Ken Burnett’s website. How to use words to make a difference.   Recent blogs Article archive Biography Ken’s blogs: stories about campaigning fundraising, the donor experience and the meaning of life. Featured articles: • It’s never too late to do something wonderful. • Communication and the English language. • Where now for fundraising? What’s most important? • The seven rules for happiness. • The use and misuse of emotion part 1: why fundraisers should study emotions and use them better. part 2: three steps to transform how fundraisers communicate with donors. • Why we now need a new agreement with donors. • You have six minutes to defend or redefine fundraising. What would you do? • This thing called integrity. • A better thought-through approach to investment in fundraising. • Something from the archives on storytelling: is there room for experience fundraising? Most read articles • Even for fundraisers, there’s no such thing as a free lunch. • The future of fundraising 5-part series. • Meet the donors. • Don’t just ask me for more money. • Where do I start? My first few weeks as a fundraiser. • The truth, told well. • Prepare for the fundraising trustee. • Opt in or opt out? Two letters from the regulator. • Pure gold: the 34 essential foundations of fundraising. • The Bata shoes story. • F2F: 50 ideas to improve the public’s experience of street fundraising. • 2020 vision. • The emotional brain. • China: the dragon awakes. • ActionAid’s journey to diversity. • Straight to the heart of how fundraising works. Three from the archives • The speaking event from Hell. • Are you too busy to change the world? • A Sudan Safari. Charlie Hulme, Rob Woods and Joe Jenkins review Storytelling for SOFII, here. Click here for details. Click here to order . You can download CDE’s 6Ps document here.

1992–2024: Relationship Fundraising the 32nd anniversary edition: With the original text extensively revised and updated plus 15 new special features, the third edition of Ken Burnett’s classic Relationship Fundraising is now published. Order your copy here, now, for quick delivery! 564 pages, 10" x 8" / 254mm x 202mm Orders despatched directly from Canada, Australia and the UK. "...a breath of fresh air, a great resource particularly for new fundraisers and an opportunity to relive my early days as a fundraiser through new eyes. Inch by inch we’re building a better world – Ken’s book hones our focus and grounds us as philanthropy professionals." Amber M. Kani, nonprofit and corporate citizenship blogger, Austin, Texas, USA. Amber’s review is here. Books by Ken Burnett • Relationship Fundraising • Friends for Life • The Zen of Fundraising • Tiny Essentials of an Effective Volunteer Board • How to Produce Inspiring Annual Reports • The Field by the River (now available only on Kindle) • Storytelling can change the world. And the latest, • The essence of Campaigning Fundraising in 52 exhibits and 199 web links. Order online here Of course for more good stuff you can always visit SOFII. In particular, why not check out SOFII’s free video series Letter to the future: how to change fundraising’s culture, with 32 lightbulb moments to transform your donors’ experience. There's where you’ll find the 5Fs –> Click the cover image to download a six-page feature from the USA that marks 25 years of my book Relationship Fundraising. You can order any of the books above by clicking on the image. Plus... Recently reprinted: secrets of the would-be influencer’s most vital skill Order Storytelling can change the world here, £24.00 +P&P. To review why you might want to buy it, have a look here, here and here. To order or have a look at any of Ken’s other books, click here. Feature articles • Features, case histories, book reviews and opinion pieces on SOFII. • Five tales from Ken’s only book on natural history, The Field by the River, starting with rough sex down by the river. • ‘How Relationship Fundraising changed my life’, a review by Craig Linton. • Articles from The Guardian newspapers and websites and Contributions magazine, USA. • Ken’s current blogs. • Earlier blogs.• Ken’s archive, including his first ever piece of paid journalism, for She Magazine, A Sudan safari. Ken’s free blogs are now ‘on hold’ but might restart one day. All eight titles in the Tiny series are still available, here. All Ken Burnett’s books are here. Order today.

Please note: For Ken’s books or any White Lion Press titles click here to be redirected to Civil Sector Press. CSPI handles distribution of all WLP titles.

“Relationship Fundraising Third Edition is an inspirational purchase that focuses attention on the core driver of success.”
Mack Jones CFRE, Australia. Click here for your copy.

Interviewed by the ever-delightful Michelle Berriman, Australian fundraising sage Leo Orland CFRE, FFIA, explains here why every fundraiser should have this book. Then Giles has his say, below:

See The Evolution of Ken Burnett’s Vision from The Agitator,
10 June 2024, here.

Click here to read Tanya Jackson’s review of Ken’s Campaigning Fundraising book. To order contact Civil Sector Press, above.

This book describes campaigning fundraising as it should be, how it should be structured, implemented and explained so that our publics, particularly donors and fundraisers themselves, see it as the positive, transformational force for change and good that it surely can be and as the best career going for any creative, committed individual who really wants to make a difference, to change the world.

‘Thank goodness I got to the letterbox before the dog did yesterday, because this treasurebox was waiting for me on the doormat...This book takes a step forward.’

Karin Weatherup, campaigning fundraising creative director, UK.

‘The links and exhibits contained here transformed the way I do my work as a fundraising copywriter (and continue to do so). May they likewise transform the work you do to make this world a better place by giving your donors the chance to be the generous, compassionate, caring people they are.’

Lisa Sargent, campaigning fundraising copywriter, USA.

 

 

 

 

For students of good governance. Click image for a short video presention from 2011 on ActionAid’s internationalisation process. The full story is told in Building and Governing a Democratic Federation: the ActionAid International story, a special feature prepared for Harvard Kennedy School. Download here. ActionAid’s journey to diversity is described here.