Vulnerable circumstances training
One-Day Course for Fundraisers
A one-day, in-depth training course built specifically for fundraisers and supporter care teams.
Created for the Code of Fundraising Practice 2025, this course is built to directly support the standards set by the Fundraising Regulator and guidance by the Chartered Institute of Fundraising.
Practical. Plain language. Built around real situations from your own work.
What this training equips your team to do
Fundraising regularly works with people in vulnerable circumstances.
People experiencing harm and real disadvantages in life because of circumstances where they've experienced loss or significant change, with the world not supporting them in the same way it does for most people.
This is extremely common in circumstances involving bereavment, financial change, disability or people in crisis.
A team that knows how to recognise and respond well is the team that keeps supporters safe, and keeps fundraising transparent and efficient.
The Fundraising Regulator's standards reflect the need to support the people you work with, and they probably need support now.
33 countries reached
2,100+ organisations supported
8,400 professionals trained
Advising the people who set the standards.
Matt Radford (Director of Vulnerability Managers) is Deputy Chair of the CIOF, sits on the DMA Governance Committee, leads vulnerability on the DMA AI Council, and is on the AFP IDEA Committee.
The frameworks taught here have been taught to the Fundraising Regulator, the Chartered Institute of Fundraising and the Public Fundraising Regulatory Association of New Zealand and the Data and Marketing Association.
Vulnerability Managers has advised six major industry regulators and professional bodies on professional ethics, marketing, and vulnerability management — shaping the frameworks that organisations are now audited against.
Fundraising Regulator (UK)
Chartered Institute of Fundraising (UK)
Public Fundraising Regulatory Association (New Zealand)
Federation of European Data and Marketing (Europe)
Data and Marketing Association (UK)
Association of Fundraising Professionals (USA)
Session 1. Foundations
What "vulnerable circumstances" means, and the four main types of vulnerability.
The social model and why vulnerability sits in the circumstance and system, not the person.
Session 2. The Before, During, After model
Before, during and after. Setup, how to communicate, recording, signposting, and supporting your wellbeing.
Session 3. Codes and regulators
The ‘Code of Fundraising Practice 2025’ and the Fundraising Regulator's ‘Vulnerable circumstances’ guidance
CIOF guidance on ‘treating donors fairly’ and ‘Accepting and refusing donations’.
Session 4. Live case workshop
Your team's real examples, worked through with the trainer.
Session 5. Embedding the learning
Escalation routes for your workflow, supervision, peer review, signposting and where supporters go for more support.
Agenda
We cover five sessions during training, with start and finish times adjusted to your needs. The information and order below the most most common request we have for training and content.
Optional - Recommended
Lived experience co-delivery
The single most consistent piece of feedback on our training is the effect of hearing directly from people with lived experience of vulnerability.
A trainer can describe a scenario. A lived experience specialist can describe what it actually felt like to be on the other side of the call, the door-knock or the legacy conversation. This shifts how teams think about their own practice. Lived experience specialists are paid, integrated, and treated as colleagues — not as case studies.
Lived experience co-delivery for this course is available depending on the scope and duration of the specialist's involvement.
The specialist is selected from Vulnerability Managers' partner network to match the focus of your team — for example, where the team handles legacy work, a specialist with relevant lived experience. We discuss this during scoping.
Pricing
Single fixed price per session, and includes up to 20 people, 6.5 hours training (in person or online) and a 30 minute individual session with each attendee for personal development after the session.
Discounts are available for smaller organisations, groups and different formats. Contact us for more details. All prices exclude VAT.
One-day course (up to 20 people) - £8,850
Lived experience co-delivery (optional) - Starting from £850
Ready to talk about your organisation?
Tell us what you need in two or three sentences. We reply to new messages within 48 hours (on average).