Whether you're a small delivery organisation or a national charity, people are your most powerful fundraising asset. Without them, even the strongest programmes, data, and impact metrics could be overlooked. It's the individuals behind your mission who make funders believe in your cause and trust you with their investment within an ever-growing landscape.

By this, we mean the people within your organisation who bring lived experience, passion, and purpose, and the people you serve: community members, stakeholders, and direct beneficiaries who are central to your mission. When funders assess your organisation, they are evaluating your programmes and whether you have the right people, with the right experience and expertise, to deliver meaningful impact. So, when assessing your organisation's readiness, make sure your strategy includes sector-experienced board members, a strong volunteer base, active steering committees, and meaningful beneficiary voice.

In the latest blog of our Fundraising Readiness series, we're focusing on one of the most critical pillars: people. Getting this right before submitting funding applications can significantly improve your chances of success. But it's about more than having the right structures in place, ticking diversity boxes, or meeting minimum governance requirements. It's about recognising that authentic, lasting change happens when the people most affected by the issues are genuinely involved in creating the solutions. By building teams and leadership that reflect the communities you serve, you foster a culture of deeper understanding, one that leads to more relevant programme design and stronger strategic direction.

This blog explores these key areas and what "people readiness" really means in a fundraising context. From leadership that lives your mission to beneficiary-led, community-driven teams, we'll look at what funders value, what you need in place, and how to strengthen your organisation's capacity through its people.

Why People Are Your Greatest Fundraising Asset:

Authentic Impact - funders want to support organisations that genuinely understand the problems they aim to solve. When your board includes lived experience, your programmes are shaped by communities, and your leadership reflects your beneficiaries, it highlights that your organisation's approach is grounded in real local insight.

Strategic Expertise and Networks - fundraising isn't just about writing good proposals; it's about knowing the right people, understanding the funding landscape, and having the expertise to navigate complex relationships. Board members and advisors bring networks, credibility, and insider knowledge that can open doors that might otherwise remain closed.

Capacity and Sustainability - funders are increasingly concerned about organisational sustainability. They are keen to see that their funds are going to the right places and are in capable hands, which means having the right mix of skills, experience, and capacity distributed across your team rather than concentrated in one or two individuals.

Beneficiary Voice as a Non-Negotiable - funders want to see the beneficiary voice as a large contributor to all decision-making processes. Funders like the National Lottery Community Fund now explicitly ask how young people and/or your direct beneficiaries are involved in shaping programmes, and want this backed up with evidence, data, and consultation outcomes.

Understanding the People Behind the Proposals for Effective Fundraising:

Starting with a top-down approach, let's think about why people matter to funders, why having a diverse, lived experience team can enhance your work, and who is saying it. Firstly, our 2025 Benchmark Report showed that organisations with diverse leadership teams and strong community connections were significantly more likely to exceed their fundraising targets. This means that new, embedded, small, or larger organisations are all seeing greater levels of success if they have a well-rounded team sitting within their organisations. Secondly, we are continuously seeing growth and evolution within the funding landscape, where funders are increasingly focused on who's making decisions, whose voices are being heard, and whether organisations truly understand the communities they claim to serve.

Take the National Lottery Community Fund's refreshed Reaching Communities programme (launched in April 2025) as an example of this progress. It now requires applicants to demonstrate how people facing disadvantage are involved in steering and shaping the work, not just benefiting from it. That shift reflects exactly why authentic youth voice, lived experience, and community leadership should be at the heart of your fundraising strategy.

“We want to see communities in the lead - shaping the work, deciding the priorities, and informing decisions. It’s not enough to consult people after plans have already been made.” (The National Lottery Community Fund, Reaching Communities Programme Guidance, 2025).

In our storytelling blog, we emphasised that authenticity is key to building trust, and there's no better way to achieve this than through a diverse, knowledgeable team. As funding proposals grow more competitive and messaging becomes crowded with broad statistics, a deep understanding of the complex social issues your beneficiaries face is what will set you apart. This goes beyond writing compelling applications; ultimately, organisations that centre lived experience don't just tell better stories, they develop better solutions.

We consider the "people" element of fundraising readiness one of the most critical, as it actively reduces tokenism, going beyond having the right mechanisms in place. It's about recognising that people with lived experience, more than anyone else, are experts in their own experiences. Any programmes designed without their input risk being fundamentally flawed, which is why a blend of internal expertise needs to be balanced with community knowledge.

Building Authentic Beneficiary Voice and Community Leadership:

The most compelling funding applications come from organisations where beneficiaries aren't just beneficiaries but active partners in design, delivery, and evaluation. Thoroughly understanding your community means more than demographic research or needs assessments. It requires ongoing relationships, genuine partnerships, and a willingness to be led by community priorities.

So, how do you act on this?

Co-Design and Co-Creation - embedding beneficiary voice throughout their decision-making processes. This might include advisory boards, regular consultation sessions, or involving young people directly in funding applications and presentations to funders.

Authentic Participation - creating meaningful engagement means creating pathways for beneficiaries to influence real decisions, providing them with the support and training they need to participate effectively, and ensuring their contributions are valued and acted upon.

Community Leadership - having community members actively lead programmes and initiatives. This may be in the form of community members sitting on your board, leading delivery teams, or designing new programmes based on their understanding of local needs.

Cultural Competence - having an above surface-level understanding of working effectively with diverse communities. This means having team members who share cultural backgrounds with your participants, understanding cultural nuances that affect programme design, and recognising that one-size-fits-all approaches rarely work.

