In this episode, host Simon Scriver is joined by Natasha Evans (About Loyalty & Your Experience May Vary podcast) and David Amos-Reeves (Prostate Cancer UK & Experience Hub) to reflect on Fundraising Everywhere’s recent Supporter Experience Conference.
Together, they unpack some of the conference’s key themes – including the “relevancy crisis” facing charities, why so many organisations struggle to turn their commitment to supporter experience into real organisational change, and what it truly means to reflect a supporter’s motivations back to them.
They also explore the differences between large and small charities when it comes to delivering great supporter experiences, share standout moments from the conference (including a powerful session on storytelling from Lisa at Fireside Fundraising), and look ahead to what’s coming; from AI’s role in closing the relevancy gap, to protecting the irreplaceable human element in fundraising.
Members can watch the Supporter Experience Conference sessions On Demand
Not a member? Check out our membership options here
Find Natasha and David’s podcast, Your Experience May Vary
Check out The Experience Hub
Connect with David
Connect with Natasha
If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to hit follow and enable notifications so you’ll get notified to be first to hear of future podcast episodes. We’d love to see you back again!
And thank you to our friends at JustGiving who make the Fundraising Everywhere Podcast possible.
Transcript
Jade Cunnah: Welcome to the Fundraising Everywhere podcast, your go-to place for fundraising tips and inspiration. Love what you hear? Get more insights straight to your inbox. Subscribe to our email list for exclusive fundraising resources, early access to training, special discounts, and more. Just head on over to fundraisingeverywhere.com/podcast to subscribe.
Jade Cunnah: Now, on to today’s episode. Enjoy.
Simon Scriver: Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of the Fundraising Everywhere podcast. This is Simon Scriver here. I am one of the co-founders of Fundraising Everywhere, and I am delighted to be talking to you today, reflecting on our recent Supporter Experience conference. We had the Supporter Experience conference, uh, again last month, uh, and a fantastic collection of speakers speaking to a fa- fantastic collection of attendees, all interested in supporter experience in fundraising in the charity sector.
Simon Scriver: What’s happening out there? What, what are people succeeding with? What are people seeing in their struggles? Uh, and lots of great lessons and case studies, uh, in terms of what people are doing out there. So, um, I was reflecting back on some of the sessions. I didn’t get to see all of them on the day, but thankfully they are still available on demand.
Simon Scriver: You can find them at fundraisingeverywhere.com and I’ll link in the description, but you can go back and watch any of those sessions. But I thought, who better than Natasha Evans and David Amos-Ruiz to come onto the podcast and help me reflect on this conference and what we took away from it, because Tash and David have been so, good at being involved with us in these Supporter Experience conferences that we’ve been trying to do.
Simon Scriver: And so let me say a huge welcome, a huge thank you, and huge love to Tash and David. Hello. How are you guys? Oh,
Natasha Evans: Simon, that was so- Oh, welcome … lovely. I know, right? Welcome is so important in supporter experience. It’s so important- Mm-hmm … to us too. Nice.
Simon Scriver: Thank you. Isn’t it
David Amos Reeves : so
Simon Scriver: great
David Amos Reeves : there? Brilliant.
Simon Scriver: You’re in my pipeline, so I’m trying to be really nice to you.
Simon Scriver: But no, I mean, I don’t get to see you enough because you’re usually dealing with the rest of the team. Um, so- Mm-hmm … it’s, it’s fantastic to actually talk face-to-face to you. And actually, um, I know you guys were heavily involved in the curation of it, speaking on it, and, and just, like, sharing your own knowledge which is huge.
Simon Scriver: But just for me to, to carve some time out with you and, and kind of just reflect on it and see what you guys took away from it, and I guess what’s happening out there for people who wanna continue the journey after the conference. It’s like, what else do we need to consider? What, what do we take away from it?
Simon Scriver: So, so I really appreciate you making time. Maybe we could just do a little, uh, introduction for people who maybe pe- uh, uh, didn’t cross your paths at the conference. Tash, first of all, who are you?
Natasha Evans: Who am I? I wear quite a lot of different hats. Yeah. Today I’m sitting in front of you as Tash, who is- I was gonna say best mates.
