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Why aren't charities making more of social media to generate cash?
Charities should make digital technology integral to fundraising
Charities aren't making the most of social media to generate cash and digital technology should be integral to fundraising, not an extra, delegates at the Institute of Fundraising (IoF) national convention heard on Monday.
The sector was reminded to make sure websites were optimised for mobile use, and to make the most of a wealth of free data that could have an impact on their cause.
Paul Relf, supporter services manager at the Prince's Trust, asked an audience of about 120 people at the technology trends session whether social media was a key part of their fundraising strategy. A handful of people said it was but about half the room said they were using social media for fundraising to some degree.
Relf said: "The challenge is: will you make it an integrated part of your strategy? A YouGov survey in May found that 13% of people bought something after seeing it on social media, up from 6% last year.
"And, 5.5% are now donating through social networks. It might not seem much, but that's the same figure as phone donations. Every time you think about a fundraising initiative, think about how you can utilise digital and social media.
"In many charities, fundraising strategies aren't keeping up with digital trends and there's still a split – digital is seen as happening separately rather than the sector embracing digital across their fundraising campaigns."
He added that social media was often seen as a tool for "awareness raising, not as a way of bringing in funds and donors directly".
Alex Bono, senior digital fundraising executive at Save the Children, asked how many in the audience had websites that were accessible to mobile phone users. No more than a dozen people put their hands up, and even fewer could say for certain that their email marketing was optimised for mobile devices.
She said the charity had realised in summer 2011 that huge numbers of people were coming to the site via mobile and that 17% of those signing up to a direct debit were "fighting through a sign up system which wasn't optimised for mobile, to commit to a direct debit". Bono added that 25% of the charity's audience opened emails on an iPhone specifically.
She said: "We've found out some surprising and valuable information through tracking all this data. People who have an Apple device, on average, give a £6 donation and those on Android give £4."
David Eder, chair of the IoF's technology group, spoke on the subject of "big data", encouraging the sector to make the most of the 37,500 datasets available from the government. He asked charities to share data. More access to data means causes can present a stronger argument around why they should be supported, he said.
Eder added: "Make sure you share the data you have across the organisation too so you can review strategically how you're doing. Lots of departments work in silos and don't share useful information. Pull in call centre data and look at feedback on Twitter for a real idea of what people think of the organisation."
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Charities reap rewards from treating donors like consumers
Fundraisers are finding out that free products, discount vouchers and access to special clubs can enlarge the pool of donors
Charities could take inspiration from businesses by offering a value exchange, or something free, to potential new donors, experts said on Monday.
Offers such as free products, exclusive information, discount vouchers and access to special clubs can enlarge and diversify the pool of donors, speakers added at the Institute of Fundraising's national convention in London.
The convention highlighted charities that were moving in this direction, including Friends of the Earth's seed giveaway to raise awareness of bee protection, a free information guide from Breakthrough Breast Cancer and a guide to attracting and identifying birds, from RSPB.
At a lecture about generating thousands of new donors through digital marketing, around 160 attendees heard how research had shown that email marketing had higher conversion rates than conventional methods, and that people approached by email gave more cash.
Ben Ennis, director of direct marketing agency Media Lab Group, said: "Attrition rates are up and charities are struggling to find new, long-term donors. We need to find ways to evolve approaches to donor recruitment – both the channels used and the messages. We can look at other sectors, such as travel, financial and publishing."
Together with his colleague, Will Davies, the group planning director at Media Lab, Ennis talked about offering donors a "value exchange", in the way that travel companies extend membership to exclusive clubs and discount offers, and publishers give free copies of magazines to potential subscribers.
Katia de Gregorio, former head of donor marketing at Breakthrough Breast Cancer, said: "How do we reach thousands or millions of new people? We need to provide a sense of value. That might be something physical, free information, or something emotional. Keep thinking what's in it for them and make it easy and simple.
"We've seen examples of charities recently trying to find their 'gateway'. For example, the Friends of Earth bee campaign. Their poster tells people that bees are needed to pollinate fruit and veg and to text £3 for bee-friendly flower seeds … A lot of commuters from middle England who responded perhaps would not have seen themselves as Friends of the Earth supporters before, but the ask was made relevant to them," she said.
De Gregorio also highlighted Plan UK's offer for supporters to meet children it was supporting in return for a £1 text donation.
She added: "What would be a genuine value proposition for your charity? What could you provide them with? Could you give them an opportunity to make a stand against something?"
In October, Breakthrough Breast Cancer offered a guide to the five signs of breast cancerto anyone who gave their name and phone number in response to a marketing email.
More than 4,200 people requested the guide, provided their phone numbers and were then phoned to give their address. On the phone, 13% agreed immediately to become a regular donor and a quarter of those said breast cancer had not affected them or a loved one.
The average gift was £83 a year, in comparison with £75 for other types of marketing. Using other methods of marketing, 11% of the 25,300 people signing up for a guide became regular donors.
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How do you balance cause and mechanic in event fundraising?
Movember isn't successful because people support the cause, but because the mechanic appeals to the target audience
Over the past 30 years we have seen the events fundraising sector get increasingly competitive and crowded. Everyone is looking to stand out, and as brands become more engaged with supporters, we see more and more organisations wanting a cause-related event.
What is more important in developing a successful event, cause or event mechanic?
If we look at the big events the sector aspires to – Macmillan's World's Biggest Coffee Morning; Cancer Research UK's Race for Life and Dryathlon; and Movember, which in the UK supports Prostate Cancer UK and the Institute of Cancer Research – they were born and grew from the mechanic.
Movember isn't successful because people support the cause (although they may); it's successful because the mechanic appeals to the male audience. It gives men something to bond over. Race for Life gives women a non-judgemental space to get active and bond. Offering the women signs to wear on their backs allowed them to express their connection with the cause, but the physical activity of walking, jogging or running around the park is not related to cancer. It's only over the past two to three years that Cancer Research UK has really made an effort to dial up the cause within the Race for Life marketing.
Commercial brands are always searching for the emotional value exchange for their product. For them the emotional value is always driven by self-interest – what's in it for me? For us, our focus is on emotional value exchanges without the tangible benefits – instead we sell an immediate good feeling. In most of our fundraising campaigns we lead much more on altruistic emotions.
However, with event fundraising we have the opportunity to create an experience where our audiences can satisfy both self-interest and altruistic motivations. They can get fit, challenge themselves or simply do something fun with their friends – as well as raise money to help the cause.
Analysis often shows that those who raise the most money tend to be those with the closest link to the cause. So of course, cause messaging is vital to making the event achieve significant income. Without it there is no reason to fundraise.
Cause-driven events are more likely to appeal to niche audiences, because unless you are a major health-related charity, where large numbers of people are affected by your cause, such as cancer, your cause won't have such mass appeal. The mechanism becomes much more important when there isn't a direct link or a close persona proximity to the cause.
So, what makes a successful event mechanic?
Successful mass events build on what people are already doing or what people have always wanted to do. Movember gave men a legitimate reason to do something they had always longed to do – an opportunity to explore whether they can grow facial hair, and whether it suits them, in a socially acceptable way.
Therefore mechanics should be informed by mass audience insight (what they want to do or what they are already doing), it should be scalable (you can't expect a Movember overnight – these things have a product lifecycle), it should be ownable by the audience as well as the brand (they need to feel like this is their event and they can participate how they wish) and it should be sharable (essential on tight budgets to get organisers/participants to spread the word). We also work to three simple rules when developing events – they must be simple, easy and fun.
You can't change your cause to make it appeal to more people, but you can control how people engage with it. So I believe that in developing a fundraising event, the place to start is with audience insight, and make sure the event can stand up on its own, then work in the cause and brand messaging. Bring it to life in inspiring communications, then let your audience take it on and give a life of its own.
Debbie West is a senior planner at The Good Agency who specialises in fundraising.
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How do you balance cause and mechanic in event fundraising?
