In this episode of the Fundraising Everywhere podcast, host Simon Scriver sits down with Robin Peake, Deputy CEO of Wycliffe Bible Translators and author of the newly updated Complete Fundraising Handbook (8th edition, published by the Directory of Social Change), to talk about what it takes to build a resilient, confident, and effective fundraising career.
Robin shares the story behind writing the book — a nearly 400-page reference designed for fundraisers in the first five years of their careers, especially those working solo or in small teams. They dig into the “squiggly career” path many fundraisers find themselves on, why fundraising is hard (but not complicated), and how to build the confidence to push back when senior colleagues offer opinions that aren’t grounded in evidence.
The conversation also covers:
– Time management – Stephen Covey’s urgent/important matrix, the Pareto principle, and why “being busy” shouldn’t be worn as a badge of honor
– Resilience and self-care – how to develop an inner sense of security that doesn’t depend on whether a funder says yes or no
– Career development – the progression from managing tasks to managing projects, people, and change, plus the powerful question of “what’s the job after your next job?”
– Practical starting points – how to carve out time for learning and development when your to-do list never ends
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Purchase The Complete Fundraising Handbook — available from the Directory of Social Change
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. My name is Simon Scriver. I am one of the co-founders of Fundraising Everywhere. Excited as we, uh, come out of the summer, as we start to get back to school, as we start to look forward to some of our events a- ahead and conference season, where we tend to see a lot of our fellow fundraisers, which is great.
Simon Scriver: But today we’re talking about an upcoming book, uh, which is soon to be published, or by the time you’re listening to this, it might just be out. It’s The Complete Fundraising Handbook. And this is an all-rounder book as we cover all sorts of fundraising topics. And what better man to talk about fundraising and all aspects of fundraising than the wonderful Robin Peake?
Simon Scriver: I’ve invited Robin Peake, Deputy CEO of Wycliffe Bible Translators, onto the podcast. Hello, Robin.
Robin Peake: Hey, Simon. Good to see you again. How are you?
Simon Scriver: It is so lovely to see you. And Robin, I know you from, I don’t really know how I know you. I’m probably Twitter. I think from
Robin Peake: Twitter.
Simon Scriver: It’s gotta be, like, the Twitter days.
Simon Scriver: But I’ve seen you speak at, at a number of times on very different topics around fundraising. But just always had such a wonderful vibe about you. Always very informative, always very straight to the point. I think of you as a no-waffle speaker. You’ve always got a bunch of good stuff in it. And so I was delighted when I saw that it was your name behind this book.
Robin Peake: That’s great. Well, yeah, it was, um, I was really excited to be asked to write the next edition of the book. I, I don’t know about you, but I’ve had previous editions of this book on my bookshelf to learn from when I was starting out. So yeah, it was a real joy to be asked to write it. It was less of a joy to actually write it.
Robin Peake: Certainly faded about halfway through, but I just really enjoyed kinda bringing together different aspects of what I’ve learnt from others. I think fundraising generally- Mm … we, we’re just learning from others all the time. I find, I, I think like a lot of people, I just fell into fundraising and then fell in love with it.
Robin Peake: But I just find that following other people on social media, meeting up with them for coffee, trying to buy lunch so they could secretly be my mentor without them noticing it, all those things have just really helped me kinda learn from others. And so this is an attempt to bring some of that and bring some of the best practice from around the sector and put it into, to one handbook.
Simon Scriver: Uh, I found, I found that with you as a presenter, like you’re good at taking a lot of ideas and diffusing it to almost, like, simplify it. Those are always some of my favorite presenters and session speakers, is when they, they do it like that. You know, there’s not an assumption of what you know. And so your book here, do you know it’s nearly four
Simon Scriver: I think nearly 400 pages- Yeah … covering, a lot of, like, how-tos, a lot of practical sides of it, a lot of scope of it. But there’s … does this cover everything someone needs to know in fundraising?
Robin Peake: I mean, I’m pretty sure there’s stuff it doesn’t cover. And obviously, you know, trying to cover so much it doesn’t get into depth.
Robin Peake: So it doesn’t claim to be, you know, the complete guide to digital acquisition or, or anything like that. There’s much better books and much better people out there for that. But it is an attempt to go across, right the… right across the spectrum. So we look at fundraising fundamentals, which, you know, even though the landscape changes they don’t change.
Robin Peake: People still give to people. The biggest reason people give is because they’re asked. All those things that have been true right throughout history. We look at fundraising strategy. Um, we look across the different sectors. So there’s a chapter on corporates, there’s a chapter on lottery fundraising, there’s individuals, and major donors, and legacies, and grant-making charities, all those things you’d expect to see.
