I'm just in the process of writing my fundraising strategy and a key part for me is setting down the key fundraising principles and beliefs that underpin the work.

Here are my five essentials for fundraising success:

1: Outstanding donor care & stewardship

Every communication, every interaction and every touch point someone has with your charity needs to enhance the relationship that you have with them.

2: Fabulous storytelling

The donor needs to feel involved and to see themselves as part of the solution to the problem you are solving.  Great storytelling helps achieve this by providing inspiration, motivation, engagement and involvement.

3: Focus on legacies

The ultimate gift for any fundraiser is a legacy.

Yet because of the long term nature of legacies and the need for short term results they are often overlooked.

Every staff member, trustee and volunteer needs to know the importance of legacies to your organisation.

4: Integrated fundraising

Donors do not see themselves as ‘direct mail’ ‘face to face’ ‘corporate’ etc donors and you need to be careful not to put donors into convenient segments or silos.

You can differentiate and gain a competitive advantage by humanising and personalising your communications, understanding your donors as individuals and involving and engaging them in the things that interest them.

Similarly, you will increasingly need to integrate campaigns across media.

5: Volunteers

Volunteers are the lifeblood of many charities and it is vital that you look after them well, make them feel involved and give them the confidence, inspiration and tools to be ambassadors for your cause.

Those are my five key things - what would you include in your list?