Movember is successful because the mechanic appeals to the target audience
Over the past 30 years we have seen the events fundraising sector get increasingly competitive and crowded. Everyone is looking to stand out, and as brands become more engaged with supporters, we see more and more organisations wanting a cause-related event.
What is more important in developing a successful event, cause or event mechanic?
If we look at the big events the sector aspires to – Macmillan's World's Biggest Coffee Morning; Cancer Research UK's Race for Life and Dryathlon; and Movember, which in the UK supports Prostate Cancer UK and the Institute of Cancer Research – they were born and grew from the mechanic.
Movember isn't successful because people support the cause (although they may); it's successful because the mechanic appeals to the male audience. It gives men something to bond over. Race for Life gives women a non-judgemental space to get active and bond. Offering the women signs to wear on their backs allowed them to express their connection with the cause, but the physical activity of walking, jogging or running around the park is not related to cancer. It's only over the past two to three years that Cancer Research UK has really made an effort to dial up the cause within the Race for Life marketing.
Commercial brands are always searching for the emotional value exchange for their product. For them the emotional value is always driven by self-interest – what's in it for me? For us, our focus is on emotional value exchanges without the tangible benefits – instead we sell an immediate good feeling. In most of our fundraising campaigns we lead much more on altruistic emotions.
However, with event fundraising we have the opportunity to create an experience where our audiences can satisfy both self-interest and altruistic motivations. They can get fit, challenge themselves or simply do something fun with their friends – as well as raise money to help the cause.
Analysis often shows that those who raise the most money tend to be those with the closest link to the cause. So of course, cause messaging is vital to making the event achieve significant income. Without it there is no reason to fundraise.
Cause-driven events are more likely to appeal to niche audiences, because unless you are a major health-related charity, where large numbers of people are affected by your cause, such as cancer, your cause won't have such mass appeal. The mechanism becomes much more important when there isn't a direct link or a close persona proximity to the cause.
So, what makes a successful event mechanic?
Successful mass events build on what people are already doing or what people have always wanted to do. Movember gave men a legitimate reason to do something they had always longed to do – an opportunity to explore whether they can grow facial hair, and whether it suits them, in a socially acceptable way.
Therefore mechanics should be informed by mass audience insight (what they want to do or what they are already doing), it should be scalable (you can't expect a Movember overnight – these things have a product lifecycle), it should be ownable by the audience as well as the brand (they need to feel like this is their event and they can participate how they wish) and it should be sharable (essential on tight budgets to get organisers/participants to spread the word). We also work to three simple rules when developing events – they must be simple, easy and fun.
You can't change your cause to make it appeal to more people, but you can control how people engage with it. So I believe that in developing a fundraising event, the place to start is with audience insight, and make sure the event can stand up on its own, then work in the cause and brand messaging. Bring it to life in inspiring communications, then let your audience take it on and give a life of its own.
Debbie West is a senior planner at The Good Agency who specialises in fundraising.
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'Big society' network given extra £1m grant despite years of failure
Inquiry urged into lottery handout to David Cameron's project after catalogue of errors is revealed
An organisation tasked by David Cameron with bringing to life his "big society" vision has recently been given an extra £1m of public money, despite a catalogue of failures revealed in documents shown to the Observer.
The Big Society Network (BSN), which was launched by the prime minister in 2010, failed so badly to deliver one project that the Cabinet Office refused to pay a final cash instalment. The documents also reveal that even a first meeting of the BSN's advisory board on a project to encourage healthier lifestyles among children was delayed by two months due to "unforeseen circumstances" and holidays.
The Cabinet Office subsequently refused to hand over the final £100,000 of a £300,000 grant and decided to "end support" due to the slow progress in even setting up a website for the project.
Despite this, the BSN's charitable arm, the Society Network Foundation (SNF), subsequently received £1m from the Big Lottery Fund, which distributes lottery money to community projects, and £150,000 from the Cabinet Office, bringing its total public funding to nearly £3m. The Big Lottery Fund did not offer other organisations the opportunity to bid for the cash.
Gareth Thomas, the shadow minister for charities, said he was writing to the National Audit Office to demand an investigation into the BSN's lack of activity. A number of trustees and staff at the BSN have close links to the Conservative party, including Giles Gibbons, a former business partner of the prime minister's former strategist Steve Hilton.
Thomas said: "When the Big Society Network was launched by David Cameron they claimed they didn't want to receive any public money. Yet in just three years they have received a level of public funding most charities can only dream of.
"The Big Lottery Fund in particular needs to explain how it granted so much money so quickly and with so little competition or evaluation. Reform of the Big Lottery Fund to make it transparent, more open and more accountable is now urgent."
Richard Caulfield, chief executive of Voluntary Sector North West, said: "Someone somewhere is clearly favouring the BSN. Never have so many charitable groups needed the money, yet an organisation with such a chequered past receives such large funds. It is really difficult to see what they have done with the money."
The BSN, which filed its company accounts so late this year that it was almost struck out, was launched in 2010 at a reception in 10 Downing Street where Cameron said it would be "an organisation that brings all the elements of the 'big society' together".
The BSN has repeatedly ignored questions posed by the Observer over its activities and those of its charitable arm. However, last week it provided a statement to the Civil Society online magazine in response to critical blogs on the site. The BSN denied that it was a political organisation and said it had competed honestly and fairly to secure funding. Its chairman, Martyn Rose, said the BSN had "developed and continued to deliver a number of initiatives". He added: "All the public funding we received has been conditional upon delivering very specific targeted outcomes and we have met those requirements. We have received no communication from any funding body to suggest otherwise."
Regarding Get In, the project whose funding was terminated by the Cabinet Office last December, Rose said the SNF still believed in the project and would seek alternative funding.
A Big Lottery Fund spokesman said: "The fund carries out stringent checks on the financial fitness of all organisations it funds.
"During the assessment of their applications, both BSN and the Society Network Foundation were considered in terms of their ability to deliver the relevant project outcomes, and within these assessments there was consideration of the organisations' general financial situation. Both the BSN and the Society Network Foundation fully complied with the fund's assessment procedures, which included providing supporting financial information in full."
Rose said: " Since the award was made we have agreed a 100-day plan with the Big Lottery fund which we keep under constant review."
A Cabinet Office spokesman said: "We are rigorous in selecting the partners that will help us build a stronger economy and fairer society through their work in communities. On an ongoing basis, we review and assess all our partners to ensure funds are having the greatest possible impact."
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What's the point of social media?
Instead of obsessing about platforms charities need to focus on reaching donors at moments that most influence their decisions
Another year, another conference, another wave of conversations about how Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn could be the magic key to reach new audiences and unlock huge amounts of untapped funds. Surprisingly, digital (and therefore social media) is still the poor relative when it comes to contributions to income, even while eCommerce is putting the high street out of business. People spend money online, but why aren't they doing it with us? Because we are obsessing with platforms and not thinking about consumer behaviour.
Our decision-making journey is not linear: we form our impressions of brands from advertising, news reports, conversations and our own experiences. Unless we're actively looking to donate (or indeed make any sort of purchase) much of that can appear wasted. But what happens when something triggers the impulse to buy? Those accumulated impressions then become crucial.
Research shows we really listen to our social networks – those we like and admire as well as our friends and family. (According to Nielsen, 90% of us trust recommendations from those known to us and 70% trust recommendations from strangers. Only 14% of us trust advertising.)
Many of those conversations will happen offline – as they've always done – and many will be in social media – where they can be hugely amplified. Social media is where we should be entertaining, inspiring and informing, with a view to convincing people to donate.
If we have one goal, it should be to reach people at moments that most influence their decisions. How are we telling our stories? How are we engaging our (potential) supporters? Why would they share our conversations? How are we sharing theirs? And, crucially, how are we measuring that? We need to look beyond "last click" (or its offline equivalent). Where the final transaction took place is just a part of our evaluation. How did all our channels – including social media – influence that transaction?