Robin Peake: We look at acquisition and retention. And also then we look at kind of career development and professional development as well. So it, it’s trying to cover an awful lot of things. You know, some people will just dip into some of the relevant chapters for them. But my hope is, is that- I guess the fundraiser I had particularly in mind writing this was someone who’s maybe, you know, within the first five years of their career, they’re in a charity where they’re, they’re maybe the only fundraiser or they’re one of a small team of fundraisers and this is something they can, can turn to and get a bit of confidence in their own ability.
Robin Peake: I think often fundraisers, we learn stuff, we think, “Yeah, this is great. This is what I should be doing.” Mm-hmm. Then we go back to our team and there’s someone else with a, a different opinion that’s maybe not as informed and suddenly we, we sort of doubt ourselves. And so my hope in this book was that people would would gain confidence in it- Mm
Robin Peake: would feel that they’re not alone and would be able to have the kind of really practical tools to, to do their amazing jobs better and, and raise more money for great causes.
Simon Scriver: Yeah, I really see it as that kind of confidence giver ’cause it’s like, it’s almost like an eye on what you… making sure you haven’t forgotten anything, you know, making sure you’ve already been ticking those boxes so people are already in there.
Simon Scriver: I, I think it is that book on the shelf you can pull off just to reference things when you’re, when you have a different hat on or when you’re thinking about a different area. But if you’re new to fundraising, it’s a great little almost encyclopedia of getting started, and so I think there is something in there for everyone.
Simon Scriver: But I was particularly interested… Well, I w- I’ll just say again, anyone who wants to pick this up, this is available from the Directory of Social Change, right? Um-
Robin Peake: Yeah. So you can, you can buy it on Amazon, but I think right now the, the Directory of Social Change have it for cheaper, so you can just go to their website and search for The Complete Fundraising Handbook.
Simon Scriver: Lovely. What’s your Amazon rating? Oh, I suppose you haven’t got one yet. That’s good. I haven’t
Robin Peake: got it yet-
Simon Scriver: Yeah, yeah … but
Robin Peake: we’ll see how that goes.
Simon Scriver: But yeah, I mean, I’m a fan of Directory of Social Change. I’ve done some webinars for them before, but this is a great… This is the eighth edition, and it will be available through the Directory of Social Change website, which we’ll link in the description.
Simon Scriver: But one of the things, Robin, especially I wanted to talk to you about on this book, because it does cover so many kind of like practicalities and the tools and the nitty-gritty, but you spend a lot of time talking about, what you call the squiggly career- Mm … of fundraising, and I’ve heard a few people…
Simon Scriver: I love that phrase. I think a lot of people love that phrase, because I think we all feel like we’re in that squiggly career. But a lot of the book is really about that you as a fundraiser rather than your organization’s fundraising. It’s like you in your professional development, you in terms of your time management, you in terms of your self-care.
Simon Scriver: I mean, is that a really conscious decision for you to put so much of that in the book?
Robin Peake: Yeah, I think I was writing it for fundraisers rather than for charities, if that makes sense. I think so often we need encouragement. Um, fun- fundraising’s not complicated, but it’s hard. It’s hard when you’re dealing with a rejection.
Robin Peake: It’s hard when you’re struggling with a board member who’s got an opinion that’s different. It’s hard when you know, you’ve got a manager who, you know, who just thinks, has, has unrealistic targets. And I think that feeling that- Um, there are people out there who understand it. There are people out there who’ve got your back.
Robin Peake: There’s people out there who’ve been through that. Um, so it’s definitely written with that in mind. But yeah, but I think so many of us have had this, this kind of squiggly career. So I think there’s a there’s a book on that by I think it’s Sarah Ellis and Helen Tupper. Um, and it just- like that’s been my experience.
Robin Peake: You know, I didn’t grow up wanting to be a fundraiser, but I, but I look back now and I was raising money for the NSPCC when I was seven years old, you know? And, and there was something of that in me. And so when the opportunity came to, to move into fundraising, I just found I really enjoyed it.
Robin Peake: It was also… I, I did a master’s in football history, which was a lot of fun, but actually not- Okay … very professional. So, so, so this- Yeah … seemed to open up more career opportunities than, than I’d had. And that’s been really fun just to kind of plot through that and find that actually by, by reading books, by following people, by learning from others-
Multiple Speakers: Yeah
Robin Peake: I, th- th- there were certain rules about fundraising. There were certain things that you could do. And it’s really difficult because we have one of these professions, Simon, where everyone thinks they can do what we do.
Multiple Speakers: Yeah.
