The 70/20/10 model for balancing ROI and risk.
How do you keep innovating when budgets and expectations are tighter than ever?
Across the sector, we’re seeing fundraisers face a tension between short-term and long-term planning – and in today’s market, short-term wins are being prioritised.
Enter the 70/20/10 model: A framework that helps organisations balance return and experimentation without risking core results:
- 70% of your budget goes towards tried-and-tested activity that reliably delivers: your business-as-usual fundraising engine
- 20% goes into incremental testing: trialling new ideas within existing channels or audiences
- 10% is allocated towards pure exploration: investing in new platforms, formats, or ideas that could redefine how you connect with your supporters
This approach gives teams a blueprint for balancing stability with creativity. It replaces gut-feel experimentation with structure, freeing you to take calculated and manageable risks. The session will reveal how the 70/20/10 model is building digital fundraising programmes at Save the Children that have room to breathe – and the long term results the model is driving – and you learn how to get internal buy-in, identify those 10% opportunities, and measure your successes beyond immediate ROI.
Learning outcomes
- Understand the risks of over-concentrating acquisition spend in a single platform, and the opportunity costs of stifling innovation due to ROI expectations
- Find out how organisations are diversifying and innovating with managed risk
- Learn to apply the 70/20/10 model to your own programme