When we stop thinking about social media, and start thinking about how we're going to engage empowered consumers across multiple channels, is when social media has a point.
Charlotte Beckett is head of digital at the Good Agency and responsible for putting together digital, social and mobile strategies for fundraising, campaigning and communications
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How Gift Aid can give a helping hand to charity shops
Charity shops can take advantage of new guidance issued by HMRC which has simplified Gift Aid
There are nearly 10,000 charity shops in the UK. Between them they raise some £220m. Gift Aid would increase that amount significantly, but it has long been a problem for charity shops. Why? – because it can only be claimed on gifts of money and not on donations of goods.
Since 2006, some charities have sold donated goods as agent of the donor and then written to the donor, asking if they wish to give the proceeds of sale to the charity. If the donor agrees or does not reply within 21 days, Gift Aid can be claimed.
The charity must obtain a completed gift aid declaration. The scheme still works but it involves a lot of paperwork – a letter must be written after each sale. If charities use it, I would warn them to be aware that HMRC has changed the template letter – make sure your front line colleagues are up-to-date with HMRC's website. The italic wording in the letters is compulsory, but you may add or remove other wording.
A simpler system is now available where it can only be sent to donors once a year and then only if the donor requests a letter or if the proceeds of sale exceed a certain amount. There are two new methods to deal with Gift Aid claims, imaginatively called Method A and Method B. If the shop is run through a trading subsidiary, either method can be used but if your charity runs the ship itself, it must use Method A.
Both methods still involve selling goods as agent of the donor. A Gift Aid declaration must always be completed by the donor and your staff must explain the scheme to the donor, gaining their written agreement. You might decide for instance to print a leaflet or information sheet for donors with the agency agreement contained in it and a space for them to sign. A copy of it should be kept with the Gift Aid declaration. The donor must also be asked if they want a summary of the sale proceeds at the end of the tax year.
Importantly, you must be able to link goods to their donor. Some charities have brought in barcoding to help with this, others use colour coded and numbered labelling but whatever you decide to do, you must ensure that you can show the tax man who gave what and how much it was sold for.
If the charity runs the shop directly, and net proceeds of sale of the donated goods are less than £100 in any tax year, the proceeds of sale are automatically donated to the charity. However, if the net proceeds of sale exceed £100, the charity must write to the donor to ask if he or she wishes to donate the excess. Anecdotal evidence suggests that a minimal number of donors ever ask to keep the proceeds of sale.
If the shop is run through a subsidiary and the net proceeds of sale in any tax year are £1,000 or less, the whole of the proceeds may be regarded as donated to the charity without the need for further letters. The donor can stipulate a lower amount. If the net proceeds of sale exceed £1,000 (or any agreed lesser figure), the charity must write to the donor to ask if they wish to donate the excess. My key advice is:
1. Ensure you use HMRC's template letters in the form they have specified – check HMRC's website for details.
2. Record keeping is an essential element in ensuring that a Gift Aid claim is allowed – donors must be linked to their goods and the sale proceeds.
3. Shop staff must be trained in the procedure and a record kept of the training.
More advice for individuals can also be found on the HMRC website.
The form that must be given to donors and the letters at the end of the year may seem like a chore but why not take the opportunity to tell your donors about the work of your charity and to keep in touch with them. Surveys show that the best prompt to a donor to make a further donation is personal contact from the charity.
Geoff Trobridge is a partner at Lester Aldridge LLP.
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How to clear up your digital debris
Charities get lots of advice on getting started with technology, but they also need help to maintain an online presence
Charities are increasingly urged to become digital savvy and embrace social media, and it's great to see organisations doing this. However, voluntary sector organisations should also be urged to take a holistic approach to digital throughout their organisations that includes not social media, but a thorough tidy up of their digital infrastructure, websites and accounts.
With regular turnover of staff and volunteers and limited funding lifespans for digital projects, passwords and set-up knowledge are easily lost. While voluntary sector organisations are busy building their online social media networks, their digital legacy is often ignored, leaving many potentially vulnerable.
One of my first tasks with any charity is to undertake investigative digital detective work. It's not unusual to find website domains registered by someone who left the charity years ago, taking with them all knowledge of accounts, access passwords and details of expiry dates.
This is true of social media profiles where you discover that the administrator for a previously unknown Facebook or Linkedin group set up seven years ago, has long moved on with no one in control of the discussions taking place.
I recommend knowing the following when trying to take control of your digital debris:
• What domains do you own, who is the registrant, who is the registrar and when do the domains expire? Nominet and Betterwhois will give you this information. Then track down access to the registrar accounts and update your details.
• Which websites and web pages is your charity still responsible for? Who were the web developers, have you got the original contracts, is the hosting still held with them – if not, who is your hosting with? Are they CMS systems and do you have the login details? Are there still contractual agreements with funders/web companies?
• Who are your account managers and helpdesk contacts for your CMS and CRM systems? These details often leave along with the staff that implemented them. Rebuild your relationship with your website and database system providers and ensure your organisation is getting the full support and training that comes with them.
• What social media accounts already exist and who are the administrators? Make sure you have admin access to them all and delete those with admin rights who are no longer part of your organisation. Delete all social media accounts that are not being used, monitored or managed.
• Are there broken or incorrect hyperlinks from external sites to yours? As websites are updated or closed, many forget to notify external sites that have links to your content about these changes. I use Open Site Explorer by SEOMoz to check active links and contact website owners directly with the new correct details.
• Collaborate with your finance team in your investigative work. Ask them to provide details of digital spending for the last 3-5 years and help you track down where money is going and therefore the associated accounts/contracts you need to get control of.
• Does your charity have any digital assets such as photos and videos and where are they stored? Who has copyright and do you have the associated release forms from those appearing within them? My experience of small to medium charities is that they often lack a centralised "library" with content that can be used for digital communications stored along with the paperwork. Work with colleagues to retrieve, centrally store, check permissions and give new life to these assets.
• Make sure you have an up to date social media policy that includes escalation processes and HR issues that may arise. It is important that everyone in your organisation is clear about the sequence of actions that will take place and the people involved should there be a need.
It's a long list but an essential one. Clearing up your digital debris is a must for any organisation, to ensure that, as they embrace and grow their digital communications, they are fully in control and have not left themselves vulnerable.
Susan Luxford is Digital Communications Manager at the Institute of Fundraising (IoF).
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Kids Run Free: a brilliant way to get children running for fun
Previously, Jack Houghton pondered whether his three-year-old son was too young to go running. Now, read about a charity which organises enjoyable, social events that gently encourage kids who want to to take up the baton
It's 9.50 on a Saturday morning, and a steady stream of runners head towards the local common. You'd assume they were Park Runners – until you notice the unusually high number of young children – and even toddlers – weaving their way through the Nikes and lycra. But these small people are runners too – it's the first Saturday of the month, and that means Kids Run Free.
Kids Run Free is, in my opinion, a brilliant way to get children running for fun from an early age. It is a charity set up in 2010 by Martine Verweij and Catherine O'Carroll, who, as part of their work in sports event management, noticed lots of children hanging around on the sidelines. They tried to incorporate children's races alongside the adults', but it didn't take off. "Parents always found an excuse why their kids couldn't do the races, and we realised, we're missing something here," says Martine. "If children aren't allowed to do things they will stop wanting to." So they devised a way of letting kids run on their own terms.
Like all genius ideas, the premise is simple: children run in their age group across distances ranging from 50-100m for the toddlers, to 500m for the nine-10 year-olds. Over-sevens can also join the kilometre club run. There's a waiting area full of juggling sticks, spinning plates and skipping ropes, and before each group runs, enthusiastic volunteers take them through a thorough warm-up that generally dissolves into hilarity at the "kick your bottom" instruction.
Volunteers also lead the runners around their route and marshalls encourage them onwards if they flag in the final few metres (or, as often happens with the smaller ones, run in the wong direction). There are stopwatches so parents can time their child, and all participants have a card on which to mark their time – invaluable for levelling the playing field (each group spans a year in age) and teaching the concept of improvement and aiming for a PB, rather than winning outright.
