Ross-on-Wye based fundraising specialist CSDM has found the formula to help charities to beat the recession - and grown from nowhere to a £4m turnover in just four years.

CSDM was founded by charity marketing expert Chris Stoddard in 2005 to offer an outsourced service to charities lacking the skills or manpower to do their own marketing. The company looks after the whole business of fundraising, from direct mail and phone canvassing to graphic design and donation processing.  So popular has the CSDM formula proved with charities that the company now has 16 charities on its books, from Action Ethiopia to the World Medical Fund.  It now employs 45 staff and is advertising 26 vacancies.

Chris Stoddard has wide experience in the voluntary sector, having served as a past chairman of the Association of Fundraising Consultants and been a keynote speaker at fundraising conferences on four continents.

"We're all familiar with direct mail and direct marketing" says Chris.  "We call our approach direct fundraising, because it's the whole package. Effectively, we act as the fundraising arm of the client charity, taking instructions from them and reporting back on our success.

"Part of our strength is our access to very high-quality mailing and telephone lists. We work on long contracts, which gives us huge economies of scale compared to the one-off campaign approach which is used by most charities and fundraisers. In particular we avoid the need for constantly designing new campaigns and new materials - in many cases we don't even need to charge clients for the creative element."

Success has been spectacular. In its four short years CSDM has signed up 18 substantial charities, made almost 100,000 fundraising phone calls on behalf of its clients, handled more than 30 million mailshots, recruited 300,000 donors and processed well over a million donations. Its clients are delighted with the formula.

Paul Holden turned to CSDM when he set up the Animal Rescue Foundation, a new charity based in Ross. The ARF raises money to fund animal rescue work around the UK and is aiming to provide financial support for 20-25 rescue charities at any one time.

"CSDM took on all our fundraising operations - mailshot design and printing, mailing and telephone canvassing" says Paul.  "In two months they have already built a donor database of 10,000 names, far more than we'd expected.  Most of these we expect to become repeat givers.

"Not only that but our mailings are getting a response of over 20 per cent.  It's an amazing result - and in our case, without even creating a website."

Vacancies now being advertised include office manager and operations manager, as well as several posts in the company's call centre.