Natasha Evans: That’s probably maybe a bit of a stretch, but best mates in terms of, like, podcasting mates. Um, David and I, we have a podcast called Your Experience May Vary. He’s my only mate, would I say, in the podcast- … ’cause we do it together, so . Um, so that’s one hat that I’ve got on today. But also another hat is that I’m part of the Experience Hub, so big shout-out.
Natasha Evans: Oh, look, my dog’s shouting out, too. Uh, a big shout-out to our friends at the Experience Hub who also very much part of the curation of the Supporter Experience Conference. I am also a supporter experience lead at a company called About Loyalty, and we help charities measure, diagnose, and improve their supporter experiences.
Natasha Evans: And I’m also someone who owns a dog and, uh, two small little children, so that’s me in a nutshell.
Simon Scriver: You are super busy, Tash. You- I don’t know how you fit this all in. But I want to say before I ask David to introduce himself, I before I forget, I love the name of your podcast, Your Experience- Aw
Simon Scriver: May Vary. I think it’s one of the cleverer ones out there. Um- Thank you … and I love that you’re drilling so deep into this. I don’t, I don’t spend enough time drilling into the supporter experience. I’m glad that we have a podcast where people actually dive even deeper into it. David, who are you?
David Amos Reeves : Hey, Simon.
David Amos Reeves : So yeah, David Amos Reeves. Along with being Tash’s only mate, … potentially only mate on the podcast, I’m not sure about wider life. Also part of the Experience Hub. We were founders of that group who’ve been part of curating the Supporter Experience Conference, alongside Lesley Pinder from Compass.
David Amos Reeves : Let’s, uh, let’s make sure we, we give Lesley a good shout-out. Um, but I’m also head of customer experience and engagement at Prostate Cancer, sorry, Prostate Cancer UK. Um, so lots of hats similarly. Big passionate. Um, I think Tash called me a nerd about supporter experience fairly recently, so, yeah, love this kind of stuff.
Simon Scriver: It’s great. And I, and I wondered, you know, for you two who are so immersed in it already and curating the conference, I mean, are you just turning up on the day and hearing, you know, what you wanna get out there, or are you learning and seeing things that you didn’t know from speakers out there? How much do you guys personally take away from the conference, Lance?
Simon Scriver: Do
Natasha Evans: you know I can’t speak for David, but I, I think it’s probably a similar answer, is that we are always still learning and absorbing so much. I think that there is so much to learn out there, and I think my notebook was pretty much full with scribbles from the conference because it’s so great to hear other people’s perspectives, to hear what other people are doing, to hear about what their thoughts are for the future and- what’s working well, maybe what’s not working so well. So absolutely, I think we get lots from it. And often I find at the conference in the podcast that we have, I forget my role in it in the sense that I’m just sitting there with my mouth wide open probably catching some flies uh, because it’s, yeah, it’s a fantastic opportunity to learn, learn, learn
Simon Scriver: David, do you, with your curation, do you, like, seek out people you, you wanna learn from or are you, do you just invite your mates?
Simon Scriver: What, what- I th- What’s
David Amos Reeves : it like? I think there’s a, I think there’s a few things in it. I think it’s you know, hearing, hearing what other people are up to. So, so getting snippets of, of the work that other organizations are doing and going, “They’d be incredible to get into. Let’s understand more about them.
David Amos Reeves : Let’s find out what’s going on.” And so there’s a bit of that driving who we want to have on the program. And then there’s also kind of what other topic areas, what are the things and the themes that we hear from people that we really wanna bring to life in some way. So we kind of do it from the other side as well and think about- what’s the strap line of something that we, we’re, really wanna bring to the conference, and how do we find the people that can talk about those things really meaningfully? And I think similar to Tash, like, I learn so much both from the conference but also from chatting to people about supporter experience.
David Amos Reeves : It’s just yeah, it’s been quite a growth curve being, being involved both in the conference but also kind of what we’re doing on the, on the podcast as well.
Simon Scriver: 100%, I t- totally agree, and I think you did, you did a great job with this one. Um, we had the, I think it was the opening session, but basically Manifesto who are one of the partners on it, they were diving into some of the stats out there.
