The Roundhouse

The Roundhouse is a bustling hub of artistic, creative, technical and entrepreneurial endeavour, where audiences come to see ground-breaking work of outstanding quality.

It is, however, far more than just a performing arts venue. It’s a charity which, through a range of ground-breaking programmes, annually supports 6,500 young people to develop their creative and life skills.

The Brief

The Roundhouse were in the midst of a ground-breaking £15m ‘Next Generation’ fundraising campaign, which aimed to expand significantly expand the breadth and depth of their creative talent development programmes. The centrepiece of this initiative was a state-of-the-art new Campus Building, providing the space and facilities to enable them to reach a total of 10,000 young people by 2023.

With their Head of Major Giving moving on to a new role, the charity required consultancy and interim support to bring fresh momentum and additional focus to their campaign. In particular they were seeking:

• Review and repositioning of their Case for Support
• Strategic review of their Development Board and prospect pipeline
• Guidance and advice on their capital fundraising campaign.

Our Response

We deployed one of our experienced Associates who worked effectively with key stakeholders within the charity to compose a compelling new Case for Support. He also liaised closely with the broader team at the Philanthropy Company to carry out prospect research on profiled elements of the Roundhouse’s database. This work was supplemented by his efforts engaging with their Development Board and Trustees, gaining buy in for the new campaign narrative and mapping their contacts against the new prospect list. In addition, he carried out hands-on fundraising activities, tailoring applications to a range of individual major donors and trusts.

Impact

In a period of just six months, the Roundhouse managed to reap a significant return on their investment. A total of £1.3m was raised from five prospects, directly as a result of the Philanthropy Company’s work. One trust also commented that the Case of Support and funding application was the strongest they had seen in many years. The work overall significantly enhanced the infrastructure of the Roundhouse’s fundraising operation and provided a perfect springboard from which they could drive forwards towards the successful conclusion of their transformative campaign.

“We are absolutely delighted with the work of the Philanthropy Company. Their expertise and professionalism were second to none and their work exceeded all our expectations. They were able to deploy a first-class Associate who was an excellent fit with our team and provided a perfect blend of consultancy advice and hands-on interim support. The results were outstanding and we would have no hesitation in recommending them to any other charity who were seeking support for a brief of this nature.”

Michaela Greene, Development & Communications Director