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September 2010

My Biggest Fundraising Mistakes: Leadership & Management

Taking the step from being a part of a fundraising team to leading one is a big one and something that I struggled with in the beginning and I'm still working hard to improve.

It's a very different role and no amount of training or preparation can prepare you for the change.  I've been very lucky to manage some great teams who've tolerated my mistakes and I thought I'd share some of my biggest ones so you can avoid them...

You can't be everyone's friend - it's not a popularity contest

I see many managers fall into this trap and I've certainly made this mistake in the past.

It's human nature to want to be liked and popular, but that doesn't necessarily mean that you're doing a good job and it can lead to problems in the future as the boundaries between friendship and leadership can become blurred.

Becoming overly friendly or close to your team can make it hard to flag problems, deal with under-performance and make it harder to be seen as impartial if you need to sort out an issue between people who consider you their friend.

This doesn't mean you have to be distant or cold, but you need to be aware of the impact of your actions and not be afraid to make tough decisions if it's the right thing to do for the team as a whole.

For example, one of my team had a new job and wanted to negotiate a shorter notice period.  As a friend I wanted to help them, but as their manager then I knew it wasn't in the best interests of the charity and so I had to say no.  This led to arguments and damaged the friendship as they assumed I'd let them go as we were friends.

You need to tailor your style to different people

In the first team I managed I was the youngest person and only man.  This led to a number of issues as I struggled to understand why not everyone instantly followed my lead or bought into my way of thinking.

It took me a while to realise that not everyone sees the world the same way I do and so I needed to frame my arguments and explain my decisions in ways that resonated with them.  This light-bulb moment really improved by leadership and by learning to understand what made someone tick, I was able to create a high performing, successful team.

I believe emotional intelligence is one of the most important qualities of a good manager.  Knowing those people who need an arm round the shoulder compared to those who work best under pressure, and acting accordingly, makes a massive difference in results.

Don't ignore poor performance

After a few years as hospice fundraising manager I was promoted to regional manager and became responsible for a much larger number of fundraisers.  Inevitably in a larger team there were some outstanding performers and a few people who weren't up to the job.

I knew this quite early on, but as I was new into the job I didn't want to be overly draconian too quickly. 

However, this meant when I did have to start tackling performance issues it came as a surprise to the people involved and they questioned why I hadn't brought it up sooner.

As i'd been slack to begin with it was much harder to start monitoring performance, providing coaching and support and trying to improve their work.  Eventually formal action had to be taken, which affected the morale of the wider team, caused a lot of extra work and stress and caused numerous problems.

If I'd acted sooner and intervened as soon as I had concerns then a lot of heartache and stress could have been avoided.

Recruitment

Recruiting is one of the most important things you will do as a manager, but it's amazing how little training or time goes into doing it properly. 

Bad recruitment decisions probably cost the economy millions of pounds every year in time and loss of productivity.

I've learned the hard way that it doesn't pay to take people on because you're desperate or if you've got any nagging doubts. 

I wish i'd been braver on a number of occasions and said 'No, we're going to re-advertise this position.' rather than take someone on who I knew wasn't the right person for the job.

It's a tough thing to do, but it wil save you a lot of time and effort in the long run.

See more in others than they see in themselves

I wanted to end on a positive, so the final point isn't a mistake, but something that I believe all managers/leaders should do.

One of my previous bosses was a master at this and was always looking for ways to give people the opportunity to shine.  He vehemently believed that his main task as a leader was unlocking potential and encouraging people to grow and prosper.

He never missed a chance to give people more responsibility or to take on an extra challenge and the result was a well motivated, hard working team, many of whom went on to bigger and better things thanks to his encouragement.


At the end of the day, it's only an opinion (and ultimately fundraising is about results...)

The title is a bit of a mouthful, but it's an attempt to combine two important points.

First of all, I was going to talk about the NFP Tweetup I went to last week (see Kev's blog for a good round-up) and in particular the RAF Benevolent Fund's Chronicle campaign.

I thought the campaign looked brilliant and made excellent use of social media, but (and it's a big but) I had severe doubts on whether it would actually ever re-coup the substantial costs from a fundraising point of view.

To me the campaign had 'award winning, but little money raising', written all over it and I'm very cynical about any campaign that has 'increased awareness' as an outcome.