Robin Peake: And so everyone has ideas. And when you’re, when you’re rep- you know, when you’re young in your career and you’re reporting to senior people and they’ve got ideas that are just their ideas, that aren’t based on anything- Yeah
Robin Peake: it’s really easy to follow them. And I think actually following the evidence, following what other people have done that has worked, that’s where we really can add value as fundraisers. And, and almost having the confidence in ourselves to, to go to a conference, to read a book, to get that learning, and then apply it.
Robin Peake: Yeah. And actually be able to say, “Listen, I’ve only been here six months, you know, I’m 20 years younger than you, but actually I’ve done the learning. I’ve spent the time investing in that.” Yeah. “I do know what I’m doing, and that’s what you’re paying me to do.” You know, we- w- it can be really easy for us to, to do what more senior people want us to do, but actually what they really want is income raised or resilient income raised for their charities.
Robin Peake: And sometimes we have to ignore what they think they want in order to give them what they really want. Mm-hmm. Um, and so the book is kind of an attempt to do that. And some bits are written kind of specifically that you can circle them with a big red pen and give them to your boss and say, “
Simon Scriver: Listen.”
Simon Scriver: Yeah. Yeah. It, it’s great. It is that kind of quotable thing. It’s almost like a co- again, going back to that confidence, when you’re speaking to those senior stakeholders, when you’re speaking to your board or your CEO, it does kind of give you that confidence that it’s not just you, what you’ve heard on the grapevine.
Simon Scriver: This is a published book. This is, uh, you know, researched, informed thinking that the sector agrees on, do you know? And it is such a difficult job, isn’t it? It’s tricky because you are juggling all those people. It’s a job that never ends. It can feel like quite a lonely job as a fundraiser, especially if you’re the only person, you know, responsible for fundraising.
Simon Scriver: Like you said, everyone thinks they have a say in it, but you’re- it just feels on your shoulders. And I know there’s a lot of fundraisers who feel- burnt out or approaching burnt out, but we talk about it so much now how, how mu- how much fundraisers are struggling.
Robin Peake: Yeah, I think so. I mean, I, I started as a lone fundraiser with no fundraising experience in a charity that didn’t really know how to do fundraising.
Robin Peake: That’s a really difficult combination. You know, I wasn’t starting in a huge charity who could teach me what to do. I, I suddenly found myself, I was responsible for, booking major donor meetings, sending out the emails doing our, our kind of managing our regular giving program, managing the photocopier lease, and also I was on the rota to do the hoovering on Wednesdays.
Robin Peake: It was just this really- … you know, th- this mix, but that was just totally normal, wasn’t it? You know, because just we were a small, small charity- Everyone has to muck in. Um, I, I find that really helpful actually. Like, looking back, that starting in a, in a generalist role. So, so my career
Robin Peake: has probably stayed quite generalist, as in I’ve, I’ve, you know, done a, a wide range of things and now I’m managing people doing a wide range of things. Whereas other people maybe start as, you know, the digital brand engagement officer, you know, and then, and then that- that’s kind of their lane, and that can maybe be harder to break out of.
Robin Peake: So I really enjoyed that, being a generalist, being across a range of things, finding out what I liked, learning what I wasn’t good at so I could then, you know, as we grew, hire people to do those things. Um, but yeah, but to your point, I think fundraising is hard, and I think there is a lot in this, you know, about fundraiser wellbeing and burnout culture and all of that.
Robin Peake: And I think one of the things that I was grateful to have learnt early in my career was that the things that felt scary then kinda no longer feel scary. And so, you know, there’s something around… I don’t particularly like some of the wellbeing stuff that is, just avoid all the challenge, avoid all the stress.
Robin Peake: And listen, people have loads of stuff going on in their lives, and people can make their own judgements on what to lean into and what to lean away from. Mm. But I find that resilience is something that can grow through exposure to things, and so I was quite grateful being a lone fundraiser in a small charity who learnt things by doing rather than just from textbooks.
Robin Peake: And those, those failures, those challenges really grow me. You know, I think particularly of management. I think your first time managing someone is the most awful time- Mm … because you don’t know what you’re doing as a manager. You’re generally managing someone who’s, you know, new to the workforce, you know, or quite young in their career.
Robin Peake: It’s just a really bad combination. I was an awful manager, and yet because of that experience, it just, it built that capacity in me. It built that learning cycle in me. Mm. Um, and so just really, really grateful for that. You know, and how do we kinda say yes to things that, that feel at the edge of our capacity?
Robin Peake: How do we say yes to things before we feel ready so that we, we build our capacity to to do things, to manage stress? You know, s- not all stress is bad. Mm. Stress is coping and, and there’s ways… You know, what’s stressful to us today won’t be stressful in 10 years if we lean in.
