charity people

I didn’t make this term up, honest.  It was shared with me by my cousin as he was describing what it felt like when senior managers just spew forth ideas that those a bit closer to the coal face suspect haven’t really been thought through... Here’s the Wikipedia definition.

After a little break for holidays and delivering some groovy client projects we’re off on a bit of a tangent with this blog.  Sort of. I’ve had occasion to think about what we do at Bottom Line Ideas and why we do it.  The magic ingredients of fundraising people features made me think about why we still ‘bother’ when things don’t always go our way.

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.