Simon Scriver: And that really, for me, it kind of set the tone in the opening almost like not, I don’t wanna say panic, but they were calling it a, um, what was the quote? We are in a relevancy crisis.” Yeah. Um, they were talking about how fewer people are giving to charity than they were before, but that individuals who are giving are becoming more generous.
Simon Scriver: And, um, yeah, so I mean, they were looking at the stats. But I think that quote really struck for me was this idea of a relevancy crisis. What, what do you, how do you interpret that phrase?
David Amos Reeves : I completely agree with it. I mean, we, we actually explore this with Lou in an upcoming episode of ours that’s coming out in July.
David Amos Reeves : But for me, I think it’s, it absolutely hits the nail on the head. Like, we are in a world where we’re trying to engage with people, and we’re trying to, um, understand how people are trying to give to us and trying to engage with us as organizations. And I don’t think we’re doing very well at getting that right.
David Amos Reeves : We’re not really listening, and therefore we don’t really understand why people come to us, why people support us, and we don’t reflect that back in the conversations we have with those. And so that’s that relevancy gap. Mm. We think we’re doing the right stuff. And I think there’s a lot of posit- positive action towards doing the right stuff, but it’s often done in silos.
David Amos Reeves : It’s often done in small units. It’s not, um, a whole organizational effort, which I think is a lot of lot, a, a lot of the Manifesto work kind of talks to. Mm. It’s not just kind of individuals that have a passion. It’s actually the whole organization really has to get behind understanding what supporters want and how they can deliver a good experience for them.
Simon Scriver: And we’re, I guess we’ve all experienced that where the communication feels so fragmented. You know, you’re talking to two different people in the same organization and it’s a completely different experience, completely different tone, and it’s such a frustration. I mean, the, um, Lou, one of the quotes I liked from Lou was, um, that if, if we don’t reflect that motivation back to them, we’ve never delivered what they bought.
Simon Scriver: And you t- you talking- Yeah … about that, where it’s really just tapping into what people are actually looking for, which seems so straightforward, but it’s very difficult in practice. Tash, what, what did you take from that, from Lou’s-
Natasha Evans: Yeah. Do you know, I think that, I think it’s really important to remember that the only thing that supporters really get back from supporting an organization is those feelings that they come away with.
Natasha Evans: Mm. Because they’re not going to Tesco’s and buying an avocado, and therefore, you know, their money is, they’re gonna get something back for it. What they’re getting back is that emotion, that feeling, that sense of pride, the f- sense of, you know, you’ve done something good. And so as sh- organizations, we need to give them a good feeling back.
Natasha Evans: And what- Mm … a great feeling when you feel recognized. If you don’t get your motivations shared back to you, if your organization that you’re supporting doesn’t share with you that they understand why you support, we’re missing a trick. Yeah. So, and also I think the fact that less people are giving to organizations, I think gives an even better case for therefore we need to treat those people who are supporting us even better to retain them, to- Mm
Natasha Evans: give them a great experience, and to keep them
Simon Scriver: the I think, like, when, when you guys say it, and whenever anyone at the conference is kind of talking about it, some of it seems, I don’t wanna say so obvious, but it’s like, you know, it’s like you simplify it in a way that seems like, “Okay, yeah, we wanna do that.”
Simon Scriver: And I think the regular pushback seems to be … not pushback, but obviously fundraisers are stretched, you know, in terms of time and money. Is that the thing that’s mainly holding it back? I mean, is it a lack of understanding what supporter experience, or is there a huge part of it where it’s like we know we’d love to treat all these individuals so lovely but, you know, we’re a small charity and we don’t have time to do it?
Simon Scriver: Why aren’t, why are we having this conference every year, do you know? Why isn’t it just so obvious if we all want it? I can tell Dave wants to go, and I want to go as well. Dave, do you wanna go first? So there, there, there was a great stat, and it might have even been part of Manifesto’s work. It might have come out before actually, around something like 80-odd percent of charities are prioritizing supporter experience.
David Amos Reeves : But only half of those are actually investing in it in a meaningful way. And so there’s a big kind of this gap between the desire and the ambition towards do it and then investing in it meaningfully. And there’s also the thought about, what does investing in it meaningfully mean? Is it throwing money at welcome journeys?