Simon Scriver: Yeah.
Simon Scriver: I guess there’s a… I mean, there’s a few tools. It is that self-management which you talk about in the book. Talking about not avoiding these difficult things, but facing them to almost build that resilience. Do you have any quick tips for, like, how you do self-manage that? I mean, is it each person needs to find their own way?
Simon Scriver: And, and I guess, is that a fundraising thing? Because there’s so much rejection in it, because there’s so much negativity, which is almost part of the job. Like, do we all have to build that resilient strategy? Resilience strategy, dare we call it?
Robin Peake: Yeah. I think we need to be grounded, and we need to- and develop a sense of security that doesn’t come from those who manage us, that doesn’t come from our donors or funders who say no.
Robin Peake: Um, when we basically, I think when we allow our own wellbeing to be dictated to by Garfield Weston or the Lottery Fund, whether they say yes or no, or whether a boss is happy with us on a Friday afternoon we give away some of our power. You know, we’re essentially saying to, to, to others, “You, your mood gets, y- your decisions get to dictate how I feel about myself.”
Robin Peake: And so, and that’s really, really hard work, right? You know, and I’ve, I’ve been grateful to, to have spent time in counseling and, and stuff like that just to try to develop that, that inner sense of self. You know, for me as a person of faith, you know, a lot of it comes from that as well.
Robin Peake: But that sense of actually I wanna be really grounded. I wanna be really secure in my own identity, um, and not give some of that power away. And that, that’s true whether you’re in fundraising or, or anything else. But I think in fundraising, you know, we are We, we are we’re more than the sum of the charts, you know?
Robin Peake: And the charts that say income’s going up or income is going down we’re more than that. And I think it is just being able to have that sense of inner security that says, “Yeah, you know, I, I can see what’s going well, I can see what’s not going well. I know my part in that.” And being able to I guess, critically evaluate ourselves and not leave that just to those who manage us.
Simon Scriver: I suppose there, there’s ti- excuse me, time involved in, in that self-management and actually, you know, taking a step back and looking at yourself. You had, you had a great quote in the book, which I’ve written down here. “Almost every fundraiser I’ve ever met has been perpetually busy- … yet not every fundraiser I’ve met has been achieving great results.”
Simon Scriver: And that, and it does feel like that. Like, we’re so busy, how do we find the time with, you know, good results or bad results? How do we still make the time for ourselves? Have you any strong thoughts on that?
Robin Peake: Yeah. I think I remember when I started out in fundraising, you know, and there were so many different things to do, and I remember meeting someone from, like, a huge charity, like 100 million pound charity, and they were just complaining about capacity bottlenecks.
Robin Peake: Yeah. And I was like, “Oh my goodness,” you know? And, and I couldn’t believe that they would complain about that. But then it also really helped me to realize this, this won’t change, you know, r- regardless of I’m never gonna be in a job in the charity sector where I’m gonna get to, like, Friday morning and go, “Oh, I, I don’t need to work the rest of the day,” you know?
Robin Peake: The, the, the jobs are all done. And that’s just not the case. There’s always more expectations from others, from ourselves than we have capacity. And so, so for me then it was, okay, if we’re always gonna be busy, you know, first off, let’s not wear that as a badge of honor. You know, let’s not pretend it’s great to be busy or, or kind of parade that.
Robin Peake: Everyone’s busy. It’s just, you know, when people say, “How are you?” And they say, “I’m busy,” like what even is that? You know, what, what are we trying to pr- what are we trying to prove to, to, to the world by saying that? … But actually how do we use our time becomes really important. And, for me it was some of that being able to take a step back early in my, in my kinda 20s learning actually I can spend the next 40 hours of this week- doing stuff and at the end of the week still feel the most important things didn’t get done.
Robin Peake: Mm. Or I can spend the time being really kind of intentional, strategic. I guess it’s the difference between being proactive and reactive. And you know, one of my colleagues says like major donors are never emailing me to say, “Hey, you haven’t, been in touch with me for a couple of weeks.”
Robin Peake: That, that doesn’t happen, right? But my colleagues will do that. You know, “I sent you an email two hours ago,” you know. “Have you had any thoughts on that yet?” Yeah. And actually I know where the value comes. I know that the value comes from those external major donor relationships, and if I’m just reactive, I’m just responding to the whirlwind that is within the working environment, and I’m not doing those proactive steps that are, that are really gonna add most value.
Robin Peake: Um, there’s a book in… I don’t know. There’s parts of it I didn’t like at all, but it’s called The 4-Hour Workweek. But at the center- Yeah … of it was this question that was basically if you only had four hours to, in, in which to, four hours of your week to do your work, what would you spend it doing?
