Transcript

[00:00:00] Multiple Voices: Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. , you don’t need to add me in there.

[00:00:31] 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 fundraising everwhere.com/podcast to subscribe Now onto today’s episode, enjoy.

[00:00:59] Simon Scriver: Well, hello everyone and welcome to the Fundraising Everywhere podcast. My name is Simon Scriver. I am one of the co-founders of fundraising everywhere. Uh, and I’m very, very happy to be back with you again chatting to, uh, another great guest. Um, and today we’re, we’re, well, at the moment we’re focusing on, uh, recruitment and, and people’s careers, especially in for, for fundraisers, but in the nonprofit sector as a whole.

[00:01:22] Simon Scriver: The wider, uh, recruitment world. And so, um, who I’ve invited on to get the podcast today is the wonderful Joe McGinnis, uh, from Think, um, first of all, hello Joe, how are you? Hi, 

[00:01:35] Jo McGuinness: I’m great. Delighted to be here. 

[00:01:38] Simon Scriver: Joe, I, I, I’ve had the pleasure to talk to you several times over the years. Um, and this is why, one of the reasons I really wanted to get you back to kind of check in, uh, on, on, I guess, how you’ve been and your perception of recruitment in the sector, um, since we last spoke.

[00:01:53] Simon Scriver: But for, for people who don’t know the infamous Joe McGinness already, who, who are you? 

[00:01:59] Jo McGuinness: Who am I? So I, um, I would still describe myself as a fundraiser. So I started in the sector as a community fundraiser with, uh, cancer Research UK 18 years ago. Um, absolutely love, uh, community fundraising, and worked my way up there to, to lead fundraising teams.

[00:02:19] Jo McGuinness: Um, from there broadened to encompass philanthropy and corporate as well. Um, but in, um. 2024, I stepped out of working in-house predominantly in a charity and took the exciting opportunity to work with, think one of the sector’s consultancy businesses, uh, to set up their think recruitment arm of the business they’ve been doing, um, placing interims in the charity sector for over 15 years, but not made the natural next step to them providing permanent.

[00:02:51] Jo McGuinness: Candidates in post. So it was a really exciting time to get involved. And because I had been through, well, obviously a number of, of successful job seeking activities, I’d also been through more than my fair share of unsuccessful job seeking activities. So, um, I. Have felt passionate about recruitment practice across the sector for many, many years.

[00:03:13] Jo McGuinness: Spoken about it at, at some of the sector conferences and things like that. Um, and it was a really, really nice opportunity for me to put into practice some of the things that I have been. Calling recruiters and organizations out for, um, through think recruitment. So it’s interesting to be sector adjacent rather than in-house.

[00:03:34] Jo McGuinness: Um, but it’s, it’s great to see a lot of, you know, variety across candidates and clients and support candidates. I think that’s the thing, you know, as a fundraiser, it’s all about relationship management and, and doing right by people to achieve great results. And I feel like that’s echoed in, in working in, in sector recruitment.

[00:03:52] Jo McGuinness: A 

[00:03:52] Simon Scriver: hundred percent. I mean, you, you strike me. Well, you’ve always been to me, someone who’s very supportive of the sector as a whole and very supportive of individuals. Um, for people who dunno, Joe is also the admin of Fundraising Chat, um, which is a, a wonderful community on, on Facebook. I highly recommend with over 20,000, over 20, well over 20,000 people.

[00:04:12] Simon Scriver: Yeah. Well over, 

[00:04:12] Jo McGuinness: yeah. 

[00:04:13] Simon Scriver: Yeah, so Joe, for me, for me has always been someone who’s kind of been, um, advocating for fundraisers and, and very outspoken vocal, which is, which is something quite rare for people when they’re in a charity. You know, when they’re working in a charity, people kinda have to keep their heads down.

[00:04:27] Simon Scriver: So Joe’s been great for that. So I was really excited, um, to see you start working with Think, um, on the Think recruitment. Um, we at Fundraiser never are big fans of Think and actually think are, are partnering with us. On our upcoming fundraising, recruitment and careers conference. So we’re actually running a whole conference about recruitment and careers, um, coming up in November.

[00:04:46] Simon Scriver: So there’s a link for that in the description here. Um, but it, I find it really interesting ’cause you’ve always been talking from the point of view as an applicant and a and a yes worker, like a worker bee in the sector. 

[00:04:58] Jade Cunnah: Yeah. 

[00:04:59] Simon Scriver: And, and now you find yourself in the, I don’t wanna say position of power. You are, you are the person we’ve been complaining about for years, aren’t you?

[00:05:09] Jo McGuinness: Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. And I think that was what was another part of what was really appealing, um, at working, at Think to, to launch, think recruitment was trying to do it in the right way and really thinking about. What we wanted the USP of Think recruitment to be. And for me the most important thing was to do right by the candidates because although it’s the clients, the organizations that are ultimately paying the invoice, at the end of the day, um, their goal is for us to help ’em find the best candidate.

[00:05:39] Jo McGuinness: And the way in which we can stand a stronger chance of doing that is by ensuring that the process is appealing. To candidate, it’s supportive and it’s helping them bring their best selves to the selection process. So by doing things that, um, you know, previously were, when unaddressed were areas of irritation for me as a job seeker, by addressing them and, and working with, you know, supporting the client to address those areas, we can find better people for them, you know, better fits for their role, for their needs, um, but also ensure that the candidate.

[00:06:14] Jo McGuinness: Whether successful or not has had a positive experience going through that selection process. And that was really important to me. So it’s great to be in that position of power. Um, one of the things we did say though with with think recruitment is it’s about. Moving the dial with some clients we work with, they are very willing to take on ly everything that we suggest and, you know, in some ways revolutionize their, their recruitment process.

[00:06:40] Jo McGuinness: Others are a little bit more wary or perhaps somewhat hampered by wider organizational, um, red tape or, you know, limitations. Um, but it’s about every client that we work with, I want them to. Have better understanding of the impact of the selection process on the candidates and think about even if it’s just one or two things that they can do that might improve their process going forward to make it just that little bit better.

[00:07:05] Jo McGuinness: So that’s, that’s my goal every time. 

[00:07:08] Simon Scriver: Yeah. And I know like when you are working with your, your clients, it isn’t always about that kind of big overhaul change and you know, and because we know sometimes that’s impossible in certain organizations Yeah. And the structures we work in. Um, so, you know, I I do love your approach of almost this baby steps, you know, the effort and the, the little things and, and just trying to tackle some of the bad practices one by one.

[00:07:31] Simon Scriver: Yeah. Like that’s pro, that’s progress. It’s progress. 

[00:07:33] Jo McGuinness: Exactly. And I think, you know, sometimes. Because recruitment for a recruiting manager in an organization, you know, and I know because I’ve been there when I was, you know, head of department, I had no time. I was dealing with umpteen other things, managing people, worrying about budgets, that even though recruitment is part of their.

[00:07:51] Jo McGuinness: Responsibility. It’s not their day to day. So when they, you know, get the notification that one of their team members leaving and they need to find a replacement, it’s very easy to just go back to what they’ve always done. Uh, not challenge the process ’cause they simply don’t have time. Um, and also they’re busy doing the doing of, you know, bringing the money in.

[00:08:11] Jo McGuinness: So it’s difficult to then. You know, take that time to think what is, you know, expected practice, uh, across sector recruitment at the moment. You know, are we actually ticking all of those boxes? And particularly if you work in an organization where there is a big HR team who have, you know, specifics in a specific process that you need to follow, it can feel like you, you’ve got to be sort of railroaded into that way.

[00:08:40] Jo McGuinness: Recruitment, uh, agency, we can support the, the recruiting managers to, well, they don’t need to have the time. They can just download everything they need to download onto us, and we will then, you know, come up with ways to improve the process that maybe they haven’t had the time or the capacity to think of.

[00:08:58] Simon Scriver: Yeah. And I know, I mean, I’m not, I’m not just giving you a shameless plug, but I know as someone who’s, who’s recruited a number of people in my career, doing everything yourself is just not worth it. It’s always, I’ve always found it’s been, um, it’s been a much better. Uh, experience when I’ve brought in an expert to actually support on that.

[00:09:16] Simon Scriver: So I do, I do, you know, if you are in a position where you are looking at recruiting, I do recommend looking at, at Think and chatting to, chatting to Joe. But you talk about, um, organizations with like recruitment managers and HR departments. But we also know on the flip side, there’s all these organizations small who are maybe recruiting for the first time or anything, and they don’t, you know, we don’t necessarily know what we don’t know.

[00:09:37] Simon Scriver: And so, um, you kind of take inspiration from what’s already out there. Which might not be good practices, and I, I know like I’ll, I’ll. Not many people might admit this, but we’ve all copied and pasted job ads and tweaked it. And so you’re literally copying and pasting bad practices, like not showing the salary and things like that.

[00:09:58] Simon Scriver: Yeah. So sometimes it’s not even, you know, you just don’t even think of it. You don’t even know that you’re doing these bad practices, and that’s why I think I really appreciated your blog that you did for us, where you, you actually spelled out some of these things and it was like, oh yeah, yeah, I see 

[00:10:11] Jo McGuinness: that 

[00:10:12] Simon Scriver: now.

[00:10:12] Simon Scriver: I see it now. 

[00:10:14] Jo McGuinness: Absolutely. Or, you know, you might hear of another organization that’s, that’s doing something and you might just think, I wouldn’t even know where to start. Mm-hmm. Um, or, you know, is that gonna be possible within the, um, the boundaries of how my organization works? You? Uh, one of the things we say is, uh, sometimes it’s best to ask for forgiveness rather than permission.

[00:10:35] Jo McGuinness: Um. Because sometimes it’s nice to just go ahead and try some of these things. Like for example, um, if you’re a recruiter manager, go ahead and put it out on LinkedIn that you are happy to have a chat, an informal chat with any interested candidates. Even if that’s not something that your organization offers as standard, there’s nothing necessarily stopping you from doing it.

[00:10:53] Jo McGuinness: And what’s the worst that can happen? Mm-hmm. Um. What could happen from that is that you could find a slightly unsure candidate who’s absolutely brilliant and just needs that opportunity to get a little bit of reassurance that it’s the role in the organization for them. So, yeah, it’s, uh, you don’t know what you don’t know, but that’s why I’m really looking forward to the, the conference, um, in November because I think there’ll be something for everybody there, whether you’re a job seeker or a HR professional who’s, you’ve got questions about how your organization does it, or a recruiting manager who’s really struggled to feel vacant.

[00:11:26] Jo McGuinness: Agencies in your team and just looking for some little tweaks, there’s gonna be something for everyone. A 

[00:11:30] Simon Scriver: hundred percent. And, and I know you are gonna be presenting a, a case study, um, with the charity, so I do highly recommend people check out, um, the conference. There’s a link in the description. Tickets are available, and, and we’ll be really delving into some of these, but let’s, let’s get, let’s give us a taster.

[00:11:47] Simon Scriver: Of what kind of things you’re seeing? I mean, because I know when we’ve spoken before, one of the obvious ones or one of the big ones, which seems very, um, uh, known these days is about showing the salary. Um, but people, you still see job ads where it’s saying, you know, salary, a salary, uh, dependent on experience or salary range is this huge range or Yeah.

[00:12:06] Simon Scriver: You know, it’s just all a bit vague sometimes. Um, talk to us again about why, you know, why that’s a big bug bear review. 

[00:12:14] Jo McGuinness: Yeah, it, uh, it has got a lot better. We have definitely seen improvements across the sector thanks to movements like show the salary. Um, it’s a real issue because first and foremost, you know, if, if a candidate’s looking at your role and, and they really like your organization, the job title, and you know, the remit and responsibility speaks to them and their experience, but you’re not telling them what the salary is, how do they know whether they’re gonna be able to pay their bills?

[00:12:39] Jo McGuinness: First and foremost? You are asking candidates to take a gigantic leap of faith when they don’t need to. You could just tell them what this role’s gonna pay. We see it less now, um, at the more junior, I’d say, to sort of middle management level roles across the sector. But we do still see it really commonly across like the, um, from heads of directors, CEOs.

[00:13:02] Jo McGuinness: And I think even though there, there’s obviously less people within the sector that are going for those, um. Top of the tree level roles, what it does do is, is. It tells the people in the more junior roles that it’s, it’s shady at the top in terms of their salary. And, and that’s not nice either. Like people wanna look at where their career path could go.

[00:13:23] Jo McGuinness: Mm-hmm. Um, and also just if you are part of an organization that has values of honesty or transparency or, or whatever, you are not, you are not demonstrating that in, in real life. One of the things that’s become a bit more of a bug bear for me. When I see job ads, now that the salary on the whole is shown, is what you mentioned about it being a really big salary band.

[00:13:45] Jo McGuinness: Mm-hmm. And I think that’s really frustrating because you might have a large salary band to allow for people in role to progress in terms of salary, which is fine. But what I would like organizations to do, as a matter of course, is to explain within their job ad or their candidate pack. Is why somebody might be appointed at the bottom of the salary band versus the middle or the top, and provide that context so that people understand going into the process or that the salary band is 20 to 30,000.

[00:14:17] Jo McGuinness: Um, I’ve got great experience. Um. I’ve got through, they’ve offered me the role. Why if they offered it to me at 20. Mm-hmm. Um, I think that sort of, again, it comes back to transparency and honesty and just being really upfront with candidates because they’re giving their time, their energy, their effort to apply for your role, be really open with them about the process.

[00:14:37] Jo McGuinness: You know, what does it involve and how will decisions be made. And I think that’s a really. Crucial thing that can really demonstrate the culture of an organization upfront. 

[00:14:47] Simon Scriver: Hmm. I think, I think the, the benefits always seem kind of so obvious to me in terms of like, you know, just being, you know, like you say, living those values, being transparent, gaining trust.

[00:14:57] Simon Scriver: Even saving time because you’re kind of weeding out the things that aren’t gonna work. But I’m, I’m really curious now that you’re in the position where you are helping so many organizations place people, what, what is the pushback you get? Like why do these, um, these recruiters kind of not want you to necessarily show this?

[00:15:14] Simon Scriver: Is it ’cause they don’t know or what’s happening there? 

[00:15:17] Jo McGuinness: Yeah, I think nine times out of 10, the recruiting manager just hadn’t thought of it, just hadn’t really considered it as an issue. When you are in the job doing the doing and looking to recruit a lot of the time. Your experience of job hunting and, and some of the irritations that you may be experienced are now further from your mind.

[00:15:37] Jo McGuinness: So it’s quite difficult for recruiting managers to place themselves in the candidate’s shoes and think, what about this process would irritate me, um, if, or waste my time if I’m a candidate? But that’s the role of recruitment agency is, is to think like that and to advise about what you can do. So that’s probably nine times outta 10.

[00:15:55] Jo McGuinness: The thought just hadn’t even occurred to them. But then there have been clients that we have spoken to, um, where they are well aware that perhaps their salary band isn’t that great. Um, or perhaps there’s some internal policy that just says we always offer at the bottom. But I would still very much advocate for honesty because.

[00:16:19] Jo McGuinness: You know, it’s better to say it than for a candidate to find out or the point of being offered the role. Because I think even if you’ve got policies or processes that just aren’t great, and you as a recruitment manager know that they aren’t great, but there’s nothing you can do about it, at least by being really transparent about that, that demonstrates the fact that not everything’s perfect.

[00:16:38] Jo McGuinness: But you’re willing to say that. And that goes a long way with candidates. It really does. It looks better than recruitment. Just think it does. 

[00:16:46] Simon Scriver: Yeah. I mean, it takes that shadiness out of it, um, that you, that you mentioned before, which just seems to be. Listed throughout this, this process sometimes, and it’s just, it doesn’t instill confidence.

[00:16:56] Simon Scriver: I’m really interested, you talk about kind of the people, the nose and, and that, that kind of lasting feeling they have about the organization, you know, that kind of, and I think that’s, that’s, that’s undermined sometimes like the, how important that is because you do some, you know, you will be going out, um, recruiting again in the future.

[00:17:13] Simon Scriver: Yeah. It is a small sector and people kind of move around and, and bring that experience that you’ve given them with that. So I’m really curious to talk to you about people, the, the, the nose. Mm-hmm. The people that you are rejecting, because one of the things you talked about was that feedback stage, you know, that kind of constructive feedback that we could or should be giving back to people, you know, especially when they ask.

[00:17:35] Simon Scriver: But I’ve seen it in many times where, you know, you. You don’t even get a know, or you don’t even get, you know, they won’t give you anything. What, what, what’s your thoughts on that at, at this stage? 

[00:17:45] Jo McGuinness: Yeah. I mean, one of the things that we say at Think Recruitment is we would advise our clients to treat their candidates like they’re with their donors.

[00:17:54] Jo McGuinness: Um, and I’ve spoken about this when I have done previous conferences and things that some of this behavior just would not fly if that person was a donor. Um, and that goes from everything from having really arduous and clunky job application processes. If that was a donor funnel, a donation funnel, that that would be sorted as a matter of.

[00:18:15] Jo McGuinness: Urgent priority. Um, but because it’s a, a job seeker, it’s not seen with the same level of importance. But I’ve spoken to candidates who have been rejected from jobs or not given feedback who already are donors. They volunteered. Yeah. They, you know, have members of their family that are impacted by the cause of the organization that are going for, like, these things really matter.

[00:18:36] Jo McGuinness: And like said, it’s a very small community fundraising in the uk so these. PE and fundraisers have long memories. So these things stay with people. They talk about it and people find out. Um, so yeah, the, the, the feedback issue is a really, really, um, important one to me. When I have a chat with a client at the start of a recruitment campaign, that’s one of the things that I say that we commit to do.

[00:19:02] Jo McGuinness: I think we will always provide feedback to any candidate, successful or unsuccessful who wants it. And it will be robust feedback. So, you know, when I book in the interviews for a client, I will book in, you know, an hour after just to download from them how the interviews went, and some robust feedback around what did each candidate do well, where did they fall down against the scoring criteria and some overall feedback.

[00:19:29] Jo McGuinness: So they’ve got specific things that they can take away. And then even if they aren’t. Successful. The important thing is that they understand why that time has still been useful to them, even though it hasn’t resulted in them getting a job. And they will think favorably of the client organization mm-hmm.

[00:19:46] Jo McGuinness: Because they bothered to, you know, give them something that’s, that’s useful and robust. 

[00:19:51] Simon Scriver: Yeah. I mean, it seems, it seems inevitable someone applying to work at your organization. Not that they might already be a donor or a volunteer or that they might, but they are a potential. Supporter and an advocate for you.

[00:20:03] Simon Scriver: And I guess just even as humans, we don’t wanna leave people with that sour taste in their mouth after they finish 

[00:20:08] Jo McGuinness: this. No. It matters so much and it matters so much more in this sector than if we were in the private sector. Because you know, if you’re applying to work as a. Sales manager for a paint company.

[00:20:21] Jo McGuinness: I’m sure you can fake some enthusiasm about paint company, but with a fundraiser, you know, if you are gonna be a a corporate new business fundraiser, you genuinely do need to feel some sort of level of empathy or, or passion or something for the cause. Um, and more often not people are genuinely looking for a cause to work for where they do already have that connection and, and.

[00:20:42] Jo McGuinness: And are a supporter, whether a financial supporter or not. Mm-hmm. So it’s so important. Everything that the client organization, the recruiting charity does is an advert for them, either as you know, for candidates to be donors or future employer employees. Um, so everything matters. 

[00:21:02] Simon Scriver: Um, I, I also wanna apologize to any listeners who are very into paint.

[00:21:07] Simon Scriver: Um, and please, please do check out the Paint Everywhere podcast. That might be more suit for you. Um, but at, at the conference, um, that you guys are, um, putting on with us the fundraising, recruitment and careers conference in November, Rob is gonna be diving quite deeply into like the, the, the interview process.

[00:21:26] Simon Scriver: Um, and those steps there. And, um, and there’s some interesting things that you guys, um, I think talk about in those interview process. And I see conversations a lot around, you know, um. The idea of, uh, hybrids, you know, recruitment and, and you know, where that interview is happening. Um, yeah, I see. Talk about kind of, um, giving people the questions in advance.

[00:21:46] Simon Scriver: Yeah. And there’s still kind of a, a, a bit of a heated debate on what a perfect recruit, uh, perfect interview process looks like. Is there a one size fits all, um, answer to this that you’re gonna be sharing at the conference? Or what kind of things do we need to consider in the interview personally? 

[00:22:02] Jo McGuinness: I feel like I really wanna say yes to that because that will really get everybody along to the conference.

[00:22:06] Jo McGuinness: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Tune 

[00:22:07] Simon Scriver: in for this one life saving fact. 

[00:22:10] Jo McGuinness: But unfortunately, no, there isn’t a one size fits all. I think, you know, that’s, that’s part of the fun I have in my job of working with different clients is figuring out what will work for them and they’re candidates that they’ll be putting through the process.

[00:22:24] Jo McGuinness: Um, and you know, it’s never gonna be without challenge. I’ve, I’ve dealt with clients who have got a fully remote role that they’re hiring for, but want to have in-person interviews, which is a challenge, but there are still things that you can do to ensure that the process is inclusive and candidate friendly.

