The team at BNET UK posted one of my favourite articles of 2010 so far, on this subject. We all hear (and dare I say use) clichés and idioms every now and then and I'm sure most of us dismiss them as just that. But how often do we think about the ramifications of some of these glib approaches in a real world context like work or volunteering?
Like many people I was saddened at the news this week that Bmycharity is withdrawing from the online giving market. Any loss of options for raising money cost effectively and providing greater 'consumer' choice gives us as a sector pause for thought.
I will never stop believing, or probably saying that, whichever audience(s) we serve as organisations, their needs should underpin our thinking and actions. That's not to say that we shouldn't seek to achieve our own objectives - of course we should. The customer / supporter / volunteer is not always right and we have our own targets to meet.
The Guardian ran a pretty decent and balanced video news item recently entitled: ‘Why do people hate chuggers?'. Two-hundred-and-seventy-four people responded in what was a genuinely informative (though often ill-informed, as usual) comment stream (sorry, as a former officer* of my school debating society, I can’t bring myself to use the word ‘debate’).
