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How to Diversify Your Charity's Funding: A Practical Step-by-Step Guide

Knowing you should diversify your funding is one thing. Actually knowing where to start, with no marketing team, no fundraising consultant, and about three spare hours a week if you're lucky, is another thing entirely.

That's what this guide is for. No corporate frameworks written for organizations with a fundraising department. No advice that assumes you can hire someone to handle this. Just a run down of the main types of non-grant funding available to small Australian charities, real variations of each, and how to work out which one you could start yourself, with what you've already got.

This is a long, detailed piece deliberately. Diversifying funding isn't a five minute decision, and most of the guidance already out there skips straight past the detail that actually makes it doable when you're the one doing everything.

The Main Types of Non-Grant Funding

These are four broad categories worth knowing well. One or two is enough — and every single one of these can be started by you, without hiring anyone.

1. Earned Income / Fee-for-Service

Charging for something your organisation already knows how to do. This is often the easiest place to start, because there's nothing new to learn, you're just doing what you already do, for a different audience who can pay.

• Paid training or workshops — a paid version of a free program you already run, offered to a different audience. For example, a mental health awareness talk you normally deliver free to schools or community groups could be offered as a paid session to local workplaces, who'll often pay for exactly this kind of training for their staff.
• Product or service sales — selling something you already produce beyond its usual free distribution. For example a community kitchen providing free meals could start a separate offering: a paid catering service, using the same kitchen and the same staff, cooking for local business events and corporate lunches a few times a month.
• Facility hire — hiring out unused space during off hours. For example, a charity with a hall or meeting room that sits empty most evenings could hire it out to a local yoga instructor, community group, or business for their own sessions — the space costs the same to maintain either way, so any booking is money you wouldn't otherwise have had.

2. Corporate Partnerships

Relationships with local or national businesses, from a simple one-off donation to something more ongoing. This doesn't require a partnerships manager — it starts with one email and a clear, specific ask.

• Cause related sales — a business donates proceeds from a specific product for a set period of time. For example, a local bakery agrees to donate $1 from every loaf of a specific bread sold during the month of your annual campaign — a clear, time-limited arrangement that's easy for the business to say yes to and easy for you to promote.
• Sponsorship — a business pays for visibility attached to a program, event, or piece of content. For example, a local accounting firm pays to have their logo on your newsletter and event materials for a year, in exchange for being seen as a supporter of your work in front of your audience.
• Skilled volunteering / pro bono support — free professional services (legal, marketing, IT, design) that free up cash elsewhere, so this counts as funding even though no money changes hands. For example, a local marketing agency offers to redesign your website for free, saving you the $3,000-$5,000 you'd otherwise need to find in your budget for the same work.
• Donations — goods or services donated directly, reducing costs rather than adding income, but the same effect on your bottom line. For example, a local printing business agrees to print your event flyers and annual report at no cost, rather than you paying for it out of an already stretched budget.

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3. Individual Giving

Donations from individual supporters. This one takes longer to build than the others, but it's the most resilient over time — it isn't dependent on any single organisation's budget or board decision, just people who believe in what you do. One thing worth checking before you lean into this category: individual donations are only tax-deductible if your charity holds DGR (Deductible Gift Recipient) status. Not every registered charity has it automatically as it's a separate endorsement through the ATO, so if you're not sure whether you have it, that's worth confirming first.

• Regular giving programs — small monthly commitments, creating predictable recurring income. For example, a supporter who's donated a one-off $50 at your last two appeals is asked if they'd consider $10 a month instead — the same amount over a year, but predictable, and easier for them to say yes to since it doesn't feel like a big ask each time.
• One-off appeals — a specific, time-limited ask tied to a clear need. For example, an email to your newsletter list explaining you need $3,000 to replace a piece of essential equipment by the end of the month, with a clear explanation of what happens if the funds aren't raised — specific and honest works better than a general "help us out" ask.
• In-memory or tribute giving — donations made in memory of someone or in celebration of an occasion. For example, a family asks mourners to donate to your charity instead of sending flowers, or a supporter asks friends to donate for their birthday instead of buying gifts — you don't initiate these, but having a simple, ready page on your website for people to use makes it easy when the moment comes.
• Bequests — gifts left in a will; a long-term category, but worth a single page on your website even now, since the door needs to be open before anyone can walk through it. For example, a longtime supporter in their later years decides to leave a portion of their estate to your charity — something they can only consider if they already know it's an option, which is why even a basic "leaving a gift in your will" page matters well before anyone's actively planning one.

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4. Community Fundraising

Income generated through community activity, where other people do most of the actual work.

• Third-party events — someone runs their own fundraising event on your behalf; your job is mostly to make it easy for them. For example, a local running club decides to donate entry fees from their annual fun run to your charity — you didn't organize the event, you just need a simple way for them to hand over the funds and a thank-you they can share with their members.
• Peer-to-peer fundraising — supporters set up their own fundraising pages and ask their own networks, multiplying your reach without multiplying your workload. For example, a longtime volunteer sets up a page for their birthday asking friends to donate instead of buying gifts, or takes on a personal challenge (a fun run, a haircut, a fast) and fundraises off the back of it, using their own social circle to bring in donations you'd never have reached directly.
• Local business partnerships for fundraising events — a business hosts, promotes, or matches donations for an event, using their audience instead of yours. For example, a local café hosts a trivia night in their space after hours, promotes it to their own regular customers, and donates the ticket proceeds to your charity — the audience, the venue, and the promotion all come from them, not you.

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Working Out What's Relevant to Your Organisation

You don't need a strategy consultant for this part either, just a notepad and twenty minutes.

Step 1: List what you already have. Skills, physical space, equipment, existing relationships, an existing audience, specific expertise. Write it all down.

Step 2: Match assets to categories. Go back through the four types above and note which align with what's on your list. If you've got a kitchen and someone who can cook, earned income is closer at hand than a bequest program. If you've got a warm, engaged newsletter list, individual giving is more realistic than chasing corporate sponsors you don't have a relationship with yet.

Step 3: Weigh effort against the time you actually have. Not the time you'd have in an ideal world, the real hours in your real week. Some of these take ongoing effort to build; others are close to one-off. Consider what fits the week you're actually living, not the one you wish you had.

Step 4: Pick one. Not two, not three. One. You already know this isn't about running five income streams at once, least of all when you're the one running all of them. Start with one. Overwhelm is not what we're looking for here.

Getting Started

Once you've picked the category that fits, the approach is the same no matter which one you chose: start with the smallest possible version, test it with real people before building anything formal, give it a defined time frame and track what actually happens. None of this needs software, a consultant, or a budget — an email and a spreadsheet will do the job.

What that actually looks like in practice is different for every category — different people to contact, different pitches, different platforms and detailed enough to deserve its own proper guide rather than a few generic bullet points here. We're covering each of these properly, step by step, in upcoming posts:

• Earned income and fee-for-service — how to price and launch your first paid offering
• Corporate partnerships — exactly which businesses to approach, what to say, and what to ask for
• Individual giving — how to start a monthly donor program from zero
• Community fundraising — how to set up your first third-party or peer-to-peer campaign

A Realistic Starting Point

None of this needs a hire, a budget, or a strategy overhaul. It needs one clear eyed look at what you've already got, one small addition chosen deliberately, and a willingness to send the first email before you feel fully ready.

This is part of our ongoing series on diversified funding for small Australian charities. Next up: Partnerships and Fundraising Strategy, with the practical detail on exactly how to start each one.

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