Each time you run, you earn a sticker, and eight stickers earns a rather lovely Kids Run Free sweatshirt. Occasional novelties and surprises add to the fun and maintain anticipation – at Easter everyone was encouraged to bring an egg and spoon; in May every runner received a Kids Run Free sports bag, and in July the charity will host its annual summer event.
Using the (admittedly unscientific) measure of my own kids, it's a huge success. My daughter's first run was on an icy January morning of driving rain and frozen mud. She ran 300m in 1m32s and couldn't wait to do it again. Over the last four months she has taken a full 16 seconds off her time and, to her absolute surprise and delight, came first in her group last month. She has marked all first Saturdays on the calendar, and – most significantly – doesn't bat an eye at foregoing her weekend hour of CBeebies to take part. As she has just turned seven, she moves up a group, and can't wait to run with "the big ones".
My son (a more fair-weather runner), was deeply unimpressed by the rain, but has recently started coming with us again and is looking forward to his next sticker. They meet school friends there, and have started to greet other regulars as their "running mates". The last meeting had 70 children taking part, and parents of the littlest children are often persuaded into running too, to hand-hold and steer.
In March 2013, a Department of Health policy paper revealed the astounding statistic that 30% of children aged 2-15 in England are overweight. Ofsted's latest report on PE in schools states that children are not getting enough sustained physical activity in their sports lessons. Getting children running is surely an ideal way to start to address a potential health crisis: as any parent of toddlers will know, young children have a tendency to move at speeds which often cause amazement, if not alarm. A set-up such as that of Kids Run Free associates running with fun and it has the added bonus of costing not a penny – a significant incentive, given that children's classes for many other things can seriously dent the household income.
Martine's aim is to roll out Kids Run Free across the country – there are now seven events in the west Midlands and they're ready to launch in one area of London, but need funding. The outlay isn't much – to run an event costs just £1000 a year, which in my town will be provided by the local Round Table until 2016. Martine also puts all profits from her own company – Raceways – into Kids Run Free. "We are desperately looking for a sponsor," she says: "But we haven't yet pushed the magic button." Talk of the Olympic legacy seems to have faded to a whisper recently, but what better legacy could there be than for children who watched Jessica Ennis and Mo Farah run to victory, to discover the pleasure of running themselves, with their peers?
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Are charities investing enough in technology?
Lack of understanding and fear of failure stops many from using IT opportunities to improve services and increase reach
The National Computing Centre survey of IT investment found that charities invested the least per head in technology of any sector they looked at. So why don't more charities invest in technology? I hear many excuses but the most prevalent one is not having the money, or variations, such as funders won't fund technology, or people want their money spent on the beneficiaries, not internal costs.
Yet, at Charity Technology Trust (CTT) we see literally hundreds of examples each year of how technology has significantly improved the effectiveness of charities. Indeed, when we surveyed those organisations that had taken advantage of our technology donation programme, CTXchange, 80% said they had seen a positive impact on their ability to deliver services to their beneficiaries.
For example, Orchestras Live, which seeks to bring orchestral music to under-served communities and to inspire young people, invested in a system to bring all its processes together in one place. This included recordings, videos and press reviews of events as well as demographics on the people it serves and who participate in its programmes. Their processes have been revolutionised and they are now able to focus on the outcomes of what they do rather than simply measuring outputs – something all funders want to see. In short, they have become far more effective at what they do.
So with success stories like these, what is holding charities back? One of the reasons is that many senior managers and trustees don't believe that they understand technology well enough to make good investment decisions. They are concerned that they don't know how to run technology projects that will deliver the benefits. This is not an issue restricted to charities: businesses and government departments, large and small, suffer from the same problem. Combined with the screaming headlines of billion-pound technology disasters that the media love so much, many boards simply duck the issue by citing lack of evidence of real return and lack of funds.
One answer to the conundrum about what impact technology investment will really have often lies in piloting. Large organisations have been doing this for years, rapidly building a proof of concept, trying it, then expanding if it works. Marketeers do it all the time with campaigns. Ironically, charities are possibly the sector with the best opportunity to pilot technology ideas. Many technology companies now donate their technology to charities; for example, Microsoft has given away more than £80m of technology to UK charities in the past six years.
In addition, technology volunteering programmes such as IT4Communities can provide access to all sorts of skilled people to build a test solution. Most cloud solutions come with a 30-day free trial period which again allows a charity to really understand the technology before they invest (most offer charity discounts as well).
If this all still seems a little too daunting, bringing in a volunteer chief information officer (CIO) could be a good option. Many charities have a volunteer or part-time finance director, often among their trustees, who provides support in financial direction (rather than day-to-day accounting).
Having someone with senior management experience in IT to help provide direction and shape projects for a few hours a month can be invaluable. What these strategies can provide is an evidence base of the impact a particular technology can have on a charity. This means that a charity can develop a real case for proper investment in technology and look for the funds to implement it.
Backers will fund investments that demonstrate they can enable a charity to improve delivery and increase reach – in our survey, a third of survey respondents reported being able to deliver to more beneficiaries and to beneficiaries they were previously unable to reach. And I would wager that if you told the proverbial person in the street that you were going to spend the money reaching more people and deliver better, more effective services – ie spend their money more effectively – they would be all for it.
So what's holding your charity back?
Richard Cooper is director of programmes at Charity Technology Trust (CTT)
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Putting the 'fun' back into fundraising
Chugging – street fundraising – turns members of the public into prey, releasing adrenalin that triggers fight or flight instincts. It'll take a little more imagination to create behaviour change
It's a beautiful day and as I walk down a busy street, I'm feeling good. I'm in control. But then I get the feeling that I'm being watched, that I've been caught in a predator's gaze. Looking around, I see her – a chugger. I begin to weigh up my options (walk faster; pretend to be on the phone; find another way across) when the worst thing possible happens. We make eye contact. Now confrontation is inevitable, as are the lies I must invariably tell to get out of this situation:
"Sorry, do you have two minutes?"
"No", I answer.
Her senses are sharp and she can tell I am uncertain, so presses on: "Have you heard of Unicef?," she asks.
"Yes".
She flips open her folder and an African child's eyes stare up at me: "Have you considered supporting us?"
"Ehh, yes, I'm a member," I say without thinking.
"We don't have members," she shoots back.
Defeated, I mutter: "Ahh. Ok ... I gave some money once …"
I'm sinking now, my internal peace eroding as I begin to feel morally inferior. The chugger represents the good in the world, and has a UN logo to prove it. I represent the moral decline of my society. We have become such selfish bastards that we don't even want to stop and listen, let alone care about anyone else's troubles.
City dwellers across the global north can identify with that experience. Our days are littered with these interactions in which we have just three options: the first, say you support other NGOs and feel bad it's a weak lie. Second, show interest in the subject matter but not in giving funds, and hope the chugger loses interest. Or third, surrender your bank details. You'll feel good about none of the above because you've simply done what was expected of you. However you slice it, you lose.
So what can we learn from this? For me chugging – or street fundraising – represents three things that are wrong with much of development communications. 1. It presents a negative and pessimistic world view, and mostly uses negative and stereotypical imagery. 2. It triggers action out of guilt, and does not motivate or educate. 3. It lacks creativity.
Indeed, a lot of development communications is about pursuing target audiences with negative pictures, and with messages that tell people what to do or think. An exaggerated version of many fundraising messages says: "The world is falling apart, you should care, we (with the help of some celebrities) are on the case, but we need your money."
Of course fundraising is necessary, but there is a flipside to this type of messaging: the repeated negative portrayal of communities does not make us care more, but less. It makes us feel bad and we stick our heads in the sand. The reason? Being confronted by a chugger releases adrenaline, and adrenaline is not what you want to stimulate if you want to motivate people to give, think or change behaviour.
