How the Fundraising System Audit works
Every step of the Self Audit, from the moment you buy to the day your report drops out of view, with timings wherever we know them.
Getting ready
You buy on a secure card checkout run by Stripe. If your finance team needs an invoice, you can ask for one against a purchase order. If you have a partner code, enter it at checkout.
Buying takes a few minutes. You'll get an email to confirm it.
To sign in, use the email address you bought with. We send a code to that address. There's no password to remember.
Gathering your documents
Documents are optional, but they make the report sharper. These are the ones we ask about:
- your fundraising strategy or annual plan
- your organisational strategy
- your last three years' annual accounts
- a recent supporter communication
- a campaign planning template
- a document about your CRM (you'll be asked for this at the CRM question)
- your fundraising risk register, or a recent board paper on fundraising
- anything else useful, such as an org chart, campaign brief or journey map
We read the text in PDF, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, web pages and XML. Each file can be up to 40 MB.
Please don't upload supporter data. That means no names, contact details or giving records of individual donors.
Finding the files usually takes longer than uploading them. It helps to gather them before you start.
Answering the questions
There are about 50 questions, shown one per screen. Most people take 30 to 45 minutes. Your answers save as you go, so you can stop and come back.
If you like the keyboard, Enter saves and moves on. Shift and Enter gives you a new line. Letter keys pick an option.
After you submit
Your answers and documents are scored against the method. The arithmetic is done in code, never by the AI model. Then an expert from Fundraiser In The Room reads the whole report before it's released.
We aim to release your report within ten working days of you submitting. We'll email you when it's ready.
Reading your report and asking questions
Your report opens on screen, one A4 page at a time. You can download it as a PDF whenever you like.
You can also ask questions about your own report on screen. You can ask up to 30 questions a day, and 200 in total.
Day 90
Your report and the conversation stay visible for 90 days after release. After that they drop out of view. We show you the date, so it won't be a surprise. Download the PDF to keep a copy.
If you book a Guided Audit within those 90 days, the £495 you paid (before VAT) comes off the price.
What one person's answers can and can't show
A Self Audit is answered by one person, which shapes what it can and can't see. The report is open about that.
What it can show
- how the system looks from where that person sits
- what the documents you upload do and don't contain
- which Forces are most likely to be holding income back
- where to look first
What it can't show
- whether others in the organisation see it the same way
- how the work actually gets done day to day
- views from finance, programmes or the board, unless the person answering holds them
The first page of the report carries a note about reading one person's view. Where evidence is thin, scores are capped and the report says so.
How the Guided and Full Audits differ
Guided Audit. Same method, more voices. You choose up to twelve people to give evidence, with at least five. We suggest a mix: four or five leaders, five or six fundraisers below leadership, and one or two from outside fundraising, ideally including finance. An expert from Fundraiser In The Room reviews the evidence and runs the conversation about the findings.
Full Audit. Many voices, years of documents, and time spent watching how the work gets done. It's delivered by an expert from Fundraiser In The Room and quoted after a conversation.
Buying takes a few minutes, and answering takes under an hour.