David Amos Reeves : Is it throwing money at thank-a-thons? Is it throwing money at all of these things that are kind of surface-level, look like nice supporter experience initiatives? And actually, I think the crux of the problem is the organizations have built around their their structures, their, their silos, their products, their
David Amos Reeves : And that’s how we make decisions. We make decisions based on what does the target for IG look like? What does the target- Mm … for community look like? What does the target for high value look like? And that’s what drives the behavior. That’s what drives the decision-making. And actually, we need to break that system.
David Amos Reeves : And if we get out of breaking that system, all of a sudden all the stuff that we’re talking about wanting to do becomes a lot easier because it does make sense. We do intuitively all agree that this is the right thing to do. That stat really helps- … with that. But the system that we’re trying to put it into doesn’t allow us to do that, and that’s the thing that needs to change.
Simon Scriver: Tash, were you gonna, were you gonna add something to that?
Natasha Evans: Yeah. Yeah, I’d love to. Um- Great … I mean, everything Dave said is absolutely, like, on point. I think I’ll, I’ll go a little bit, … I’ll add to what he said, in that you gotta measure what matters, and if we’re only measuring behavioral measures, then we’re always gonna default to how can we raise more money?
Natasha Evans: How can we make sure less people unsubscribe? We need to start, if charities haven’t already, measuring that supporter experience, adding it to those organizational … Are they called OKRs? I never know what that stands for. I’m sure I’ve Googled it once before. OKRs dashboards, organizational performance dashboards, all those fun words.
Natasha Evans: Yeah. We need to get supporter experience on there, then it becomes part of the strategy, the organizational strategy. I think, like Dave said, you know, you can throw money at thank-thons and welcome journeys, and that’s great- … because you’re getting those f- I’d say grassroots changes happening.
Natasha Evans: But then you also need to get the change happening at the top level as well, and we then create this sort of sandwich effect, and we can push from both sides. And I think, yes, you can start doing those changes in your day-to-day, but you also need it to be recognized- As an overarching organizational strategy- to help enable it. Because I totally agree, I think people are getting it. People do say, “Yeah, of course. Of course supporter experience is important.” But then when they’re back at their desks and perhaps, being measured by how much income they’re bringing in- Yeah … then that, that’s something that you’re gonna then default to, and that’s no fault of anyone’s.
Natasha Evans: So yeah, I think it needs- Yeah … let’s talk about a sandwich.
Simon Scriver: Yeah, I mean, it’s one thing all of us at the conference who buy into it and love it, but then you have to take it back to your office and convince senior management for budget for something which maybe is a bit less tangible and, hasn’t always been measured and things like that.
Simon Scriver: I’m curious about that divide between, um, or, or I guess the conversation around the structure of organizations. I wonder, is is it easier as a small charity to kinda get to do this kinda stuff and buy into it? Or, or is it easier as a bigger one because you have a bit of money to play with?
Simon Scriver: David, I might start with you because working in, in if I may say, probably a large charity we would categorize you as. I’m curious what your thoughts are initially, but I know both of you are, like, heavily involved with small charities through things like the Supporter Experience Hub and stuff like that.
Simon Scriver: So I’m curious where, where you feel it sits.
David Amos Reeves : Sure. So I mean, I’ve, I’ve been in the sector 20 years, and I think in all of those I’ve been in some of the Goliaths, um, in the sector, the Cancer Research UKs and Air Ambulance and, and various things. So I, um, will be biased towards the fact that actually my experience and my thoughts about supporter experience are kind of in that space of organizations that are a bit more mature in their size and structure and things like that.
David Amos Reeves : What I would say is I’m really jealous of the small charities that can have that really close relationship with the smaller numbers of people, and we see that in, in bigger charities. You know, high-value teams where they have one-to-one relationships or one-to-few relationships- Yeah … they can replicate that kind of dialogue that, that when we’re talking about supporter experience en masse to potentially hundreds of thousands if not millions of people, we’re trying to do that.
David Amos Reeves : We’re trying to replicate that in what they do. So I do think small charities have that real advantage of being able to have that close relationship with people and understanding and really listening to what they do. The challenge there is then as they grow and as they evolve, how do they keep that?