Robin Peake: And no one answers, I would manage my email inbox. You know, like that- that’s no one’s reply. And so it might be, trust application. It might be managing the person who does the trust application so they’re doing the right ones. You know, whatever it is that, that is the most value, and just make sure those things go in first.
Robin Peake: Mm. So it’s about what are the things that, that I add most value and all the other stuff. Stephen Covey talked about kind of the important and the urgent, you know, and it’s, it’s really easy to confuse the two. Mm. Something can be urgent but really not that important. But the stuff that’s important and urgent which is often actually stuff like, you know, learning, development, going to conferences, networking, all of that stuff that, you know, if you don’t do it this week, there’s no big deal.
Robin Peake: If you don’t do it next week, there’s no big deal. But if you don’t do it all year, you’re not actually, you’re not developing, you’re not growing, you’re not moving yourself forward, you’re not moving your charity forward. And ultimately you think that you are serving y- the charity or, or giving your best by focusing on the things that are urgent, but you’re kind of neglecting those longer term things that are, that are good for you, good for your wellbeing, your growth, your development, your career- Mm
Robin Peake: and ultimately also good for the charity that you serve in today and the charities you may serve in tomorrow.
Simon Scriver: Yeah. I, I, I wanna come back to that Co- you talking about Covey’s time management there. But it’s so interesting when you’re talking about, I mean, you’re almost talking about mindset there. Do you know the fact that we are always gonna be busy?
Simon Scriver: Do you know? Like, that, that’s the standard. Uh, you know, especially in fundraising it never ends. There isn’t a limit to how much you can do. You can always do something. And so much of it is that line to draw ourselves, or almost just reframed. You know? That it’s like you’re not busy, you’re just doing the job.
Robin Peake: Mm.
Simon Scriver: That’s what your hours are there for. So I really like the way you kinda make it such s- I guess almost like an achievable thing. Like, it seems like a manageable thing that each of us can a- literally box off and start creating time strategically for us. Part of that tool is this, this time management matrix.
Simon Scriver: Is that what you call it? Covey’s thing?
Robin Peake: Yeah. So he, he does a little two-by-two matrix. Mm. So he has kind of important on, I don’t know, the X axis. Urgent on the Y axis. So he talks about, you know, the things that are important and urgent, and so it’s the, you know, it’s the, the, the huge trust that, that I’ve given to you for the last three years, and the deadline is tomorrow, and you absolutely need to focus on that first He talks about the stuff that is important but not urgent.
Robin Peake: And so that might be strategy planning. Legacies often fall into that box, particularly for smaller, younger charities. It’s like, “Yeah, not this year, not this year.” Um, uh, it’s your own kinda career development, learning, networking, that sort of stuff. Then you’ve got stuff that is urgent but not important, and that’s often just other people’s priorities, other people’s stuff that just gets dumped on you at the last minute.
Robin Peake: It’s- Mm. You know, it’s kind of doom scrolling. It’s for me, the stuff that always felt urgent and not important was checking the results of our appeals. Yeah. It’s like this isn’t actually raising money. This is just kind of, as- assuaging my own- Yeah … uh, kind of sense of ego. And then there’s the stuff that is not sorry urgent and not important.
Robin Peake: You know, and that’s often stuff that, again, just people are… That’s the emails in your inbox that you feel you need to reply to and get to. But he talks about that, that quadrant that is the important stuff that doesn’t feel urgent is often the stuff that gets neglected. And so the important loses out to the urgent.
Robin Peake: And that just fundamentally doesn’t serve us. And so I’ve experienced that, that as a fundraiser, when someone comes along and they’re like, “Hey, I came across this, this fund that looks really great. It looks a really good fit for us, and the deadline’s tomorrow, and we need to do a video application.”
Robin Peake: And suddenly you’re scrambling and you’re doing it, and then three weeks later you find out you didn’t get the money and you’re like, “Why did I do that?”
Simon Scriver: Yeah, yeah.
Robin Peake: But because it’s come from higher above or because there’s been a sense of urgency- Yeah … you’ve done that. And so there’s another principle I really like, which is the kind of the, the Pareto principle, this idea that 80% of results come from 20% of effort.
Robin Peake: And you can take that across your donor base. 80% of your income probably comes from 20% of your donors all that sort of thing. And so, so how to find what, you know, what are the things I’m doing that bring the biggest results from, you know, only 20% of income, and how do I do more of those kinds of things?
Robin Peake: Um, and so you’ll find that, you know, you’re, you’re maybe spending time chasing prospects who really don’t wanna be interested in your charity, but the donor, he gives you 10 grand or 50 grand every year and doesn’t require much attention. Actually, if you nurtured that relationship, that could lead to a gift and a will or a larger gift or an introduction to friends or those kinds of things.