[00:22:42] Jo McGuinness: And it can be as little as saying, we appreciate that. Coming to an in-person interview for a fully remote role requires some travel and time out of your day. Please find attached the expenses form for you to preemptively claim for your expenses to help you get to the interview and back. And. The feedback that we’ve had from candidates doing that was absolutely brilliant because, you know, it removes any sense of awkwardness that they might have.

[00:23:09] Jo McGuinness: They can plan whether they can attend the interview with that in mind, the fact that it’s, they’re gonna get their costs back. Mm-hmm. Um, so, you know, little things like that can go a long way, even if the process, you know, for a fully remote role can’t be done fully remotely. Um, with regards to sharing questions in advance, we still do have many, many of the clients that we work with who haven’t done this to date and feel a little bit scared about it.

[00:23:34] Jo McGuinness: And some of the most common concerns coming from clients are, well, won’t people just use chat, GPT and, and cheat? If you can tell when people are doing that, you really can tell. Mm-hmm. Um. Or, you know, yeah. Other thing, it’s mainly the team, to be honest. Um, or they’ll say things like, well, we don’t wanna give them too far in advance, because then it’ll just be rehearsed answers.

[00:23:57] Jo McGuinness: But you’ve got probing questions for that. You know, if somebody’s giving a really, really interesting answer to a question that they’ve had in advance, delve a bit deeper the fact that you’ve told them what to expect, and they have prepared their best example to demonstrate that, um, the, the, the question that you’ve asked.

[00:24:15] Jo McGuinness: It means that they know it intrinsically. So by delving a little bit deeper through probing questions, that’s absolutely fine. And you can obviously flag the fact that the, the interview panel will likely ask probing questions. So they expect it, but it just so much it levels the playing field. It just means that people who require the questions in advance, whether it’s due to neurodiversity or as a reasonable adjustment for another condition, or even just because they’re a reflector, um.

[00:24:40] Jo McGuinness: It’s so much, so much better, so much more inclusive all round. And as a recruiting organization, I guarantee you will get a better quality of answer. The interview will be a higher quality all round if you do that 

[00:24:54] Simon Scriver: well. It almost seems more in line with real life. ’cause when you’re working in the job, you’re not gonna be expected to know everything off the top of your head.

[00:25:01] Jade Cunnah: Yeah. 

[00:25:01] Simon Scriver: And part, I mean, part of the skill is being able to go away. Do the desk work, the research and come back with the answer. And the, so it, it seems like it’s, it’s like being in school. You remember when you used to do exams and you weren’t allowed your calculator, and it’s like, yeah, well I have a calculator everywhere else, so.

[00:25:18] Jo McGuinness: Yeah, I know, I know. It’s really strange. Um, and it sort of aligns a little bit with that. Um, another bugbear of mine, which is, uh, job ads that say things like hit the ground running or must be able to work in a high pressure environment like fundraising teams are not the a and e department of your local hospital.

[00:25:35] Jo McGuinness: Like there should be nothing that you are dealing with that requires those you sentences in a job description. People have the time to pick up the phone and have a conversation with somebody if they’re not sure about something, you can go away and research. You can check your files and folders for relevant information.

[00:25:53] Jo McGuinness: Like people don’t need to know stuff off the top of their head. 

[00:25:56] Simon Scriver: Mm-hmm. So, so much of it seems to be about just being more considered, considered in your decisions, you know, because, uh, you see these job ads sometimes with phrases like that, or do you know, just certain, certain bits in the end. Really, there’s really no explanation why it’s in there.

[00:26:13] Simon Scriver: And even if you ask the recruiter, they don’t really have an explanation. It’s just kind of gone in there because it’s yeah, what you do. And so I do love that you stop and take the time to really kind of consider these practices as we’re doing them. 

[00:26:25] Jo McGuinness: Yeah. Yeah, and I think that’s the thing. It comes back to time.

[00:26:29] Jo McGuinness: Recruiting agencies have the time to do that. To look at a job description and be like, right, let’s take these phrases out because what do you actually mean? What are you actually looking for? Same with, um, person specifications that are as long as your arm and you know, to read them, you’d think. This organization is looking for a unicorn.

[00:26:48] Jo McGuinness: We can take the time to really distill what is it that is absolutely vital that you need this person to walk in the door, able to do, able to evidence, and what can be taught, what can be developed. Because the thing is, what I find really odd about persons facts as well, is like sometimes when there’s everything in the kitchen sink, you’re thinking, well, this person’s gonna come in, they’re gonna be bored within a month because there’s absolutely nothing for them to learn.

[00:27:10] Jo McGuinness: Because what you’re asking for is. The person who can do absolutely everything straight off the bat, but that’s not reality. 

[00:27:17] Simon Scriver: That’s really, that’s interesting. It does seem like there’s just mystical dance between recruiter and candidates sometimes where Yeah, so much of it has just been about. Being honest and transparent and really straightforward with what you’re both looking for and not treating.

[00:27:31] Simon Scriver: You know, you talk a lot about the dynamic in it, you know, the being aware of the dynamic, the power dynamic between it. Yeah. It’s funny how it’s become that as opposed to this conversation between two parties who are trying to achieve the same thing. 

[00:27:45] Jo McGuinness: Yeah. Yeah. The power dynamic is definitely something for recruiting organizations and recruiter managers to be consciously aware of and actively fighting against, which is why one of the things that we would do is work with our client to create a really, really great candidate pack that is as transparent as.

[00:28:04] Jo McGuinness: Like cards on the table, what are the challenges gonna be when you work here? How is success measured? What will your induction period look like? Because these are the sorts of questions that candidates have that they often don’t wanna ask because the power dynamic is weighted heavily in the favor of the recruiting organization.

[00:28:21] Jo McGuinness: But by putting all of that information out there, whether it is in the form of a candidate pack, or if you do a little video as the recruiter manager sort of talking about things like the culture of the organization, then it really helps people to feel. Welcomed, um, to answer the questions that they otherwise would be concerned about and might actually prevent them from applying to the role.

[00:28:42] Jo McGuinness: Um, but also it’s just so demonstrative of your values and of positive working culture. Um, so that’s, you know, another thing that recruiting managers can do. 

[00:28:52] Simon Scriver: Yeah, that’s wonderful. I, I’m conscious of time. Um, Joe and I will remind people, uh, the fundraising, re recruitment and careers conference, uh, is happening in November.

[00:29:01] Simon Scriver: And we’ll be really diving deep into this from the point of view. If you are, um, if you are, if you are a recruiter or if you are looking at recruiting in the future. Um, but also if you are perhaps a candidate or someone who’s thinking about moving, just really trying to get everyone on the same page. So do check out, um, that conference, the link.

[00:29:18] Simon Scriver: In the bio. Joe, before I send you off and I let you get back to talking to all these wonderful candidates, um, I, I was just gonna ask you like, what, what’s the vibe out there at the moment? Like, where are good candidates coming from? What is, you know, what is the level, like, how are you finding it? 

[00:29:34] Jo McGuinness: Yeah, so I think, um, what I’m seeing at the moment is organizations are struggling to find the candidates they really want or need, and I think we had a bit of a mass exodus from the sector.

[00:29:47] Jo McGuinness: Post COVID, um, a lot of great people have left. And of course there would’ve been that period of a couple of years where recruitment wasn’t happening, um, particularly across some of the more, um, public facing income streams such as community fundraising. So I think. Organizations need to get a bit more creative in terms of who they’re looking for and the skills and experience that candidates are bringing, and really open their doors to welcoming people from outside of the sector who have got great things to offer.

[00:30:16] Jo McGuinness: And there are a couple of organizations that I know of that are doing that really, really well, really nicely. Um, and I’m speaking to candidates who really wanna join the sector. Mm-hmm. But it’s about, mm-hmm. Again, going back to that sort person specification, what is it that an organization truly needs?

[00:30:31] Jo McGuinness: And really defining that in a way that’s accessible for people, even if they haven’t got fundraising experience. Um, you know, and explaining within your process how somebody with transferable experience can be, um, welcomed with open arms and, and what they can offer to the organization. So I think, um, from a candidate point of view, I would say it’s still a candidate’s market.

[00:30:51] Jo McGuinness: I think. Um. There’s a lot more roles out there than there are candidates. Interesting. But a lot of those roles can feel a bit sort of prohibitive in terms of what they’re looking for. So my challenge to the recruiting organizations is if you are struggling to recruit, I take another look at how you are putting your, how you’re presenting your advert.

[00:31:11] Jo McGuinness: And particularly that person’s specification, is it actually accurate? Mm-hmm. Um, probably not. 

[00:31:18] Simon Scriver: Yeah, I think, I think that’s a fair challenge to, to really kind of reflect on that. But I’m actually gonna trump that and say, actually just talk to Joe and the people that think it sort, I mean, I would not be taking on this headache and I I would be pulling in someone like you.

[00:31:29] Simon Scriver: So Joe, where, where, where’s the best place for people to find you? If they did wanna chat to you about this or kind of maybe. Run their, what they’re doing past, um, to look at the future. Where, where do you hang out these days? 

[00:31:40] Jo McGuinness: Yeah, well, I spend a lot of time on LinkedIn, so feel free to find me on LinkedIn and just direct message me.

[00:31:47] Jo McGuinness: Um, and then think, um, think recruitment’s part of, of think so think cs.org. Um, we are, we cover many, many different areas, not just fundraising and interim, but consultancy, um, and research. So we’ve got a page on Think recruitment on our website. So yeah, please find me there. Um, and also I would also encourage anybody, uh, within the sector to join fundraising chat on Facebook.

[00:32:14] Jo McGuinness: So, fantastic community loads of support. 

[00:32:17] Simon Scriver: I, I miss you from the Twitter days. I think we feel like I, Dave, but, um, you, you are great on LinkedIn and your team is great on LinkedIn. You’ve got some very vocal team who really like. Put out some great ideas and thoughts, so I do recommend following everyone and think, um, and yeah, and we’ll get to hear more from you at the, at the conference in November, I hope.

[00:32:37] Jo McGuinness: Yeah. Can’t wait. It’s gonna be fantastic. 

[00:32:39] Simon Scriver: Amazing. Joe, thank you so much for your time. I imagine, uh, I’ll be checking in with you again ’cause I don’t think this is, um, uh, I don’t think these are issues that are gonna disappear in the next year or two. So let, let’s book in another session soon, John. Why 

[00:32:53] Jo McGuinness: not?

[00:32:54] Jo McGuinness: Okay. 

[00:32:55] Simon Scriver: Uh, thank you very much Joe, and thank you again to, um, thank, uh, uh, for being so supportive of us in many ways. Um, but especially being involved in the fundraising, recruitment and careers conference, which is happening on the 20th of November, um, at fundraising everywhere.com. But there’s a link direct, uh, uh, in the description here.

[00:33:13] Simon Scriver: And that’s it really. I just wanna say thank you to everyone again for tuning into the Fundraising Everywhere podcast. My name is and has been Simon Scriver. I am one of the co-founders and it is a privilege to still be here with you. Um, so thank you all, do get in touch if there’s anything we can help with.

[00:33:29] Simon Scriver: Um, but otherwise we’ll see you the conference in November. 

[00:33:33] Alex Aggidis: Thank you so much for listening to the Fundraising Everywhere podcast. If you’re enjoying this podcast, why not share it with a fundraising friend? And if you would like to give us a little ly or subscribe, it really helps more fundraisers like you find us.

[00:33:46] Alex Aggidis: Thank you so much. See you next time.

*************
This transcript was created using AI. If you spot any mistakes, please reach out. Thank you!

Transcript

[00:00:00] Multiple Voices: Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. , you don’t need to add me in there.

[00:00:31] 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 fundraising everwhere.com/podcast to subscribe Now onto today’s episode, enjoy.

[00:00:59] Simon Scriver: Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of the Fundraising Everywhere podcast. My name is Simon Rever. I am, uh, one of the co-founders of Fundraising Everywhere and your host today. Um, and this season, uh, around this time of year, we’re always seem to be focused on, uh, individual giving, uh, supporter experience, uh, as we have conferences around those.

[00:01:19] Simon Scriver: Um, but we’ve got a great webinar coming up as well. Or if you’re listening to this in the past, uh, it is available on demand to watch back. Um, but where we’ll be hearing from, uh, the great team of beautiful insights, who you’ve heard from before in our previous events, um, but also one of the fundraisers, uh, across at Starlight, the charity and the work that they’ve been doing together around measuring supporter experience.

[00:01:41] Simon Scriver: And I always find this idea of measuring supporter experience very interesting. You get a lot of, uh, a real spectrum of opinions on this. Uh, and I always think back to one of my. Semi mentors who once said to me that everything can be measured, everything can be measured. Uh, and it was a real mind blowing, uh, uh, thing that stayed with me.

[00:01:59] Simon Scriver: Um, but you do do still, uh, see a lot of, uh, um, flip flopping in the supporter experience space and around individual giving a whole, as a whole about how we measure and how we look at this. So I’m really excited to have my guest today, uh, to talk about how they do this on the ground, hands-on, uh, and what we can learn from that.

[00:02:17] Simon Scriver: And I’ll go round the room a little bit. Um, first of all, we’ve got Joan Middleton, and Joan is the digital fundraising manager for Starlight, a charity we and fundraising everyone know well, and we have a lot of love for, uh, Joan, how are you? Hello? 

[00:02:31] Joan Middleton: Hi, Simon. Hi, everyone. Good, thanks. 

[00:02:34] Simon Scriver: Joan, what, what does a digital fundraising manager do at Starlight?

[00:02:37] Simon Scriver: I’m a bit, I’m curious about your day today. It’s a million 

[00:02:39] Joan Middleton: dollar 

[00:02:40] Simon Scriver: question. I know. It, it’s like, I always think it’s very interesting to picture fundraisers like, ’cause there’s, there’s the pub public persona of how you present your job. But what does your day-to-day look like? Really? 

[00:02:52] Joan Middleton: My day to day involves trying to get people to sign up and, uh, give us some money really, um, online in all ways and shapes and forms and, um, I don’t know, something along those lines.

[00:03:09] Joan Middleton: I don’t really know how to describe what I do. Uh, please. Can you edit that out? Um, 

[00:03:16] Simon Scriver: absolutely, absolutely not because I think, uh, I think the elevator pitch on your own job is hard enough. But tell me a little bit about Starlight, because for people who dunno, Starlight, you’re all about bringing play back into hospitals, hospices for, for kids.

[00:03:29] Simon Scriver: Correct. Tell me about the bit that you’re truly passionate about. 

[00:03:31] Joan Middleton: Yeah, so I, um, I’m very passionate about play and we, we at Starlight bring play into, um, all forms of children’s healthcare is really important for. Primarily for trauma reduction, um, where children experience really unnecessary, um, trauma during their treatments and especially for children who are in long-term, you know, who have long-term conditions, that can be really, um, really traumatizing for them.

[00:03:58] Joan Middleton: Um, in terms of getting cannulas or, or just ongoing treatments and play really helps reduce trauma, mental health issues, um, and really helps aid healing for them. Um, so yeah. So I try and try and get people to understand that because it’s a really complicated message, really, to get across in a digital space.

[00:04:21] Joan Middleton: And so it’s really it, you know, we have a very short space of time in which to do that. And, um. It, it’s much, it’s much easier if you’re having a face-to-face conversation with a, or, you know, sitting on a podcast you can explain the whole story of why play matters for children, why play matters for children in hospital, why play matters for sick children.

[00:04:44] Joan Middleton: Um, but when you’ve got six or seven seconds or you know, an email to do that, it can be really challenging. 

[00:04:50] Simon Scriver: There’s just so much co competition for attention today. And, and I do. Exactly. It’s an amazing charity and I recommend people do check it out. Um, not, not least of all. ’cause you can see how Joan’s done it.

[00:05:01] Simon Scriver: You can test her donation forms. You can test the prescription. That’s what, that’s my favorite thing. That, but speaking of testing these forms that, uh, the, the rest of the, the panel we have here. Other wonderful guys from Beautiful Insights and you know, we do love beautiful insights. We’ve had them on a couple of times, but we’ve got Steven Dodds, the managing director, and Paul Seabrook, the founder of Beautiful Insights.

[00:05:22] Simon Scriver: Good afternoon, gentlemen. How are you? Hello 

[00:05:25] Steven Dodds: there. Very first time, uh, first time podcaster, many time listener, Simon. Oh, nice to see 

[00:05:30] Simon Scriver: you. That’s like you have, you have to say that Steven, don’t you? Um, but you, you got, I mean, one of the reasons I like you guys is ’cause you’re, you are kind of, uh, seem to be a little bit obsessed with this measurement and testing and tweaking and, and whenever I’ve heard you speak or read any of the stuff that you push out on your website.

[00:05:47] Simon Scriver: Um, it’s fascinating. It’s fascinating the kind of micro testing that you do to see, see how this works and how you’re actually trying to measure this thing around support or experience. What, what is, how do you guys describe what you, what you do? Who’s best? To sum it up, we’ll probably say different things that we wouldn’t really, um, this is a good, this is a good test.

[00:06:07] Simon Scriver: Let’s do it. You don’t listen to this. Steven Paul, what’s your answer? 

[00:06:11] Paul Seabrook: Um. We’re sort of passionate and a little bit frustrated in some respects that customers and supporters ’cause we, we don’t just do charity. Work, um, often aren’t listened to enough or are only engaged with when there’s a problem and something needs, you know, kind of a, almost a poll.

[00:06:29] Paul Seabrook: And I guess there’s marketeers at heart, which is what Steven, I sort of background was that. We wanna make sure that, you know, people are being listened to and the supporter, like the customer is front and center. Really, a lot of the time. The, the people making the decisions on behalf of the supporters are not necessarily the target audience.

[00:06:50] Paul Seabrook: I’m sure Joan thinks about the Starlight brand all the time, maybe even dreams about it as well. Um, the sort of the frustrating news though is that the supporters don’t, um. They are incredibly valuable, obviously, but they, but they also can give some amazing insights and sometimes it’s just really calibrating what the relationship is like for a charity.

[00:07:12] Paul Seabrook: And that’s what we try and do is often represent those supporters, um, you know, through our various projects back to. Great people like Joan, trustees, senior leadership team, et cetera. Back to your point, Simon, about, you know, what can be measured massive of anecdotes, always in charities, lots of great passion stories.

[00:07:33] Paul Seabrook: Sometimes it just needs to be balanced with, you know, some hard facts from audiences. Have you learned something about Steven? Is that right? 

[00:07:43] Steven Dodds: I’m writing that down. I’m writing that down. Um, I know, I mean, I, I, I, I, the reason I love. I do and being part of beautiful Insights is, um, I mean, I think, I think I, I consider myself a good listener.

[00:07:54] Steven Dodds: Um, and, uh, and I, and I think, um. We all wanna be heard, don’t we? And, and charities talk about that a lot, you know, about listening to their, their kind of community, you know, their communities, their constituents, and so on. Um, and, and I think that’s the, that’s the joy of kind of research is, is, is really listening and hearing to supporters and make sure their voice are kind, their voices and perspectives are kind of loud and clear ringing across the fundraising departments of, um, of, of the nation kind of thing.

[00:08:20] Steven Dodds: Um. Because, yeah, it, it’s, it’s, it’s all about them, isn’t it really? This, this fundraising lark. Um, and, uh, and so yeah, we’re sort of picking them up essentially, um, in, in, in, in the decision making. 

[00:08:34] Simon Scriver: And you, like, you work with a lot of different orgs, so Steve and I assume you’re talking to different, you know, very different organizations day to day.

[00:08:40] Simon Scriver: How, how do you, could you talk us through how you start to measure this kind of across the board between organizations, how you can start to learn from one place and apply it to another? What’s your approach to that? 

[00:08:53] Steven Dodds: Yeah, I mean, the, the, the supporter experience is kind of, it’s a sort of frustrating concept in some, in some ways it’s not, it’s not easy to measure.

[00:09:01] Steven Dodds: Um, uh, there’s a whole sort of host of reasons, I guess chief of which is because. Supporters don’t know their receiving experience more, more, more often than not, or, or say that they want one. Um, so that, that, that, that, that can be tricky. Um, uh, but ne never, nevertheless, there, you know, there, there is a point to all the kind of supporter comms that, that, that fundraisers are sort of churning out the ones that aren’t necessarily sort of directly asking for money.

[00:09:31] Steven Dodds: Um, and so what, what is the point? What is the point of those of those communications? Um. We see an increasing number of kinda charities appointing. Uh, sort of heads of supporter experience or heads of supporter en engagement. Um, and, and I guess we wanted to bring more accountability to, um, yeah, to those roles, to the budgets that are associated, associated with it.

[00:09:53] Steven Dodds: Um, and, and yeah, and try and bring a common set of metrics around, uh, yeah, around the impact, the effect of of, of the supporter experience. And what is it that supporters are actually kind of noticing. As, as it were. Um, and in and in what way is it kind of, you know, is it moving them towards supporting, supporting the, the, the charity concerns?

[00:10:12] Steven Dodds: So yeah, we feel that there’s, uh, a lot of space there. You know, there are other kind of products available and, and sort of initiatives or initiatives around. But, uh, in the main, I think, um, charity’s got a long way to go in kind of, yeah, putting more attention on the. On the, yeah, on, on the relationship and the impact of the experience.