David Amos Reeves : How do they stop themselves from copying the same model that every other charity has done for 100 years? And to try and break that mold to go, “How do we keep hold of that, um, real great kind of, um, experience?” Mm-hmm. And I’m gonna bring Tash in because- I know that the Chase Index that About Loyalty do, um, Animals Asia, Asia are like, have every time I, I talk about the Chase Index or hear about the Chase Index, Animals Asia, which is a small charity doing really good stuff, they top the Chase Index almost every time.
David Amos Reeves : And they are, they, they are doing it, you know, they’re practicing it, and it’s just really interesting to see how their journey kind of evolves
Simon Scriver: Tash
Natasha Evans: Yes. Hello. So, um, I think that being a small charity can be a superpower 100%. I think that we do see some organizations like Animals Asia do extremely well with their supporter experience, and I’ve also seen that some hospices do really well in their supporter experience as well.
Natasha Evans: And I actually want to share a personal experience when I worked at Marie Curie, which is a huge organization, but at the time I was working out from one of their hospices, and I saw the real difference between this huge kind of engine and then being in a small catchment area for the hospice where we knew such a huge majority of our supporters and we had one-on-one relationships with supporters, and we had conversations and, we would get telephone calls from our supporters, and we’d sit on the phone with them for, like, 20 minutes talking to Mary down the road who, you know, lived in Belsize Park.
Natasha Evans: It was their hospice in Hampstead. And I think being a small charity can be your superpower Is I, I, I talk of like the two donor problem sometimes. Like when you have one donor, it’s really easy ’cause you kinda know what they want and you know what they like and you give them everything perfect. And then as you, as soon as you have two people, it becomes really hard ’cause it’s like, well, how do you send the same thing to two people?
Simon Scriver: And I think that problem magnifies as you get bigger. But you get really, um, really clever ways to do that and yeah, really sophistic- sophisticated ways to manage that. I mean, David, as a large organization, you’re responsible for this kind of thing. How do you give a good supporter experience to so many people?
David Amos Reeves : Well, one of the things that we’re working on at the moment, and it is actually one of the sessions at the conference, um, last month, was, uh, we’re doing a segmentation, a piece of work around segmentation, which is about trying to understand why is it that supporters come to us. What is it that they’re getting out of that relationship, and how can we use those moments to help with that personalization, to help with being able to identify maybe the three, four, or five things that really matter.
David Amos Reeves : And to bring this to life at the Woodland Trust they discovered that essentially there was sort of five motivators for, for people engaging with them. It’s h- kind of climate change, fluffy animals, uh, landscape scale change individual trees, and I can’t remember the fifth one because it was seven years ago and they’re gonna tell me off.
David Amos Reeves : But if you can reflect to those moments in the language that you have with people when they’re, when they’re interacting with you. We’d set up this system where the face-to-face fundraisers would be able to get a sense, sort of from the conversation, are you interested in the fluffy animals? Are you interested in climate change?
David Amos Reeves : Are you interested in landscape scale change? And that followed through in the welcome journey. So it reflected the why they came in, and that, that continued into that relationship. And so when we talk about personalization, when we talk about trying to understand why a supporter supports us, we don’t need to go into the minutiae of thousands of different possible variants.
David Amos Reeves : It’s actually might only be three or four that really matter. Mm-hmm. But it’s about understanding what they are and playing them back to the customers as they’re interacting with you in the future.
Simon Scriver: I love that. I mean, playing it back. But the, the word you’ve used before, reflecting, I think is such a, a important thing to keep in mind when you’re writing to people.
Natasha Evans: Can I jump in there? Of course. Um, and I, I, I asked Simon if I could swear before, so I’m going to go for it now. Um- I
Multiple Speakers: said, “Fair.” I said, “Absolutely not” but she’s going
Natasha Evans: to anyway. Sorry, Mom. But I get … Oh, I have been quite pissed off before when I have … So I’ve supported a charity, and I won’t name names, and it’s not their fault.