What is needed instead is the release of endorphins. When we laugh and when our curiosity is sparked, endorphins makes us relax, and help lower our personal defences. Humour and creative curiosity also invites people to think for themselves. I don't like it when people tell me what to think, so why should I ask others to?
Last year my organisation, SAIH, made a music video 'Africa for Norway', a spoof that questioned development messaging. The success of that video helped me realise that although an issue is really important, it doesn't have to be wrapped up in a serious way to make its point. Breaking free from conventional communication techniques isn't always easy but the benefits can be great.
Development communicators can learn a thing or two from the fun theory, an initiative started by Volkswagen and based on the idea that making something fun is the easiest way to change people's behaviour for the better. For example, instead of saying: "Work out more," a 'piano staircase' was installed at a metro station in Sweden. Doing so increased the use of the stairs by 66% .
There is reason to be optimistic that NGOs are starting to get and use this approach. In Spain a concept called 'Bet for food', developed to support the growing use of food banks in Catalonia, capitalised on the competitive passion of football fans and led to 210,000 kilos of food collected in just one month.
US NGO, Mama Hope, has also developed 'Stop the Pity' campaign, a fundraising strategy based on dignity and fun. They have had massive outreach while turning negative stereotypes of Africans on their head. New and different approaches create curiosity, which is important in order to entice people to learn more about the issues.
And the 'fun theory' concept can be extending from fundraising to campaigning. It's a simple logic: if we're smart, there will be no need to hunt people down in the streets. They will come to us.
Sindre Edland-Gryt is communication advisor at, Norwegian Students' and Academics' International Assistance Fund (SAIH). He tweets as @sindreolav
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How to get ahead in ... leadership development in the fundraising sector
The Institute of Fundraising is designing a programme to help the profession build a leadership 'pipeline'
The fundraising sector is investing in leadership development to create a talent pool of people with the right skills and attitudes to boost charitable income. The Institute of Fundraising (IoF) is in the middle of designing a programme to help the profession build a leadership "pipeline", which it plans to launch later this year.
The IoF's director of professional development and membership Paul Marvell says: "There is a talent gap in fundraising at leadership level – time and time again when organisations want to recruit to director posts there is a limited pool of people with the necessary behaviours and competencies."
The IoF has developed a competencies framework that indentifies the necessary leadership skills to be a successful fundraising director – they include being able to lead by example, to motivate and influence and think strategically as well as having excellent communication skills. Being able to build and sustain relationships is also key, according to Marvell.
The IoF's skills assessment is shared by the Environmental Investigation Agency which is in the process of recruiting a head of fundraising. The campaigning charity, devoted to bringing about change to protect the natural world from "environmental crime and abuse", identifies excellent communication and negotiating skills as crucial personal specifications for the job.
Its current head of fundraising Janet Fereday agrees: "You have to be able to communicate successfully inside the organisation as well as outside. In a small organisation it's quite critical; you have to make sure that you get the message across in the right way particularly in a campaigning organisation. It's always an issue about getting the information you want because people are pushed for time."
Being a good negotiator is crucial, especially when trustees need to be persuaded that fundraising does not bring instant results. She says: "That requires negotiating skill. You have to be confident but also be able to play the game – political negotiation goes on in every organisation."
Financial acumen is also necessary for a head of fundraising, according to Fereday: "I have learned those on the job, I haven't had any specific training but I do have a natural aptitude for figures, which has been helpful. It would be quite hard to do this job if you don't have a head for figures."
The IoF plans to use its competences framework to develop an online assessment tool which fundraisers will be able to use to rate themselves against the skills they need to be good leaders. A leadership development programme – expected to include a mix of mentoring and active learning sets – will be created to help address skills gaps identified by the skills assessment.
Marvell says: "Over the next year we want to develop a situation where the institute is able to develop a talent pool of people operating at leadership level so that when the next big job comes up there is a whole group of people that can apply."
Details of the IoF scheme comes as the Resource Alliance – the international charity devoted to supporting voluntary organisations to be financially sustainable – has just recruited 25 senior and middle management fundraisers to its 18-month Future Leaders Programme, which gets off the ground this month. The scheme offers the potential leaders 360-degree feedback, a one-week residential course about the key skills for leadership, and mentoring and professional support to complete a personal action plan for leadership.
Programme director, psychologist and executive coach Professor Geraldine Kilbride – who is also a business psychologist at the London Business School – says the voluntary sector is a decade behind the private sector in its thinking about leadership. She says: "I think the third sector does lag behind the private sector, even though I get a lot of criticism for saying that. The reason for that I think though is a positive – the third sector understands the 'why' of what it's doing and it understands the mission and the purpose – it has the passion but it needs tweaking in terms of its leadership skills."
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What can charities learn from the National Citizens Service?
We look at the impact of the programme on participants and the local communities in which they volunteer
At a community centre hub in Didcot, the acronym NCS is graffitied on the outside basketball court. Every Monday, Max Harwood, 17, sees the artwork on his way to volunteer for the carers session at the hub.
"We renovated the court and put the graffiti on last summer as part of our National Citizens Service (NCS)," says the teenager. Before his NCS team of nine got involved with the programme, the court was covered in dirt and weeds and was a "negative place", he recalls.
However, as part of the scheme, which saw 26,000 teenagers aged 16 and 17 go through its doors last year, the court was given a new lease of life. The disused land behind it was turned into a community garden. "The hub is stereotypically a place for people on low income, youth offenders and young carers and they are all benefitting from what we did," says Harwood.
The teenager has learned new skills in gardening and painting and decorating and still meets up with his group. "We've talked about running another social action project this summer," he explains. When the government set up NCS it 2011, it envisioned a type of 'non-military national service' for all 16 and 17-year-olds. Harwood agrees that everyone should do it.
However, he says some people that he knows are put off by the £50 fee, though bursaries are available. The programme has had its critics, being seen as the coalition's attempt to cultivate a "big society" mentality among young people, when more than 50% of teenagers volunteer at some point anyway, according to the National Youth Agency (statistics from 2011).
But, Sam Lindsay, 17, who took part last year and will be an ambassador for the scheme this year, says that NCS brings opportunities to young people very directly and simply.
"This year, a lot more people know the NCS name, compared to when I did it last year. I'm quite active in getting involved with things, but I don't see or hear about many opportunities like this. You'd have to be very proactive in your searching, whereas it's easy to get involved in NCS," says Lindsay.
Like fellow NCS participants, he did four weeks on the programme, two of which were residential, including a range of outdoor pursuits. This was followed by 30 hours on a social action project – creating a stop-motion animation to raise awareness of cyber bullying.
"A lot of the time people don't want anything to do with young people. But this means we give them a positive stereotype instead," says Lindsay.
In the pilot year, the government put £14m into the scheme for 8,500 young people to take part. The Commons Education Select Committee questioned its value for money.
Last year, Jason Stacey, head of strategy at YMCA, asked whether it was fair and sensible that youth services provided all year around are cut, while the government promotes a scheme that is available for only a portion of the year. But the scheme has now spun out of government, and as it fills the final places on its summer intake, NCSimb (independent management body) is looking to bring in corporate sponsors, says the chair, Stephen Greene.
The American, who is co-founder and chief executive of RockCorps, took on the role in November 2012. "Part of NCSimb's remit is to seek funding sponsors," he says. When asked about the nature of the sponsors, he says the body will seek companies with good ethics and values.
Those we interviewed from the voluntary sector, who partner on the scheme, had much respect for it. There are 125, predominantly voluntary sector groups, who are generally contracted on a year-by-year basis. Gavin Evans, who was taken on at Essex Boys and Girls Club to manage the contract with NCS, says: "We've been running it since NCS started and all the young people have had a great time. We had 30 people in our spring intake and some are going to volunteer on the summer programme (there are also shorter programmes in spring and autumn).
"They've brightened up our local area and raised money for charities. It's helping them transition into adulthood. We have gifted and talented young people and those who might be classed as disengaged, mixing together," he adds.