[00:10:32] Steven Dodds: Um, so we’ve developed a sort of a, a common set of questions that start to help charities. Yeah. See their own experience and the difference it’s making to, to their supporters and to their sort of future income. Um, but also comparing it, um, across. Across charities and helping them understand what, you know, what does good, what does good look like, how much better might I, might I get?

[00:10:54] Steven Dodds: Um, what am I doing right. You know? Um, and, and where are there opportunities for, for, for improvement? I, 

[00:11:00] Simon Scriver: I love, I love what you’re saying there about like, uh, your supporters sometimes dunno, don’t know. They’re on the supporter experience. And I think that fits into this really, um, it, it kind of shows how hard it is for us to measure.

[00:11:13] Simon Scriver: These things when, when, as you say, like that side of it does know engaging, sometimes there’s parts of the journey, parts of the experience that we kind of overlook that is fundamental to what they’re going through. And it, it’s, it can be hard to know where to start. And I think maybe Joan, that’s a good place to turn it with you.

[00:11:29] Simon Scriver: About not only where you started, um, working with beautiful insights to kind of really start to measure stuff, but even before that, what, what, in your, in your career, in your history, what has been the, your experience with measuring these kind of things and moving it forward? 

[00:11:45] Joan Middleton: Well, I came from actually originally a publishing background in magazines and subscriptions, and my entire job was loyalty, loyalty schemes, and getting people to subscribe for longer.

[00:11:58] Joan Middleton: And a lot of those metrics are always around sales and lifetime value and how you can measure that over a period of time, whereas for. And the difference in, in working in the charity sector is there is a lifetime, but, but always people are, there’s, it’s a different, there’s different motivations and there’s different reasons why people donate.

[00:12:22] Joan Middleton: It’s not a product that people are necessarily buying per se. Mm. You know, if somebody’s buying a Star Wars magazine, it’s a very different proposition to why they, you know, it’s a very different motivation as to why they would support a charity and. I think what’s been interesting for me about this particular survey is that it takes those metrics of kind of out of the not there, there’s data around it, but, but it actually takes it out into more of the emotional experience and what people feel about those things.

[00:12:54] Joan Middleton: And that for me is super interesting ’cause that then digs into the motivations and the reasons why they support us. Um, if that makes sense. 

[00:13:02] Simon Scriver: Yeah, I mean, I mean, what were you, I, I’m really interested around the magazine comparison and in terms of that, like what kind of metrics do you lift from that, if anything?

[00:13:12] Simon Scriver: Is there like transferable stuff within that? 

[00:13:15] Joan Middleton: I think, you know, yes, I think there is, in terms of looking at, you know, how long people are likely to support us for average gifts, average lifetime values. So those, those things are kind of the same. But what the prob, the problem with those things is that it’s, it takes a long time and actually you wanna know sooner rather than later that people are not enjoying, they’re not enjoying that experience.

[00:13:42] Joan Middleton: And so if you notice a load of cancellations or if you notice, you know, things like that happening, you know, obviously that’s a problem. But in terms of measuring overall. And, and, and the engagement and the, the, yeah. I think it’s more the motivations and the reasons why people are supporting us. That was, for me, more interesting.

[00:14:01] Joan Middleton: And, and the emotional engagement and the, the, the value that came out of it for us was, was really interesting. Um, yeah, I think interesting kind of insights into, you know, um, why they support us and, and things that, you know. There was a lot that we knew, but also some things that we didn’t. So it’s interesting, 

[00:14:21] Steven Dodds: I think, I think Joan hit the, the nail on the head there.

[00:14:25] Steven Dodds: You know, what is a supporter experience ultimately What, what have we got? And, and it’s a feeling, isn’t it? You know, I mean, it’s, it’s that, that, that is it. That’s all we can play with, you know, feeling how people feel about themselves, you know, how people feel within themselves at certain, at certain, at certain points.

[00:14:40] Steven Dodds: That is, that is all we got to offer really as, as, as, as charities. And so the sport, sport experience has got to be. Influencing and enlarging that. Um, and, and, um, uh, and, and, and that’s, that’s where I guess we’ve tried to put some focus with the safe, with the safe index in a, in a, in a way. Mm-hmm. Is, is kind of what are people noticing about, about the support experience and, and the effect it’s ha having on them.

[00:15:05] Steven Dodds: Uh, 

[00:15:06] Joan Middleton: think ultimately, I think ultimately it’s just, it’s, it is relationship building, right? And, and it is, it’s, it’s how you make people feel. The, the whole, the whole entire relationship with you is, is each touch point of. You know, every supportive piece of comms that they get and what are you doing to make them feel, how are you making them feel?

[00:15:26] Joan Middleton: Trust, you know, building that trust. How are you surprising them? How are you delighting them? How are you engaging with them to make them feel like, oh my word, this is amazing. Or, oh, this is really important, or, oh, I feel really valued. It’s all those things of, and you know, language is really important and design is really important.

[00:15:44] Joan Middleton: All those sort of things as well. 

[00:15:46] Simon Scriver: I, I love like this project and the safe index, um, in particular, which I might ask you to expand on a little, a little bit, but I love how it leaves the room for that almost kind of, um, creative creativity and the feeling and like you said, the surprise and delight while still tying it back to these kind of measurable metrics year after year.

[00:16:06] Simon Scriver: Like it, it seems to have that nice balance. ’cause I think, I think we lose people a lot when we’re trying, you know, when we’re only focusing on one. We lose a lot of insight and actually we lose a lot of, you know, our own teams on the journey because it’s just not, it doesn’t really make sense to how people operate.

[00:16:21] Simon Scriver: Paul, Paul, maybe you are, um, in a position to expand a bit on the Safe Index and what beautiful insights have, have really been trying to achieve by. By rolling this out across your clients and beyond, like what, what, what do you, what do you hope to get from the save index? There 

[00:16:36] Paul Seabrook: was a couple of things we’d noticed really with our charity clients.

[00:16:40] Paul Seabrook: Um, quite often they want to run supporter satisfaction surveys. That’s a good metric. Have in your, your, your KPI dashboard. Um, the other thing we noticed was that often charities would want to ask the NPS question, the net promoter score question. Um, and, and that’s become very strong currency across more in the commercial world.

[00:17:08] Paul Seabrook: I would say across boards it’s a key, it’s a key metric. The the net promoter score. Um, and I’m sure we probably know how it works, but it’s how likely you to recommend this product service company? Zero. Not at all. 10 very likely. And then you, you take away the, um, uh, the promoters from the detractors and you get a score.

[00:17:30] Paul Seabrook: Uh, you, so you can, you can get a negative score. Um, but you, so you want a high positive score. Um, big brands, FMCG brands, they really wanna know how they’re comparing against their. Um, competitors for obvious reasons, and it’s a easy metric to understand. Um, when charities ask us to run it. It’s, it’s a difficult one, I think for the supporter to answer because their view will be, it’s not my business to recommend to my friends and family who they should give money to.

[00:17:55] Paul Seabrook: That’s their business, their decision. Um. I remember asking it once for, um, the RLI and their scores were not particularly exciting. They weren’t negative, they weren’t great, but it was partly because of that people were saying, and they could leave a comment, why did you say that? And said, well, because it’s not my business to tell friends and family who to support.

[00:18:17] Paul Seabrook: And someone said a brilliant comment, which was, well, if they were drowning at sea, that, so I’d strongly recommend that. So it’s a complicated one for people to answer, but we also think that satisfaction is a really important metric. There’s no point in investing in acquisition campaigns if you’ve got the classic leaky bucket syndrome and that.

[00:18:38] Paul Seabrook: For whatever reason, people aren’t gonna be satisfied. It’s a very indifferent experience. They’re just not gonna carry on supporting you. So, um, don’t forget as well. This is one thing I always have to remind ourselves. The great people in charities, they actually have to raise their own budgets, their fundraisers, they have to raise those funds.

[00:18:55] Paul Seabrook: To run the organization. They’re raising their budget. So they’re pretty focused on, you know, return on investment and what it, and what it means. Um, and I think that’s quite different to the commercial world actually, that hasn’t got that, that deeper connection. So satisfaction is really important to measure, but.

[00:19:11] Paul Seabrook: Sort of understanding the link though, between satisfaction and future engagement. That’s what we feel is really important. You know, this is what SAE stands for. Um, if you’ve got super satisfied supporters, then there should be future engagement. And we don’t just talk about future engagement in terms of money, although that is generally a very important metric.

[00:19:31] Paul Seabrook: It’s a, it’s a, it’s a more measurable metric, but there’s time and voice as well. Um, which all are all around the supporter satisfaction. So I think that was the, um, the, the things we noticed where we thought. That’s where Safe Index could help out, you know, the kind of needs that charities have. Mm-hmm.

[00:19:50] Paul Seabrook: And I think the other thing we noticed was they’re quite keen to benchmark themselves against others. So it’s a sort of a, a classic benchmarking tool in that respect. Don’t necessarily name the charities that you’re up against, but we can look against by sector, by size, that sort of thing. Um, we just wanted to sort of.

[00:20:11] Paul Seabrook: The focus at charities sort of make those better and more informed decisions, really see how they’re performing and make it a metric that actually they’re quite, quite confident in communicating to senior leadership team to trustees. And so it’s something that really, you should want to know what your safe index score is, how it compares.

[00:20:32] Paul Seabrook: Um, is it going up? Is it going down? Where are our strengths? Where are our weaknesses? 

[00:20:36] Simon Scriver: Mm. Well, I’m very curious to ask Joan in, in reality kind of what the buy-in is like from that senior, senior leadership team and, and the trustees. Um, but uh, in particular, I think because around. Every, everything you guys are saying it makes sense about measuring that engagement and how it would translate.

[00:20:54] Simon Scriver: But we know the internal pressures sometimes are, are literally about just that bottom line number, and if it doesn’t immediately transfer into return, which is one of the big issues with the sector, if they don’t see that immediate return, they don’t necessarily have the faith in that. Joan, what’s your experience been like that?

[00:21:09] Simon Scriver: Has it been supportive or has there been some pushback on 

[00:21:12] Joan Middleton: No, I think it’s been really supportive. I think what’s really, what’s what’s been really useful and well from, from a senior level is they do wanna see the metrics and they do, it’s actually much more useful to have metrics that are, um, can I say.

[00:21:30] Joan Middleton: Uh, data and evidence led and you know, that we can, that we can actually benchmark, uh, in future years using the same information. I think it’s really important and it’s actually really helpful for us to have to have that. Um, so I do think it’s, you know, I do think we have had buy-in, you know, from that point of view.

[00:21:51] Joan Middleton: Um, to, yeah. 

[00:21:52] Jade Cunnah: Yeah, 

[00:21:53] Joan Middleton: everyone loves the graph. It’s a really good way of, everyone loves a graph and, uh, you know, being, being evidence led and data informed and all the things, but for me, it’s, it’s, it, this goes more than that for, for in, as I was saying before, in terms of emotions and, and. The things that are, are much harder to, you know, usually you get the stats and the graphs and all of that, but, but actually it’s the nebula, it’s the more emotional side of things that I found.

[00:22:22] Joan Middleton: For me, that’s been more useful, the motivations and things. So, 

[00:22:26] Steven Dodds: I mean, it helped, it helped Joan that your, your, your scores were top of the pops, didn’t it? 

[00:22:30] Joan Middleton: I mean, it always helps. It’s easier to 

[00:22:32] Steven Dodds: present, 

[00:22:34] Joan Middleton: but that wasn’t a given. You know, that wasn’t, that was not a given. And 

[00:22:38] Steven Dodds: you write, celebrate it, you should rightly celebrate it as well.

[00:22:39] Steven Dodds: You know, that was, 

[00:22:40] Joan Middleton: that was definitely not a given. And I, you know, we, I don’t think, uh, you know, I wasn’t expecting that to be the case. So, um, so that was, you know, an interesting finding because, you know, I think we, we always think that we are, you know, we should be doing more. You know, of other things that other people are doing that are, you know, everyone’s doing it better than we are.

[00:23:03] Joan Middleton: Mm-hmm. Um, and so it was great to have a Oh, that’s great that we are actually doing something, you know, that we are actually doing something, something. Right. 

[00:23:13] Simon Scriver: Yeah. And, and Steven, in your experience, ’cause I imagine you are, you are presenting this back often with fundraisers. You are trying to get buy-in from the rest of the organization or trying to get support for it.

[00:23:24] Simon Scriver: What, what, what’s the value that you see in it? What’s the hidden values that aren’t always so obvious to these 

[00:23:28] Steven Dodds: people? Yeah, it’s a, it’s a good question. I mean, I guess part of it is around that, you know, um, you know, lap lapsing attrition is an, is an issue, isn’t it? You know, across charities in, in the kind of regular giving space for, for, for example.

[00:23:40] Steven Dodds: And, um, we we’re able to focus, if you like, and create sets metrics and scores for different segments within a, um, you know, within a, um, uh, yeah, with, within a particular charity, so, mm-hmm. Yeah. To be able to. Understand, um, you know, for a fundraiser to be able understand how their regular giving kind of experience, if you like, is performing against other, um, other charities is obviously helpful in trying to, you know, I stem attrition, improve, improve retention, and, and lifetime value.

[00:24:08] Steven Dodds: Another area of value is around the, um, the legacy pipeline. Mm-hmm. Um, and given what we know about, uh, how legacy decisions are made, um, and the kind of, you know, the vote of trust essentially that that leg tour are putting into a charity by, uh, putting them in, in, in their will and, and often not. Not telling the charity about that.

[00:24:29] Steven Dodds: Um, you know, other metrics that are revealing, if you like, how that pipeline’s a bit of a crossword, but how those people that might be making a decision are feeling about the charity. Um, yeah. Is is another kind of way in which legacy marketers could be sure that, you know, that they’re kind of doing the right thing and that, that they, they should expect to see those.

[00:24:48] Steven Dodds: Um. Uh, those legacies coming through kind of into the, into the future. Um, so yeah, so tho those are just a couple and then, and then there’s the kind of more tactical, um, kinda information around channel and touch points and what is mattering to, um, to, to, to supporters. Uh, and that goes beyond the kind of maybe the, the, the channels that the fundraiser is controlling.

[00:25:10] Steven Dodds: To the wider kind of output of a, of a charity. So to what extent is, you know, charity, social media or website kind of, um, you know, important to a supporter. And, and, and we, we, we get all those metrics in the Yeah, in the, in, in, in the index. Um, so, and, and then pointing at particular parts of the, of supporter comms as well.

[00:25:31] Steven Dodds: And what, what is it that people aren’t getting or are getting from, from supporter communications. I mean, we find that. You know, in, in, in, in improving the supporter experience, we’re trying to, the easiest lever that fundraisers can pull is that, you know, is the stuff they’re sending through the post or the, you know, or, or, or, or, or email or whatever it might be.

[00:25:49] Steven Dodds: That’s the quickest thing they can change and, um, and, and, and kind of improve. And so, yeah, helping people understand how supporters are essentially rating those comms and, and, and how they want ’em to improve is another, you know, is probably the quickest win that people can get out of, um, out of, of the safe index.

[00:26:05] Steven Dodds: Yeah. Sorry, go on. No, I was gonna say, we, we, you know, we, we, we, going back to this first point about supporters not even noticing there’s an experience, you know, that, that there’s so much upside to be had, we think in, in that, in that, in that space, you know, um, for, uh, for, for those communications to register sort of more forcefully, basically, to, to be more, be more impactful.

[00:26:29] Steven Dodds: Yeah. So that, yeah, supporters actually know that, that they are actually giving to somebody and, um, you know, uh, and, and that it’s making a difference. 

[00:26:37] Simon Scriver: Yeah. And, and I can see it being particularly helpful as a fundraiser over time, you know, comparison, comparisons over time, but really even just making yourself, um, be very deliberate in, in your actions, you know?

[00:26:48] Simon Scriver: Yeah. In terms your planning almost. Yeah. Being aware that this benchmark is something you’re gonna be held up against, so. I really recommend anyone who, uh, is interested in this, if you go to beautiful insights.com, um, they have more information around Safe, safe Index and the work they do. I highly recommend checking that out.

[00:27:04] Simon Scriver: And then obviously at the webinar, come and join us, um, for the webinar where they’ll be talking more and sharing some of these metrics and diving much deeper into it. Um, that is on the 24th of July. If you’re listening to this, after that, it is available on demand. So just go to fundraising everywhere, uh, dot com and find that.

[00:27:21] Simon Scriver: Um, but I’m curious about the future, I suppose, where, where this goes next. Is it just something that you keep measuring or what, what have you started to identify needs to happen in future years? What’s, uh, what’s the, what’s the future hold? 

[00:27:35] Steven Dodds: Oh, good question. Um, I, I mean, I guess the, uh, the data becomes more powerful the more, the more data points are in it, in terms of, you know, other, other charities.

[00:27:45] Steven Dodds: So, um, that’s, that’s certainly, that’s certainly one thing. We’re, we’re, we’re, we’re looking to is make sure we’ve got as wider kind of representation in there in terms of charity size, sector, uh, and, and, and, and, and everything else. I mean, I think, yeah, the, we’re, we’re building a kind of, we’re building a, a, a bank of, um, expertise really around.

[00:28:05] Steven Dodds: What supporters in the UK are saying they want from, from, from charities, irrespective of any particular, from any individual charity. Mm-hmm. Um, so yeah, so, so kind of leveraging the power of that, um, and, and kind of, yeah, putting more, as much of a spotlight on improving supporter experiences. We can, um, you know, for the, for the sake of the sector as it, as it were, not, not just the individual charities.

[00:28:29] Steven Dodds: Yeah, dunno if you wanna 

[00:28:31] Joan Middleton: Well, I was just gonna say one of the other benefits that we, that we found from the, from the results was that also it identified some gaps for us on, on areas of, you know, areas where we could improve. Um, in terms of direct debit or in terms of, uh, potentially other products, like, for example, raffle where we had, you know, where, where some people actually thought that they were supporting us via raffle.

[00:28:54] Joan Middleton: But, um. But then we also also stated that they would actually support us. So we are now looking at, you know, various different things in, in, you know, various different aspects of, of, um, findings that we ca that came out for us. Yeah. Brilliant. In the survey as well, so there’s also gaps. 

[00:29:14] Simon Scriver: Is there such a thing as too much data?

[00:29:16] Simon Scriver: As a digital fundraising manager, I imagine you’re gonna say No, not much data, 

[00:29:20] Joan Middleton: but never enough. 

[00:29:21] Simon Scriver: Yeah. 

[00:29:21] Joan Middleton: Yeah. 

[00:29:23] Simon Scriver: Paul, what are, what are your thoughts? What would you like, like to see this evolve into? 

[00:29:27] Paul Seabrook: What I’d really love to see is the technology exists that we can start to measure emotions that aren’t just reported emotions.

[00:29:35] Paul Seabrook: Mm-hmm. Um, so most of the work we have to do, the survey work we do, it is getting people to. Report how they feel, how it makes people feel. But there’s some quite well this sort of technology tools emerging that are sort of more in depth about actually how you measure, um, emotions. We’ve been trying some of that haven’t we, Steven, on the um, uh, sort of, uh, wearables that people wear and that kind of starts to measure some other, uh, kind of deeper emotions.

[00:30:04] Paul Seabrook: We we’re not that confident yet on the technology, but it’s getting better all the time. There’s also, um, eye tracking. Inputs that people can have when they’re looking at communications, et cetera. Again, we haven’t seen seen good progress in that.

[00:30:23] Paul Seabrook: You know, we have quite a strong belief that, you know, it’s that it’s that head and heart relationship, and that’s not just what we think. We have to know how supporters react, but supporters know that, but they don’t really know how they react. Sometimes we talk about the head is the one that listens and notices.

[00:30:37] Paul Seabrook: It’s the heart, the response. You’ve gotta get noticed, and that’s where the head comes in. But people are very functional and rational. The thing that makes them respond is that emotional response that, that art trigger. So, um, yeah, I’m not saying we’ve. People in, you know, sort of wearing kind of heart, you know, kind of monitors, et cetera.

[00:30:55] Paul Seabrook: But it’s, that’s I think where, you know, we can start it, it, it’s, we’ve gotta be really quite focused on getting that really emotional connection. Some of that, though, I know the technology will be great to have in place, but. You know, one of the things we’ve used in the past is doing ab tests with sample, where you ask a set of questions to one people, uh, to both groups.

[00:31:17] Paul Seabrook: Sorry, but one group, you’ve shown them one of your adverts first, et cetera. Or just got ’em in a different frame of mind and see how different the results are between them, because that’s showing what that emotional kind of stimulus has done to somebody to answer them. Some, some, you know, kind of rational questions.

[00:31:34] Paul Seabrook: Mm-hmm. Um, I, I think the other thing we’re always. Focused on is making sure, as, as Joan said, there’s lots and lots of data, but it’s making sure, um, it’s actionable. You’re doing something with it. And we, we often really try and focus on the quick wins. One of the things this is telling you that you need to focus on now, or you can start to affect now, but then the longer term.

