We help organisations transform their  fundraising approach and grow their impact.

Leicester City in the Community (LCitC) are an independent charity that work in partnership with Leicester City Football Club to transform the lives of people in need. Building on over 20 years of impact and growth, in 2020 the board sought to refresh and re-launch the charity to reflect the changing needs of local communities and provide real direction to the charity’s activities over the coming years. Working with Oaks, the LCitC team launched a five-year strategic plan that re-focussed the charity’s activities into a place-based, local approach that utilises a community hub model – the first of its kind amongst football club community organisations. To realise this strategic plan, the charity recognised the need to review its business model. For too long the organisation had been reliant on a small number of income streams that were too short-term and restricted. Over a four-month period, our team undertook an in-depth review of all LCitC fundraising activity – consulting with funders, staff, volunteers, and other key stakeholders to understand who, why and how these individuals and organisations give and engage with LCitC. Through a series of workshops, we explored all the possible income opportunities for LCitC and how these opportunities might help to achieve the charity’s 2023 strategy, identifying priorities based on their income potential and discounting opportunities based on effort and risk. The resulting fundraising strategy set an ambitious target of doubling the turnover of the organisation from £1.5m in 2019 to £3m by 2023.

Magic Bus are an award-winning international development charity, working primarily across India, Bangladesh, Nepal and Myanmar. The charity combines a play-based curriculum with mentoring to keep young people in education, prevent child marriage, and ultimately help young people escape poverty and secure prosperous, long-term employment. Founded in the UK in 1999, the charity now has international fundraising offices in the USA, Singapore, Germany, and India. Following a period of income stagnation, in July 2019 Magic Bus commissioned Oaks to undertake a review of the UK fundraising office and develop a new fundraising strategy for the UK and Europe. This exercise involved a desk-based review of financial accounts, annual reports, existing cases for support, databases, and other fundraising related documentation. In addition, we facilitated a series of exploratory workshops and stakeholder conversations to understand and assess existing fundraising activity, and unearth new opportunities across trusts, foundations and institutions, corporate partnerships, events and major donors. The outcome was the production of a new, five-year fundraising strategy that identified potential opportunities worth over £1m, with clear prospect lists, new cases for support, and an action plan that addressed capacity, culture, and skill development. Following the successful consultancy review, the MBUK board commissioned Oaks on an interim basis to lead the charity’s fundraising endeavours in the UK, beginning in November 2019 for a twelve-month period. In this 12-month interim leadership period we secured additional funding for the charity’s response to the Coronavirus crisis in India, Nepal, Bangladesh and Myanmar.

The Lawn Tennis Association (LTA) is the National Governing Body for tennis in Great Britain, the Channel Islands, and the Isle of Man. Its role is to govern and grow tennis in Britain, from grassroots through to the professional game. Over a period of seven years, we helped them plan, develop and rollout LTA SERVES, a UK-wide tennis for good intervention that uses tennis to improve the lives of vulnerable individuals in areas of high deprivation. Initially, we helped facilitate and design the creation of the SERVES programme strategy and build partnerships with national, regional, and local organisations who could support the delivery of the programme. Subsequently, we led the successful submission to Sport England for core funding for the programme worth over £2M. SERVES utilises local, user-led community groups all over the country to host and deliver tennis for good sessions for their local community. Prior to SERVES, these micro-organisations delivered a variety of community services, but the majority had no previous experience of delivering and sustaining sport for development programmes. Since the launch of SERVES, our role as a national partner has been to help these organisations build the organisational capacity they need to grow their own tennis activities. To provide the necessary support, we have worked with over 50 local community groups to review their fundraising activities and develop sustainability plans for SERVES related activity. We have also delivered bid-writing training to tennis clubs, community groups and local leaders to help build their fundraising skills, and supported community groups to successfully unlock an additional £4M of local community funding. Finally, we have provided advice, training and guidance on monitoring and evaluation, investment readiness, and grant management/reporting.