The Education Business Partnership (EBP), described as a not-for-profit company, worked with more than 600 young people through NCS last year. "We found them very creative, good on their own initiative, forthcoming and flexible," says Vicky Clarke, young people's officer at EBP.
She adds: "My advice to other organisations, from working with young people on this is that you need to give them ownership. They need to shape their experience and see the difference it's going to make. They need to see results at the end and get recognition, if you want them to get involved in other community projects."
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Row over sacking of Foundling Museum trustees
Attorney general's office writes to children's charity expressing concern over its treatment of museum
One of Britain's most popular small museums is at the centre of a row involving leading figures in the arts world, a children's charity and the attorney general after six of the museum's trustees were sacked.
Trustees including the Turner prizewinner Jeremy Deller have been pushed out of the Foundling Museum in a manner that Deller described as "feeling like a hostile takeover of a well run organisation".
The museum cares for an exquisite collection of masterpieces by figures such as Gainsborough and Hogarth. It also shows work by living artists such as Grayson Perry, Paula Rego and Yinka Shonibare alongside the £20m collection.
The sackings were instituted by the children's charity Coram, whose chief executive is Carol Homden, a former director of public affairs at the British Museum. Coram's board-level interventions were made possible because it is the sole member of the museum, akin to sole shareholder.
In 2001 a settlement brokered with the attorney general was made such that over 25 years the independent Foundling would gradually purchase Coram's collection .
In 2012, lawfully but without the knowledge of the Foundling's board or the attorney general, Coram changed the museum's articles and memoranda, allowing it to sack Foundling trustees. It has also consolidated the Foundling's accounts into its own.
Coram said in a statement: "The Foundling Museum is today one of several linked charities in the Coram group and it is vital that the boards function in a manner of mutual support to achieve the greatest possible benefit for children as well as the wider public.
"Some former trustees of the Foundling Museum felt things should be done differently and their opinions were, in view of the advice to the Coram board, considered incompatible."
The director of the Tate, Sir Nicholas Serota, called the sackings "incomprehensible". He said: "I am extremely worried for the future of the museum. It has flourished and been extremely well led by its trustees and director."
The Foundling had been made independent, Serota said, after "it became in the 1990s clear that the Coram was not constituted in a way that allowed them to run a museum collection".
The office of Dominic Grieve, the attorney general, has written to Coram stating that he is concerned that its "treatment of the museum … does not appear to fit with the spirit and intent of the arrangements put before the attorney general [in 2001]".
A Coram spokeswoman said: "There is no change in the governing structure or agreements and the organisations seek to collaborate on projects and activities wherever appropriate … Both organisations look forward to continuing their linked purposes."
The sackings were made by written notice on 23 May. The notice came from the Coram board via the chair of the Foundling, Bill Gore, who was appointed by the Coram board after his predecessor, Andrew Fane, was summarily sacked along with another trustee in a previous boardroom coup on 29 October.
The Labour MP Frank Dobson, a former governor of Coram who helped set up the Foundling in 2001 as an independent charity to safeguard Coram's collection of artworks, said the sackings were "a smack in the chops for the people who have been doing a good job running the museum".
Since the Foundling has purchased a £4m Hogarth masterpiece among other works from Coram, there are concerns that by retaking control of the museum Coram could end up in effective owning, in the words of one sacked trustee, "both the penny and the bun".
The status of the Hogarth painting, The March of the Guards to Finchley, is particularly unclear as it was bought with £3.9m donated by the Heritage Lottery Fund on the assumption that it would be owned by the Foundling.
The museum was also loaned £3m by the National Heritage Memorial Fund to cover running costs following the 2001 settlement, as a basis for it raising funds eventually to buy the entire collection.
The lottery fund said it could not speculate on "issues arising from projects funded". A spokeswoman said: "We are in the process of finding out more about the changes that are taking place at the Foundling Museum."
Stephen Deuchar, chief executive of the Art Fund, a charity that donated £100,000 towards the purchase of the Hogarth, said: "As a charity and funder of the museum, we're deeply concerned about the apparent goings on. We want to know what Coram's motivations are behind the sacking of the museum's independent trustees, and what it has to say to those of us who have supported the museum over many years."
According to Lars Tharp, a former director of the museum, difficulties between the two charities are not new. He described it as "a Jarndyce and Jarndyce situation".
The internet entrepreneur and former Amazon general manager Spencer Hyman, one of the sacked trustees, said: "The Coram is a children's charity. It has no business running a museum, and no skills and no mandate to do so. Its very actions show it shouldn't be allowed to run a heritage museum."
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Expert advice: how to get the most out of big and open data
Data doesn't have to be intimidating but you need to know why you are using it and be transparent
Becoming data literate is fast becoming a necessary skill, as data becomes more and more prevalent. "It's the building blocks of fact and information," says Paul Smith, head of data at Open fundraising.
David Kane, research officer at NCVO, has said that "people at director and trustee level don't necessarily need to know how to interrogate a database or do a statistical test, but they do need to know what good and bad data looks like and be able to critically evaluate the evidence that they gather."
Because of this, we brought ten experts together online to discuss charities and data literacy. Here's what they said.
Data has a bad reputation ‑ but it shouldn't have"Use of the word 'data' can be misleading. It makes people think it's all about statistics and spreadsheets and can be off-putting. I prefer the term 'evidence', of which quantitative data is a part," says James Noble, professional social researcher at New Philanthropy Capital (NPC).
"Data has a PR problem," says Lucy Chambers of the Open Knowledge Foundation. "As long as we keep talking about data scientists and statistics people will worry that they are not 'trained' or qualified to work with data, which is not true."
Don't be afraid of numbers"Data doesn't have to be scary and you don't need to be a mathematician or a scientist in order to use it to your advantage," says Loren Treisman, chief executive of the Indigo Trust.
However, it's important to know where to begin, says Ian Shenstone, development manager for Real Systems. "I always start with what it is you want to achieve with your client group, and then what you realistically expect to be able to gather in terms of background data and outcomes."
Make use of available resources, says Keisha Taylor, senior manager at TechSoup. "Use free resources, sites, and communities," she says. "There are tools you can use for free like Goolge Fusion, Open Refine and Many Eyes."
Try and nominate community mentors, says Chambers, "no matter how many textbooks or tutorials you read, as soon as someone works with data for the first time they are bound to run into something that wasn't covered in the textbook. Mentors can help to overcome that."
Understand big and open dataAccording to the Open Data Handbook, "open data is data that can be freely used, re-used and redistributed by anyone, subject only, at most, to the requirement to attribute."
Open data is good because it encourages transparency, says Taylor. "It means that the data is easily available and accessible to anyone, anywhere and that you can re-use and redistribute it.
"Big data can come from social networks, sensors, satellite imagery, mobile phones, GPS, cars, financial markets and many more things. Big data exceeds the processing capacity of conventional database systems. It is fast, varied, valuable and really big. It does not fit the traditional database architecture so it can only be analysed by using new technology," Taylor explains.
Know what you're using data for"I think people can get caught up in data or visualisation for its own sake. You have to be clear about what question you're trying to answer before you set up your data collection and analysis activities," says Mike Thompson, senior consultant at mySociety.
There are lots of different areas that data can compliment and improve, says Treisman. "Think beyond the monitoring and evaluation of projects to all the many ways in which you can use data.
"For example it can be used to improve service delivery, get real time information from the field, raise awareness and plan projects, as well as to improve communications, marketing, fundraising and transparency." says Treisman.
"Think about how you can use other people's data to tell a story. Visualisations and good messaging can bring data to life. Remember to keep things simple."
Avoid common mistakes and be transparentOne mistake is not having an evidence-based theory to start with, says James Noble. "Too many charities jump to their final outcome, such as to raise attainment, or to reduce offending or poverty, without considering the intermediate steps that are vital to attribution and are often easier to measure.
