Making Ends Meet. A research proposal to understand how charities can improve income generation and manage costs over the coming decade

What’s the idea behind the research?

Funding is the biggest challenge for many charities and nonprofits at the moment. It's probably the biggest single issue facing the sector. This is a proposal to look at the dynamics of funding and income generation over the coming decade. How can charities and nonprofits make ends meet? What are the potential new sources of funding? How important is cost-cutting in any plan for financial sustainability?

This research will try to understand the main themes, issues, and opportunities for those organisations struggling with financial sustainability. Many of the current pieces of research on funding and fundraising focus more on surveys and quantitative data, whereas this research will principally use interviews and desk research.

How will it be done?

The main way that the research investigation will be carried out is through interviews over Teams. The interviews will take between 30 and 60 minutes and be recorded; interviewees will have an idea of the questions beforehand if they wish. Interviewees will also be able to decide if they want to remain anonymous in the final report documentation. The idea is to talk to sufficient people to get a good grasp of the key issues in a breadth of income generation areas: fundraising, grantmaking, earned income, and any other sources of revenue.

Who will be interviewed?

The interviews will be as inclusive as possible. If people contact me about the work they've been doing on funding and making ends meet, my goal would be to interview them.

I also hope to talk to experts in particular areas, such as reaching new audiences, those who have proven success in recent years, people with great ideas for raising new sources of funding, and a range of other areas.

My experience from other projects of this type is that the most interesting insights often come from the most unexpected places. So while I will hope to interview some key experts, the aim is to go beyond that.

Who will have access to the research results?

Anybody and everybody will have access to the outputs of the research. There will be no charges for any webinars or reports. All of the outputs will be published on my website heyheyjoe.info and via my LinkedIn feed. And they can happily be shared through other organisations' channels as well.

What are the timescales?

The interview part of the process will begin in September and probably continue until Christmas. After that, I hope to start producing some outputs in the spring and summer of 2027. It is also my goal to produce blogs and updates along the way.

What’s the end product?

There will undoubtedly be a final report; I hope to produce information in other formats. This will include blogs, videos, webinars, and anything else that makes it easier to get the information across in bite-sized chunks.

Why me?

I have a track record of producing reports, research and insights that cover a broad range of sector issues. The topics have included volunteering, branding, trustee boards, strategy, fundraising, and a host of other areas. I am a full member of the Market Research Society and a former chair of the Chartered Institute of Fundraising.

This research is not being funded or sponsored by anyone, so I have no vested interest in the outcomes. There may well be better-funded organisations who could be doing this kind of research, but I'm aware of precious little research that looks at how charities are going to make ends meet over the coming decade. It may well be that there are other projects in the pipeline looking at this issue. However, funding and costs are of sufficient importance that it is better to have multiple research projects than none at all!

If you want to get in touch and get involved, please e-mail me at Joe@heyheyjoe.info or call on 07976 329212

Joe Saxton, late August 2026