Natasha Evans: But I supported a charity because somebody I knew was cared for and sadly passed away at a hospice. And- I told them. They knew that- Mm-hmm … because I told them. And the communications that I got after that was so generic. And actually- Yeah … I, yeah, it… I was like no, that’s not nice.” Yeah … that person was someone special to me, and I want you to recognize that that person was cared for at said hospice.
Natasha Evans: And I just wanted to just take my, um, hat off to Lisa at Fireside Fundraising- Mm-hmm … who spoke at the conference in May because her talk gave me shivers. Um, she, A, first of all, super brave I think because sh- the, um, story she was talking about was actually about her mother. And she was talking about that there was, I think, five I’s about storytelling, and she was saying about how turning, rather than talking about the work that a hospice does and talking about the stats that hospice care deliver- Mm
Natasha Evans: she was talking about the person who was cared for and talking about their story. And then she ended and said, “You know, actually, that, that person’s story was my mom’s story.” And A, I thought the s- the storytelling and how she, she told that story was just incredible. So if people haven’t listened or watched that session, I’m going to quote Lisa because she spoke about the five I’s, and they were individual, so talk about the individual, maybe share something a bit boring.
Natasha Evans: Talk about the issue, so what, what was happening. What was the intervention by the charity? What was the impact? And then she ended up with I, the storyteller, which I must admit, I can’t remember what that bit was about, but so you’re just gonna have to go and watch back, uh, or get in contact with Fireside Fundraising.
Natasha Evans: But do you know what also struck me from that session was the importance of who the messenger is in storytelling and showing impact at organizations. So sometimes if you might receive a letter from an organization and it’s from maybe the CEO, or it could be, I don’t know. Dave, who do we send from in organizations?
Natasha Evans: It might be CEO. Who might else it might be? I- i-
David Amos Reeves : in our case it could be, like, the specialist nurse. It could be, Right … you know, various people. Could be head of IG, for example, saying thank you. Sure. Lots of different people, yeah.
Natasha Evans: So what I think is super special is when it is someone who has interacted with a beneficiary.
Natasha Evans: So Dave, you mentioned there it could be a specialist nurse. A specialist nurse is quite connected, or is very connected with people who are receiving support from the organization. If you have, uh, if you’re in international development and you’ve got someone working in the field, can the letter and the communication be from them?
Natasha Evans: Because- Mm-hmm … then you become one step more connected with the people, the things that you’re trying to do in the world. Yeah. So yeah, I think I’ve gone down a rabbit hole. Um, but-
Simon Scriver: No, I think, I think it’s, I think it’s such an important uh, point because it’s like, like fundraisers are a bridge between the supporters and the cause, and it’s like our job is to bring people as close, make that bridge as easy to cross as possible so people can kind of see it.
Simon Scriver: And I’m glad you highlighted Lisa. You know, shout out to Fireside Fundraising and Lisa. ‘Cause that session, yeah, I mean, I, I didn’t watch it live ’cause I was in the other room, but then when I saw the feedback, everyone was going wild for the, you know, just so, um, in awe of Lisa- … and her speaking and the story.
Simon Scriver: Um, so I watched it back. So I do highly recommend members, you have access to that on demand. And it is available for anyone else to register for. Um, so I do highly recommend going back to that. But I, I mean, I really lo- one of the things I love about the conference, it’s a real supporter experience mindset.
Simon Scriver: Anyone who works in support experience, is the story sharing and the real actual case studies through. And, and even, I m- I mean, I think we had that scattered throughout. Um, even just like, um, it was the About Loyalty session actually. It was, it was your co- coworker, may I say, Tash-
Multiple Speakers: Mm-hmm …
Simon Scriver: uh, Kay, I think, who was talking with The Leprosy Mission and just sharing like actually what they did in the thankthon.
Simon Scriver: But then it was great to see everyone in the chat was chiming in with their own experiences and what they’re doing and what’s working for them. And I think like seeing those tangible ways that people are bringing through supporter experience, I found so helpful because it’s like sometimes supporter experience feels a bit vague to me, do you know?
Simon Scriver: But then when people actually share like your story, Tash, like Lisa’s story, but everyone’s case studies, it was like, “Oh, okay, this is what good supporter experience looks like.”
Natasha Evans: I remember their thankthon. I was very lucky to be invited by Deborah and the team to join them on the day, and it was such a buzz.