Another mistake charities make, Noble says, is not being transparent enough. "Over-claiming and not describing the sources of data regularly affect the credibility of claims," he says.
"Lots of people are worried about making mistakes if they try to work with the data," says Chambers, "but as long as you are transparent people can see how you came to your conclusions. Have confidence and show the process."
Data is the futureDon't underestimate the significance of data, says Richard Craig, chief executive of the Charity Technology Trust. "Data is going to drive everything and I don't think people appreciate by how much," he says.
"For charities the possibilities are huge, ranging from internal data analytics to measure efficiency, external data metrics to measure effectiveness and big data to look at opportunity and bench marking,"
Finally if you are doing something with data, or know of other organisations that are, tell people about it, says Louise Brown account manager at Lamplight Database Systems: "What the sector needs is real life examples to learn from."
All quotes and advice taken from our latest online discussion. To view it in full click here.
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Fundraisers: how to get more meetings with millionaires
Ten tips to secure more meetings with high-value donors and hit your fundraising targets
The greatest barrier to major gift results is not spending enough time in front of wealthy people. Even when fundraisers understand this (some don't), the most commonly used and rarely effective tactic to persuade wealthy people to meet or attend an event is to send emails. Of the people who understand that using a phone can be more effective, many make mistakes which can easily be avoided. With a little know-how, the task can become much easier. Here are some tips on how to secure more meetings with high-value donors.
1. Make more appointments. More appointments per month with current and potential donors can only lead to improvements in major gift income. Fewer or the same number of appointments can only lead to flat-lined or poorer results this year and in the future.
2. See it as your job to secure appointments. Potential major donors will only give at a significant level once they have a strong sense of where the money goes (ie it is urgently needed, and that it works) and they trust you personally as well as your organisation. It is impossible to achieve these two objectives if they don't meet you or representatives of your organisation. Each time they meet you, they are likely to get more sense of the difference that donations make, and to trust you more. So, as a major gifts fundraiser, most of your job is about ensuring that you arrange as much face-to-face contact with potential and existing donors as possible.
3. Set a target. If you don't already have a monthly target for the number of appointments, coffee meetings or event attendances you are going to arrange with potential and existing donors, set one today, even if you modify it later. There is no single action you could take this year that will be more powerful in improving your results, than knowing what you're aiming for. Ideally set it with your manager, but even if you don't, at the very least write down in your own notebook or on a desk-side memo the number of 'donor contacts' you want to target.
4. Think about it in the morning. Do three actions to improve donor relationships every morning, before you do anything else. One of the most successful fundraisers I've ever met puts much of her multimillion pound success down to her discipline to talk to donors as soon as she gets into the office. Her rule of thumb is to improve her relationship with three current or potential donors before going anywhere near internal tasks. So at the very least she's aiming to make progress with 15 donors every week. This much donor contact can only lead to increased trust and therefore donations.
5. Focus on helping the person at the other end of the line. Never pick up the phone for your reasons, such as meeting targets, pleasing your manager or even helping beneficiaries. Pick up the phone because you genuinely believe and are focussing on the idea that it is in the donor's interests to become involved with your organisation. Once you have understood and practise the distinction between these two mindsets, ie you call to give not get, everything changes and it will be easier to pick up the phone. More people will agree to meet you and you'll be less upset by the ones that don't because you'll know they're not saying no to you – you were good enough to offer them a great opportunity and they decided it wasn't right for them.
6. Watch your body language. Sit up straight, with your shoulders back and chest out. You will feel more confident when the body language you choose is that of a confident, assertive person. Some people worry that if they don't feel confident, they will be phoney to pretend. The reality is, as soon as you adopt body postures that are confident and worthy of respect, your biochemistry changes. As Professor Amy Cuddy of Harvard Business School demonstrates in this inspiring Ted talk, adopting power poses, even if only briefly, affects the hormones that your body releases and makes you feel and sound more confident.
7. Inspire them. Focus on and feel how great it will be to attend the event you're inviting them to, so that it comes across in your voice. For example tell them how interesting or inspiring your head of programmes is when she talks at the breakfast seminar you're inviting him to, or how everyone is excited at the prospect of this thank you event at the impressive venue.
8. Slow down. The piece of advice that I've found almost everyone on my telephone skills workshops needs, is to slow your speech down when on the phone. This gives you more gravitas and gives your brain more time to think. You can then choose the most persuasive ideas and honour them by meaning and feeling everything you say.
9. Hold a prospecting event. This might be a breakfast meeting where your head of programmes will talk about progress with your new service or a champagne reception to say thank you, ideally without an auction and raffle. If you don't have any budget to organise something, there must be some existing events your organisation puts on, which you could tag a sponsored VIP drinks reception onto. Send invitations and follow them up with calls. At the event make sure you and your team chat to everyone and find out who is interested enough to agree to meet you for coffee. Without fail, while the event is still fresh in their memory, call the next morning to get those follow up meetings in the diary.
10. Pick up the phone. Then do it again. The only way to get better at this game is to take the plunge. Don't over-think it. Sit up with your shoulders back, put a smile on your face, focus on how they'll benefit and call a past or future donor to persuade them to meet you. When you get this habit, your fundraising results will be transformed.
Rob Woods is a trainer who focuses on essential fundraising skills. He will be delivering a session on 'How to get more meetings with millionaires' at the IoF national convention on Tuesday 2 July.
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On course for a career in charity
A plethora of charity-related postgraduate courses have sprung up to meet the demands of the third sector
As a grants assistant at the Paul Hamlyn Foundation, Juliet Valdinger, 32, helps distribute funds for projects that are aimed at increasing access to arts and culture via the foundation's Arts programme. She is set to graduate with an MSc in grant making, philanthropy and social investment from Cass Business School where she has been studying part-time. "The course is based on the concept of action learning. Our teachers are both academics and practitioners and I've made a lot of useful contacts with students from a range of different backgrounds," says Valdinger.
With its long established Centre for Charity Effectiveness, Cass Business School is the UK's leader in charity research and postgraduate teaching. Students have to have an honours degree plus at least three years relevant work experience. "What is an effective charity? It's basically one that knows what it is doing," says Prof Paul Palmer, course director for specialist charity masters' programmes. He adds: "We run what is basically a management development programme with specialisations."
The third sector – which includes charities, philanthropic foundations, and international non-government organisations (NGOs) – is burgeoning and postgraduate degrees are responding to the demand for a more professional workforce.
Choice of third-sector masters
Specialist masters programmes include the University of Wolverhampton's MA in voluntary and public sectors, Birmingham University's masters' in public administration, and Lampeter, University of Wales' MA in voluntary sector studies.
Business schools will often look to attract senior managers from charities on to their MBA programmes. Cranfield School of Management, for example, attracts two or three senior managers from charities onto its executive MBA programme. Recent Cranfield alumni include the head of marketing for British Red Cross and the director of operations from the Children's Society. "People who have aspirations to lead charities have significant management jobs. We value their contribution and offer full-fee scholarships," says Graham Clark, director of MBA programmes.
Most postgraduate programmes are part-time. But the University of York's masters' in public policy and management is exclusively online. York attracts 104 students from 43 countries including North America, Europe, Eastern Europe and Australia. Roughly 20% are from the UK.
Online discussion groups and "live" projects combine to deliver a very high retention rate. "Our typical student would be a manager working in the public sector or for a charity who is hoping to build on their experience and put it into context," says programme director Ellen Roberts.
Cass Business School's five specialist part-time masters programmes include an MSc in voluntary sector management and an MSc in charity accounting and financial management. The degrees – which have a common core of strategy, policy and governance – reflect the major career paths, project management, marketing, administration, accounting and finance. Students can leave after the first year with a diploma qualification or they can continue for a second year to gain a full masters degree. "So long as they complete their masters' over five years they will qualify. It's a flexible career-friendly approach to study," says Palmer.
