A Note to Anyone Who Sets a Trust Fundraiser's Targets
This one isn't for the trust fundraiser.
It's for the person who sets their targets. The manager who signs off on the KPIs. The CEO who presents the income forecast to the board. The trustee who asks why the trust fundraising income isn't higher.
If that's you: thank you for reading. I mean that genuinely because the conversation I'm about to have with you is one that trust fundraisers across the sector are desperately hoping someone will start.
What you are asking a trust fundraiser to do
Trust fundraising looks straightforward from the outside.
Find some funders. Write some applications. Bring in some grants. But here's what it actually involves.
Deep prospect research - not just finding funders, but understanding their priorities, their trustees, their recent grant making, their geographical focus, their average grant level and whether your organisation genuinely aligns with what they care about. This takes time. Significant time and it's the foundation of everything that follows.
Relationship building - making contact before applications are submitted, attending Meet the Funder events, network mapping to find warm introductions, following up after rejections, stewarding existing funders with care and consistency. This is not optional. It's what makes the difference between a cold pipeline with a 1 in 10 success rate and a warm one that performs dramatically better.
Proposal writing - tailored, specific, impact led applications that speak directly to each funder's priorities. Not generic. Not copy and paste. Each one genuinely crafted.
Stewardship - keeping funders updated, sharing impact stories, writing end of grant reports, maintaining relationships between applications.
Internal coordination - gathering impact data from operations teams, working with finance on budgets, securing sign-off from senior leaders, briefing trustees on funder relationships.
Your trust fundraiser is doing all of this - often alone, often without colleagues who truly understand the work - in a landscape that is more competitive than it has ever been. That is what you are asking your trust fundraiser to do.
What the data says about trust fundraising success rates
I want to share some figures with you because I think they tell a story that changes how you might think about measuring this work.
According to LarkOwl's 2026 Fundraising ROI Report, trust and foundation fundraising returns £8.38 for every £1 spent. That's the strongest return on investment of any fundraising income stream - higher than major donors, individual giving and corporate fundraising.
Even in a tougher year, trusts remain the bread and butter of any well-developed fundraising strategy but here's what the Gifted Philanthropy 2025 Trusts and Foundations Insights Survey tells us about how that return is generated.
Warm and repeat applications have a 2.58 times greater success rate than cold ones. 63.39% compared to 24.5%. That is not a marginal difference. That is transformational.
There is a clear drop-off in success rates and income after approximately 30 applications per year. More applications don’t mean more income. In fact, beyond that threshold, it often means less.
Charities that invest 20-30% of their time in research achieve a 44% success rate from cold funders. Those that invest less achieve 20%.
What does all of that tell us?
Success in trust fundraising is built through relationships, research and alignment. Not volume. Not speed. Not the number of applications submitted in a month.
Realistic trust fundraising KPIs: what to measure instead of application volume
There is no universal standard for trust fundraising KPIs. No benchmark that applies to every organisation in every sector at every stage of their trust fundraising journey.
What I can tell you is that a meaningful set of trust fundraising metrics looks very different to a simple application volume target.
It should include the ratio of warm to cold prospects in the pipeline. The time invested in research and relationship building. The average ask value relative to the income target because a two-page proposal to a small family trust and an application to a major national foundation are not the same pieces of work and measuring them the same way makes very little sense.
It should also factor in stewardship touchpoints with existing funders. Network mapping activity. The health and confidence rating of the pipeline as a whole, as well as realistic income expectations that reflect where the pipeline actually is because a newer, colder pipeline in year one will naturally produce less than a warm, well-established programme in year five. Targets need to reflect that reality. Not ignore it.
A good framework has stretch built in but stretch that is clearly labelled as stretch - not presented as the baseline expectation.
What happens when trust fundraising targets ignore reality
I see this more than I would like to.
A trust fundraiser carrying targets that bear no relationship to what the landscape can currently deliver. Working longer hours to submit more applications because volume is what they're measured on. Sending smaller, less aligned applications to hit their monthly number. Burning through their prospect pool without the time to build the relationships that would make those prospects viable.
Slowly, quietly, that trust fundraiser loses the passion that brought them to this work in the first place.
A trust fundraiser who is given the time to research properly, build relationships intentionally and steward existing funders carefully will almost always outperform one who is pressured to submit as many applications as possible.
The data proves it and the trust fundraisers I see thriving - in organisations that understand this work and support it properly - prove it too.
How to review your trust fundraiser’s targets
If you've read this far - thank you. Here's what I'd ask you to consider.
Have a conversation with your trust fundraiser about how they're currently measured and whether those metrics reflect the reality of the work. Go in curious rather than defensive. Ask them what meaningful success looks like from where they're sitting.
Look at their pipeline together. Not just the income forecast but the warmth of the relationships, the quality of the alignment, the health of the prospects at each stage. A pipeline reviewed as a thinking tool tells you so much more than a financial spreadsheet.
Use the sector data. The ROI figures, the success rate comparisons, the research time impact - these are the numbers that make the case for investing in trust fundraising properly. Share them with your board if you need to.
If your trust fundraiser comes to you wanting to have this conversation - please listen. They're not making excuses. They're trying to help you understand what this work actually takes so that together you can build something that delivers sustainable income rather than short term pressure.
One last thing
Trust fundraising done well is still one of the most valuable income streams a charity can develop. The ROI figures bear that out even in a tougher year but it needs the right conditions to thrive.
Time. Support. Realistic expectations. A team that understands what the work involves and gets behind it.
Your trust fundraiser is doing something genuinely skilled, genuinely important and genuinely difficult.
They deserve to be measured in a way that reflects that.
Talk through your trust fundraising targets
If you set or sign off targets for a trust fundraiser, a conversation with us tests whether they fit your pipeline. We look at the warmth of your prospects, the time the work takes and the income that is realistic from where you are.