Consulting / Agencies

Following the interesting email from Neelam Makhijani of the Resource Alliance to their contact list complaining that the Swiss International Fundraising Congress (SIFC) is being confused with their I

Telephone fundraising company Pell & Bales has said a public thank you to five remarkable staff who have been working with them for ten years or more.

We've already featured a range of Christmas fundraising activities and ideas, so here are some more.

Back in the summer we announced our “What Makes A Great Fundraiser” survey.

I was reading the tweets from the very useful @marketingdonut team and was pleased to see them share  renowned marketing expert Drayton Bird’s “35 things I have found to be almost always true”.  I was pleased to see it again as I didn’t get the chance to add to the list from a not-for-profit perspective... something I aim to put right below for the most impactful of Mr Bird’s points:

1. Relevance matters more than originality – 100% agree but originality tends to get more cut-through than cliché
2. The most important element in any creative endeavour is the brief – ie; the robust thinking that went into it and how the organisation can articulate that to an outsider
3. The urgent takes precedence over the important – but a mixture of both is likely to be the right thing to do (if your plans are robust, that is)
4. The customer you want is like the customer you’ve got – so true... but as well as the new types of donor, volunteer or supporter, not instead of!
5. The internet is just accelerated direct marketing – I think it's more than DM these days.  Perhaps it’s just a hugely powerful means to achieving a whole raft of objectives (including traditional direct marketing)?
   

In terms of financial behaviour, the ostrich effect is the avoidance of apparently risky financial situations by pretending they do not exist.

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:

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.

So Barnardo’s, Forces Children’s Trust and Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham Charity have taken about £933,000 from NoTW, and I pause to wonder if an act becomes less immoral the larger the amount o

Yes, it is again time for our monthly First Fridays - the IFC's free fundraising consultancy meetings at The Hub Kings Cross, The Hub Milan, The Hub Amsterdam and City Hall Ottawa!