Managing a charity is not like running a business or even a public sector organisation. "Charities aren't created to make a profit but they must break even and they need to demonstrate a social return on investment. What differentiates our charity masters' degrees is we give students an understanding of the complex interweaving of policy between the private and public sectors," says Palmer.
Together the Cass charity masters' programmes attract about 80 students with 10% coming from overseas attracted by the international reputation of Cass's MSc in NGO management.
Dave Lewis, 29, head of engagement and advocacy at LSE students' union is in his final year of a Cass MSc in voluntary sector management. "My main motivation for studying a masters' was to provide a theoretical underpinning and structure to what I was doing," says Lewis.
"What I like most is a sense of community, a sense of belonging and the ability to shape my own learning experience," he adds.
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From hospital to home: freeing up beds in the NHS
An initiative to support old and vulnerable patients during and after hospital discharge is also reducing readmission rates
In most cases patients look forward to being discharged from hospital, but for some old and vulnerable people, who lack the support network provided by close family and friends, it can be a daunting prospect.
Normally they have to wait until the local authority makes arrangements for suitable community-based care. This often delays discharge even though patients are medically fit to leave hospital, and puts further strain on NHS bed availability, as well as adult social services.
The financial cost to the health service of such hold-ups has been put at £600,000 a day. There is also an emotional price to be paid by patients, many of whom are anxious to return to the familiar surroundings of their own home.
A chance meeting in 2012 between Trixie Bennett, chief executive of Adults Supporting Adults (ASA), which helps vulnerable people live in the community, and Chris Slavin, head of the Lincolnshire partnership foundation NHS trust (LPFT), led to a ground-breaking initiative.
"The trust was admitting patients to wards after what should have been a routine visit to accident and emergency simply because appropriate social care couldn't be arranged in time to allow same day discharge," Bennett explains. "This was already putting pressure on bed availability and the imminent onset of winter would, in all probability, make matters worse. Together, we tried to find practical solutions."
A three-month pilot followed, entirely funded by the trust, which paired patients being discharged with two trained and supervised employees. The aim was to bring a number of agencies together to create a seamless and speedy "hospital to home" pathway.
Known as the prevention and avoidance community team (Pact) the service offers wide-ranging support to patients during and after hospital discharge. It is based on a close collaboration between the NHS and the third sector. In addition to ASA, which takes the lead co-ordinating role, Lace Housing Association arranges transport from the hospital to the patient's home and Age UK Lincoln provides further or additional community-based social support such as domestic help and personal care. The scheme is entirely funded by LPFT but it is working in conjunction with United Lincolnshire hospitals NHS trust to provide the service.
Pact staff ensure clients can gain access to their home, and that they have enough food and groceries to tide them over. They make sure patients understand when and how to take medication, and are trained to identify any additional care needs. These are reported to the scheme coordinator so the appropriate community-based support can be arranged.
Team members also check for any obvious hazards that could lead to a fall – one of the most common causes of hospital admission among old people.
It is a seven-day-a-week service, running from 10am to 8pm, and is free to users. "Once a patient is medically fit we aim to get them home within two hours," Bennett says. "Patients no longer sit in a hospital corridor waiting for transport, or are sent home alone in a taxi."
The trial project, which started in January, is now a permanent service and has been extended to include Lincoln county hospital. There are plans to roll it out to hospitals in Boston and Grantham by this autumn.
To date, Pact has helped more than 300 patients make the transition from hospital to home, at an estimated saving to the NHS of £350 per person per night. The initiative is currently being evaluated by the University of Lincoln, and ASA says initial indications suggest that not only does it free up beds and save money, it also reduces readmission rates.
The scheme has certainly found favour with its clients. Irene Birkett, 83, recently returned home from hospital with Pact support: "I was so pleased and extremely grateful that they were there to help me – they were like angels."
Bennett says the consortium has plans to broaden the initiative: "When the ambulance service is called out to see an elderly or vulnerable patient they are trained to deal with medical problems, but not the social care needs that may have triggered the initial call. If we can work with the NHS to prevent patients going to accident and emergency in the first place, by addressing these underlying issues at an early stage, then money will be saved and vulnerable people can retain their dignity and independence in the community rather than remain in hospital unnecessarily. That's surely in everyone's interest."
This article is published by Guardian Professional. Join the Healthcare Professionals Network to receive regular emails and exclusive offers. The Guardian has launched its Healthcare Innovation Awards to celebrate and share best practice across different areas of the healthcare sector. We want to showcase ideas or services that significantly improve the quality or management of care for patients. Entries for this year's awards close at midnight on Friday 28 June.
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Bakery offers work opportunities for people with a learning disability - audio slideshow
Journalist Saba Salman and photographer Nicola Bensley report from social care charity Camphill's Lantern Bakery
Saba SalmanHow to raise money effectively through telephone fundraising
Only trained staff who are open and honest with supporters will be able to use the telephone to its full and brilliant potential
The telephone is one of the most effective channels for raising money. It is one of the only channels that allows fundraisers to have a direct, two-way conversation with supporters – either current or potential. With the right training, fundraisers can use the telephone to add value to a whole host of fundraising activities, and supporters will – in many cases – welcome the opportunity to have an engaging and sympathetic conversation about the work of the charity under discussion.
Not everyone gets telephone fundraising right and the cost of getting it wrong can be high – with complaints, alienated supporters and reputational damage to your charity. The work of a fundraiser is important, and they must take care in what they do so that the experience of the people that they are calling is as positive as it can be.
Accordingly, the importance of training fundraisers to make sure that they know and understand the rules and are able to use the telephone to its full and brilliant potential cannot be overstated. Here are some basic tips:
Rules, rules, rulesAll fundraisers must be absolutely clear about the rules and guidelines that govern telephone fundraising before they are put anywhere near a phone. Some of these rules are set by industry bodies such as the Institute of Fundraising, while others are statutory. Fortunately, they are often simple and easy to follow: such as making sure that fundraisers give their full name on every call for accountability, asking the person that they are calling for permission to continue the conversation after they have introduced themselves and ensuring that people are told if their calls are being recorded.
Training fundraisers to be open and honest with supporters is crucial. As well as being best practice, it is also a legal requirement. The Charity Commission's website states unequivocally that the Charities Act 1992 "requires fundraisers who are paid, including charity staff [and] trustees who are paid to declare their status by making a solicitation statement". This usually includes information about which charity or charities they are fundraising for and, if they are fundraising for more than one charity, the proportions received by each. This must be adhered to meticulously.
Having the knowledgeNo amount of training or planning will matter if fundraisers do not know enough about their charity and do not inspire confidence. Only by being fully up to speed with the work of the charities they represent, rehearsing their messaging and anticipating challenging questions will fundraisers be able to have a genuine, warm and sensitive conversation and the confidence to go "off-script" when necessary. If not already in place, consider introducing regular briefings for fundraisers that cover all areas of the charity's work and give the very latest figures on any fundraising campaigns under way.
Keeping good recordsThe importance of accurately recording the outcome of each call should be stressed. This is, of course, important where a supporter has agreed during a call to making a donation. It is best practice to ensure that written statements, confirming the details of any donation, are sent to supporters within one week of making the call. Fundraisers must also take great care to respect people's wishes and preferences if, for example, they have asked not be called again. Donor data should be checked regularly and scrupulously updated to make sure that the right people are being called – and that no one who has said no feels harassed or pressured.
Protecting dataFundraisers must be trained on the importance of data protection and understand that the public must have confidence that their details are being kept safe. Pitfalls to be avoided at all costs include writing people's personal details on pieces of paper, rather than a secure computer system, and using websites that could be used to transmit people's personal information, such as Twitter and Facebook, at the same time as making calls.
Putting the right building blocks in place by training staff can be time-consuming but is essential. Well trained and expert fundraisers who follow the rules and who know how to have engaging, knowledgeable conversations will keep supporters happy and deliver those all-important results for the causes, organisations and appeals that need them most.
Tony Charalambides is managing director at Listen
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