However, I then received a great comment on my last post from Laurie Pringle about why it's results that count and not people's opinions and I thought I must share it with you:

'1) Jeff's article on the advert. I liked it - but more importantly, why does it matter if he, you or I liked it? What matters is whether or not it achieved it's results.

'What if it was targeted to women with children? What if it resulted in an incredible amount of new donors or visits to their website and donation conversions?

'Jeff preaches results over and over - but he never talks about the results of the campaigns that he rants about. If he can demonstrate that an alternative produces better results - that's what I care about.

'His opinion, mine or yours are irrelevant. Most direct marketing is painful and unappealing to me, but it gets results. So I don't need to like it. I just like the results.

'2) Beth's ROI post: I saw lots of talk about mentions, website visits and brand awareness etc. Again - where are the results?

'I don't care if substantially fewer people talked about me or thought kindly of my brand. What matters is how many people donated and how many more people (trees, animals) your charity was able to help.'

Laurie is completely right.

What I think about the RAF Benevolent campaign is completely irrelevant, it's only my opinion and I'm far from being an expert, what matters is the results. 

Ultimately, it's only when those results are analysed and looked at that we can rightly claim whether something is good, bad or indifferent, until then it's just one person's opinion...


This week's best of the blogs

I attended my first NFP Tweet Up in LOndon this week and it was nice to meet some of the my Twitter friends in the flesh. It was an interesting evening and I've got a post in mind to do next week.

In the meantime, here's a round up of the latest posts that i've enjoyed:

Steven George on why he resents not being thanked, nicely followed up by Lucy.

Kimberley with a lovely donor story, which reminds you that fundraising is about individuals, not databases or segments.

Mark explains why older people give to charity.

Aline asks how (emotionally) hard is it to cancel a direct debit?

Howard Lake with a good post highlighting the flawsin the MS Society's response to the Newsnight face-to-face fundraising item.

Jeff with Six reasons donors will give to you and another stupid charity ad (another one from the UK - we seem to be good at them!)

Amanda with a good point about 'Mr & Mrs'.

Do fundraising websites need FAQ's?

Lori with six tips to make your supporters great fundraisers.

Barbara Talisman on the Fundraising Effectiveness Project.

Sean with some counter intuitive ideas.

Beth on social media ROI (very comprehensive resource)

Steve Yastrow on using imagination in your sales pitch.

The economics of good customer service.

Sme interesting ideas from the author's of new book 'Brains on Fire' on creating word of mouth and movements.

Seth's Myth of Preparation.


Proud to be a fundraiser: The most generous gift I've ever received

And it wasn't worth a penny.

Yet, it was one of the most touching moments I've had a a fundraiser.

I received a call from a lady who's mum had recently died. She wanted to donate some goods to the hospice and I went round to collect them.

Her address was in one of Darlington's poorer parts of town.  I pulled up outside her council house, which was in a poor state of repair and complete with an overgrown garden, broken fence and dilapidated paintwork.

I walked up the garden, knocked on the door and was greeted by the daughter. She'd obviously been crying for a long time. She had red teary eyes and the bags under her eyes were dark and puffy.

She invited me into the sparsely furnitured front room with threadbare carpets and a thick fog of stale cigarette smoke hanging in the air from her chain smoking.

After making a cup of tea and some small talk she said how grateful she was to the hospice for the care that had been given to her mum. She explained that she couldn't afford to give us any money, but instead wanted to donate the only thing of any value that she owned.

She got up, went upstairs and came back down with a battered shoe box and handed it over to me with a sad smile.

Old Doll 
The dolls I received didn't look much better than this poor fellow...

I opened the box and it contained two pathetic looking dolls. The plastic had been stained from the years of cigarette smoke and their dresses looked worse for wear. 

The lady proudly exclaimed:

"Mum would want you to have them to say thank you and raise some money for the hospice. I'm sure they'll raise a lot at auction.

"They were mum's pride and joy and have been on the mantelpiece for years."

I didn't know what to say.

They were obviously worthless, but they were the only thing she could think of giving us that might be worth something. 

She had nothing to give, but she gave anyway, and it was a very humbling moment.

I thanked her profusely and said I couldn't possibly accept such a personal gift, but she insisted and wouldn't let me take no for an answer. 