[00:31:55] Paul Seabrook: Things as well, which might take more budget, more effort, um, or patience. As you’ve said. There’s often a, a, a, a need for spend this now, get that back tomorrow. Um, we, we, we get that, but then if you constantly doing that, then it’s always gonna be very short term. Mm. And actually sort the longer term impact has gotta be.

[00:32:17] Paul Seabrook: Sometimes you’ve gotta have that confidence to take that step and go on that journey. 

[00:32:21] Steven Dodds: Mm. You know? 

[00:32:21] Paul Seabrook: Supportive journey. I think organizational journeys as well, sort of making sure that, you know, we know that what we’re gonna do is gonna have a, a longer term impact mm-hmm. Uh, going forward. So yeah. And we are learning all the time with the data that we have in and we can sort of strengthen the relationships and the clusters between, you know, what people say they’re gonna do, what they actually do.

[00:32:44] Paul Seabrook: Um, because that’s when you start to get the sort of repeat. Process going on, and then you can sort of see what actual behavior is. So, um, yeah, I’m, we’re obviously excited about it. We’re bound to say we are, but I think it’s something that we just know that when we’re reporting it back to clients, there’s often moments of frustration, Dr.

[00:33:05] Paul Seabrook: Manage, defense, or know we’re better than that. But there’s always that sort of moment of realization, I think, which is, yeah, actually that’s, that’s starting just to kind of nicely put. Some of the anecdotes in, in place. 

[00:33:18] Jade Cunnah: Mm-hmm. 

[00:33:18] Paul Seabrook: Uh, help us get a bit more sort of evidence to support, you know, where we want to go 

[00:33:24] Simon Scriver: in 

[00:33:24] Paul Seabrook: future.

[00:33:25] Simon Scriver: Yeah. Well I really, I really appreciate the beautiful insights approach. It always seems to be very, I suppose, um, uh, patient and very realistic in terms of what we can do. ’cause we know fundraisers are under a lot of pressure, so it’s, it’s no use to just come in and paint all these things that are wrong.

[00:33:40] Simon Scriver: Um, I always find you guys have a much more kind of moderate approach in terms of realistic. Uh, step by step fixing this thing and making stuff seem a bit pla plainer and, and more manageable, you know, so I do, I do really appreciate that. Uh, I would say to anyone listening, um, find out more about beautiful insights@beautifulinsights.com, where you can in particular learn more about that safe index, and they will be back with us on the webinar next week.

[00:34:03] Simon Scriver: But in between, or if someone’s listening back to, uh, uh, on demand. Where do people find you? Uh, Steven, where do people keep in touch, uh, with you if they wanna throw more questions at you? 

[00:34:13] Steven Dodds: Uh, we, we are on LinkedIn of course. Uh, do you know what? We’re not on x. Um, but, uh, they can contact us at hello@beautifulinsights.com.

[00:34:22] Steven Dodds: steven@beautifulinsights.com. paul@beautifulinsights.com on our website. We’ll also down you can also download, um, a kind of summary of the insights that we’ve seen so far. Yes. Uh, from the Safe, from the Safe Index and if you, uh, so desire, book an appointment with us to, uh, find out in more detail whether it’s, uh, able to help you.

[00:34:40] Steven Dodds: Um, uh, improve your support experience. 

[00:34:42] Simon Scriver: Amazing. Thank you Steven. And you Paul, where do people find you? Are you big Instagram kind of guy, TikTok? Where are you at? Where’s you mainly at? 

[00:34:49] Paul Seabrook: Um, no, I was gonna try and sort of come up with a very sort of strategic answer, but no, not really. Um. No link. LinkedIn is probably the best place to sort of find this.

[00:34:59] Paul Seabrook: Um, I’m quite active with the Charter Institute of Fundraising special interest, interest group on, uh, data in fundraising. Um, so, uh, yeah, there’s sort of, you can see some of our kind of work there as well. But yeah, um, we have a, uh, an easy kind of way through our website reaching out to us. One of the things we offered to, um, charities is a sort of a, a, a, a kind of feasibility check just to see if you’ve got sort of the data coverage, um, to run a safe index project.

[00:35:32] Paul Seabrook: Uh, and that’s often the first step we, we take with clients. 

[00:35:35] Simon Scriver: Yeah. Excellent. I highly, uh, recommend getting in touch about that. Do book in a meeting, do um, have a chat with the guys. They’re very, very helpful. Uh, and we will link to the website in the description of this episode as well. So you have that there.

[00:35:48] Simon Scriver: And Joan, of course, people are gonna go to Starlight, uh, and, and try and break your forms while they’re donating lots and lots of money. Fabulous. But where else will people find you? Where else can people get? 

[00:35:59] Joan Middleton: Um, I’m kind of on LinkedIn, not very much, but I am on LinkedIn. Um, but if you wanna email me my name, my email is joan.Middleton@starlight.org.uk.

[00:36:09] Joan Middleton: I’ll have a chat. So 

[00:36:11] Simon Scriver: I’m getting, I’m getting a very reluctantly on LinkedIn vibe from all of you. I’m very, 

[00:36:18] Steven Dodds: I’m not, I’m not reluctant about it. I’m not reluctant about it on there. You know, 

[00:36:21] Paul Seabrook: my problem with LinkedIn is I go there to post something and I, I get lost in an amazing kind of story and timelines and it’s just great to see what people have been up to.

[00:36:32] Paul Seabrook: So. It, it’s, I guess that’s the power, isn’t it? I’m just, I’m always, I’m thinking I was gonna be really, really focused here. This literally post onto the post, but I’ve already got distracted and read a really interesting article. 

[00:36:44] Simon Scriver: Forgot. They know, they know what they’re doing. They know what they’re doing.

[00:36:47] Simon Scriver: Oh yeah. Okay. Thank you everyone. It’s been so wonderful to chat to you. And thank you so much for making the time. And thank you all for listening. Um, uh, for listening. My name is Simon Reiber, um, from fundraising Everywhere. Do reach out to us if you have any questions. Otherwise, we hope to see you. At the webinar next week, do check the description for the link to that book Your Place where if you’re listening to this after, you can go back and watch that on demand.

[00:37:09] Simon Scriver: Um, but as always, please feel free to reach out to us@fundraisingeverywhere.com. Uh, if there’s anything you wanna chat about. Thank you so much for listening and take care. Thank you.

[00:37:21] Simon Scriver: We’ll get some good theme music. Yeah. 

[00:37:25] Alex Aggidis: Thank you so much for listening to the Fundraising Everywhere podcast. 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 of Scribe, it really helps more fundraisers let you find us. Thank you so much.

[00:37:39] Alex Aggidis: See you next time.

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This transcript was created using AI. If you spot any mistakes, please reach out. Thank you!

Transcript

[00:00:00] Multiple Voices: Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. , you don’t need to add me in there.

[00:00:31] 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 fundraising everwhere.com/podcast to subscribe Now onto today’s episode, enjoy.

[00:00:59] Nikki Bell: That is exciting. Good flow. It is, it’s really exciting. It’s lovely to have us all back again for all things digital. It is once a year, every June, we all this digital room talking about all things, uh, digital. Um, so yeah, I can’t believe it has been a year. How is everyone good? Excited. Good? Yeah. Everyone looks like they’re somewhere warm.

[00:01:24] Nikki Bell: Which is maybe a little bit too warm. Too warm, too warm. Well, the conversation’s about to get hotter, so thank you. We’re talking today about the digital learning grant, all things digital. Um, and I’ve got some wonderful people here back in the room, uh, to, to help me for the next half an hour or so. So I’d love these all to.

[00:01:46] Nikki Bell: Say hi and introduce yourselves. Cam, I’m gonna come to you first. 

[00:01:49] Cam St-Omer Donaldson: Thank you. I am Cam, uh, pronouns are she her. Um, I’m head of membership engagement at fundraising everywhere, which basically means I get to make sure that all our members are having the best experience ever and with all of the learning, confidence, networking community that they could dream of.

[00:02:09] Cam St-Omer Donaldson: And so, yeah, that’s me. Uh, 

you’ve got a lovely face on there, Nikki. I was, I was like, that’s really nice. It’s the first time I’ve heard it. Write that down, keep using it. I mean, it’s the heat, it’s the heat. Um, 

[00:02:23] Cam St-Omer Donaldson: so that’s me. Um, and yeah, I’ve had the pleasure of um, kinda stewarding our digital learning grant members alongside Megan in our team as well, which has been lovely.

[00:02:31] Cam St-Omer Donaldson: Uh, so yeah, that’s me. Nice. Who do you wanna chuck the intro to next? I’m gonna chuck the intro to Phoebe. I did a physical chuck in. Thanks. 

[00:02:40] Phoebe Sabin: Um, hi everyone. I’m Phoebe and I’m the growth marketing manager at Just Giving. So I work closely with, um, charities, largely smaller to medium sized organizations, um, helping them sort of, uh, work out how to stay up to date, up to date, and engage all the ways they can raise more on just giving and encouraging fundraising best practice.

[00:02:57] Phoebe Sabin: Over to you Zoe. 

[00:03:00] Zoe Amar: Hi everyone. It’s lovely to be back here again. So I’m Zoe Am I run a digital air consultancy called Zoe Am Digital and I’m also the co-author of the Charity Digital Skills Report. 

[00:03:12] Nikki Bell: Amazing. So yes, we’re all in the right room. We’re all here. So Digital learning grant, we have just come to the end of the second cohort and for anybody who doesn’t know what the digital learning grant is, uh, cam would you like to tell people what it is?

[00:03:29] Cam St-Omer Donaldson: I can indeed. So the Digital Learning grant program, um, is sponsored indeed by just giving, um, and it was set up to ensure that we could provide digital skills to help fundraisers feel confident, um, knowledgeable, um, but also inspired, um, to bring digital to their organizations and sort of build. The, the build on the digital skills.

[00:03:50] Cam St-Omer Donaldson: And I know we’re gonna hear later from Zoe, um, about things that have come out from this year’s report, but we’re constantly hearing in the sector. Um, you know, digital has been a big part and a driver for where we’re going to towards and we’re gonna continue to do so. Um, but fundraisers haven’t always felt really skilled and confident in being able to apply and those skills or to know what it is.

[00:04:10] Cam St-Omer Donaldson: Um, that we’re applying. So yeah, the learning grant sponsored by just giving, um, is curated specifically by us at fundraising everywhere. Um, we ask fundraisers for, um, the areas that they would love to develop and grow and learn in. Um, and then we curate, um, a specific and bespoke program for those fundraisers to develop their skills.

[00:04:30] Cam St-Omer Donaldson: Um, yeah, it’s beautiful, really. 

[00:04:33] Nikki Bell: It is. It is. And we, so this is the second time that we’ve run it. Ran it. I dunno what the ran run, what’s the right grammar on that run? Ran both. Well, you know what I meant. Um, and the first year that we did it, uh, and Zoe you were just on this as well, so everyone here is, has all been included from day one.

[00:04:49] Nikki Bell: Uh, we had a hundred people, uh, the last one. So the one that we’ve just finished, we had 200 people go through. And for me, from what I. Saw I wasn’t as involved this year. ’cause Cam, you were leading them wonderfully. Um, the engagement and the impact just seemed to be so much higher. And again, like we will talk, uh, through some of that in, in our chat today.

[00:05:09] Nikki Bell: Um, but yeah, the, the need, the need is. Is still there. I know Zoe, when we had this conversation last year, we, I think we had the results from the charity digital, uh, skills report. But for you, in terms of like where the sector is right now, the general vibe, like with, with digital skills and, and what people are, are working on, what for you is, is standing out as to why programs like the digital learning grant is so important.

[00:05:36] Zoe Amar: Yeah. So there’s a couple of things I’d say there, and this is just a general reflection for, I just touched on a couple of, um, of, uh, juicy stats. Um, I think that digital skills are really rising up the agenda. So one thing we have, uh, been doing this summer so far as we’ve been working with, um, Microsoft, uh, to develop and deliver, uh.

[00:05:57] Zoe Amar: AI Leadership Accelerator for, uh, charity leaders from small and large charities. I have never heard so many leaders talk about skills. I think once you start to look at the change that comes with ai, ’cause it’s not just the tools, it’s the the ways of working. It’s the how, it’s the, the why as much as the, the what the women, the wear.

[00:06:18] Zoe Amar: And people are really the sector’s main asset in in many ways. And once you start to realize that you can’t really implement this level of change, you can’t really operate as a charity now without having good digital skills, you inevitably end up having less impact. And therefore, I think AI’s gonna be a real crunch point for whether we really grasp the net or on committing to developing.

[00:06:42] Zoe Amar: Skills further. So that was really refreshing to be working with those a hundred charity leaders who were just clamoring for more skills and how to develop skills in the organization. So, so that was really positive. Um, and then in terms of some of the, the trends that we’ve, we’ve seen, I mean, I’ll be able to talk more about the, uh, actual data from the report itself when it comes out on the, the 10th of July.

[00:07:06] Zoe Amar: Um, but certainly we saw some. Some positive signs from the initial findings. So we did a bit of a dip test, uh, back in April when we had 300 plus responses from the report. And, and we published that and we saw that 62% of charities had made good or significant progress with digital this year, uh, which was really encouraging.

[00:07:29] Zoe Amar: Um, but yeah, at the same time we also saw there was some real. Some real challenges as, as well. So three quarters of charities. So 76% are now using AI tools day-to-day, hence the need for more skills than that, as well as other areas. Um, but there are also some, some other, I think, quite significant challenges among the skills that will be needed to make the new tools and.

[00:07:54] Zoe Amar: The kind of evergreen skills really fly. So for example, we now have 50% of charities have got AI policies, which is up significantly from 16% in 2024. But for me, one of the challenges there is we need to manage risk in a completely. New way in the age of AI as much of as opportunities. So it’s kind of the skills around the skills.

[00:08:17] Zoe Amar: It’s like a kind of skills sandwich, isn’t it, that we need to, we need to develop, um, and, and grow. So yeah, I think the world of skills is becoming more complex. It’s becoming more exciting, and it’s also becoming more demanding. 

[00:08:33] Nikki Bell: It is been, but I, it, it sound, it sounds great that there is loads of support in that.

[00:08:37] Nikki Bell: And actually that came out a lot with the people that we were speaking to as part of the graduation today. I think when we ask people to take part in the digital learning grant, we ask them straight away, you know, who’s put you forward for this? And, and do you have the support on it? And overwhelmingly, we are seeing an increase.

[00:08:53] Nikki Bell: In, uh, participants who, who have that backend. So that’s great to hear as well. Not only, uh, that are, are you seeing the stats, improving the report too, but also, um, that it’s, it’s continuing and that there’s places like that where people can boost, uh, their, their skills. Um, so, and you’re doing a session at the digital.

[00:09:13] Nikki Bell: Fundraising conference on the 3rd of July where you’re gonna be doing some teasers. So, uh, I’m looking forward to hearing more stats there as well. Um, cam, from the graduation, uh, that we had and from the program overall, what have been the standout highlights, uh, for, for you for this year? 

[00:09:30] Cam St-Omer Donaldson: I think it’s twofold.

[00:09:31] Cam St-Omer Donaldson: The first one, um, that I wanted to pick up on was just kind of a bit of a lead on from what Zoe was saying about really thinking about the how that they’re gonna apply this now. Like it’s great that they’re investing in these skills and like, um, you know, lead leadership seem to be even more kind of committed to that.

[00:09:46] Cam St-Omer Donaldson: But what I was also saying with the, um. This particular cohort, although I know I wasn’t as close last time, um, it was the need that they were building things like strategies, um, and really thinking strategically about how they were gonna bring digital fundraising to, you know, their, their fundraising portfolio.

[00:10:03] Cam St-Omer Donaldson: Um, and they were being like, yeah, put in charge of, of, of building those. And that was. To me that felt really different from what I was seeing that the, the cohort was looking for in terms of skills last year. That’s quite nice. So they are thinking holistically in that way. Um, so that was one of the highlights.

[00:10:17] Cam St-Omer Donaldson: I know that we are gonna probably hear, or I hope we get to hear from, um, one of our participants, Neville. Um, I feel like we’re. Big friends, but like, we haven’t actually met in real life. But anyway, um, Neville, um, really kind of utilized the program to the full extent, I think, and um, was able to get support with their digital innovation and strategy and they were able to be matched with another member of the Fundraising everywhere community and have that strategy.

[00:10:43] Cam St-Omer Donaldson: Kind of work and build on it together. And they submitted that to their director and the strategy was signed off and they’ve learned all these skills that they were able to kind of input into that strategy, but also share with people within their organization as well. And they’ve actually become organizational members now, like, yeah, Neville’s journey, just.

[00:11:00] Cam St-Omer Donaldson: Um, for me, I know it’s the stu the journey of many, but, um, really, really stands out. Um, and then the second piece, I guess in terms of another highlight, um, is just the dedication, the sheer dedication that people and commitment that people have made to this, to this program. Like I have received, I. So many emails from, um, participants about the fact that their digital, like workbooks are so full of notes and they now need some time over the summer to digest it all, or they wish they had a little bit more time.

[00:11:28] Cam St-Omer Donaldson: And you know, it’s really amazing to see just that dedication. Like even though people’s workloads are heavy and the pressure as we know in the sector, sometimes it’s being really felt and that they are really committing and dedicating that time to learning and seeing the results. Um, we heard some awesome stories from that this morning, um, at today’s graduation.

[00:11:46] Cam St-Omer Donaldson: So yeah, that makes me feel like really happy and warm and buzzy. 

[00:11:50] Nikki Bell: Zoe, I’ll catch you up, uh, and just share some of this feedback with you. So I’ll go through the scores in, in just a moment. ’cause we, we have kind of like a quick snapshots. Not everyone is, is finished completely yet and we’ve actually given them a free month just.

[00:12:02] Nikki Bell: That they can get stuck into some extra bits and bobs. Um, but the two standout pieces of feedback from me, uh, one of them was a quote from Hannah May who shared, I no longer feel like I’m sitting in a room alone, struggling to improve, uh, support experience. I feel empowered to know that there are so many of us and really energized to be brave and try new things, fail and learn fast, and to reach across charities to share and collaborate in digital.

[00:12:26] Nikki Bell: Like how amazing is that? That’s just so lovely. That’s from the program. That’s gorgeous. I mean, what a lovely demonstration of the program’s impact. Yeah. And then for tangible ones, because you know, I, maybe the budget holders are like, well, that’s nice that people feel less alone, but what about the money I.

[00:12:45] Nikki Bell: Well, here’s the soundbite for them as well. So Becca shared that they secured two major grants off the back of learning from that course, specifically by presenting new fundraising plans. So they’ve said, thank you. So that’s incredible. So it’s making people feel secure, confident, and raise more. And that’s six months.

[00:13:03] Nikki Bell: Yeah. Do you know like that’s the power of learning, sharing digital skills like this program, uh, it’s so amazing and yeah. Shall we hear a little bit from Nev? 

[00:13:11] Cam St-Omer Donaldson: Yeah. Let’s hear from Nev. Cool.

[00:13:17] Nikki Bell: So how lovely to hear from Nev and his experience as well. So thank you Nev. So I went through, at the end of that chat with Nev, uh, as well, I, I, I put, I put them on the spot and, uh, pulled up the scores from when they’d first, uh, took part in the program and said how confident they were and. Rated them there and then in the moment, and thankfully, ’cause it would’ve went awkwardly wrong if it didn’t, all of the scores had gone up.

[00:13:41] Nikki Bell: So let’s look at the highlights so far for, from this, from this year’s course. So when the 250, no, two, 200 participants, sorry, uh, came on board for this year’s digital learning grant, we ask them to rate their skills and confidence in a variety of. Areas. Um, so from, you know, digital wellbeing, social media skills, et cetera.

[00:14:06] Nikki Bell: So the main ones that stood out for me when I was looking at these were when the participants joined the program. Uh, the majority, uh, rated themselves a one out of five for confidence in developing a digital fundraising strategy. Now at the end of the course, that’s four out of five. That’s incredible.

[00:14:30] Nikki Bell: Whole one to four. We’re 

[00:14:32] Phoebe Sabin: silently 

[00:14:33] Nikki Bell: clapping. Silent. Ruin. Mute please. This is a podcast. They can’t see you. You have to have to do some clouds. Yay. Uh, another one which stood out for me as well was, uh, well, digital innovation, um, as well, and behavioral science and fundraising approaches. So both of them went from a one out of five for skills and confidence as well to a four out of five, which is incredible.

[00:14:57] Nikki Bell: Small charity, uh, digital tactics went from a two out of five to a four out of five. So we’ll be sharing, um, more of those results on our socials and with our community once the, um, course is fully wrapped up. But so far that is really incredible and we talked about it before as well, but it’s. It’s down to the people in it.

[00:15:17] Nikki Bell: They have just been so engaged. They’ve been engaging with the modules that are available. They’ve been going to extra conferences. They’ve been asked to be matched with other parts of the community and being, getting mentoring. They’ve been getting coaching, so it’s really, it’s them that have done it. Um, but obviously do you know, it’s, it’s been a home.

[00:15:37] Nikki Bell: Collaborative effort, uh, for, for the, from the sector, uh, as well. 