Robin Peake: And just trying to, trying to be really clear about the tasks You know, in a sense it’s almost like an effort versus reward. What are the things that are, are low effort, high reward, or high effort, high reward and really focusing energy and time into that. And I find it really helpful, Simon, to, to sit down, you know, there, there’s weeks you come to on a, on a Sunday night or a Monday morning and you just think that there’s just more to do this week than I have capacity to do.
Robin Peake: Mm-hmm. And at that point my temptation is always I don’t have time for planning, I just need to get through the list. And so I’m just like ignore the planning, just start and hopefully by the end of the week everything’s done. And then it just gets sideswiped. And actually- Yeah … so last night I went to the gym and I just took 15 minutes after finishing up at the gym and just it was…
Robin Peake: So last night was a Sunday night, and it was just what are the things that are going on this week, … how long are they gonna take? And then add some, ’cause I generally underestimate- Yeah, yeah … time, right? I think, oh, that, that won’t take me long. And then actually put it, for me it’s about putting them in my calendar so I’m really clear the- these are the big rocks.
Robin Peake: Um, and then, you know, I’m left with a bunch of stuff that I would really like to get it done this week, but if I don’t, it- Yeah … it’s not gonna be the, it’s not gonna be the worst thing. I’m okay getting to the end of the week or to the end of the day with things undone as long as the most important things have been done.
Robin Peake: Yeah. And I think what is that feeling when you get to a Friday at 5:00 and you realize you’ve worked hard, but the things that you really needed to get done that week haven’t been done. Yeah. That’s really deflating. And so I’m generally just trying to avoid that feeling week after week.
Simon Scriver: Yeah. And I guess that’s so much of the fundraising job, do you know?
Simon Scriver: Because I think it’s like- Uh, al- almost, like pretty much everything works. You know, everything eventually raises money or… But our job as fundraisers is almost to prioritize that- Yeah … and to see, like, okay, how do we spend our limited amount of hours that’s gonna make the longest, you know, the biggest impact long-term and short-term.
Simon Scriver: You talked about the Pareto principle there. I remember, I wanna say it was Sean Triner speaking about- Mm-hmm … you know, he often talks about, but he was talking about that 80/20% rule, and then pointing out that also, you know, 20% of your 20%- Yeah … are providing 80% of your 80… Do you know? And so it’s like, actually you can, that’s almost how you d- boil down to that four-hour work week is what is really gonna to have the impact there.
Simon Scriver: And I think it’s a really helpful way to think about it, ’cause it does feel in this role, in the fundraiser’s role, there’s just a limitless thing you can do. There’s always something else you can add to it. There’s always suggestions from other people and I do love that so much of your book actually does spend time on, uh, do you call it this, protecting the top right quadrant?
Simon Scriver: You’re almost like protecting it. Yeah. It,
Robin Peake: it’s that. And I think, you know, for me, when I think of kinda career development, I think, that first layer is like managing tasks. And if you can prove yourselves to, you know, to get through the, the key things on your to-do list that are gonna add most value, then you get given more responsibility.
Robin Peake: You get trusted as someone who gets the most important things done. Mm-hmm. And then you move from kinda managing tasks to managing projects You know, when you’re given that opportunity to lead stuff that isn’t in your job description. And- Mm … and my big encouragement to people at that stage is, is just say yes.
Robin Peake: You know, because actually if you, you know, someone comes with a project and you’ve already got a lot on, you know, you’re already doing your full-time job. Mm. But if you say no, you may not get asked again. And, and that’s sometimes the thing that just helps again with that wider exposure. So- Mm … so you go from managing tasks to managing projects, and then maybe to managing people, whether that’s kind of having people who report into you or whether that’s kind of managing across, managing up.
Robin Peake: And then I think it’s about, from then it’s, it’s how do you manage change? N- now you’re leading change within- Mm … a team or a department or maybe across the whole organization. But underneath all of that is managing yourself, managing your own stress, managing your own resilience, managing your own emotional intelligence.
Robin Peake: You know, how do we grow that so that we become better fundraisers, better teammates, better managers, all of that. So I think tho- those kind of, those five things for me are almost in a bit of a cycle, you know? And it’s not y- it’s not that you graduate from one and, and go to the other. But I remember there, there’s an interview with President Obama, I think this was after he’d been president, and he said, what is his advice to young people kind of setting out in careers?