In the end I had to say how kind she'd been, offered my condolences and then left, not quite sure what to do with the dolls.

I returned to the office, wrote her a thank you letter and said we'd be in touch and let her know what we did with them.

I double checked with a couple of people that I wasn't missing something and the dolls were worthless and sadly they were, so I (rightly or wrongly) told a little white lie.

We often auctioned off some of the valuable donations to our shops so I decided to tell the lady that we'd included them in the next sale. 

After the sale, I called the lady and explained that I couldn't tell her how much the dolls had sold for, but the auction as a whole had raised a few thousand pounds for the hospice.

The lady was over the moon and felt so good that her gift had raised some money for the hospice. She said how much it would have meant to her mum and that it was lovely to think that she could pay us back in some way.

It was a lovely moment and I'm sure the whole donation was part of the grieving process for the daughter and was in some way cathartic.

It's a memory that still sticks in the mind after nearly 10 years and whenever I'm complaining about bills or moaning about lack of money, then I think of that lady who gave me the only valuable thing she owned....

 

This is the second in a series of posts where I share some of the stories and experiences that have made me proud to be a fundraiser over the last 10 years. I'd also love to hear your stories of the moments that have brought home how important fundraising is to you...

 

 

 


My Biggest Fundraising Mistakes: Just Because It Works Once....

Doesn't mean it will necessarily work again!

That's a lesson I quickly learned when I moved from Darlington to Peterborough.

As Corporate/Community Fundraiser at St Teresa's Hospice I'd had a lot of success (working with my boss) in selling various small items of merchandise in companies.

It was a simple, but effective strategy.

We got to visit people regularly in their workplace, got our faces known, made a profit on the merchandise and built relationships with a wide range of people.

The major payback from this was that we were always at the front of people's minds when they were deciding on a charity of the year, were having a dress down day. doing a sponsored event etc.

It also got us introductions to senior managers/decision makers if we had a sponsorship proposal, were holding a corporate event or wanted to work with the company in another way.

So, what do I do when I move 160 miles down the A1 to Peterborough?

Flashing-christmas-badge 
I never want to see a flashing Christmas badge again!

Buy 10,000 flashing Christmas badges and a few thousand teddies on the assumption that we'd shift them no problem given how many more firms there were in the area and it would be the beginning of a wonderful new relationship with them.

How I was wrong!

Despite the best efforts of all the team, we just couldn't get rid of them. As many of the offices were larger, there was a lot more bureaucratic hoops to jump through, people had never done it before or were simply not interested. The upshot was that we were left lot's of stock and I had egg on my face.

In fact, whenever I've been back to the office to visit I get ribbed about it and they've presented me with various items of unsold merchandise on occasions!

It was back to the drawing board for corporates in Peterborough and, after another failure with corporate events, I eventually found a strategy that worked - attending lots of networking events.  This was something I'd never even considered when in Darlington, but it worked (and continues to work) really well for the hospice.

Key Learnings:

Just because something works once, doesn't mean it will work again.

Do your market research before launching a new fundraising initiative.

Keep evaluating your successful fundraising and never stop looking for ways to improve it.

Don't be afraid to admit your mistakes, learn from them, and then try something different.

Get to know your audience and meet them where they are at, not where you want them to be.

 

This is the second in a series of posts, where I reflect on some of the biggest mistakes I've made in fundraising. Hopefully you can learn from some of the errors I've made over the years!


What Copernicus and Car Advertising has to do with Fundraising (and other revelations!)

I recently had the pleasure of reading Beth Breeze’s research paper on 'How Donors choose charities'.

I decided to send Beth some follow up questions on the research and she has kindly agreed to share her answers.

One of the key findings of the research was for charities to clearly demonstrate that they are ‘in need’.

Do you have any thoughts on how charities can better portray this in their communications and messages?

I think I'd rather that charities were more honest about where need does and doesn't exist, and cease trying to inject a sense of urgency and 'neediness' into their appeals when it doesn't exist.

Not only would that be more honest (for example, do we 'need' another new orchestra or would it just be really nice?), but the evidence is that donors are more likely to respond to how a cause 'clicks' with their personal experience.

