Public Fundraising Symposium

Opening Plenary

Join Angela Norton, PFRA, and Shamubeel Eaqub, for the Opening Plenary. Drawing on his recent work on Social Cohesion for The Helen Clark Foundation, Shamubeel will explore the current economic landscape in Aotearoa and the wider forces shaping our communities. His session will open up a conversation on the role of charities, fundraisers, and civic organisations in building a more cohesive, resilient society — and the practical steps we can take together. Come ready for insight, reflection, and rich discussion.

Building Trust & Sustainability in Public Fundraising

Robust self-regulation is key to the charity sector’s sustainability and public trust. This session explores how organisations can reduce government oversight by demonstrating ethical practices. While implementing self-regulation can present challenges, the benefits are clear: charities can future-proof fundraising, comply with changing regulations, and enhance public trust. Through collaboration, the sector can navigate challenges and emerge stronger and better equipped to serve their communities.

Employment Law Compliance - What You Need to Know

If you employ fundraisers - especially if you work across both New Zealand and Australia - this is a session you won’t want to miss.

Employment law is changing, and getting it wrong can cause serious problems for your organisation. In this session, employment law expert Nick Logan will walk you through what’s changing and what you need to watch out for, including:

What’s new in employment law and what it means for your team

The rules around casual, fixed-term, and trial period contracts

How to manage performance issues and misconduct the right way

Nick will explain the key things you need to know in plain terms and give you practical tips to help you stay on the right side of the law. Whether you're a charity or an agency, this session will help you build fairer, safer, and legally sound fundraising workplaces.

Celebrating your Face to Face Fundraising – How the Royal Flying Doctors Service - Queensland Section built their Face to Face Program

Face-to-face fundraisers are ambassadors, not just acquisition tools. Their value is in building trust with supporters and communities. Success comes not just from sign-ups, but from strategic alignment, compliance, internal support, and a culture of continuous improvement and celebration.

Starting in 2020 amidst the uncertainty of the pandemic, Royal Flying Doctors Service - Queensland Section launched its F2F program with a strong strategic foundation, clear internal communication, and an unwavering focus on quality and compliance. Despite initial challenges the program has become a cornerstone of Royal Flying Doctors Service - Queensland Section's fundraising strategy with over 20,000 regular givers contributing over $6.5million in revenue.

In this presentation, Senior Manager – Supporter Engagement, Erin McCabe will talk about how the team built their Face to Face program from scratch and most recently designed and implemented an incentive and recognition framework that celebrates fundraisers not just for sign-ups, but for quality engagement, positive supporter feedback, and innovative contributions. Erin will talk through how their robust onboarding, compliance, feedback mechanisms, and performance reporting, contributes to building an ethical, sustainable F2F fundraising program, including some of the challenges along the way.

Inside the Mystery: What Campaign Monitoring Tells Us About Fundraising Compliance

Mystery shopping is one of the PFRA’s most important tools for understanding what’s happening on the fundraising frontline. In this session, PFRA’s Regulation & Compliance Coordinator, Nicci, will take attendees behind the scenes of our mystery shopping programme — what we look for, why it matters, and how the findings are used to strengthen sector standards.

She’ll also share how charities and agencies can take a more proactive approach by conducting their own mystery shopping — either internally or in collaboration with sector peers — as part of building a culture of continuous improvement.

We’ll also explore some of the most common compliance issues we’re seeing across the sector, and how these insights can help fundraisers improve practice, reduce risk, and build public trust.

Whether you're new to fundraising and managing campaigns, or looking to ensure your programmes and fundraisers are fully compliant, this session will offer practical takeaways and valuable insights into how PFRA supports members to uphold high standards and strengthen public trust.

What Happens when Things go Wrong? How to Weather the Storm of a Major Complaint

While Face to Face fundraising delivers strong acquisition results and boosts brand visibility, it can also invite scrutiny and complaints. You've worked hard to build internal support, secure significant investment, and deliver results that other fundraising channels can’t match. But what happens when a serious complaint lands—and suddenly the entire program is under threat?

In this session, Erin McCabe, Senior Manager – Supporter Engagement at the Royal Flying Doctor Service (Queensland Section), shares how her team navigated a complex, high-level Face-to-Face fundraising complaint. She’ll outline how a strong foundation of onboarding, compliance, and complaints processes helped safeguard the integrity of their programme, uphold internal confidence, and ensure continued support for the communities they serve.

