The Ken Burnett archive

Welcome to the Ken Burnett archive! This is a repository of all the words and wisdom of SOFII’s founder, a man with over forty years’ (sorry Ken) experience in fundraising, charities and social change. Drawing on his extensive website, www.kenburnett.com and many other published sources, we’ll bring you recollections, thought pieces and case studies from a stellar career in the sector.

ISRT thank-you and welcome letter

by SOFII

ISRT produced a ‘welcome pack on a single page’. This low cost example of donor relationship development shows fundraising creativity at its simplest and best. Every fundraising organisation could and should aspire to have a thank-you programme and materials at least as good as this.

Read more

ActionAid: the inserts with built-in reply mechanism

by SOFII

This promotion raised £millions and won almost every direct marketing award going. It also helped propel a new and little known organisation called ActionAid into the list of Britain's top 20 charities. Action Aid created a new format, which was then copied by dozens, perhaps hundreds of other organisations.

Read more

Botton Village: giving donors choices

by SOFII

Until Botton Village started offering its donors choices with the simple form shown opposite, donors everywhere were almost invariably not given any say in how they might be communicated with.

Read more

Greenpeace Frontline: launch of a high level monthly giving scheme

by Charlotte Grimshaw

This was an early monthly giving scheme by Greenpeace UK. Within a short while, one fifth of all its income was coming from Frontline members.

Read more

The 11 pillars of fundraising wisdom – plus the five assumptions that underpin effective fundraising

by Ken Burnett

In this noisy, brash and insincere world, how can fundraisers and their organisations stand out and be understood when much of the ground we would occupy is not our exclusive preserve? Indeed, our traditional territory tends to be crowded with other occupants who also posture, to the same audiences we wish to inspire, as ‘socially concerned’ and ‘worthwhile’, so we nonprofits have to struggle to be distinctive and different.

Read more