The example I used in an article I wrote for Third Sector magazine, is to float the idea that heritage charities could say:

'Do you like trooping round stately homes, having a nice cream tea and browsing the gift shop? Then join us!'

rather than

'We urgently need you to save the fabric of the nation'

I think donors know the difference between meeting needs and pursuing their own tastes, and might appreciate a more honestly framed request.

I noticed that there was decidedly more males than females in the survey. Are you worried about any gender biases?

Also, without being sexist, would it be fair to assume that you spoke to the gent (as the CAF account was in their name for gift aid purposes), but their wife also has an impact on the decision making?

The main concern in my sampling was to reach committed, proactive givers, as opposed to those who describe themselves as donors but in reality just reactively chuck the odd coin in a tin.

This is why I approached CAF account holders, but the down side is they tend to be older, male, live in the South etc - though if these are the backbone of charity funders then they are the right people to speak to!

You're quite right that the named account holder may not be the sole decision maker, and often the wife did chip in in the background, which was endearing and funny to listen to "No dear, we gave up the donkeys years ago"!!

Am I being too harsh in the conclusion that the findings from your study shows that comparison sites, like Intelligent Giving, (which I’m a big fan of), will never greatly influence giving?

That is my current conclusion I'm afraid, much as I can see the logic in providing good information to donors, there just doesn't seem to be the appetite to actually read it or act on it. But I'm open to changing my mind if new evidence emerges, e.g. it may be that people making bigger donations are more likely to do the research. Although recent research from Hope Consulting in the U.S.A. finds this isn't the case.

How do you cut through the marketing clutter? How can you use heuristics/binary distinctions/satisficing etc in your own favour? How can fundraisers get a better understanding of them?

Empathising with donors and understanding that the process by which they make decisions is not only (or even largely) about the charity, but about themselves - their own needs, personal experiences, tastes etc. I wrote about this in a think piece for the NCVO Funding Commission, in which I argue:

“By 2020 the relationship between donors and charities needs to be turned on its head so that givers become the centre of the charity universe.

"As Paul Schervish has suggested, the accepted wisdom that charities need donors in order to help them achieve their organisational mission, ought to be replaced by an understanding that donors choose to support charities in order to achieve their personal missions.

"The nature of this transformation has been compared by Canadian philanthropist Charles Bronfman, to Copernicus’ revelation that displaced the earth from the centre of the universe.

"In this analogy, the donor, not the charity, is the sun around which all else must revolve. This donor-centred universe will be a far cry from the current widely-held attitude that the people with the cash are a necessary evil who must be recruited at minimum expense and kept happy with minimum fuss so they are ready for maximum tapping when required.

"Once the charity sector’s version of the Copernican revolution takes place, the implications will affect all aspects of the fundraising profession.”

Does social media offer opportunities to harness supporters networks to raise money?

Yes, and the reason this works is because people are swayed by being asked by people they know, and by seeing how much others give.

The genius of JustGiving-type sites is the sharing of this information, which prompts others to think "If he gave £x, I'd better give at least £y.

Are you worried that what people say and what they do are different things?

Does the fact that people say they don’t like glossy appeals/flashy communications/free gifts etc, but the reason fundraisers use them is because they work and increase response concern you? The largest and most successful fundraising charities generally have the glossiest comms.

You're right, people are deeply inconsistent and contradictory in this regard. I constantly meet people who berate fundraiser's methods and yet respond to them!

I don't know what the answer to this is - do we carry on pissing people off because it works, or do we change tactics and make people feel more fondly of charities but potentially reduce income?

My interim answer is the former - commercial companies don't worry about annoying customers (think of how irritating many of their ad campaigns are), so long as it boosts their bottom line, and I think charities might have to settle for being less loved but better funded.

On page 37 of the research, you talk about some donors preference for small, local charities. How can small charities tap into the apparent bias towards them?

Small charities should shout about the fact they are small, non-bureaucratic, have a personal touch, rely on volunteers, work hard to keep overheads low etc etc - donors who prefer to support the big boys won't want to support the tiddlers no matter what they say, but those who feel their money is better spent by smaller organisations will respond to these kind of messages.

If donors are so entrenched in their giving choices, then how can charities attract new donors?

As people like Adrian Sargeant have long argued, we should be prioritising the retention of existing donors rather than recruiting new ones.

