I've been involved in lots of productive and challenging online discussions recently about the importance of an organisation's actions underpinning its ability to improve the credibility of its brand. Without brand credibility, businesses have little right to ask a customer to buy once let alone be a repeat purchaser. Similarly, a charity earns brand credibility when its actions back up its claims about making a difference. Consequently all types of supporters will be more likely to engage.
A recent Harvard Business Review article outlined 12 key beliefs that good bosses hold. The author, Professor Robert Sutton of Stanford University, added his own considerable experience to a variety of research to come up with his favoured dozen, but I think there are others to add specifically for charity bosses.
Nominations for new trustees for the Institute of Fundraising have now closed. There are now five candidates for the two available places on the board.
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.
In his latest blog, fundraising guru Ken Burnett has created his fundraising dream team for UK charities. Whilst he has named a few of the great and good names we may already know, of most interest to me was the actually roles he describes which constitute a great team.
If the number of current job adverts for corporate fundraisers is any indicator, many charities are increasingly looking to larger donations to help meet income shortfalls caused by the recession. But, according to an article in Third Sector magazine, charities just aren’t sophisticated enough in terms of their approach.
Several months ago I wrote a blog trying to simplify the choice charities faced regarding which online fundraising services to use.
I concluded then that all the major services add value, depending on what the charity is trying to achieve. What I couldn't see was a good reason why charities wouldn't use more than just the largest player, JustGiving.
Now I’m not one of those who sees the government (of whatever colour) as the Devil incarnate, but recent warnings about the risks of state funding cuts for charities do make me think “I told you s
My blog this week is a real-world question and a call for your thoughts and views. Over the years I have dealt with numerous teams across a variety of organisations and in all but the smallest minority of cases, the 'functional' teams have described their 'leadership' as part of the problem they face rather than helping to introduce new solutions.