[00:15:41] Phoebe Sabin: Absolutely. 

Yeah. 

[00:15:42] Phoebe Sabin: And you mentioned earlier, just really briefly, you glossed over the three months, um, membership extra for the digital learning grant. Um. People that have gone through this last cohort, but it is testament to their dedication, their like excitement about all of their learning.

[00:15:57] Phoebe Sabin: That someone even in the graduation was like, this is so great. Like, they’re so excited about having another month, an extra month 

[00:16:03] Nikki Bell: of learning. Yeah. Into the summer. So yes, we did, uh, share with the participants today that we’ve given them an extra month free, um, of fundraising everywhere, membership, because we have the digital fundraising comp.

[00:16:16] Nikki Bell: On the 3rd of July. So it kind of makes sense that they’re there, right. Um, but it also gives them an extra chance to, uh, catch up with any of the modules maybe that they haven’t missed, especially now that they’ve seen, you know, the impact that can come from actually engaging, uh, in this. So Zoe, that’ll be the first time that you’ve been hearing that too.

[00:16:33] Nikki Bell: Like what’s your first reflections on that? Because I think actually the jump on that is higher than what we had last year, so Yeah. What’s your initial reaction to, to those scores? Well, it shows the, the level of demand 

[00:16:45] Zoe Amar: and engagement, doesn’t it? Which is, which is super exciting and it’s really, I think it’s just so brilliant to see how passionate people 

[00:16:54] Nikki Bell: are.

[00:16:55] Nikki Bell: Yeah. It’s, it’s really, and honestly, the, the vibe at the graduation, uh, by far for me, made up for the. Interaction that I missed from not being involved with, with the steward in this year. So it was really, really good to see. Cam, do you wanna talk about some of the top users before we we move on to the digital conference and the, and the skills report in in more detail?

[00:17:19] Nikki Bell: Oh, you’re muted.

[00:17:22] Cam St-Omer Donaldson: Of course I am. Um, obviously everyone’s a winner. Um, and everyone has been super, super engaged, which has been amazing. Um, but we have had some standout in terms of how many sessions they’ve engaged with. Um, so we’ve got Emma n uh, very big clap for Emma, n um, also Emma f both of the Emma’s the top on our list.

[00:17:42] Cam St-Omer Donaldson: Um, also Annabelle, who was also with us today at the graduation, and they shared, can’t remember now off the top of my head, but they also shared some feedback, which was really lovely, um, about how they found the, the program. Um, a couple other mentions of people who’ve just really engaged in like workshops, coaching, um, mentoring, the whole kind of.

[00:18:02] Cam St-Omer Donaldson: Uh, I guess experience of membership. Um, we also, Louise w uh, John Spriggs, uh, Molly c Hannah w, uh, Joe, Beverly, Dana, Ella, and Jess as well. So just a couple of shout outs for them. Big shout outs. Yeah, really big shout outs for them. Um, genuinely, I think it was Dana who shared with me that they said they’ve watched everything and more of the additional content and they’ve learned so much.

[00:18:30] Cam St-Omer Donaldson: Um, their workbook is full of masses, of notes and links downloaded. Thanks to everyone at Team Fe and the sponsorship by just giving for, giving me this opportunity to learn all things digital with regards to fundraising. 

[00:18:43] Nikki Bell: Gorgeous. What a quote, what a quote. And if you’re listening to this and you’re like, well, that’s all well and good, but I’ve missed out.

[00:18:50] Nikki Bell: Well, all good news. So we are launching the digital learning grant, Ram three at the Digital fundraising Conference. So. Thank you. Just given, uh, who have confirmed that we’re gonna be partnering on that again through 2026. And this time we’re gonna be taking 250 people through the program. So applications for that are gonna open at the conference on the 3rd of July for participants.

[00:19:14] Nikki Bell: So please do be there. We would love to, uh, see your applications. We can’t wait to do it all again. Um, and if you have missed out last time and you’re listening to this and you’re thinking, I want a bit of that, you can, um. You also get to come to the conference. So let’s move on now and talk about digital skills overall.

[00:19:32] Nikki Bell: We were having a little chat before we hit record and we were talking about. The need and just how rapidly things seem to be changing at the moment. And even some of our participants had said, you know, with this program that had been put together at the end of last year, like some of that’s already obsolete.

[00:19:48] Nikki Bell: It’s, it’s moved on a bit already. So why the state of the sector digital? How is it feeling? What is the, the, the core, uh, opportunity, if we look at it from a positive, uh, perspective that’s ahead of us right now that we really need to be working towards to, to grasp. Zoe, I’m gonna come to you first. What would the report 

[00:20:08] Zoe Amar: Yeah, sure.

[00:20:10] Zoe Amar: Um, so I think the, the big opportunity for me is very much about, um, it’s about AI to be honest with you, but it’s also about trying to deal with some of the systemic digital skills gaps we have seen for such a long time now, certainly ever since the report began. So I’ll start with, with those because they are the ones that just aren’t shifting.

[00:20:31] Zoe Amar: So historically, year on year, we’ve seen. Two very significant skills gaps alongside some of the others. But these two have, have always really struck me as really quite, really quite critical to the success of the sector. So data skills have always been a really significant challenge. We know there’ve been challenges with infrastructure, but also.

[00:20:50] Zoe Amar: Data skills and collecting and managing and analyzing data and cybersecurity as well. Uh, so I think that is an ongoing issue, which is going to become even more pressing in the age of AI growth. Uh, and then I think there’s a really significant challenge around the skills of leaders as well. So historically, year on year in the report, we’ve seen how.

[00:21:12] Zoe Amar: Challenging it’s been for charities ’cause they’re just not getting the, uh, digital vision that they want to have from their CEOs and also their, their boards as well. So this is about leaders sharpening their own AEs on, on skills as much as data skills. Um, and there are, you know, other skills gaps that definitely need to be, be closed as well.

[00:21:34] Zoe Amar: But I think those two things are really key to fix. And then. Obviously with the growth of AI adoption across the sector, so I mentioned that figure of 76% of charities now using AI based on our initial findings from the reports. For me, that means the whole water table of skills across the sector needs to.

[00:21:53] Zoe Amar: To rise up because I think it’s hard to use AI well, unless you’ve got that good, solid base of digital skills, as much as knowing how to use AI tools and when to use them as well. So I hope all of this reinvigorates the conversation about skills across the sector. 

[00:22:14] Nikki Bell: Absolutely right there about what you, you put in.

[00:22:16] Nikki Bell: ’cause it’s, it’s like fundraising overall, isn’t it? If the basics aren’t there, the foundation isn’t there. What you put in is, sorry, what you get out is only gonna be as good as you put in. So it’s that balance, isn’t it? You, you have to get those fundamentals right. You have to get the skills right. But then, yeah, exploration.

[00:22:30] Nikki Bell: I feel like for me, AI is. Starting to click now, the way I’m using it and how I’m using it to help me, not from a generative point of view, but even do, you know, to help me quicken up some processes. That’s been really exciting to, to feel and see. So we will be, um, delving into some, uh, AI topics at the conference as well.

[00:22:49] Nikki Bell: And Phoebe, for you, obviously you, you’re working with charities every day on their digital fundraising, you know, what changes are you seeing there and you know, what are you. Not like, what are you coming back for? But, you know, what are you excited about doing the, the digital learning grant again? You know, what do you, you hope to see this time round?

[00:23:07] Phoebe Sabin: Yeah, I mean it’s, unfortunately, it’s the, it’s the sort of similar story to what we’ve seen over, we’ve been talking about for the last couple of years, and we’ve been doing this alongside all of the issues and sort of opportunities and risks that have already been talked about so far. There’s also the age agile problem of the resource and sort of time, confidence, resource, et cetera, that go alongside the.

[00:23:28] Phoebe Sabin: Opportunity for upskilling, uh, if there are, if there are opportunities from, um, leaders in the organization. But, um, yeah, anything to do with digital strategy that’s like such a positive. So it’s great to hear that feedback from Zoe, um, from those initial findings and from Cam, from what she’s heard from, um, some of the members of the, um, last cohort of the digital learning one as well.

[00:23:51] Phoebe Sabin: Um, but yeah, in terms of. What I would love to see is also their confidence being built up, which is something that thankfully we’ve seen has been improved, um, from the digital learning grant. Um, it’s because that’s not just necessarily their confidence in sort of doing something better. It might be them trying new things or testing and learning or seeing what a different organization does and taking something from that.

[00:24:14] Phoebe Sabin: And trying to apply it at a scalable level to their own organization depend like no matter the size of them or the re resource that they have. Um, so anything they can do to focus on like one key area would be like amazing. And yeah, I’ve talked a number of times, uh, and I don’t think it’s groundbreaking to think about digital skills and digital fundraising.

[00:24:33] Phoebe Sabin: Working in harmony with one another. Um, so the digital learning grant is obviously the perfect example of this in reality. Um, so yeah, fundraising everywhere and just giving, we share the same goals ultimately, I think, of helping improve the knowledge and skills and confidence in both of those areas. So I’ll always rave about how much we love working with fundraising everywhere and doing the digital learning grant.

[00:24:54] Phoebe Sabin: So it is for that reason that the digital learning grant was born and why we’ve come back to be able to hopefully offer it to even more people this time around as well. I love it. 

[00:25:02] Nikki Bell: So good. And we appreciate it too. Thank you. And Cam, for you as well, I mean the Fundraising Everywhere membership community has grown wildly, for want of a better word, in the past 12 months.

[00:25:14] Nikki Bell: What, for you, are you hearing from them around digital? What opportunities are they going for? What are, what do they need help with? 

[00:25:21] Cam St-Omer Donaldson: Yeah, I think it, you hit the nail on the head there, Phoebe, about the digital skills also. Somehow I, I’m not so tech savvy, but like also teaches that kind of culture around test and learn and fail, and you can do that so quickly because of digital.

[00:25:37] Cam St-Omer Donaldson: Um, so yeah, there was a, a, a bit of feedback that came through the graduation today that like, I can’t remember, I think you might have spoken to it earlier, Nikki, that like, there’s so much more like. Happy to try things out or test something new. And like that also comes from that digital skills, that also comes from that confidence.

[00:25:52] Cam St-Omer Donaldson: Um, so I think I’m definitely seeing that. And I think because they’re getting to see it and do it in community, um, and that’s the joy I think of learning through fundraising everywhere. It’s self-paced learning, so you’re doing it your own time, but there’s so much opportunity to also come together through matchmaking or workshops or.

[00:26:08] Cam St-Omer Donaldson: You know, or drop-ins, whatever it might be. So you, you do some stuff on your own, then you have a little bit of a, you know, a crew to check in with. Um, especially for those who might be like lone fundraisers and like, doing it alone. Or I go back to Neville again, but like, just not being sure on their own right?

[00:26:23] Cam St-Omer Donaldson: Like, am I doing the right thing? Is this any good? I don’t know. I’ve got no one to speak to about this. Um, I think that’s, that’s where the real benefit lies. Um, and then I guess I’ll just wrap up by saying, we’ll wrap up from me, but, um, the. A couple of our members shared with us that yeah, they’re, they’re looking for even more kind of new content because digital is changing all the time.

[00:26:43] Cam St-Omer Donaldson: And I think that’s what’s going to keep the digital learning grant evergreen like forever. Like, you know, there’s, I don’t think there’s a day where you stop digital learning then, um, because it’s always changing and, and especially as a sector, we’re always changing. We’re always moving forward. So, um, all of those people who are super keen to learn, there are even more opportunities to do that as part of the membership community too.

[00:27:03] Nikki Bell: Which is cool. Do you think it’s a case of, oh, we, we have to because it, it cha like the pace has picked up so rapidly recently, at least even with, uh, not the introduction of ai. ’cause obviously it’s been around in, in, in many forms. But I guess the, the in increased use of it, do you think that’s why there’s been an acceleration?

[00:27:23] Nikki Bell: Zoe? What kind of chat are you having with, with your community at the moment? 

[00:27:28] Zoe Amar: Yeah, I think the increased exhilaration is definitely creating more demand because people are asking not only how they can develop the skills, but also how their organizations might need to to change as a result. And those.

[00:27:43] Zoe Amar: Conversations are gonna get even more intense. I think when we start to see the probably quite radical shifts that will come with introducing Agen AI into our charities, which comes with risks as well as opportunities. So this is where, as I said, we’ll need to really build out that skill set more widely.

[00:28:03] Zoe Amar: ’cause it will be about how we use the tools, but also how we can use and scale the tools responsibly. 

[00:28:12] Nikki Bell: What is, what’s that word you shared there? Agent? 

[00:28:15] Zoe Amar: Yes, ai. What does that mean? So what agen AI is, um, it’s basically a type of AI where it’s an autonomous tool. So for example, if you are using a tool like Chat, GPT or Claude or co-pilot, it’s very dependent on your prompts.

[00:28:31] Zoe Amar: So you have to be talking to it and telling it to, to do things, or asking it to give information to you or analyze something. Agen AI is where you would give it. An actual task and it would go off and it could potentially, it would in fact manage other tools and integrate with your systems to, to do it.

[00:28:49] Zoe Amar: So for example, you might have, um, an ag agentic AI tool, which, uh, runs your community fundraising program, um, or deals with some other kind who perhaps organizes a fundraising event. And, and, and this stuff, I know it sounds a bit like science fiction. Um, but it’s also is an area where I think there are opportunities to help charities grow their income further, but it has to be done very carefully and very sensitively and very safely, because it’s really dependent on having a.

[00:29:21] Zoe Amar: Good data infrastructure in your organization, and really good skills and really good integrations as well. Really, everything needs to be really tightly and carefully and safely integrated in your tech stack. Otherwise, you’re just. Letting loosen something that could be very, very chaotic. So yeah, that is the, the big development that is, is here and some charities are using it, but we’ll see an awful lot more charities using it over the next couple of years is what I would predict.

[00:29:51] Nikki Bell: Hence the 

[00:29:52] Zoe Amar: skills. 

[00:29:53] Nikki Bell: I have written that down. Thank you. And I’ve written down, take that out as a soundbite. ’cause that’s gonna be very helpful. We’ve got, I was looking at the program and I was thinking, do we have a space in the conference to put that in? But let’s not rush it. Let’s take out time to get that right and come up with the right content.

[00:30:12] Nikki Bell: But that’s, uh, amazing. Zoe, thank you for, for sharing that with us. Now looking at the digital fundraising conference. So this is the first time that we’ve held the conference. In its new form, but it is a bringing together of two events that we’ve run previous. So we had the Charity Digital Skills Conference, and the fundraising tech conference, and we were like, hang about, why are these two separate things?

[00:30:35] Nikki Bell: Let’s bring them together and have one big digital party. So now on the 3rd of July, between the hours of 12 and four, we have a four track bonanza, um, is what we’re calling it now of all things, uh, digital fundraising, and it is hosted by the wonderful Zoe Amman. And Cam sent o Donaldson. And we also have Josh Lee from Hint and Simon Scriber, uh, from fundraising everywhere as well.

[00:30:57] Nikki Bell: But we have 24 sessions, almost 50 speakers. And don’t worry, obviously if you can’t attend, we can’t attend all of this live. That’s not possible. You can come back and watch on demand, uh, at any point. Up to a month afterwards, or as much as you want, if you remember. But it is just jam packed with everything, uh, that people I could just need to send can send me a message in the chat and be member.

[00:31:23] Nikki Bell: She’s right. Um, so tons of the most up-to-date content that you could get to take your digital, uh, fundraising conference and skills, you know, from that one and a two up to the fours, hopefully a five Cam, what are you looking forward to at this conference? What’s standing out for you as some of the sessions that are like.

[00:31:42] Nikki Bell: You are like, yeah, this is gonna land well. 

[00:31:46] Cam St-Omer Donaldson: I’ve seen one, I think it’s Anthony Nolan, um, oh, I’m gonna forget the title. Um, but it’s definitely an Anthony Nolan ’cause it’s in my track, which is all about the innovation stuffs. Um, and I think it’s gonna land well because mainly it’s a, a charity example as well, which is super helpful.

[00:32:03] Cam St-Omer Donaldson: Um, so really thinking about how you can put that into practice almost immediately and providing a bit of that blueprint. Here we are, um, to digitize the service users. Experience and turn them into donors or fundraisers. And I think that conversation, especially when I worked in Sporter experience at the Red Cross, that conversation about like service users or communities, um, that you work with versus people who give money, who give funds, um, I think is really interesting and how you can kind of.

[00:32:32] Cam St-Omer Donaldson: Loop them in together and actually find there’s more synergy than not. And how tech can help you do that will be really interesting. Um, it also leans into that kind of one 60 kind of approach, um, that we’re all searching for within the charity sector and how, again, digital can aid that. So I am super excited about hearing how Auntie Nolan have been able to do that.

[00:32:52] Cam St-Omer Donaldson: They’re also one of our org members, so love that. 

[00:32:55] Nikki Bell: And that session’s live as well. So I can see in the program, uh, that in, in front of me here, that there’s gonna be a q and a with Rebecca as well after that session, which is gonna be cool. And I was chatting to Rebecca, um, and yes, I need to get back, I need to update my, uh.

[00:33:10] Nikki Bell: On their register. So I’m looking forward to that. Yeah, yeah. Um, just, uh, Phoebe and Zoe, just so that you can get a chance to, to go and have a look at the program there as well. One of the sessions that I’m looking forward to is, it’s up in room one, actually. Oh, no wait. Room three. It is with award winners, uh, Muslims charity, and it’s using, using AI in segmentation to boost email donations by 300%.

[00:33:36] Nikki Bell: What? That’s one of the standout sessions. Uh, for me, um, because they, they were doing, um, what, what you were saying there. So we said they were actually using, uh, AI to integrate with their database so it could actually pull out information to help personalization for comms. Um. And, and the, the charity we use.

[00:33:56] Nikki Bell: And that’s so that when they were doing thank yous, when they were doing check-ins, when they were chatting with people, it was all there and readily available for the fundraisers just to be able to have that personal connection with people, which is super cool. Um, and we also have a session up in room one, which I am gonna catch up.

[00:34:12] Nikki Bell: On. Um, and it is from Paul, uh, actually Paul from the head of CRM, uh, from, from Just Given, and that’s around email stewardship program from the ground up. ’cause there’s a lot of conversations with charities at the moment about how they’re finding it. A challenge to do. Acquisition at scale. So this is a really key session that fundraisers need to be at to go, right.

[00:34:33] Nikki Bell: Okay. Well, we need to get these foundations right before we come to the IG conference in October. Shameless plug for that so that when they do do this acquisition at scale and bring all those DON donors in, I. The foundations that they have there are as solid as can be. So that is the second session there 

[00:34:49] Phoebe Sabin: in room one.

[00:34:50] Phoebe Sabin: And I’ve touched all the right analogies there, Nikki, because it, Paul is taking everyone through from like literally the foundations to the building, the structure to adding the decorations. It’s like everything you need to know from the basics through to like compliance through to the frills. 

[00:35:03] Nikki Bell: We had a little round table with all of the speakers the other day.

[00:35:06] Nikki Bell: Great. So, uh, my brain was pulling quickly, pulling bit stuff from that. But also Zoe, your session as well in, in room two, so kicking us off in, in there. ’cause I know when I come to you for your highlights, you’re not gonna say you are on session. So I do wanna shout that out because we’re gonna be getting a sneak peek if you early findings from the charity digital skills report as well.

[00:35:23] Nikki Bell: So do, uh, head along to, to that one. Um, and then Phoebe, what are your highlights for the conference? What are you looking forward to? 

[00:35:32] Phoebe Sabin: I’m just gonna shout out Paul for sure. ’cause I’ve seen that session and it’s really useful. But, um, I mean, anything from, I, I always appreciate anything that is like the back to basics.

[00:35:43] Phoebe Sabin: Like I think that sometimes you can get swept up in, um. You know, like the latest bells and whistles. And actually some of the times it is about like stripping things back, looking at like the very like root of what you’re doing and making sure that those stepping stones are in the right place for you to then build on.

[00:36:00] Phoebe Sabin: So I’ve seen a few things like that about, um, sort of getting everything sort of in, in the right place before you. Start with all of the sort of newest skills and tools and AI and things. So any of those bits, there’s a few things I’ve seen across different rooms, but each track looks so good. I’ve, I’ve just gone through the program in a bit more detail.

[00:36:18] Phoebe Sabin: Um, and I’m also looking forward to hearing about just the state of, sort of where we’re at with digital fundraising from a couple of speakers I can see on their agenda as well. 

[00:36:27] Nikki Bell: We love insights. And Zoe, what about yourself? ’cause you’re horse in a room, so is it just like all the sessions in your room?

[00:36:32] Nikki Bell: What are you looking forward to? Um, 

[00:36:34] Zoe Amar: there’s, there’s so many and, um, I mean, I’m going to talk about a, a, a couple of them that really stand out to me. So, uh, I’m big fan of Kim Lu from Royal College of Surgeons ’cause I’ve worked alongside her for years. And she’s doing a session on ways of working. So the kind of skill of learning skills and how we can encourage our staff to develop skills almost without realizing it from the way that they work.