Natasha Evans: It really was. And what I really loved about what The Leprosy Mission did was it, they made that event into s- into their own. Mm-hmm. So they called it, uh, a thanking retreat. They came together, they did things in the, during the day that was important to them and their values as an organization, and everyone was there.
Natasha Evans: And it was such a, such great vibes. That’s nice. Nice to be invited as well, isn’t it? Nice to be invited to anything. Um, I’m conscious, um, of time here, and I do wanna kind of start to look to the future and get your guys’ thoughts on, you know, what you’re taking away from this, the people you work with and the people you speak to.
Simon Scriver: You know, what’s gonna change, and I guess what’s down the road. And, uh, some- I, I think- I, I think someone said it in a session- in a session, but I think people were also saying it in feedback and in the chat, this idea of the supporter’s expectations being set by not other charities, but by the Amazons, the Netflix, the Spotifys.
Simon Scriver: You know, what these big brands are doing out there that’s really clever. And then obviously we’ve got AI coming in, which is just shaking everything up and I guess is impacting that supporter experience and how we interact with companies and brands and charities from there. It’s a big question, but Tash and David, I’m gonna ask you, like, what’s coming in the next year until we have the next conference looking at this?
Simon Scriver: What else is happening out there that you guys think everyone should be aware of? Who wants to take that one first? That’s tough
David Amos Reeves : I think for me we, AI’s the biggie, right? AI’s there. Everyone’s talking about AI. We’re thinking of it as a thing in and of itself. So everyone has AI strategies, AI policies, et cetera, et cetera.
David Amos Reeves : And I actually think what we need to be thinking about always, what is the AI trying to achieve for us, and how is that part of a suite of tools that help us achieve that same thing? So really what we should be thinking about as charities is how do we connect better with our supporters so that we can start to reverse that decline in the relevancy gap and close that gap a little bit more.
David Amos Reeves : And therefore, what are the tools that will enable us to do that? Mm-hmm. One of those tools is that AI can crunch data in a way that no human ever can, and so many charities out there have an awful lot of data about their supporters that they are- they could use in a more effective way. And so it’s really directing that tool, that, that knowledge, that data to answer that question of how do we close that relevancy gap.
David Amos Reeves : Mm. And I think that will … I think that’s probably something that we’ll see more charities doing over the course of the next year or so, and I hope that we can bring some great examples of that- … to next year’s conference a- and start to kind of demonstrate and lead examples for that as well.
Simon Scriver: And it’s as much smarter positioning, do you know? ‘Cause I feel sometimes there’s a pressure to use AI. Like, you must be using AI, and then you try and find where it fits. But you’re talking much more like, “Well, what do we, what are we trying to do here? What are we trying to achieve here? And is AI the right tool for part of that or not?”
Simon Scriver: Uh, I think that’s smart. Tash, what, what’s your-
Natasha Evans: Yeah. So I’m gonna say I would ask myself, what is it … rather than thinking about what AI can do for us, what is it that it cannot do? It cannot … Actually, I’m not gonna, I’m not gonna follow on with that statement what it can’t do because I’m not an AI expert.
Natasha Evans: However, where I’m trying to get to with this is I don’t think it can replace tho- that human contact- Mm … that people have with other people. So what is it that you want to protect and reserve for a human to do? And then once you’ve captured that and, like, put it in a box, lock the key- Mm … uh, so that we never kind of take that element away, and then start thinking about, “Well, how can it help us to be more efficient or help us with the other things?”
Natasha Evans: Because I really value how charities are able to … Not always, and not always on scale, but we have supporter care teams who will have conversations with people. We will write handwritten cards to supporters. Like, let’s not lose that human element. Mm. Um, but let’s use AI to help us do the boring stuff that we don’t wanna do.
Simon Scriver: You, you both … I love that you both always bring it back to that humanness, and I think that’s such an important pa- the important part of the conference and all the speakers is that humanness in it and, um, yeah, it’ll be interesting to see what happens with all the AI and just how things develop as consumers, as supporters change.
