Strategic planning and data insight fundraising leader James Kliffen has joined Revolutionise International as an associate consultant.

James has 35 years of experience in driving substantial income growth for international NGOs including Comic Relief, British Red Cross, Disasters Emergency Committee, and Médecins Sans Frontières / Doctors Without Borders.

His global career spans strategic planning, brand positioning, integrated multi-channel marketing, and transformational success from philanthropy and legacies. James has a strong track record of delivering breakthrough innovations, enabled through his specialist experience of information systems and data insight. 

His areas of expertise, which Revolutionise’s charity and NGO clients around the world will now start to benefit from, include:

• Fundraising strategic planning, harnessing the knowledge and creativity within charities and their partner specialists

• Integrated marketing, creating synergies across broadcast, print, digital, social, and experiential channels

• Information governance, systems architecture, and data insight, providing the foundation for fundraising success

• Safe and effective approaches to innovation, balancing cost and effort against scalable results

James has achieved particular success building organisations from a small size or even starting a fundraising department from scratch!

At Médecins Sans Frontières / Doctors Without Borders in the UK he pitched for the creation of a fundraising team, or to be precise, a fundraiser – him! It took a year, and when it was approved he initially felt that powerful combination of fear and excitement about the opportunity.

Over the decade from 2011 he helped MSF UK to more than double its annual fundraising income based on a combination of audience insight, evidence-based decision making and close collaboration between client and agency specialists.

Before that regular giving had plateaued for a couple of years at around £10 million. Focusing on regular givers James helped the charity grow by 108% from £9.8 million in 2011 to £20.4 million by 2020. From 2014 to 2021 the average annual volume of direct debit supporters also increased by 329%.

With data insight that supporters mid and high value supporters were more likely to male than other charities’ supporters, and “more discerning” and analytical in deciding which charity to support, MSF used long copy full-page adverts, long-form spots on direct response TV and radio, and perhaps more prominently a series of inserts and door drops designed to look like broadsheet newspaper publications.

James says that that the success was down to “how we worked out how to successfully manage continual innovation, within existing budgets and team size”.

He then did the same by launching and growing MSF in Ireland.

He subsequently worked as Director of Fundraising for MSF in the UK from “start up” to 2024!

He also worked as the sole fundraiser at the UK’s Disasters Emergency Committee. Here he secured Chief Executive approval of the creation of the Rapid Response Network, which hugely scaled up the reach and impact of DEC appeals, through national, regional and local media. In addition he implemented DRTV creative guidelines with BBC and ITN programme producers, with an additional multiplying uplift for appeal income.

In a multi-charity partnership this development required securing approval from the chief executives of each DEC member charity. It involved working with BBC and ITN producers to implement DRTV guidelines for appeals. With the added scale and speed James had to establish effective management of all paid appeal advertising. He also set up systems to ensure the management of a network of agencies to manage the response to major emergency appeals, including securing sponsorship from key partners.

This extensive experience in the international NGO sector meant that James had some engaging conversations with the delegates at this month’s Great Fundraising Masterclass in Dublin, which had attracted a good number of INGO fundraisers and leaders.

James says that he attributes his success to “a bottom up approach to collaboration, bringing together diverse teams with industry-leading experts”, which resulted in over £2 million being raised per fundraising team member.

Board membership

James also brings current board member experience to his role. He is a board member of both the UK Online Giving Foundation and Music Support. At the latter he has “lead responsibility for supporting fundraising by staff and fellow trustees”.

Indeed, music plays a central role in James’ life. He is quick to point out that he doesn’t play an instrument, but his interest and experience of live music production have informed his fundraising in various ways. He said:

“As a trustee at Music Support I have learned how the same approach to strategy can succeed when you have very little resources. Plus I have applied the culture of live music production to fundraising, including delivering Face to Face fundraising teams across Europe and beyond on a tour”.

At MSF UK he managed face-to-face fundraising in stadiums, arenas and music festivals on world tours by artists including Ed Sheeran and Muse.

Follow James Kliffen on LinkedIn.