[00:36:59] Zoe Amar: And I’m really excited about that ’cause I’ve seen Kim lead her team and lead the organization through a massive process of their own skills program and how. Their own ways of working has had to evolve as a, as a result. So I think that’s gonna be really, really fascinating. I’m, I’m really excited about that and got all the sessions just look so good.

[00:37:20] Zoe Amar: I wish I could just go to all of them. They look brilliant. 

[00:37:24] Nikki Bell: You can Zoey, are you a member yet? I was 

just coming. Membership. What membership You 

[00:37:35] Cam St-Omer Donaldson: watch back? I wanted to. Quickly add, um, hint at doing a session on the new soft opt-in. Um, and I know that, that my inbox is full from everyone trying to talk to me about that at the moment.

[00:37:49] Cam St-Omer Donaldson: So I know that it’s gonna be a great, um, session and really, really useful, um, for our membership community as well. So definitely try and get along to, to that session if you can, peoples. Sweet or watch it back on demand 

[00:38:01] Nikki Bell: as a member. Um, and tons of support for this as well. So of course, thank you to just giving, uh, for being our headline partner, uh, for this to hint as well for being, uh, one of our partners.

[00:38:11] Nikki Bell: We also have I raiser social sync, uh, Toan and Blue States. So huge thank you to them and thank you as well Zoe. ’cause you were heavily involved, uh, in the very early stages too, and helping us shape the program, bring some speakers in as well. And you’re down there too as a support and partner. So it is.

[00:38:28] Nikki Bell: Very much, uh, a collaborative effort, and we are really looking forward to next week. So if it’ll be this week by the time you listen to this. So if you haven’t had your ticket yet, or you haven’t booked your ticket yet, for the digital fundraising conference, head to www.fundraisingeverywhere.com forward slash shop.

[00:38:47] Nikki Bell: And you will see all of our upcoming events, and this conference is on the 3rd of July. If you’re busy, maybe you have a meeting in there with your board to try and convince them to give you some digital budget. Do book anyway because you’ll get access to the recordings to watch back on demand until the end of.

[00:39:04] Nikki Bell: August. Um, but like we’ve mentioned quite a few times, and if you haven’t quoted already, uh, you can become a Fundraiser Everywhere member and catch up on all of the events, uh, that we’ve ever hosted, you know, since day one. Um, and you’ll also get access to additional resources like, um, mentor matching.

[00:39:22] Nikki Bell: Like with other members, you can get funded coaching and I believe as well in early August can we’ll be having a incubator conversation with members who attended the conference. To consolidate their learnings and help them make a plan for how they can implement that going forward. So we’ll be hosting that at the beginning, uh, of August as well.

[00:39:39] Nikki Bell: So there’s a, a lush, lush journey there. Uh, we’re gonna round up now, but before I do that, um, I just wanna go around the room and I asked Nev this before and the full conversation with Nev at the conference or so you can watch that. What would you be saying to people who are. On that digital learning journey?

[00:39:59] Nikki Bell: ’cause I imagine most people are by now and they’re thinking, right, okay, I can feel this momentum building now, but I’m just finding it a little bit tough. What bit of advice would you give them just to keep them fired up and and focused on this digital fundraising journey? Uh, Zoe what would you be saying to them?

[00:40:16] Nikki Bell: I. 

[00:40:17] Zoe Amar: You just 

[00:40:17] Nikki Bell: gotta 

[00:40:18] Zoe Amar: keep going. I think with any skills development, you will feel like you are going backwards before you guys go forwards because it’s that thing of the, the, the conscious incompetence. Uh, and I always get really frustrated at that point, but I. The pain barrier is part of the, the learning, isn’t it?

[00:40:35] Zoe Amar: It’s the, it shows that your, your brain is learning and, and adapting and you, you’re probably learning and progressing much more at that point than anyone gives themselves credit for. So just, just keep going is what I’d say. Keep going. 

[00:40:52] Nikki Bell: Do you know that scientifically correct as well? It’s called the learning zone.

[00:40:55] Nikki Bell: So when you’ve, uh, acknowledged that there’s something that you don’t know, you go across this barrier into uncomfortableness where things can feel really like overwhelming and scattered, and then obviously, which path you take. Completely depends on how successful you are on the other side. ’cause if you kind of take that little, you bend and then go back into that space of comfortableness, you’ll stay there.

[00:41:18] Nikki Bell: But the people who are continuously, you know, curious, they take it at a time, maybe they take two steps forward and one back, they’re the ones that continue on. So yeah, the learning zone. So you’re absolutely right. So thank you for sharing that and that’ll be helpful I think for people that might be feeling a bit, um, a little bit like, eh, at the moment for want of a better.

[00:41:35] Nikki Bell: Noise, 

[00:41:36] Phoebe Sabin: Phoebe. Um, I love that though, that basically it’s just keep swimming, just keep swimming. Um, but uh, alongside that, I do think, you know, like there’s always the next thing to learn. There’s always the next thing to tick on your to-do list. I think it’s important for people to also like, take a moment to reflect on what they’re actually achieving in their space and at their organization or with their network.

[00:41:58] Phoebe Sabin: You might not have a huge digital reach and you might, or audience, and you might feel. Like, you know, there’s other people doing things way better or bigger or louder than, than you are, but, um. It might be that you know it, your focus shifts from growing your audience to making the most of the network you have currently and then you know, using that for your next campaign or appeal or moving your charity’s brand awareness to turning ’em into fundraisers.

[00:42:22] Phoebe Sabin: I think there’s little wins that you can reflect on that can keep you positive to then carry on with the keep on swimming message in your head and sort of take a moment to go. Yeah, actually Pat on the back and then I can learn from that and go into the next thing that I’m gonna tackle. So a little moment of reflection maybe.

[00:42:37] Nikki Bell: Love that. 

[00:42:38] Phoebe Sabin: And Cam. 

[00:42:41] Cam St-Omer Donaldson: Well, I’m gonna stay on the theme. So like, yeah, definitely the keep swimming and then do some reflection, and then maybe join a fundraising everywhere, drop in, um, so that you can hear that others are doing it too. Um, they’re struggling that, that they’re having successes. They’re having challenges, they’re seeing wins.

[00:42:56] Cam St-Omer Donaldson: Um, and I think someone this morning said it best in their feedback, but like, they just feel that they’re not alone. And like, I know that isn’t gonna be enough necessarily to convince you. Director that this is a great thing to invest in. Um, or it might, considering what Zoe was saying, but um, the feeling of not feeling alone also helps massively with that confidence.

[00:43:15] Cam St-Omer Donaldson: Um, and just yeah, hearing from others and how they’re doing it. So that would be my advice. Talk to someone else. They’re probably in the same boat swimming with you. My analogy. 

[00:43:26] Nikki Bell: Beautiful way to end it. I don’t wanna chuck more in there ’cause I’ll just complicate it. Uh, thank you so much to all of you for being involved in this conversation in the digital learning grant in everything that you all do as individuals in your own spaces to help the sector be better at digital fundraising.

[00:43:43] Nikki Bell: I feel really happy, uh, that we’re in on this together. Um, and the results. Uh, that we’re seeing from this and the impact that it’s having, I can’t wait to do it all again, and I will see you on July 3rd for the digital fundraising company. 

[00:43:59] Phoebe Sabin: Can’t 

[00:43:59] Nikki Bell: wait. 

[00:44:00] Phoebe Sabin: Looking forward to everyone’s applications. 

[00:44:02] Nikki Bell: Yeah, we get to go, we get to go through 900 of them again.

[00:44:07] Nikki Bell: Yay. That’ll be lovely talk. You all look forward to the report as well, Zoe. Yeah, same Zoe, what’s the launch date? Uh, 10th of July. 10th of July. There we go. 10th of July. Register onto Zoe’s, uh, email list so you get that. So I will be conference first. Reading that. Away we go with Digital Learner Grant, part three.

Thanks 

[00:44:25] Nikki Bell: everyone. 

Thank you. Thanks. See you later. Bye.

[00:44:32] Alex Aggidis: Thank you so much for listening to the Fundraising Everywhere podcast. If you’re enjoying this podcast, why not share it with a fundraising friend? And if you would like to give us a little KU subscribe. It really helps more fundraisers, let you find us. Thank you so much. See you next time.

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This transcript was created using AI. If you spot any mistakes, please reach out. Thank you!

Transcript

[00:00:00] Multiple Voices: Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. , you don’t need to add me in there.

[00:00:31] 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 fundraising everwhere.com/podcast to subscribe Now onto today’s episode, enjoy.

[00:00:59] Josh Leigh: Hiya. 

[00:01:01] Nikki Bell: Hello, how are you? 

[00:01:04] Multiple Speakers: Good morning. 

[00:01:05] Nikki Bell: Lovely to see you both. Thanks so much for joining us for the podcast. Um, it has been a while, actually. It hasn’t been a while since I’ve talked about pizzas and losers. It tends to be a daily thing, um, the moment. But it’s so nice to have you both on, um, and, and be able to chat to you, uh, about it.

[00:01:25] Nikki Bell: Uh, we’re gonna get stuck. Straight in because why wait. Oh wait. Do you wanna say as a return and loser, uh, and, uh, pizza, do you wanna introduce yourself and, and say hi? 

[00:01:40] Josh Leigh: Hi, I’m the Returning Loser, Josh Lee. Uh, great to see Nikki. Matt, nice to meet you. Um, I’m Josh Lee. I’m the co-founder and director of Hint.

[00:01:49] Josh Leigh: We’re a digital fundraising agency based out of London, but not only that, I am also the loser in chief. I am one of the, the past hosts of Pizza Per Losers. I’ve been so excited to come back this year and host Pizza for Losers in London this year as well, which is gonna be huge. It’s gonna be amazing.

[00:02:06] Nikki Bell: You’ve been the only host for Pizza for Losers. 

[00:02:08] Josh Leigh: Have I been the only host? I didn’t wanna say that in case it wasn’t true. I didn’t wanna lie right here to all the public. Uh, but that’s amazing. Oh, it’s one of my favorite events to host as well. It’s so different and unique and I’m so excited to talk a bit today about what, like, why I love it so much.

[00:02:21] Josh Leigh: Basically. 

[00:02:22] Nikki Bell: Thank you Josh. And we’re reclaiming loser. Like it is a good thing. Like it is. Absolutely. That’s it. I mean it in a very positive and supportive way when, uh. When, when I, when I say that and also when I invite speakers to say, can you come and talk about being a loser? Like, it’s, it’s all good, it’s all positive vibes.

[00:02:40] Nikki Bell: Uh, and Matt, you are a new loser, so welcome to the Yes. Best club in town. 

[00:02:46] Matt Middler: I’m very honored. I did, I did worry that not being near London, that I wouldn’t get to enjoy, uh, the benefits of being an official loser, but this is. Uh, I did actually, I was delivering a training course at Northeast Scotland College on, um, celebrating failure.

[00:03:03] Matt Middler: And I used Pizza for losers as a great example of, um, one way that organizations could embrace and they absolutely loved it. Um, so they, they wanted to do cupcakes for mistakes or something else. They were trying to think of anything. 

[00:03:17] Nikki Bell: Oh, we can use the pizza thing. It’s fine. That’s what it’s there for, but I might add cupcakes for mistakes if I’m writing that down.

[00:03:25] Josh Leigh: Yeah, honestly, take it. 

[00:03:27] Nikki Bell: So, Matt, yeah, do you wanna share a little bit about yourself as well, then as a, a newly fledged loser? Um, just so, um, we, our listeners know who, uh, who they’re chatting to. Yeah. 

[00:03:36] Matt Middler: So, uh, my name is Matt Midler. Um, I run, uh, I’m a, uh, my coaching practice, so my freelance transformative coach.

[00:03:42] Matt Middler: Um, most of my clients are new and experienced leaders within the third sector in the uk. My background is in fundraising, so I was a full-time fundraiser for a number of charities across Scotland, um, for 13 years before I really trained as a coach. Um, but now I do this full-time, uh, as well as a few other bits and bobs.

[00:04:03] Matt Middler: Um, so yeah, really interested in this, especially having, um, more recently got into delivering some training around, um, uh, embracing failure. So I’m excited for this conversation. 

[00:04:16] Nikki Bell: I love that and I’m gonna do what I do in every conversation where I’ve sent you questions in advance and now I’m probably not gonna ask any of them and let’s, oh, thank God 

[00:04:25] Josh Leigh: there were a lot of them I wasn’t reading.

[00:04:28] Nikki Bell: Yeah, I think, I think they might. Yeah. It’s, there’s a lot to, to work from, but, we’ll, I think for some people they might be listening to this and not know what pizza. Loo is all about, and they’re like, what on earth have I tuned into? Um, so for anyone listening, uh, that isn’t aware, pizza loos is, I’ve seen it referred to as an unconference.

[00:04:46] Nikki Bell: Um, so we’ll, we’ll use that. It makes sense. Um, and it’s an event that is held to break away some of those walls and those feelings, uh, that we have to always like, get things right in our work, in our professional lives, and even in our normal lives, and just connect together. In a safe, supportive, and fun space and go actually.

[00:05:09] Nikki Bell: We don’t all have our shit together. Sometimes we do get things wrong and actually if we wanna progress and see some growth, then it probably is gonna happen and it is necessary to happen. So, um, speakers get up and they share in around 20 minutes or so, a story from their career where they have failed and then people clap and say, you’re amazing.

[00:05:30] Nikki Bell: And then we all eat pizza. And Matt, you do get to, uh, enjoy, um, the event this year because we are streaming. The London event on July 10th through our platform for our members. So I’m not sure if you’re a member, but even if you’re not as a coach, you probably should have it. Uh, so we’ll get Yeah, yeah. No, I’m, yeah.

[00:05:47] Nikki Bell: So, yeah. Oh, amazing. So yeah, even, uh, if you’re not in London on July 10th, what we’re about to talk about today, uh, you can store, get a taste of, there’s probably gonna be a lot of pizza puns in this chat, I imagine. Um, so yeah, that is pizza for loses. So Josh. For you, like in 2019 when I first asked you to be involved in it, what for you was the reason why you were so excited about it?

[00:06:09] Nikki Bell: Like what’s the change that you really wanted to see in the sector when it came to embrace and feel? Yeah. 

[00:06:15] Josh Leigh: Yeah, I mean, I think it was, as you said, it’s an unconference and I think I, I just wanna jump on that word because conferences are basically just bragging rights and, and this is something that’s bragging about what we failed at, not what we succeeded at.

[00:06:28] Josh Leigh: And I think that is so different. There’s talks that we heard in the 2019 event in London, and then we took one up north as well, and. Talks that have stuck with me and I still quote back to people, and I talk about some of the stuff I heard at Pizza for Lose within that year more than I talk about anything else I’ve ever heard at a traditional conference.

[00:06:45] Josh Leigh: And so I think for me it was this opportunity to do, I guess an unconference or something that was the exact opposite of what everything else in the sector is about, which is covering your mistakes. Bragging about what did work, pushing under the rug, what didn’t work, if the marketing campaign didn’t work well, it was a branding campaign.

[00:07:01] Josh Leigh: Then it really kind of just tore up the rule book on what that was and said, wait a minute, no, let’s just get a bunch of people in a room and actually talk about what, what didn’t go right, which I think was, you can learn so much more from that and you can, from just replicating what worked for somebody else.

[00:07:15] Josh Leigh: So I think it just created a really different space, and it felt like that. 

[00:07:19] Nikki Bell: There were so many people, I think there was two or three where their talk was about them emailing their deceased list. So if anyone’s listening and they’ve done that, it’s very common. What were the talks that stuck out for you?

[00:07:31] Nikki Bell: What? What’s kind of the stuck in your mind? Just to put you on the spot, 

[00:07:35] Josh Leigh: honestly, I’m just having PTSD about stories, about emailing deceased list. One of my clients a few weeks ago swapped their stop file for their send file and email, like it happens. Stuff like that happens, and they called me freaking out.

[00:07:47] Josh Leigh: I said. It’s not the end of the world. We’ll just get back on the horse. Everything’s fine. Um, but no talks that stuck out for me. I have to say it was, uh, from the charity sector, we had the lovely Leslie Pinder. I, I always will talk about Leslie Pinder forever. She’s the supporter experience, uh, consultant.

[00:08:01] Josh Leigh: But at the time, I think she was at the British Red Cross and she used a series of RuPaul’s Drag Race. Gifts to explain how she went through burnout, how she carved out space to allow herself the time to recover. And she came back to her work and back to her career and back to her network stronger than ever because she actually took the time to recover from burnout.

[00:08:19] Josh Leigh: She didn’t see burnout as a weakness, she, she felt mixed feelings about it. But then eventually got through that and then shared that with everyone. And again, you’re not gonna go to a conference and hear someone talk about that so publicly or kind of confidently in the way that we heard it at Pizza for losers.

[00:08:35] Josh Leigh: But one more thing on that I wanna say is Nikki, you did a very good job of not just pulling in charity sector speakers. We also had speakers from outside the sector and there was one woman, I can’t remember her name, but she was a, I don’t wanna say a failed pop star, but I can’t think of how else to say it.

[00:08:49] Josh Leigh: But she was from the music industry and had tried time and time again to to launch a career, and she just shared really, really kind of candidly about how she tried. It didn’t work, she tried, it didn’t work. But again, she got back on the horse. She tried again. So it’s a lot to learn from both in the sector and outside the sector in 2019.

[00:09:06] Josh Leigh: And, and again, we’ve had several events since then. The virtual one we did during COVID. This year’s lineup looks amazing, but those are two that really stuck out for me from the first ever conference we did, or Unconference Pizza loos we did. 

[00:09:17] Nikki Bell: That was Alexis Strum, uh, who has, yeah, launched a new single, uh, recently, maybe, maybe no longer failed.

[00:09:27] Nikki Bell: But we also had, um, Ross from the Future Heads, obviously Northern, uh, a friend of the, the family. So he came on, uh, and was sharing about creative projects. And we also had, I know it’s not outside of the sector, but it’s not in a charity, but we had, uh, the head of ops from the Great North Run who, uh, the.

[00:09:45] Nikki Bell: Hospital attended. The Great North Run flew over the side of a cliff, so Phil happening. I don’t think there was anyone in it. Um, but yeah, hopefully you didn’t cover that part. But yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s almost just a relief to hear that it’s not just you and for me. Yeah. And Matt, you probably get this a lot with your, your coaching clients as well.

[00:10:05] Nikki Bell: Mm-hmm. Sometimes you’re sitting there and you’re like, why can I not do this? Like, everybody else seems to be doing it. ’cause all you see, not, I don’t mean you specifically, I mean you as in me and everyone listening, um, you see, you know, the LinkedIn posts where people are talking about a win. You see people standing up at other conferences and talking about a case study that’s worked and you know, he, you hear podcasts where people are like, oh yeah, this is meant, so you are like.

[00:10:28] Nikki Bell: Ah, why am I not getting this right? Is that a common thing that you’re getting, like with some of your clients as well and what, what’s the kind of vibe in the sector at the moment for failure and embrace and what happens? 

[00:10:42] Matt Middler: Yeah, absolutely. I think there’s, it’s very easily to feel isolated when you’re just surrounded by the good news, and I think in particular in the fundraising world, you know, there is such pressure to deliver and to get it right.

[00:10:55] Matt Middler: Because we’ve got to raise the money, we’ve got to do the work, and there’s such pressure to do it. And I, and I think, um, you know, quite often there’s the fear of failure is actually the fear of the shame of not succeeding. Uh, you know, and, and the assumption that everybody else is succeeding and, and because we don’t talk about the failure.

[00:11:14] Matt Middler: So actually that’s why it’s so wonderful to hear about this event and celebrating failure in such a positive and enthusiastic way. I’m working with a lot of clients at the moment through, um, through Think Consultancy and, um, their new recruitment arm actually. Um, and what I’m noticing actually is, uh, uh, a a lot of people who are starting in new roles, putting themselves under a lot of pressure to essentially be as good at the job as you would’ve been.

[00:11:46] Matt Middler: The one that you just left as soon as you’re in the door in your new role, you know, and so a lot of the conversations that I’m having with, and there’s a lot of change in the sector at the moment, um, with people who are starting in new roles, is helping them to identify that actually they’re holding themselves just standard that you would expect you to get to within.

[00:12:05] Matt Middler: Two, three years of being in the job and having done a couple of annual cycles. Um, and yeah, just helping people to give themselves permission to be on that learning journey and to know that you won’t know it all from day one. Um, and 

[00:12:22] Nikki Bell: it’s so common as well, like you do coaching for, uh, fundraising everywhere members.

[00:12:26] Nikki Bell: Yes. Um, and I know before we started working with your cohort, uh, it was myself that did all of those calls with them, and that was such a common thing that came through. They were like, oh, I started, started this job a week ago and I feel like, you know, I’m struggling. I’m not getting it. Like how, what kind of conversations do you have with people?

[00:12:43] Nikki Bell: What tips do you give them? 

[00:12:45] Matt Middler: And in particular, you know, I’ve taken over from somebody who’s been doing the job for 30 years and I feel like a failure and I’ve been doing it for two months. Yeah. 

