SUPPORTER INSIGHT AND EXPERIENCE, DONE THOUGHTFULLYFlourishing, by design.
Helping grassroots causes to medium charities turn what they know about their supporters into more giving, better retention, and relationships that last.
See how I work →
Insight-led fundraising and supporter experience support grounded in why people give, stay, and come back.
Insight first, then everything else
Most fundraising and marketing support starts with tactics — a better appeal, a slicker email, a new campaign. I start a step earlier, with the question underneath all of it: what actually makes someone choose to give, and choose to give again?
There's a growing body of evidence on that question, from donor psychology and behavioural science. People give because it fits who they are, because they feel trusted with the choice, and because they can see they made a real difference.
When a supporter feels that, they stay. When they don't, no amount of clever segmentation will keep them.
So the work starts with understanding the people already in your database — not a template borrowed from a charity three times your size. No guessing game.
And there's a belief underneath all of it: good fundraising should be genuinely good for supporters, too. Designing for how giving feels — not just for the income — builds deeper, longer, more resilient support. It's better for the people who give, and it works.
What I do
Two specialisms sit at the heart of the work, with a wider range of fundraising, supporter experience and marketing support that flows from the same approach.
INSIGHT-LED SUPPORTER EXPERIENCE
Supporter experience is the whole of how it feels to give to you — the welcome, the thank-you, the ask, and the quiet months in between. I map those journeys, work out what's keeping people with you and what's quietly losing them, and design something worth staying for.
Journey mapping · loyalty and retention · winning back lapsed supporters · spotting the people who look fine on paper but have already drifted away — with supporter wellbeing running through all of it.
INSIGHT & EVALUATION
Knowing what's really happening, and whether what you did actually worked. This is the analytical half: reading the patterns in your data, testing what you assume against what the evidence says, and building measurement that a small team can realistically keep up.
Supporter and fundraising data analysis · retention and lapse analysis · segmentation · practical measurement and evaluation · and small, focused supporter research when the answer isn't in the data.
And a wider range that flows from the same approach: fundraising strategy and audits, income growth and diversification, and marketing and communications — messaging, tone of voice, and campaign design.
Ways to work together
Two main ways in, depending on the kind of support you need — and some lighter options if you're not ready for either.
ROOTS
ONGOING, EMBEDDED SUPPORT
Close support over time, for organisations who'd benefit from having senior supporter experience and insight thinking on hand — without the cost of a full-time hire. I bring the strategy, insight and design; your team stays close to the delivery, building capability as we go.
Most often: grassroots causes and charities up to around £1m, who don't have a dedicated fundraising or insight specialist of their own.
GROWTH
FOCUSED, DEFINED-SCOPE PROJECTS
A clear brief and a clear outcome. For when you need proper, evidence-led input on a specific question — a retention diagnosis, a supporter journey review, a measurement framework, an audit. I get under the skin of what's really happening, deliver a realistic plan, set up what's needed, and hand it over.
Most often: charities from £1m to £10m with existing fundraising capacity, who need a second pair of expert eyes on one particular thing.
Those are the usual patterns, not rules. If you're a small cause who needs one focused piece of work, or a larger charity who'd rather have ongoing support, both work perfectly well — the price scales to the size of your organisation either way.
Not ready for a project? There's a way in at every size. Free toolkits you can use straight away, the Supporter Loyalty Index at £45 to measure how loyal your supporters really are, and a Power Hour from £95 for a single focused conversation about whatever you're stuck on.
Project prices are published rather than hidden behind a proposal, and scaled to the size of organisation — because when you're weighing up whether to bring someone in, you shouldn't have to guess what it costs.
Who I Work With
I work best with small-to-medium charities — up to around £10m income — and with small, self-funded causes, including organisations that aren't formally registered charities, such as animal rescues, or that are structured as a CIC.
The causes I know best are animal welfare, conservation and the environment, international development and overseas aid, emergency and disaster relief, health and mental health, and community organisations — because that's where I've built the deepest experience, and where my own interest genuinely runs.
That's not a hard line. If your organisation sits outside those areas but the size and shape of the work feels right, I'd still love to hear from you.
Done thoughtfully
Verdant means lush, green, flourishing — but the -ly is doing the real work in the name. It turns a description into a way of doing something: not just a flourishing result, but a flourishing way of working to get there. Organisations don't grow because someone pushes harder. They grow because the fundamentals are right, done thoughtfully rather than forced.
Here's what that looks like in practice.
Collaboratively
I work alongside your team, not above it — listening first, understanding what's already working, and building a joint plan that focuses on exploring what you need.
Curiously
Every recommendation starts with a real question about what actually drives your supporters' behaviour, not what we assume it is.
Practically
Strategy you can act on this quarter, with the team and budget you actually have — not a document written for a charity three times your size.
Rigorously
Grounded in real evidence on donor psychology and behaviour. And if the evidence is thin or contested, I'll say so, rather than pretending a certainty that isn't there.
Steadily
Not a one-off report and a handshake. Whether it's a focused project or ongoing support, I stay close enough to make sure it actually lands — built, understood, and left running with your team. Build capability, not dependency.
About me
I'm Sam Thomas, and Verdantly is my practice.
I've spent over 20 years in the charity sector, across supporter experience, strategy, income growth, and marketing and communications — long enough to have been the person accountable for the number, not just the person advising on it.
My Master's dissertation was on experiential marketing and supporter experience, including building a supporter-experience measurement tool, and I hold a Certificate in Philanthropic Psychology with Distinction, along with Chartered Institute of Fundraising and Chartered Institute of Marketing memberships. Mostly, though, it's a genuine interest in the data, the psychology, and the people behind why supporters give.
I listen first, I tailor your support, I work alongside you.
Ready to explore what's possible?
If something here sounds like the conversation you've been meaning to have, let's have it.