I once read that most advertising by car companies is aimed at reassuring people who have already bought one of their cars, rather than trying to tempt people to switch from Volvos to Fords.

I think the same is true of cigarette advertising.

My hunch is that charities share something with these sectors, a deep-running customer loyalty that means people will stick with their original decision (be it Volvos, Marlboros or the RNLI) until they're given a reason to leave - so focusing on not pissing off donors is a better investment than trying to win new ones.

Thanks for your time Beth and for providing further insight into how donors choose charities.


Proud to be a fundraiser: It's ok to cry sometimes

As well as talking about my biggest mistakes, I also wanted to share some of the stories and experiences that have made me proud to be a fundraiser over the last 10 years. I'd also love to hear your stories of the moments that have brought home how important fundraising is to you...

If you’ve ever been to a hospice then you’ll know that men tend to be few and far between. Blokes under 40 are even rarer and when I started work at St Teresa’s Hospice in Darlington I was the only one!

This meant that I was often called on to help lift and shift equipment. This was everything from delivering donated goods to shops, to helping one of our volunteer drivers deliver equipment to people’s homes.

One of the main services at the hospice was a hospice at home service, where volunteer sitters helped to care for people in the last stages of life, in conjunction with the patient's GP and nursing team.

Often the person needed special beds and mattresses delivering at quite short notice and I occasionally helped Keith, our volunteer driver.

As a fresh-faced 22 year old this experience really taught me a lot about humility, compassion and emotions.

Going into someone’s home when they were only hours/days from death and playing a small part to help them die with dignity, surrounded by their love ones and in as much comfort as possible, was an emotional, but rewarding experience.

The gratitude shown to us by the patient’s families and carers made it all worthwhile and they often couldn’t describe how much it meant to keep their mum/dad etc at home to die.

One visit in particular sticks in my mind.

We went round on the early evening and set up a bed for someone in their front room. Sadly the gent died during the night and we had to go round the next day and collect the bed.

As soon as we walked through the door his daughter broke down in tears saying how much it meant to be able to keep their dad at home until the end.

Now, I’ve always struggled to keep my tears at bay at the best of times and within a couple of minutes I was also crying my eyes out in the this stranger’s front room hugging the daughter and comforting her.

It’s a moment I’ve never forgotten.  It brought home just how big a difference the hospice made in the local community and why we needed to raise more funds. 

Experiences like this make you realise just how important fundraising is and how it can change lives.

Any time I’m having a bad day, I always try and remember moments like this and remember why I’m doing what I am.  If you haven’t been out to visit some of your beneficiaries or talked to some of your front line workers for a while then I’d urge to do so today...


My Biggest Fundraising Mistakes: Not Saying Thank You

This is the first in a series of posts where I reflect on some of the biggest mistakes I've made in my decade of fundraising. Hopefully you can avoid some of the basic errors I've made over the years!

This might seem an obvious one, but it can happen (for a variety of reasons) and can lead to major problems if you don’t make amends. 

One of my responsibilities as Hospice Fundraising Manager in Peterborough was to oversee the running of our coffee shop, which was staffed entirely by volunteers.  

The volunteers were a committed bunch and worked hard to make a success of it.

Anyway, they needed a new dishwasher and we didn’t have the budget, so one of the volunteers very kindly went out and bought one.  Obviously, I needed to send her a thank you letter/phone call to acknowledge her kindness.

However, despite a reminder from the coffee shop manager I completely forgot and a few weeks later I heard through the grapevine that the volunteer was really upset about this and threatening to not come back.

What to do then?

Well, I dropped everything I was doing, bought a bunch of flowers (out my own pocket) and went straight round her house to apologise.

She really appreciated the gesture and I was able to turn round the situation, but if I’d thanked her promptly then the whole situation wouldn’t have arisen and I wouldn’t have had to go grovelling for forgiveness!  

A really simple, but important lesson.

Key Learnings:

Always say thank you promptly and sincerely.

Never miss an opportunity to show your thanks and gratitude to a donor/staff member/volunteer.

If you say you are going to do something, do it.

Don’t put off until tomorrow, something you can do today.

If you do forget to say thank you, apologise, don’t make excuses, and do your best to make amends.