[00:12:53] Multiple Speakers: You know, 

[00:12:55] Matt Middler: it’s like, um, yeah. I mean, and I, I think some of, some of the key things that help people in that situation is to be talking about it.

[00:13:04] Matt Middler: So to understand what your needs are, to communicate your needs to your boss and to your colleagues around you. Um, and to, you know, so asking for help. Asking questions, being curious. You know, when we are in that place of shame and we’re, um, concerned about how we look and what people think about us, we’re not able to be in that curious space where we can ask the questions and um, investigate and fill in the blanks because we’re trying to project this.

[00:13:36] Matt Middler: Image of, um, uh, you know, I’ve got this, you know, this confidence. Whereas actually I think people need to embrace that vulnerability and say, listen, I’m new through the door. I don’t know how things work. I don’t know who our donors are. I dunno, you know, how, how this, there’s a new database to me, so I, it’s gonna take me a while to get my head around out.

[00:13:54] Matt Middler: I, I’m capable. I need a bit of time and I need a bit of space. So I think being able to ask, understand what you need, and to be able to ask for it, I think is, is really, um, is really powerful for people. Mm-hmm. 

[00:14:09] Nikki Bell: I love that. And I think it’s crucial then hearing what you’re saying, that people are entering spaces and workplaces where conversations like this.

[00:14:18] Nikki Bell: Are had, you know, they are normalized. Um, and creating those, you know, failure safe workspaces. And that’s something that we do at Pizza for Losers as well. So we have people, uh, at this year’s event who we’re talking specifically, uh, about like leadership approaches and how we can do that. But attendees, both online and in person, are gonna get a menu.

[00:14:37] Nikki Bell: Of resources so that they can take it away and, and go back to their team as well. So there’s gonna be like some helpful things in there. Some graphs and, and some, you know, reports and stuff. But then there’s gonna be some memes. ’cause I feel like balance is important. So Josh, I feel like you might have some good memes to send my way.

[00:14:54] Nikki Bell: Literally 

[00:14:54] Josh Leigh: making notes. Making notes right now. We’re ready. 

[00:14:57] Nikki Bell: I’ve been saving them in an Instagram folder as I’ve been streaming over the year. My favorite one is a, a, a guy who just walks towards the camera and he goes, are you stressed? Don’t be, and, and then he walks away and 

[00:15:10] Josh Leigh: that’s what we need is fundraising leaders to just send that to their team once a week.

[00:15:14] Josh Leigh: A

[00:15:18] Nikki Bell: helpful. Um, how do you, because yeah, you folks work with charities, but you know, you have worked in teams before. Uh, what for you makes, uh, failure supportive workspace? Like what can teams be doing then Matt and Josh to bring people into some of them where they can relax into it and just kind of get started straight away?

[00:15:40] Nikki Bell: Matt, I will come back to you just to continue on from, from what you were just talking to first. 

[00:15:45] Matt Middler: Yeah. You know, I was reflecting on this, I was reflecting on throughout my career. Um, and what came up for me more clearly was it was less about something that I’d done with my teams, but actually the experience that I had and thinking about that sort of psychological safety.

[00:16:01] Matt Middler: And what that feels like when you have that in particular from a manager and I left a job, I was actually managed out of my first full-time fundraising role. Um, had a very difficult, very difficult ending in an organization that I worked in, um, and lost all of my confidence. I was physically ill from stress.

[00:16:22] Matt Middler: Um, and it was a pretty horrible experience and. Begrudgingly after, um, some, uh, great encouragement from a friend of mine in the sector, begrudgingly went on to a sole fundraiser role, my first ever sole fundraiser role, um, which I ended up loving. It was such a, such a great organization. Um, and I, I just remember the chief executive, a guy called James McBain, who’s now, um, he’s now retired.

[00:16:49] Matt Middler: He was this gentlest of giants. He was like a, a heterosexual Stephen Fry, you know, some very,

[00:16:58] Matt Middler: you know, quite intimidating when I first met him, but just the loveliest guy ever. And he would say to us, everybody in the organization, you know, project managers, administrators, everybody, he would say to us all the time, I am the least smart person in this organization. I am only here to make, to try and help you.

[00:17:17] Matt Middler: Excel because you guys are so talented, I can’t even handle it. And he just stepped back and he allowed us to be our best version of ourselves. And I’ve never experienced anything like that in my career. It was just magical for me. It just enabled me to, to just grow and to develop into the role. And I just had confidence to try things, you know.

[00:17:42] Matt Middler: Um, and yeah, just, just that, just knowing that, that somebody’s got your back. So yeah, psychological safety and that, and that’ll mean different things for different people. Um, but yeah, that was a, just such an i impactful moment for me. I went from having convinced myself, I don’t have what it takes to be a fundraiser, it’s just, I, I just, I can’t do it to actually, you know, going and thriving in, in one of the most successful roles I’d ever been in.

[00:18:08] Matt Middler: Um. 

[00:18:11] Nikki Bell: It’s amazing that you had that experience, I think from previous pizza for loses lessons and, you know, this failure journey that I’m on, I’m still on it, you know, even these, these past six years. ’cause I, I started this project ’cause I couldn’t work it out. And I was like, okay, well here’s this fun way that I can work it out and eat pizza at the same time and help other people.

[00:18:31] Nikki Bell: Um, and that ego and knowing your own insecurities as a leader is really important because often how you respond and react to somebody else’s fail. Is clouded by that insecurity that you have about yourself. Yeah. So for example, if you are. Uh, leading a team and you’re not as great at ig, maybe as you should be.

[00:18:51] Nikki Bell: If someone comes with that fail, you go, oh, this reflects badly on me and makes me look like I don’t wanna do. So I think once you understand more about, um, how your thoughts are process, and then when someone comes to you with a fail, you can respond to it rather than react. And some people. I great at that.

[00:19:11] Nikki Bell: Some people could maybe use a little bit more work in that. Um, but yeah, it was like a big kind of, uh, epiphany moment for me, um, as I’ve been hearing from people. Um, and hopefully, you know, more people are in that group that you’ve had, um, and that, you know, uh, hopefully that’s. What we have more of in, in the sector.

[00:19:31] Nikki Bell: Uh, what about yourself, Josh? ’cause obviously you’re working a lot in digital and you’ve worked in, in various places on various campaigns before. So you obviously see moments where things don’t work out. What have you seen leaders and teams do that have encouraged people to pick up, learn, and, and move on?

[00:19:48] Nikki Bell: Like, what’s the tactics and strategies there? Mm-hmm. 

[00:19:51] Josh Leigh: Well, I think I, I definitely echo what Matt just said around creating a, a, like an environment that allows people to feel good about themselves and such. But I think it’s also, it’s communicating that, and I think that having that environment is one thing, but one thing I’ve always tried to do as a manager and a leader, but I’ve also really respected in some of the managers I’ve had over the years is just be really clear with your communication.

[00:20:10] Josh Leigh: So if it is a safe space, say to people, this is a safe space. Go and try that thing. And I think I got a really good taste of that actually. Um. Similar to Uni and to Matt as well. I’ve, I’ve done a mix of sort of charity side roles, a mix of agency side roles, but I actually left the sector for a couple of years to work at a Tech for Good startup called, which is a search engine that plants trees with the rad revenue and they follow the guidebook of the startup culture, which is Radical Candor, which means kind of transparent, clear communication.

[00:20:39] Josh Leigh: If handled properly. It is not a bad thing sometimes it is. Um, and 360 feedback and, and a lot of other very specific startup culture things. And I was this little like sort of duck outta water paddling over into the startup culture. And I had people there giving me 360 feedback and my first three months that was so candid and I was shocked and I was terrified and I thought I’d failed.

[00:21:01] Josh Leigh: But actually, once I got into that culture a co a couple of years later, I came to see that actually clear direct. Sort of communication is key. That is how you create that space that allows failure and allows experimentation. And, and at the Cosia we had that very startup style culture of if you’re not failing, you’re not trying anything.

[00:21:19] Josh Leigh: And it’s, it’s something that I’ve tried to do and kind of brought with me from a cosia and tried to bring back into the sector. If you’re not bombing, if you’re not making mistakes and you’re, you’re not actually trying new material. That’s kinda the big take home message there. And I think that a lot of charity sector leaders and fundraisers may feel safe in, in the stream that they’re in or the space that they’re in.

[00:21:37] Josh Leigh: But that, that there’s a point where we really have to say, actually no, you need to try something new and if it flops you just try the next thing after that. And I think I got a lot from working at de Cozi or about the need to communicate that if, if, if it’s something that’s felt, it needs to be said as well.

[00:21:49] Josh Leigh: So it’s, I think you can create that safe space. But Matt, the story you were telling there, I was thinking, yeah, that person took the time to sail. I’m creating this space for you. And that’s what creates that space, that radical candor, I think we need much more of in the sector, rather than making assumptions or not, not feeling it or not saying it or not saying to someone, Hey, I would like to have the space to make a mistake.

[00:22:10] Josh Leigh: Um, but yeah, I think that’s, that’s kind of something I learned at a cozier and I kind of try and bring back into the sector with me, which is there is a space for a bit more sort of radical candor and clear communication about what your expectations are on people. One thing I’ve also really learned is, is kind of no one’s sitting there waiting for you to fail, and no one’s really gonna remember what you, I’m just gonna say, fuck up.

[00:22:30] Josh Leigh: Sorry for the French language, Nikki there. But, um, no one really remembers what you do wrong. People remember what you do, right? This is really, really strange. People remember the best thing they saw or the last thing they saw. They’re not sat there dwelling on the mistake you made. They’re actually dwelling on the good stuff you do, or the last thing you did.

[00:22:45] Josh Leigh: That’s, that’s, that’s all there is to it. So I think, um, it’s a combination of those two things and I really, I think, learned that at a. From, I had a fantastic manager there, the CMO, Hannah Wicks. She’s now actually a coach and a consultant. She’s kind of taken some of that and brought it back into kind of women and queer people across the industry.

[00:23:01] Josh Leigh: But that is, um, probably the biggest thing I’ve learned in my career. And I learned a lot of that in a startup, which is great. Uh, very different culture, but I think we can learn a lot as a sector. 

[00:23:11] Nikki Bell: And most people are probably sitting there thinking about their own mistakes anyway, when they’re going to bed at night.

[00:23:15] Nikki Bell: It’s not your fails going through their head. It’s Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. We’re all in our own own little bubbles. 

[00:23:24] Matt Middler: We’re just beating ourselves up. 

[00:23:26] Nikki Bell: Yeah. Well, isn’t it? And I think if we have more like authentic conversations, um, the more I use the word authentic, it’s. Seems less authentic, but there’s like literally no word honest maybe is what I can use.

[00:23:38] Nikki Bell: Mm-hmm. Like if we all just shared this stuff with each other, which obviously is the intention of pizza for losers, it, we do start to actually then go and, and see, see progress. So in 2019, when all of the, the setup for pizza for Losers was happening, I was experiencing probably the worst. Kind of moment in my career in terms of my wellbeing.

[00:23:59] Nikki Bell: I was working in a space with, with and with, with people where I wasn’t feeling fulfilled and I wasn’t feeling uplifted. So naturally I went to people who I trusted and looked up to for help. And you know, in those conversations they were giving me really practical advice, but they were also sharing with me.

[00:24:16] Nikki Bell: Their own stories. And I thought, well, if I didn’t come to you and ask this and have this conversation, I wouldn’t have known about it. So bringing it out into, uh, the open is, um, it’s, it’s really important, especially now. There’s so many things, Matt, you should mention there about people going at new jobs and changes.

[00:24:35] Nikki Bell: There are tons of changes happening in teams right across the sector. You. We’ve got restructures, we have, uh, massive, you know, priorities and channels changing. Some people are finding it harder. Some people are thriving, but then they’re not sure really what to do with that. So they’re, mm-hmm. Yeah, there’s just a lot going on right now, and I think these, these conversations are so, so, so important with that.

[00:24:58] Matt Middler: There, there’s something amazing about what you’ve done with Pizza for Losers, because what it sounds like is you’ve created the space that you needed and the hope that other would also benefit from it. Right? And so when I moved back to Aberdeen a few years ago, in order to go self-employed, my fundraising career was in Edinburgh.

[00:25:15] Matt Middler: Um, capital of Scotland, lots going on, and, but I couldn’t afford to go self-employed and stay in Edinburgh. So I came back home to Aberdeen and I was terrified. Um, and in particular I’d gotten into cold water dipping, and there was a men’s group down there called Edinburgh Blue Balls. Um, and so I came back up to Aberdeen and myself.

[00:25:34] Matt Middler: I’m gonna be isolated. I’m gonna be depressed. I’m, you know, I’m gonna move back in with my. My parents temporarily. You know, this is, it felt like a real failure actually, even though it was a step forward. Um, and I created a, a men’s stepping group because that’s what I needed. I wanted that friendship and that experience like I’d been having in the, in the Edinburgh blue balls.

[00:25:54] Matt Middler: I wanted to have that up here as well. Actually in the past couple of years, it’s, you know, we’ve got now got 80 members. We’ve got people who said that, you know, the supporting network has saved their life. And actually, it sounds like this is what’s happened in, in, in Pizza for Losers. You know, you create that space based on what you need.

[00:26:10] Matt Middler: And I, I think if more people could understand what it is they need and be brave enough to go out there and. Ask for it or, or try and create that space where they can get it. It’s almost like being the person that puts their hand up. They’ve got a silly question, but everybody else was thinking the same question, but didn’t have the bravery to put their hand up and ask it.

[00:26:29] Nikki Bell: Yeah. Thank you. Yeah, you’re absolutely right. And what, you said something really important there as well, but you said it really fast, but you, you said it felt like a failure, but it was actually a step forward. Did you catch that? I, 

[00:26:39] Josh Leigh: I just. I just wrote that down and I was about to pick Matt up on that as well, because I think that’s one of the, the most important things about pizza for losers is that people go in and lead with their failure and then by the end of their own 20 minute session, they’re even kind of having a light bulb moment and they’re like, wait a minute.

[00:26:54] Josh Leigh: That was several steps forward. It’s just really hard to see that a step forward when it’s happening. You kind of have to look back in the, in the rear view mirror and see that it was a step forward, which is a real shame, but it’s something that. I think pizza be, Luthers can give attendees that light bulb moment in the room.

[00:27:10] Josh Leigh: But we just need to more people to have that light bulb moment rather than see the forward step in the rear view mirror. It’s, it’d be really amazing if people could see that something is a forward step. The time is happening. I. Yeah. 

[00:27:21] Nikki Bell: Yeah. When you’re in it and it feels like afire, it’s impossible to go.

[00:27:25] Nikki Bell: This is such a great learning moment for me. This feels amazing. It’s kind of like that dog on fire. This is fine. Me, isn’t it? Yeah. After 2019. You know, I found myself in a horrendous situation. Like I was also jobless applying for jobs, not getting them, lost one job, uh, to one of my friends actually. And I just remember like, just sobbing, uh, uncontrollably.

[00:27:47] Nikki Bell: But without that horrendous moment, fundraising everywhere wouldn’t have existed. ’cause what I would’ve done, I. Was just got back into another job and followed this career path that I thought I should be following, because that’s what career progression is, right? Um, but without that space to actually go, what do I wanna do?

[00:28:03] Nikki Bell: And then again, creating a space that I’ve needed through FE as well, um, it wouldn’t have existed. And like, you know, look where it is now, six years later and helping loads people and, you know, I have lots of freedom and creativity. So it, it was genuinely for the best, but in the moment, yeah, that was bloody horrible.

[00:28:20] Nikki Bell: Mm. Um, so you are both coming to this year’s event, virtual and in person. Although Matt, I would love you to come in person if you’re able to make it down, but I haven’t driven past Aberdeen, uh, last month. It’s very far away from London. So virtual is also fine 

[00:28:37] Matt Middler: far, but you know, maybe in the, maybe in the future, maybe at some point 

[00:28:40] Nikki Bell: we’ll get you down as a speaker, I’m sure.

[00:28:42] Nikki Bell: Um, what are you looking forward to from this year’s event? What’s you, what he’s excited about? 

[00:28:48] Josh Leigh: Is it wrong to say the pizza? Is it wrong? Like, can I just say I’m really looking forward to the pizza? I, I obviously there’s so much more about the event, but the pizza is always so good. 

[00:28:58] Nikki Bell: Uh, so last time we ran outta pizza because I thought, alright, I bought these like, um.

[00:29:04] Nikki Bell: Was it like 32 inch pizzas or something? And the slices were huge and I thought no one’s gonna take more than one. And then people were coming away with like files and they run out, honestly, fundraisers 

[00:29:15] Josh Leigh: at a free meal, you’ve gotta note fundraisers at a free meal. 

[00:29:19] Nikki Bell: I’ve learned, I’ve learned. So this, this year we’re gonna pre, but also we’re gonna serve just to like, manage stuff.

[00:29:25] Nikki Bell: But we did catch up with people, um, and, uh, and, and give them, uh, pizza gift cards that they didn’t miss out. Uh, LA two weeks ago, I found out that I can’t have dairy. So I’m on the vegan pizza work now as well. You know what, there are some 

[00:29:38] Josh Leigh: delicious vegan pizzas, so I think there’ll be loads to go, loads going around at this one.

[00:29:43] Nikki Bell: That’s when I asked her, I was like, what about pizza? She was like, sorry. I was like, oh, that’s my whole personal brand. Um, so pizza for Josh. Okay. Um, but you’re hosting as well, so I’m sure. 

[00:29:55] Josh Leigh: I’m also hosting, so I’m very much, I’m looking forward to, I, I will say hosting this event. I host a lot of different events in the sector.

[00:30:01] Josh Leigh: This one is so different. So unique. As I said, this is, I, I’ve seen a lot of people speak, I’ve seen a lot of first time speakers, a lot of seasoned speakers. It’s the pizza for loses speakers that will wriggle in under your skin and stick with you for years to come. And so what I’m looking forward to most, I think this year is the next kind of Leslie Pinder or Alexa Stroms talk that gets into my head and actually informs decisions I make for the next 10 years.

[00:30:26] Josh Leigh: I think that’s what I’m gonna, I think that’s what I’m looking forward to is defining the. There’ll be a couple of talks that speak to me. There’ll be a couple of talks that speak to different attendees in the room. So the whole lineup is brilliant, but each person might get something a little bit different out of this event.

[00:30:38] Josh Leigh: Mm-hmm. Um, all of it really building up to, I think what Matt just said, that failure is actually a step forward, and I think that’s what we’ll take away. But I’m really looking forward to finding the next RuPaul’s Drag Race of gif led talk that sticks with me for the next decade and informs what I do in my career, in my personal life, in my hobbies, in my relationships.

[00:30:56] Josh Leigh: I think that’s, that’s what you get from Pizza for Losers, and that’s what I’m looking forward to. 

[00:31:00] Nikki Bell: The bar is high. So I’ve been speaking to, oh sorry Matt. I meant for the speakers, like the less. Um, so I have been speaking to other speakers so far, um, and just been getting a vibe for what they’re talking about.

[00:31:13] Nikki Bell: So not to give too many spoilers away, um, but we do have someone sharing how they up. A scope of work for A CRM, uh, and to actually get it fully implemented, cost the charity an extra 20,000 pounds, um, and what they’ve done, uh, to avoid that in future, but also how to get the team back on side, uh, after all of their hard work.

[00:31:35] Nikki Bell: So that’s one of the talk. We have a fantastic talk from somebody who, um, they had worked really hard on this corporate partnership and when the corporate partners turned up to do volunteer and the volunteers told the fuck off, um, so that’s story and how they love that, which is great. But then we do have people talking, um, about their wellbeing and about those moments in their career and in their lives where.

[00:32:02] Nikki Bell: You know, they have had to go, I’m not okay, and what am I actually gonna do next that’s gonna help me survive this? So there’s a lovely flow of stories, um, experiences, but they’re all true and just from the heart and, and shared. So yeah, there’s a little, little taste of, of what’s coming on the day. Yes, ma’am.

[00:32:22] Nikki Bell: And what about you, Matt? When you tune in, what are you looking forward to? 

[00:32:27] Matt Middler: As a first timer. I mean, my, for me the bar is pretty low, actually. Maybe the opposite of Josh. The bar is pretty low. I just wanna experience the event. I’ve heard so much about it over over years. Um, and so I’m excited to come along for the first time.

[00:32:41] Matt Middler: I’m not aware of anything like elsewhere in the sector. Um, it sounds pretty special and, and actually what’s sticking in my mind from today is what Josh said about. How challenging it can be to be in spaces where people are only talking about the successes and actually how that can lead you to getting into that dark corner of thinking, well, everybody’s succeeding but me.

[00:33:04] Matt Middler: So I think maybe this, we need a bit of this, especially in these difficult times. We need to get in a room together and realize that actually we’re all fucking up all the time and it’s fine. 

[00:33:13] Nikki Bell: Gorgeous. Got you to drop your first F bomb. I was waiting 32 minutes for, that’s was honestly 

[00:33:18] Josh Leigh: worried it was gonna be me.

[00:33:20] Josh Leigh: And then I heard a couple of F bombs and I’m like, I’m good. I’m safe. Safe space. 