Simon Scriver: Mm-hmm. It’s, it’s a strange time. But we, I mean, we at Fundraising Everywhere will be delving into some of that. We have our digital fundraising conference coming up, our individual giving conference coming up, and all of that will be, um, tackling some of that. But I know you guys will be continuing to dive deeper into this, and you already have some great guests lined up, uh, on Your Experience May Vary.
Simon Scriver: That’s your podcast. It’s called- Yeah … Your Experience May Vary. We’ll link to it into the description. Um, you’ve also got the Supporter Experience Hub, but, I mean, everywhere. Where, where do people find you after this if they wanna keep their finger on the pulse? Tash, where’s the best place for people to find you?
Natasha Evans: LinkedIn probably. Best place to find me. You can find our podcast on Spotify, although I’m looking at Dave because he’s a technical guru who sends out all the podcasts, so he can answer that. I wanna do a little jingle. Can I do a little jingle? Of course you can. Do, do, do, do, do, do-do.
Natasha Evans: That is what you’re gonna hear when you go
Simon Scriver: onto our podcast. Oh, you have music. That’s the official new music? That’s good.
Natasha Evans: Yes. Uh, not me doing it. That is my version- Yeah. … of the new jingle. I thought it was just- Just, just to warm people up, you know? I thought it was just you, Dave, you know, scatting at the beginning.
Natasha Evans: Yeah.
Simon Scriver: That’s good. It is, it is quite a catchy jingle, and there are a few, like, outtakes of Tash both at the start and end of most of our
Natasha Evans: episodes. Like,
Simon Scriver: do you know
David Amos Reeves : when you get post-credit things? There’s some of those for Tash.
Multiple Speakers: Yeah, yeah.
David Amos Reeves : Uh, but yeah, you know, find me on LinkedIn, David Amos Reeves, and the Experience Hub also have a LinkedIn page. We’re not very active, but we do check it occasionally- Mm … so if anyone has any, any questions, but typically we’re just a group of people that love this kind of stuff.
David Amos Reeves : And we’ll, we’ll support Fundraising Everywhere as much as you need us for. Amazing. So thank you- And can I- Yes. Please … sorry, Simon. Can I- Yeah … can I do a one, one last shout-out for, um, our friends at the Experience Hub? Because they there’s, it’s not just Dave and I. There’s a whole crew of people who are, um, involved, as well as Lesley Pinder.
Natasha Evans: Um, so just hello, friends and thank you for being a great group of people.
Simon Scriver: Hundred percent. I, I would say on behalf of Fundraising Everywhere as well, huge love to all of them. And Lesley, we, you know, we love Lesley. Lesley has put together a lovely little fundamentals course for us which we’ll be releasing- Yeah
Simon Scriver: um, shortly, so huge fans of Lesley and can’t overstate how much she did for the conference as well, so thank you so much to Lesley. Um, but Tash and David, I mean, this is about you, so I just wanna say again, thank you so much- Mm … to you guys. You know I love everything you do. I love that you are putting this stuff out there because I know you’re both very b- busy people already.
Simon Scriver: Um, but I’m really grateful that you’re involved with stuff that we do, and it’s always such a pleasure to, um, to hear from you, hear your thoughts. So thank you so much for making the time with me. I really appreciate it. Thank you to both Tash and David.
Natasha Evans: Thanks, Simon. Thanks to Fundraising Everywhere.
Simon Scriver: Thank you. And thank you everyone for listening. It’s wonderful to b- still be here talking to you. Um, I’m so grateful for everyone who, uh, came to the Supporter Experience Conference, but remember, if you didn’t, it’s still there available on demand to watch back on. Um, so I do highly recommend that. Some great sessions in there as and when you need them.
Simon Scriver: But for the rest of you, I’ll see you at an upcoming event. Please do check fundraisingeverywhere.com where you will find everything that is coming up. Um, my name is Simon Scriver, uh, from Fundraising Everywhere and, uh, until next time, goodbye. Thank you so much for listening to the Fundraising Everywhere podcast.
Alex Aggidis: If you’re enjoying this podcast, why not share it with a fundraising friend? And if you would like to give us a little like or subscribe, it really helps more fundraisers like you find us. Thank you so much. See you next time
*************
This transcript was created using AI. If you spot any mistakes, please reach out. Thank you!