Organisational membership: a guide for fundraising managers and charity leaders

As a fundraising manager or charity leader, your CIOF organisational membership is one of the most practical investments you can make in your team.

Like any tool, it only delivers value if you know how to use it. This guide covers what your membership includes, how to get everyone set up, and how to make the case for its value internally.

Fundraising isn't an extra or a 'nice to have' — it's essential to delivering impact. Investing in your team's development, knowledge, and sense of professional community is investing in your organisation's ability to do what it's there to do.

What your membership gets you

Organisational membership gives every fundraiser in your team access to a suite of resources designed to support professional development, sector knowledge, and fundraising practice. Here's what's included.

The Knowledge Hub

Exclusive to organisational members, the Knowledge Hub is an on-demand video library covering a wide range of fundraising topics. Content is broken down into short modules, presented by sector experts, and available to watch whenever suits you. For teams with limited training budgets or little capacity for full-day courses, it's a flexible, practical and genuinely useful alternative to formal training.

Supporting fundraisers to build skills and progress in their careers matters — not just for them, but for your organisation. Keeping good fundraisers is just as important as recruiting new ones, and giving people access to development opportunities is one of the most straightforward ways to help them feel supported and able to do their best work.

The Data and Insights Hub

The sector produces a lot of research — more than most fundraisers have time to read. The Data and Insights Hub present reports and research in one place, with CIOF's own analysis and recommendations alongside. Whether you're planning a campaign, benchmarking performance, or building a case for a new approach, it's a resource that supports faster, more confident decision-making.

Member-only resources and webinars

Your team gets access to an extensive library of practical guidance, articles, templates, and research — organised into themed collections for easy browsing. Regular member-only webinars cover topics across the fundraising spectrum, with many available on demand for those who can't always attend live.

Events and networking

Members receive discounts on Chartered Institute events, as well as access to peer-to-peer networking at member-only events. These are valuable opportunities for your team to connect with the wider fundraising community and bring fresh thinking back to your organisation.

Policy and advocacy

Your membership contributes to CIOF's work shaping standards and best practice across the UK, lobbying on behalf of the profession, and working alongside regulators on code consultations.

This includes contributing to the Code of Fundraising Practice, which exists to make sure supporters are treated fairly and with respect — and to uphold the public trust that ethical fundraising depends on.

It also supports CIOF's growing giving agenda. Fewer people are giving to charity than in previous years, and that's a real challenge for the whole sector. CIOF's work in this area focuses on understanding what motivates people to give, addressing what puts them off, and helping charities build the long-term supporter relationships that generate sustainable income. Your membership is part of that collective effort.

How to make the most of CIOF membership

Membership works best when it's embedded into your team's regular working life rather than used occasionally or in isolation.

A few practical suggestions:

• Build it into team development. The Knowledge Hub works particularly well as part of an onboarding process for new staff, or to support team members who want to develop in a specific area. Encourage people to set aside time for it regularly, even in short bursts.
• Use the Data and Insights Hub before planning cycles. Before campaign planning, strategy reviews, or funding applications, encourage your team to check the Hub for relevant research and benchmarking data. It takes minutes and can meaningfully strengthen the thinking behind your plans.
• Share the webinar calendar with your team. Nominate someone to keep an eye on upcoming member-only webinars and circulate relevant ones. Even if people can't attend live, the on-demand library means nothing is missed.
• Encourage use of the resources library. The collections are broad enough that most fundraisers will find something relevant to their current work. Making the library a first port of call — before searching the open web for guidance — helps your team build on sector-tested thinking.

Make sure your colleagues are set up

Organisational membership covers your whole team, but each person needs to take a short step to link their account before they can access the benefits.

Here's what each team member needs to do:

1. Create an individual account on the CIOF website
2. Head to My Employment in the member portal
3. Enter your organisation's name and select it from the drop-down list

That's it. Once linked, colleagues have full access to everything included in your membership.

It's worth making this part of your onboarding process for new staff and checking whether any existing team members haven't done this yet. A quick message with the above instructions is usually enough to get everyone sorted.

Demonstrating the ROI of membership

If you need to make the case for membership to a trustee board, senior leadership team, or finance committee, the value is easier to articulate than it might seem. Too often, fundraising is undervalued or misunderstood within organisations — CIOF exists to help change that, and membership is part of how we do it.

Helping leadership understand what the membership provides is a useful opportunity to make the broader case for investing in fundraising:

• Training cost savings. The Knowledge Hub provides expert-led professional development at no additional cost.
• Research and intelligence. Access to the Data and Insights Hub removes the need to spend staff time tracking down sector research — that's time redirected to fundraising work.
• Events discounts. Member discounts on Chartered Institute events reduce the cost of attending sector events your team would likely attend anyway.
• Professional credibility. Membership signals to donors, funders, and partners that your organisation is committed to ethical, professional fundraising practice. Public trust matters — and demonstrating that your team works to recognised professional standards is something donors notice. That's a reputational benefit that's hard to put a number on, but it matters.
• Advocacy and standards. Your membership contributes to profession-wide work on raising standards, growing giving, and making the case for proper investment in fundraising across the UK. That's a broader benefit, but it's one that comes back to your organisation over time.

If you'd like support getting your team set up or making the most of any specific benefit, head to the membership section of your portal or get in touch with the CIOF membership team.

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