This is a must-attend session for anyone running fundraising programmes - or anyone in the sector who wants to understand how to manage risk, protect their teams, and maintain programme impact when things don’t go to plan. It's about building resilience not just for your organisation, but for the future outcomes your work helps make possible.

Small but Mighty: How Smaller Budgets Can Build Successful Regular Giving Programmes

Regular giving programmes aren’t just for large charities, with large budgets. In this session, Plunket will share how they’ve started to build a regular giving programme from the ground up - with limited budget and internal resources. From developing a strategy and setting realistic expectations to identifying what needed to be in place before launching, this session will provide practical insights for other small-to-medium charities looking to take their first steps in regular giving.

Harnessing the Halo Effect – How Integrated Engagement is Powering Results at Blind Low Vision NZ

At Blind Low Vision NZ, we’ve embraced a fully integrated approach to fundraising and engagement. Our Engagement and Marketing team brings together Fundraising, Philanthropy, Communications, Marketing, Client Support, Policy, and Advocacy – all working in unison.

This model delivers cost efficiencies while amplifying our impact. By working collaboratively and embracing what we call the halo effect, we ensure that each area strengthens the others. This has resulted in increased revenue and awareness without additional expenditure.

We believe that integration and collaboration are no longer optional – they are essential for charitable organisations to thrive in today’s climate.

We’d love to share our journey – from pivoting away from traditional direct mail to embracing digital acquisition, and how campaigns like our GDPA Appeal Month exceeded income targets. Let us show you how working together really does work better.

Text with Trust: Using SMS Ethically and Effectively in Fundraising

SMS can be a powerful channel for engaging donors - but only if it’s done right.

In this practical session, Mark Newell from Datam will unpack how fundraisers can use SMS in a way that is strategic, ethical, and aligned with donor expectations. With privacy concerns on the rise and scam awareness growing, it’s more important than ever to get your messaging, consent practices, and timing spot on.

You’ll learn:
📱 When and how to use SMS - and when not to
📱 How to build trust and cut through scam fatigue
📱 Ways to use SMS for donor engagement, conversion, and stewardship
📱 Tips to minimise risk and protect your organisation

Privacy and Fundraising: What Every Charity Needs to Know

Donor trust starts with data transparency, and in today’s environment, understanding your legal responsibilities is more important than ever.

In this interactive session, Keith will give a plain English rundown of the 13 principles, flag likely upcoming changes to the Act, and unpack some of the lesser-known legal areas that impact your donor communications - including intellectual property, the Gambling Act, and even the missing word in the Unsolicited Electronic Messages (UEM) Act.

You’ll walk away with a clearer understanding of:
- Why transparency and purpose matter
- What rights donors have over their data
- How to stay compliant while building stronger supporter relationships
- How to spot hidden legal risks and what to do about them

Calling Chemistry: the Art of Getting Along and Getting Results

We are bringing together leaders from the tele fundraising space from both Agency and Charity perspectives. In this panel you will hear the discuss key challenges and opportunities in tele fundraising. We will get their opinions to how to better support each other, how to build strong relationships, and putting practical things in place to support a TM agency…being a partner not just holding a transactional relationship.

Awards and Networking Evening

We’re excited to announce that nominations are now open for this year’s PFRA Fundraising Awards, this year we are introducing two new awards to further recognise and celebrate excellence, commitment, and partnership in the fundraising sector.

• Face-to-Face Fundraiser of the Year
• Charity Partner of the Year
• Agency Partner of the Year

Stay on after the awards for our networking and nibbles evening, where you can celebrate the day and continue making connections with others in the sector.

Film Screening - Uncharitable

Presented by Cocreate Fundraising in partnership with the PFRA

Based on Dan Pallotta’s influential book and TED Talk, UnCharitable highlights the opportunity to recognise that charitable-for-purpose organisations have two sets of customers, Donors and Service Users, working together to impact mutual charitable purpose. The film dares us, as Fundraisers, Service Delivery Experts, Executive Managers, and Board Members, to shift the narrative from limitation to possibility.

We encourage you to invite your CEO's and Board Members to join us for this thought-provoking session designed to reframe leadership discussion and foster a more enabling sector culture.

It’s a powerful watch, and one we hope will spark rich, engaging conversations about possibilities that equip the charitable-for-purpose organisations for growth within the competitive market space across Aotearoa.