.9m people gave last year. So how can one database, showing only those donations recorded in the public domain show a similar total?

Three reasons; First, Factary Phi records donations over a number of years. Our database goes back to 2007, so we have more than three years of giving in the data set. Second, we’re reporting on the largest gifts; UK Giving 2009 estimates that high-value gifts represent 49% of the total amount given to charity. The database is ‘biased’ toward major gifts. Third, we take a broad definition of gifts – so we include donations to universities, museums, libraries, theatres, schools and political parties, as well as to charities.

For more details on Factary Phi contact:

phi@factary.com

For more details on Factary services contact:

Nicola Williams
Research Manager
Tel 0117 916 6740
Email nicolaw@factary.com

Christopher Carnie FRSA
Director
Tel +34 93 845 19 02
Email chris@factary.com

Festival del Fundraising, Italy, 12-14 May 2010

Posted on by Chris

Chris Carnie will be leading a workshop for experienced fundraisers at the Festival of Fundraising, Italy, in Castrocaro Terme (northern Italy), on Thursday 13th May. Chris will be talking about cultures of giving in Southern Europe, and making a comparison with Northern Europe. As a Scotsman living in Catalunya he feels qualified to do so…

For more information on the Festival and on Chris’ session, click here.

The Prospect Pipeline, or How to Make Friends Efficiently

Posted on by Chris

Chris Carnie and Eleanor Marsden will be giving an online seminar for CASE Europe on the Prospect Pipeline. We’ll be looking at how to build and manage an efficient Prospect Pipeline – and some of the practical benefits that accrue from well-managed prospect relationships. The seminar is on 18th March 2010 at 14:30 GMT. More details at http://www.case.org/Conferences_and_Training/The_Prospect_Pipeline%E2%80%94Or_How_to_Make_Friends_Efficiently.html

CASE Europe 09

Posted on by Chris

Chris Carnie spoke at this year’s CASE Europe conference, in Liverpool, 24-28 August 2009. He presented research on new forms of philanthropy in Europe in “Money, Minds and Motives,” a joint session with Marie-Stéphane Maradeix, Campaign Director of the École Polytechnique. He presented an introduction to prospect research – “Find the Funds, Intelligently” – stressing the growing role of prospect researchers in knowledge management. Both presentations are available for download. Click the presentation name to download a pdf version.

Cross-border giving, and a new tax ruling

Posted on by Chris

There is good news for donors who want to make gifts across borders in the EU. The European Court of Justice, in a judgement dated 27th January 2009 has found in favour of a German citizen who wanted to make a gift to a Portuguese charity. Mr Hein Persche wanted to make a gift in kind valued at about €18,180, to the Centro Popular da Lagoa, in Portugal (a retirement home to which a children’s home is attached). The Finanzamt (District Tax Office) refused the deduction sought on the grounds that the beneficiary of the gift was not established in Germany and that Mr Persche had not provided a donation certificate in proper form.

The Court ruled that such gifts come within the compass of the Treaty provisions on the free movement of capital, even if they are made in kind in the form of everyday consumer goods. The free movement of capital precludes legislation of a Member State by virtue of which, as regards gifts made to bodies recognised as having charitable status, the benefit of a deduction for tax purposes is allowed only in respect of gifts made to bodies established in that Member State.

The ruling means that if the German government, and presumably other national governments, do not change their national laws, the European Commission could bring an action for breach of Community law and, eventually, that Germany could be fined for this breach.

For the press release on the ruling, click here.
For the original ruling, click here
For the European Court of Justice home page click here.
For contact details of the Centre Popular da Lagoa, click here.

This is an important ruling for all philanthropists who wish to give cross-border, and for fundraising organisations who are working with donors outside their own country.