White Lion Press

Not much, perhaps, if we don’t consider the best of it worth keeping and looking after.

But imagine the great things we could do, if we had the cream of our historical archive and accumulated learning near to hand, available and easily searchable at the touch of a button. Just take a glance at this prototype with its mere hundred or so exhibits, rather than the potential thousands, and you’ll quickly see, very eloquently, the real value of our fundraising heritage.

The vision for SOFII includes the belief that access to the site and its basic services should be free to and unlimited for all fundraisers in all countries of the world. Wherever you are, if you raise funds for a charity or for a charitable purpose, SOFII is here to help you.

But how is SOFII paid for?
To start SOFII three far-sighted sponsors — The Cascaid Group in the UK, The White Lion Press in France and Pareto Fundraising in Australia — have between them provided the initial seed funding to take the SOFII concept to its prototype phase. They – and the small team of volunteers who have done all the work involved in creating SOFII – deserve our thanks and support because without them, SOFII would have stayed a dream.

To move beyond the prototype stage and to achieve its full potential, SOFII has begun to secure reliable and sufficient funding.

The SOFII Foundation
The process of registration has begun and soon SOFII will be operating as a charitable foundation. Four trustees have agreed to serve initially: Ken Burnett, SOFII’s founder and volunteer manager, Marie Burnett, head of the White Lion Press, Lindsay Boswell, chief executive of the UK's Institute of Fundraising and David Carrington, an independent expert on trusts, foundations and noprofit governance. The trustees are now seeking a modest amount of medium- to long-term funding so that SOFII can develop progressively to feature not just dozens but hundreds and even thousands of examples of creative, innovative, inspirational and instructive fundraising gathered from around the world.

It’s our intention to make sure SOFII is easy to use and a prime example of the best that technology has to offer.
So an efficient search system is a priority. As soon as resources permit we'll present SOFII’s exhibits and editorials in a carefully indexed, easily searchable permanent display available to fundraisers from anywhere, at any time. To achieve its potential, SOFII will employ a small staff consisting of one editor/project manager (already appointed) and, in time, one web designer. We expect that both of these positions will be full-time. As soon as we can afford it we'll also appoint a part-time business manager.

A substantial grant from a private trust at the start of 2008 has enabled SOFII to recruit its first staff member. Efforts will soon be underway to raise funds sufficient for future needs. A small part of the required funding will come in the form of corporate sponsors and supporters.

It is our ambition at present to try to find more visionary, philanthropic sponsors who will recognise SOFII’s potential to dramatically improve the quality, creativity and originality of fundraising promotions, so will be prepared to contribute towards funding SOFII’s running and development costs over the next few years.

If you would like to help, please contact Maxine Delahunty on maxine@sofii.org.

As we become more and more donor-focussed the communications challenge for fundraisers gets ever more complex. How are we going to cope if we don't look after all we've learned?

Times may change but values stay constant, so what worked back then will probably still work well today. Providing of course it’s wisely adapted and not overused.