Robin Peake: And his advice was just learn to get stuff done, yeah. And just if you build a reputation for getting stuff done, people trust you with more stuff, you know? And yes, that adds to your plate, but then suddenly now you’re then maybe in charge of a team and you’ve got people to delegate to, you know, or you’ve got extra resource you can call on, or you find ways to, to use freelancers or virtual assistants to be kind of- Yeah
Robin Peake: flexible in that. But actually if you become someone who’s known for getting stuff done that really opens up, I think, opportunities for you from a career point of view.
Simon Scriver: Yeah.
Robin Peake: And I think that, that opens up more, maybe more meaningful opportunities if that’s an area you wanna pursue into.
Simon Scriver: And, and more productive in your current role, doesn’t it? You know- Yeah … whether you’re thinking forward or not. But speaking of s- looking forward, you ask a really interesting question in the book, which stopped me in my track, about what’s the job you want after- Mm … your next job? And I wish I’d read that ’cause I was doing interviews recently.
Simon Scriver: I wish I’d read that before that. But I love that. I mean, is that, is that how we should be thinking? I mean, o- obviously there’s like the really driven people out there, but all of us really, we should be kind of thinking of this natural path and where we’d like to be job after next.
Robin Peake: Yeah. I think when we think about, switching jobs or moving to another job, and, and that might be internal, if you’re at a large charity- Mm
Robin Peake: or that might be moving to a different charity. I think there’s a bunch of questions to ask ourselves in that, you know? And, and this has been stuff that I’ve kind of gleaned from mentors over the years. So I think there’s a space of- Actually learning about yourself. You know, what kind of size of charity do I wanna be involved in?
Robin Peake: Do I wanna be a kind of small part in a huge charity where there’s gonna be, you know, lots to learn from but I’m gonna be more in a specialism? Or do I wanna maybe be in a smaller charity where I’ll have a broader range and I’m gonna be more in a generalist type role? There’s obviously the stuff, you know, what kind of cause do I wanna work for?
Robin Peake: Um, what kind of culture do I wanna have? I think, for me now, pro- I would say culture is more important than cause, and just that sense of actually what am I stepping into here and what’s the kind of culture? And, and it’s really hard to learn that from a from a, you know, a job description.
Robin Peake: You know, for me, that’s about asking other people who’ve worked there-
Simon Scriver: Yeah, even in an interview it’s very hard to
Robin Peake: kind of- Yeah. It’s, yeah. Get that. But I think, job searching is two ways. You know, they’re trying to look at you, but you have to look at them. Yeah. And also, depending how much you want the job can really color, you can change your mindset on the red flags that, that are there.
Robin Peake: Um, and so maybe you go into a job and three months later you realize, oh no, this is a nightmare, and the red flags were there, but you just you really needed a job or you really wanted to, to make that move. And so just being open to that. But yeah, but I think this, this question around what’s the job after the next job.
Robin Peake: So one of my mentors said to me a, a while back when I was thinking about a new job, you know, i- is this future friendly? Does this widen your options? Does it narrow your options? D- you know, do you have a cl- and I, I don’t have a particularly clear sense of, of where I wanna be in 10 years. I’ve never, never operated in that way.
Robin Peake: But if you do have that does this job help you get there? And just being able to perceive, you know, where it might take you into. Um, and I think s- for me, that was a really helpful question to ask, you know- Yeah … as I looked at any job and thought, “Is that something I wanna apply to?
Robin Peake: Is actually, is this future-friendly? Does this help me get th- the next job that maybe, you know, I really wanna go into down the line?”
Simon Scriver: Yeah. Man, 10 years is a long time to think about. Mm-hmm. But I think, you know, job changes happen much quicker than that often these days. But even just that mindset, you know, even if you’re not changing job, I think that’s a really helpful mindset of, like you said, your internal progression or just how your role is gonna develop over the years.
Simon Scriver: So I think that’s really helpful. We’re coming short on time, Rowan, but I’m really curious, uh, for people listening who are kind of coming away, obviously their, their number one task is to buy the book, I think- Obviously … if that’s all right for me, now I’m gonna say which I’m linking to. But in terms of, like, starting to set aside or develop a strategy for themselves, do you know?
Simon Scriver: Or starting to set that time aside, where do, where do we start with this? What’s a good place to start?
Robin Peake: Yes. I think what I’ve seen doesn’t work well is putting Friday afternoon as, like- Yeah … learning and development time. ‘Cause by the time you get to, like, 3:00 on a Friday, just you still got a mountain of stuff to do.
Robin Peake: So Stephen Covey tells this other story about, you know, putting the big rocks in first. Um, and I guess, for me, I sometimes find either late on a Sunday night or first thing on a Monday morning, setting out the week, um, I find putting in some of that scheduled time, I find, so my worst thing that I do is sign up for free webinars and then never attend them because, you know, something else has, has come in that- that’s more urgent or feels more urgent in that time.
