kevin baughen's blog

Recently, I’ve seen some of the most fun and thought-provoking blogs and debates on face to face fundraising for a while.  Check these out as just a sample:

Ken Burnett; Craig Linton, The Fundraising Detective; Jonathon Graspass at Flat Earth Direct; Phil Heffer at St. Mungo’s; Gordon’s (Hudson) blog.

There are always two sides for every argument of course and whilst personally, what we feel about being approached by face to face fundraisers in the street (different to doorstep approach) might be negative, there are lots of bottom line statistics which show that for some organisations it is a worthwhile activity.

I want to add something to the debate if I may, based on some personal experience of a trip to London last Friday.

In his blog this week Jeff Brooks talks about three self-destructive courses of action not-for-profit organisations are following in a flawed attempt to survive the current tough economic climate.  He cites three main behaviours suggested by fundraising consultant Michael Rosen:

1. Stop Asking.
2. Do Not Have a Compelling Case for Support.
3. Ignore Current Supporters.

Given our experience of the last three years, I’d add a few more linked behaviours guaranteed to make it tougher for not for profits and charities to survive an economic downturn:

This week I’ve seen several blogs and tweets from people whose thinking I respect touching on the subject of putting your audience at the centre of your actions.  Some have suggested that the audience should always be the driving force and others have posited that true innovation might not be possible if you do.

There is a Little Britain TV sketch showing the funny side of what passes as customer/supporter service in modern Britain.  Basically, it parodies the fact that many front line staff appear to have been totally disempowered when it comes to dealing with the public. 'I can't do anything as it's a system-generated decision...' is heard from call -centres all too frequently. This provokes two questions:

1. Do organisations think that supporters and customers care in any way shape or form that THEIR system is the problem?
2. Do the same organisations think customers and supporters can be placated by hearing that it's the computer's fault?!?

Watching the international match between South Africa's Springboks and the New Zealand All Blacks this week, it struck me just how many similarities there are between charities and rugby teams. I'll avoid the obvious comparison between boisterous team meetings and a scrum but here are a few observations that I think we could learn from.  What do you think? I'm stating the completely obvious but neither rugby nor being an effective charity is an individual sport.  The best single player is wasted if their team mates aren't getting the ball to them.  The effectiveness of an award-wining fundraising director can easily be hampered by demotivated staff who don't deliver to their potential.

Harvard Business Review's Management Tips of the day on 21st July included '3 Ways to Convince a Skeptic'.  Overall I agreed with two out of three but I honestly don't think that stroking egos works more than the first time you try it (unless your sceptic is unperceptive and stupid). That's because 'convincing' is about more than persuading. 

In the worlds of marketing, fundraising, communications, sales and lots of other organisational affairs, it's about engaging with the sceptics sufficiently so that they will act in the way you need them to.

I love the coverage generated by Ken Burnett's comments at the Institute of Fundraising Conference about how we should be generating more complaints!

The point is not, of course, to generate complaints for the sake of it. The point is that our marketing, campaigning and fundraising messages need to be sufficiently challenging, compelling and, when appropriate, hard-hitting to attract the attention of the people they're aimed at! And more often than not they aren't. Check out a few of the masterclasses on the SOFII website and you'll see that the seminal campaigns did not usually mince their words.

Last week, I came across an interesting article written by Suzanne Lucas on the BNET site entitled "9 signs your HR manager is terrible". In a nutshell, it's about how a commercial HR function doesn't always help the business achieve it's goals.

If you take a look you will immediately notice that it's fairly commercial and yes, a little USA-centric but there's a lot here other sectors and cultures can learn from. I'm no HR expert but like many, I've led and managed plenty of people and worked in lots of teams across commercial and non-profit sectors.

Consequently, the article got me to thinking about how some of the organisations I've been exposed to over the last 20 years have maybe missed the 'people' point. Here's my top five tangible things we don't always seem to do to focus on our people as the best way of helping us to meet our bottom line objectives, whatever they are. (Incidentally, by "HR", I mean the people in your organisation who are responsible for HR-type tasks - I know we don't all have a dedicated HR department)

Catching up on some long overdue reading this weekend, I spotted an article in Third Sector magazine by Sophie Hudson under the headline:

Nuisance marketing charities face fines

It transpires that The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO - the team that polices the Data Protection Act) has been granted new powers to fine organisations for ‘making unwanted contact with the public’.

This could be huge news for all organisations that run individual marketing or fundraising campaigns for four reasons:

In a blog for the Harvard Business Review, Professor John Kotter suggested that business people, in order to accept the need for change, sometimes need to "feel the need for the change" as well as understand it financially and intellectually.

I think there’s an alternative view here and that’s about acknowledging that the approach Professor Kotter suggests is pretty much what any successful charity does to build its campaigning, communications and fundraising success.