Internal Leadership That Reflects Your Mission:

The composition of your board and senior leadership team sends immediate signals to funders about your values and priorities. Strong people-focused organisations ensure their leadership reflects the communities they serve, not just demographically, but through genuine lived experience and deep understanding of the challenges at hand.

Lived experience at the leadership level transforms how your organisation operates. When board members have direct, personal experience of the challenges your beneficiaries face, it enables more nuanced strategic planning and thoughtful impact measurement. For example, a former participant who now sits on your board brings insights that no amount of external research can provide.

Our friends at Krimmz Girls Youth Club are a perfect example of this. Lived experience runs through the organisation’s seams, as Khadija Patel established Krimmz to combat the lack of accessible and culturally appropriate sports and extracurricular activities for marginalised and underrepresented girls and women in Greater Manchester. She was motivated by her own experiences to change the narrative for other girls and women locally, and she remains on the board, alongside other individuals with first-hand experience of the issues they tackle daily. Additionally, 100% of coaches and delivery staff are either former Krimmz members or reside locally. They have direct experience of the challenges Krimmz's members face, making them relatable role models and establishing a welcoming, inclusive environment.

"We know what it feels like to be left out of the conversation. That's why at KRIMMZ, lived experience shapes everything from how we welcome someone through the door, to how we co-create programmes that truly meet their needs. We design every programme with insight that comes directly from our journeys. That lived understanding means we can anticipate barriers others might overlook, whether it's cultural sensitivity, confidence, or access."

Khadija Patel - Founder and Chair, KRIMMZ Girls Youth Club

Effective leadership extends beyond lived experience and demographic diversity, though both remain important. Your leadership team should comprise individuals with diverse professional backgrounds, including grassroots delivery, strategic partnerships, financial management, and community engagement. This breadth of expertise creates a holistic understanding of your organisation's trajectory and ensures more meaningful, well-rounded support for your beneficiaries.

Developing Internal  Fundraising Capacity:

Before looking at how organisations can build their fundraising skills, it's important to recognise the real and often structural challenges they face. Recruitment remains a key hurdle, with a limited pool of experienced fundraisers and an overwhelming amount of competition from larger charities able to offer greater stability and pay.

Efforts to build diverse teams, while vital, are also complicated by a sector-wide lack of diversity in fundraising leadership, requiring organisations to think longer term about nurturing talent from within. Volunteer-led boards bring passion but may lack the bandwidth or technical knowledge to drive a fundraising strategy, while professional leadership can risk disconnect from community realities if not carefully balanced. Across the sector, organisations are grappling with how to integrate lived experience with fundraising expertise, ensure leadership transitions don't destabilise key relationships, and build structures that can evolve with them.

What follows explores how organisations are doing just that: developing internal expertise in ways that are sustainable, authentic, and ultimately, fundraising-ready. So, given the critical importance of people in fundraising success, combined with these challenges, how do you build the human capacity needed to become truly fundraising-ready?

Develop Internal Expertise - Organisations with dedicated fundraising expertise can be seen to outperform those trying to squeeze fundraising into existing roles, as it is no small feat. It takes time and experience, things that often can't be matched with non-fundraising-centred roles. This doesn't necessarily mean hiring full-time fundraising staff; it might mean training existing team members, bringing fundraising expertise onto your board, or creating fundraising committees that combine internal mission knowledge with external expertise and networks.

Well-structured Fundraising Committees - these can be transformational, especially for smaller organisations. They combine board oversight with additional expertise and networks, creating a broader base of support for fundraising activities. The most effective committees advise on direct but also actively participate in relationship building and donor stewardship.

Build Strategic Networks - Successful fundraising often depends on who you know and who knows you. Organisations that intentionally build strategic networks through thoughtful board recruitment, advisory groups, and partnership development create multiple pathways to funding opportunities.

Ensure Organisational Resilience - Funders want to support organisations that can deliver on their promises. This means having honest conversations about capacity limitations while demonstrating realistic growth potential. Strong organisations develop succession plans, cross-train team members, and ensure knowledge isn't concentrated amongst a couple of team members; rather, organisational values, missions, and knowledge are shared across the team.

Conclusions

The key takeaway from this blog is as simple as: don't underestimate the importance of people. Investing internally in those who will make your mission possible and relying externally on the heart, needs, and voices of those you aim to support are both invaluable. When you centre lived experience in your leadership, embed authentic beneficiary voices in your decision-making, and build diverse teams that reflect the communities you serve, you will see more uniqueness within your programme delivery, and this comes in the form of genuine, sustainable change built from the ground up.

The funding landscape continues to rapidly evolve; as such, organisations need to evolve with it to stand out within an incredibly overcrowded market. Funders are providing a blueprint of how to do this through the advancement of their questions, so use this as a guide. If you are being asked five or six questions that you don't have the answers to, it likely means you need to change or put in some more groundwork! Organisations that recognise people as their greatest asset and invest accordingly won't just improve their fundraising success; they'll create more effective programmes, stronger community relationships, and lasting impact.

Your fundraising readiness starts with two simple questions:

1. Do the people making decisions in your organisation truly understand and reflect the communities you serve?

2. Do your beneficiaries have a say on the programmes delivered and what they need?

If the answer is yes, you're building from a foundation of strength; if not, you know where to begin.

If you want to self-evaluate your people's readiness, use our free Fundraising Readiness Tool to identify strengths and opportunities in your approach to people-centred fundraising.