Robin Peake: Or even worse, I kind of join but I’m doing emails on the side, and I find out that an hour has passed and I haven’t done either particularly well at all. And I think, yeah, it is, some of it is mindset, some of it is- You know, how widening the horizon. So there’s what I wanna get achieved today, what I wanna achieve this week, but actually where I wanna be in a year’s time.
Robin Peake: I remember someone telling me about this kind of decision matrix. So they did a thing where, you know, am I gonna be happy with this decision in 10 minutes, in 10 days- … in 10 months or 10 years or something like that. Yeah. So to, you know, if I go to this webinar and spend the next hour doing that and I’m purely focused on that, am I gonna be happy with myself 10 minutes after that?
Robin Peake: Am I gonna feel good about myself in 10 days, in 10 months, in 10 years? Am I gonna be glad that I did that? And just widening that horizon is really helpful. And sometimes the answer is no, this, you know, this other thing really needs done and I need to catch up on the recording later, and I need to diary that time in so I don’t, slip on that.
Robin Peake: But I think just that, again, it’s the urgency thing. You know, if we just think about what I need to do today or this week- … then we’re just focused on that and we’re, we’re just like the, proverbial hamster spinning a wheel and not actually building our own capacity. Being able to add greater value to our charity and, and to our careers.
Robin Peake: And so I think just widening or lengthening that horizon just might help us make better decisions in the moment.
Simon Scriver: Yeah, that’s helpful. I like that. Thank you. And I will remind, uh, you’ve, just ’cause you’ve cued it there Fundraising Everywhere members, they get access to all the recordings, uh, to pla- plot in as and when they see fit.
Simon Scriver: So that’s just one of the many benefits of Fundraising Everywhere membership, which I will link to in to the description along with a link to the wonderful Robin books, book. Wonderful Robin Peake’s book. It is the Complete Fundraising Handbook. It’s the eighth edition, um, and it’s published by the Directory of Social Change, available from the Directory of Social Change, but also on Amazon and wherever you get good books.
Simon Scriver: Where do you get good books, Robin? What are you reading at the moment that helps you?
Robin Peake: Interesting. What am I reading at the moment? I’m reading a book called Why Should Anyone Be Led By You? Um- Oh … which my son keeps seeing and just laughing. He’s like, “Yeah, Dad- … why should anyone be led by you?” Yeah,
Simon Scriver: yeah.
Robin Peake: And I was like, “I, I don’t know. I haven’t finished the book, but maybe when I finish the book I’ll- Yeah … I’ll be able to answer that.” Yeah, yeah … so yeah, so I read probably a bit more around leadership. I’ve finished Alan Clayton’s Great
Simon Scriver: Fundraising Organizations. Yes.
Robin Peake: That’s shaping a lot of what we’re doing here at the minute.
Robin Peake: Um, yeah. And I had some really good… I read a novel, a Japanese novel about butter over the summer. So that was mm, an acquired taste.
Simon Scriver: Yeah. Interesting. That’s good. I’ll look forward to your book reviews, and I look forward, as always, to you diffusing the knowledge, um, so that someone, uh, with my brain power can digest it.
Simon Scriver: A- again, that’s what I always find very helpful about Robin. Uh, Robin, where are you hanging out on social media these days? Where do people find you? LinkedIn? Yeah, I’m just on LinkedIn. So you can … I don’t know. If you search my name I’ll probably come up there. We’ll see you there.
Simon Scriver: Thank you, Robin.
Simon Scriver: And I miss you on Twitter, but it’s, uh … You know, those days are gone. It’s good to still see you on LinkedIn and catch up with you. Thank you so much, Robin. Thank you for making the time. Well done again on the book, and really helpful, really useful as always. So thank you. Thank you for making the time.
Robin Peake: Thanks, Simon. Good to be with you.
Simon Scriver: And, and thank you all to, for listening. My name is Simon Scriver. I am one of the co-founders of Fundraising Everywhere. Do check out our membership while you’re looking at fundraisingeverywhere.com, but you can also see all of the events that we have. Um, whatever you’re specializing in, or you want those general learnings as well, I’ve got them linked to there.
Simon Scriver: A great accompaniment to reading Robin’s book. Um, that’s it from me. Thank you all for being here. Lovely to chat to you, and I’ll see you again.
Jade Cunnah: Thank you for listening to the Fundraising Everywhere podcast. If you’re enjoying this podcast, why not share it with a fundraising friend? And if you’d like to give us a little like or subscribe, it really helps fundraisers like you find us.
Jade Cunnah: Thank you so much. See you next time. Bye