[00:33:24] Nikki Bell: Yeah. Pizza for loses. It’s for people to be able to share. Properly, there’s no rules on how they share it apart from obviously, you know, it can’t be like, harmful, hurtful, uh, or the C word. I think I’d probably draw the line at that in a, in a workspace.

[00:33:39] Nikki Bell: Um, but yeah, it’s, it’s fine. We, we have put a little disclaimer on the event, join instructions just to prep people so they’re not like, oh. My days. Um, but it’s, I think we are seeing change. This year’s event, uh, was the first time that I’ve seen teams book. So they’re using it as their team away day fundraising everywhere.

[00:33:55] Nikki Bell: We’re actually using it as their team away day. Um, so we’ve got our work team day, the day before where we’re actually doing strategy stuff. We’re actually fundraising everywhere. We’re coming to just enjoy cool earth bringing their team along, uh, as well. And I think that’s just so promising. Imagine you manager being like, let’s go to this event where we’re gonna learn how to.

[00:34:14] Nikki Bell: Feel more confident, improve our wellbeing and just, you know, learn how we can actually get through progression. I think that’s just such an important, um, message to, to send to the people that you work with. 

[00:34:25] Matt Middler: What a great way to embed that culture of embracing failure to actually attend an event like this, 

[00:34:32] Nikki Bell: and hopefully they’ll share their own.

[00:34:33] Nikki Bell: Which leads me onto my next and final question. What is your fail? What’s your failure story? 

[00:34:41] Josh Leigh: Matt, you go first.

[00:34:45] Josh Leigh: I don’t wanna, I have, I, I can talk a little bit. Um, oh God. I’m just getting, you get your heart races, your adrenaline runs. Even thinking about failure, that’s the scariest part. But I will say, I, I dunno if it’s obvious, I’m kind of hilarious. I do standup, amateur standup comedy as a hobby and, um. I think I learned it so much in doing about three or four years of, of standup, but I’ve said it a few times today, if you’re not bombing, you’re not trying new material.

[00:35:08] Josh Leigh: And I recently bombed the worst. I have bombed on stage ever. It was not even bombing the, the mc was like, I, that wasn’t even bombing. You were just sarcastically failing. You got so arrogant. And I was like, yeah, I got defensive and started attacking people and it was just like it. Not physically, of course, comedically.

[00:35:28] Josh Leigh: But I think, um, I will say it’s, I think I’ve, I, I’ve learned so much from doing standard comedy for the last few years that really, if you’re not bombing, you’re not trying new material. And for a long time I was scared to try new material because I was so scared of bombing. But then you just, you have to get used to it.

[00:35:41] Josh Leigh: And it is a part of the game, and I think it’s a part of everyone’s career is you will make mistakes and small mistakes. But for me it would be about four or five weeks ago just bombing. Tragically, and then it put me off trying anything new and I just regressed back into my old material for a little bit.

[00:35:56] Josh Leigh: But then eventually you get back on the horse. Take as long as you need, but you get back on the horse. And that’s what I did. But, oh, I’m having PTSD just thinking about it. 

[00:36:05] Nikki Bell: On that. So you said at the beginning about the feelings, um, so there was a Harvard study done. Um, so when you experience emotions, so those feelings of shame as well, Matt, what you mentioned around, uh, failure.

[00:36:16] Nikki Bell: We only experience it for 90 seconds as like a, a chemical emotion, but then after that it’s choice to stay in that emotional loop. Mm-hmm. Which I thought was like a really interesting. Uh, piece of research and statistic. ’cause I think it is that feeling, isn’t it? That puts us off. But you’ve just shared there and you’re fine.

[00:36:35] Nikki Bell: You’re still alive. We’re still, I 

[00:36:36] Josh Leigh: survived. I think that’s, I try and remind people it’s your fight or flight kicks in, but you’re not. Mm-hmm. We’re not gonna die. You’re, you’re fine. You’re fine. Yeah. 

[00:36:45] Jade Cunnah: Good. 

[00:36:45] Nikki Bell: You are in it’s safe space. Safe space. And what about you, Matt? 

[00:36:49] Matt Middler: I think one of the ones that gave me nightmares for a long time afterwards was, so we’re talking 12 years ago.

[00:36:54] Matt Middler: It was my first full-time community fundraiser job. I was based in Edinburgh, and we’d secured charity partner for the Melrose Sevens, which was like the big tournament in Melrose and the Scottish Borders home of Rugby Sevens and, um. We had a, a, an organization had a fundraising group, you know, one of these community fundraising groups in the local area, and they had skewed the partnership.

[00:37:18] Matt Middler: So really I was driving down as the, the fundraiser from head office to come and support the, uh, the fundraising event and come down with our big people carrier with all of the gazebos and everything in the back. Um, arrived at the event about an hour before it was due to start, um, took everything out and there was the frame for the gazebo, but no covering.

[00:37:40] Matt Middler: And this is in in Rain Scotland. And I had just been so overworked and so stressed at the time that I just loaded up half of the gazebo and left half of it in the store covered back in Edinburgh. 

[00:37:51] Multiple Speakers: Love it. 

[00:37:52] Matt Middler: And I had no other option than to say, I’m really sorry, I’ve forgotten to cover. I’m gonna do a two hour round trip back to Edinburgh to get the cover and to back.

[00:38:01] Matt Middler: Did you do 

[00:38:01] Multiple Speakers: that? Uh, 

[00:38:03] Matt Middler: yes, I got straight. Oh gosh. I just ran into the car, drove back down, then drove back again. They were very unhappy with me at the time, but it was human error, you know? Uh, there was nothing I could do about it. And yeah, I did beat myself up about it, but on reflection, maybe I shouldn’t have, you know, it was at the end of the world.

[00:38:22] Matt Middler: It wasn’t the end of the world. It never, yeah. You know, the, there were thousand of people there. They didn’t, there weren’t feedback forms saying, oh, the, the gazebo from the chat depart black. 

[00:38:35] Nikki Bell: I can bet you never forgot a gazebo cover after that because you remember what happened when you forgot it last time and you were like, I’m not doing that again.

[00:38:43] Matt Middler: Absolutely. I, I’m now an over-prepared or when it comes to events and, um, especially when they’re out of time. 

[00:38:50] Nikki Bell: Gazebos as well are coming up a lot. And pizza loos. That’s four gazebo stories. Maybe we should just Sustainability. No more gazebos. Let’s just start with the gazebo. Remove the problem. Let’s not just work through this problem.

[00:39:03] Matt Middler: Just need a fundraising camp van. That’s it. 

[00:39:08] Nikki Bell: Yeah. Well, for community fundraisers, so I have a camp of van now, but when I was commute fundraiser, I had like a 4K and trying to shove all of the book and Mr. Harley into that space, maybe a, a fundraising camp of fund’s. Not a, not a bad idea, but thank you for sharing.

[00:39:24] Nikki Bell: Um, there will be many stories like that. Um, many with more tales of wool, uh, and inspiration on July 10th. Josh, I’m excited to see you there, Matt. We will be sure to say hi through the live stream. Um, and just to remind you some other speakers that we have at the event. So we have Simon Scriber. I’m not sure if you’ve heard of him.

[00:39:46] Nikki Bell: Uh, so he’ll be joining us. Uh, we have Veronica Jaqui, uh, who’s the senior IG manager at Great Ormond Street Hospital Charity. Um, Dale Moffett, who’s the head, head of operations at Spinal Research. Katie Cliff, the senior new partnerships manager at Dogs Trust, Judith Saba as well, who’s one of our coach called.

[00:40:09] Nikki Bell: Um, so Judith’s gonna be coming along to talk about growth mindset and actually someone with the smarts and who knows what they’re talking about to tell us. How to push through those things and, and be better in that area. So I’m looking forward to that one. Many notes to be taken. We have Shabi Amini, who’s the director of fundraising and marketing at Map.

[00:40:27] Nikki Bell: Um, and, and Anish Yma Palmer, head of Legacies of British Red Cross, Gabby Field. Sorry, I didn’t, just reading out a list. Now I forgot. Gabby Fields, the deputy director for a great Almond Street Hospital charity. Um, so there’s. It is just speaking from a different perspective, not to highlight that charity.

[00:40:43] Nikki Bell: Um, but she’s talking about her leadership experiences and Beth k crackles, who’s the CEO at Sheffield Hospital’s Charity as well. So what I think is really lovely about that list of speak is it, it, it is a lot of people like in senior leadership, uh, positions. Mm-hmm. Um, and that’s strategic ’cause Yeah.

[00:40:59] Nikki Bell: For your team to do it and be okay with it. Like they have to hear it from the top. And of course I would. I host Josh Lee of, uh, hint and, uh, pizza Chef fame. Will you be rocking a chef’s hat again this year? 

[00:41:13] Josh Leigh: I honestly, you’ll have to hold me back. I’m even gonna have a chef’s hat. I’ll do anything. I’ll do it all.

[00:41:18] Josh Leigh: Uh, I, we did a virtual one where I was spinning pizza dough. I’ve, nothing will stop me from making a fool of myself at this event. 

[00:41:26] Nikki Bell: I was gonna wear, do you know? Um, from Oui with where the little map I found on Amazon, you can get the, and he’s holding the little hair and, oh, love it. What’s he called? Remy.

[00:41:38] Nikki Bell: Remy. So we’ll see. We might have to have like a hat off or something. 

[00:41:41] Matt Middler: I, I might just order some pizza in. What a shame. No. Oh, what a shame, man. Honestly, 

[00:41:48] Nikki Bell: what is your favorite pizza? 

[00:41:50] Matt Middler: Do you know what I, I’m just pepperoni. I just love a double pepperoni pizza every time. That’s solid choice. 

[00:41:57] Nikki Bell: Josh, who are you?

[00:41:58] Josh Leigh: I’m Margarita, which I think I, I don’t eat meat, and I think that’s the same as what you’re saying, Matt, with pepper, like, I just want the basic, I, I really just love a classic. Done. Well, margarita, don’t overthink it. I 

[00:42:11] Matt Middler: had a four cheese pizza a couple of weeks ago that was okay. So 

[00:42:15] Josh Leigh: yeah, I will allow overthinking a margarita if you’re adding three additional cheeses to it that’s approved that I’ll do, or even a margarita with a stuffed crust anyway, but it’s just a cheese.

[00:42:24] Josh Leigh: That’s all you need is a bit of bread and a bit of cheese, a bit of tomato sauce on that. I’m 

[00:42:27] Matt Middler: feeling bad for Nick now, you know. I haven’t found, sorry. 

[00:42:32] Nikki Bell: I know I haven’t found welcome to the pizza podcast. Um, I haven’t found yet. 

[00:42:39] Matt Middler: Doesn’t have the same ring, does it? Pasta for No, 

[00:42:42] Nikki Bell: no, no. But I, I, I mean, I, I do eat meat.

[00:42:45] Nikki Bell: I might just try marinara with a little dash of pepperoni. We’ll see. I’ll find ’cause vegan cheese, it’s hit and miss isn’t it? Depends where you’re, I could just carry my own vegan cheese around. Getting 

[00:42:57] Multiple Speakers: better though. 

[00:42:58] Josh Leigh: Honestly, I wouldn’t put a past to carry that bit of vegan cheese in your bag just in case I get 

[00:43:03] Nikki Bell: really, seriously, do you know?

[00:43:05] Nikki Bell: So, yeah. That’s why its so heartbreaking. I feel like it, it’s punishment for something, so I just need to, I need to take it. But uh, yeah, you’ll see me. Struggling with the pizza choices, uh, on July 10th, uh, at Pizza for Losers. I’m really looking forward to it, um, lush that you’ll both be there in some capacity and, uh, yeah.

[00:43:26] Nikki Bell: Thank you for talking to us today about your fails and pizza. Appreciate it. No, thanks for having us. 

[00:43:31] Matt Middler: Thank you for having us. Yeah. Nice to meet you, Josh. 

[00:43:34] Josh Leigh: Bye. Okay, I’ll see you guys later, cia. Bye. 

[00:43:40] Alex Aggidis: Thank you so much for listening to the Fundraising Everywhere podcast. If you’re enjoying this podcast, why not share it with a fundraising friend?

[00:43:47] Alex Aggidis: And if you would like to give us a little lyco subscribe. It really helps more fundraisers like you find us. Thank you so much. See you next time.

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This transcript was created using AI. If you spot any mistakes, please reach out. Thank you!

Transcript

[00:00:00] Multiple Voices: Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. , you don’t need to add me in there.

[00:00:31] 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 fundraising everwhere.com/podcast to subscribe Now onto today’s episode, enjoy.

[00:00:59] Simon Scriver: Hello everyone and welcome to the Fundraising Everywhere podcast. My name is Simon Scriver. I am one of the co-founders of Fundraising Everywhere, and pleased to be your host today. Um, and today we are diving into the London Marathon 2026. And it seems ridiculously early to be talking about this, but that’s one of the reasons we’re talking about this ’cause it’s so important.

[00:01:18] Simon Scriver: This is, uh, the biggest, uh, marathon in the world for fundraising. And what, who we have on today is the wonderful Sam Gurry. Uh, from Just Giving because, just Giving, have just released, um, their Just Giving Guide to London Marathon 2026. So there’s a really, uh, huge chunk of information in this report for you, which I highly recommend downloading.

[00:01:39] Simon Scriver: Uh, we’ve got the link to that in the description, but we thought we’d invite Sam on just to have a bit of a chat through it and pull out some of the key insights for us. So, good day to you, Sam. How are you? 

[00:01:49] Sam Gurry: I am very well. Yeah. Thanks for having me on. Also calling me wonderful earlier. Yeah, 

[00:01:53] Simon Scriver: yeah. You like that?

[00:01:55] Sam Gurry: Yeah, I like that. 

[00:01:56] Simon Scriver: Gotta gotta get us off to a good start. But you are wonderful, Sam. You’re the senior account manager, uh, at Just giving, so what, what does that involve? What does your day-to-day look like? I. 

[00:02:05] Sam Gurry: So my day-to-day is working with, um, a section of the kind of largest charities that we have on the platform, supporting them with if they’ve got single charity events, so their own events, uh, making sure they’re getting the most outta the platform in terms of data and insight.

[00:02:20] Sam Gurry: Um, and then also third party events. And you can’t really talk about third party events about talking about London marathons. So at the moment is a lot of analysis, making sure that people are ready for next year, all of that kind of stuff. 

[00:02:33] Simon Scriver: Because you, I mean, I mean, I would’ve thought your time is so taken up with wrapping this up, but actually you guys are already looking forward, looking ahead to April, 2026, the next London marathon.

[00:02:44] Simon Scriver: Yeah. Um, and, and this report is very much about getting prepared for that and what, what charities can do to give their best shot at that. So what, how early is too early? Like what is it so important to be looking at it at this stage? 

[00:02:57] Sam Gurry: Yeah, I think it is. And I think too early, uh, doesn’t really exist, uh, for the marathon because as you know, people get so busy.

[00:03:05] Sam Gurry: Um, you know, it, you probably really need to start thinking about it before the event’s already happened. And I think, um, if you’ve seen any of the resources or, or kind of read any of the stuff we brought out about London Marathon, um, the big thing that we always talk about is early page creation. Um mm-hmm.

[00:03:24] Sam Gurry: Because we know that fundraisers who start early, more often not go on to fundraise more. So yeah, if, if charities are kind of thinking about, uh, what they should be doing now, what should be the first thing to do is, is aiming for page creation as early as possible. So you really want your peak page creation in kind of July, August time.

[00:03:46] Sam Gurry: Um. And then also thinking about how you activate those people as soon as possible as well. So, um, we did a bit of data analysis a couple of weeks ago now, and it showed interestingly enough that the earlier someone set up their page, it was actually the longer it took them to get that first donation. Um, so, you know, page creation is really important and.

[00:04:06] Sam Gurry: Charity should be looking at that. But it’s also about how you get those people to activate as soon as possible so that right now what we, in June, that would be my main focus as well as obviously offering out the places that’s the, that’s the key thing they should be looking at there. 

[00:04:19] Simon Scriver: There’s, there’s really interesting stat in your report about, um, people who, who set up their page before Christmas raised 24% more.

[00:04:29] Simon Scriver: And uh, you know, and Chris, even Christmas might seem early to some people, but you, I can see what you’re saying ’cause there’s a big long journey there. You’ve got like the summer gap in between, you’ve got the Christmas break and everything. You don’t wanna be caught short of these. So I can see why really mapping out those next 10 months are actually quite, quite crucial.

[00:04:47] Simon Scriver: Is that what you’re talking about with your clients now? Like where do you start with kind of planning, planning these next, uh, this next year or almost? Um, 

[00:04:56] Sam Gurry: so I think, yeah, like I said, it is getting the pages set up, getting applications done. Obviously people are gonna be absolutely. Swamped in applications, uh, at the moment.

[00:05:05] Sam Gurry: Um, so that’s the focus there. Get everyone set up as early as possible, get ’em fundraising as soon as possible, as well, encourage that as much as possible. Um, but then it is also about ensuring that charities are set up as success as well. So, um, make sure that you’ve got your campaign page. Set up all ready to go.

[00:05:24] Sam Gurry: Um, and then also get the campaign fundraising link as well. Um, because it’s really important when you’ve offered someone a place, um, you know, you, what you really wanna do is just get that link in front of them. Um, send it out in welcome emails in a welcome pack. Uh, I was talking to a charity the other day that when they do their.

[00:05:44] Sam Gurry: Acceptance calls, they say to the person, I’m sending you a link now. And almost try and get the, uh, fundraiser to confirm that they’ve got the, the page creation link there and then on the phone, which, you know, uh, each their own. But, um, yeah. So it’s just, it’s all about kind of yeah. Encouraging getting it, uh, as early as possible there, and.

[00:06:03] Sam Gurry: Also it is just looking at the, the stewardship at the moment as well. So what worked last year, um, what you can do to improve this year? I think there’s sometimes a, you know, sometimes a, a thing where people will send out surveys after they’ve. Stewarded people for London Marathon. And then a lot of the surveys will be like, how well supported did you feel?

[00:06:26] Sam Gurry: And it’s great when you get like a 7, 8, 9 across the board. Mm-hmm. Um, but I think it’s important to find out about what really landed well in your stewardships. I think like case studies, um. Certain tips, certain emails that went out that people really liked. If you can kind of dig into that, it means that then you can really look at your stewardship for the next year.

[00:06:47] Sam Gurry: So Ollie from Bernardo’s joined us, um, for our London Marathon Masterclass webinar in May. And she shared loads and loads of really insightful, um, tips and stuff. So if little plug, I’d go back and watch that, um, if you are planning. But one thing that, uh, I took away is the fact that. Making a stewardship journey that is really personal.

[00:07:09] Sam Gurry: It’s run centered. Um, to ensure that everyone feels supported and showing how much the difference that their fundraising is gonna make to the charity, basically, at this point, a well-planned, you know, well time journey. Um, make sure you’ve got fundraising tips, how it all links back, anchors it back to the fundraising, you know, it’s gonna, it’s gonna be really useful because not only are you gonna have a great London marathon, but it means that you can take other opportunities, um, get fundraiser loyalty, long-term support, um, all of the things that.

[00:07:38] Sam Gurry: We’re trying to do here in charity sector. 

[00:07:40] Simon Scriver: Yeah. I mean, they, they might not be doing the London Marathon next year, but they might, you know, there’s, there’s other places they can move to, other ways they can support you. So that, that supported journey is so important. I, I do wanna dive a bit more into that support supported journey, but you mentioned something there about, you know, that initial contact and getting them the link in the first place.

[00:07:58] Simon Scriver: I find that, so it’s so interesting because I remember working as a fundraiser. Starting to talk to people who signed up to like, raise money for us and you’d suggest, you know, suggest putting, sharing the page on their Facebook and things like this. And they hadn’t, some people had never even thought of that.

[00:08:14] Simon Scriver: Do you know? And for us as fundraisers, it’s like so obvious. It’s like, get the link, share it, push it out. But for, for nor normal people, for real people, like they, they don’t have that front of mind. So I, it’s really, um, encouraging to hear you talk about that kind of initial activation, that initial. Um, push to get people.

[00:08:33] Simon Scriver: Yeah. Is there, is there anything else, because you talk a lot about the campaign pages. Is there anything else that jumps out at you that really engages people to start fundraising? 

[00:08:42] Sam Gurry: I think, um, what’s really good, and I’ve seen charities doing it quite well this year, um, is like an activation incentive. A lot of people talk about.

[00:08:53] Sam Gurry: Incentives in a sense of, you know, hit 500 pound and you can get, you know, a headband or some golden shoelaces, whichever the, uh, whichever the choice is. Um, but I think that initial activation incentive, so if charities have got anything that they can offer as a prize, even just saying when you’ve, when you’ve offered all of your pages, um, places out, sorry.

[00:09:15] Sam Gurry: And you know, you are encouraging everyone to set up their page and start fundraising. If there’s a thing where you can say. Set up your page, have 20 pounds on it, buy it x date, and you’ll be entered into this prize draw. I think that’s the, we we’re seeing a really good kind of, um, reaction to that kind of thing.

[00:09:32] Sam Gurry: Um, and it’s just, yeah, getting, getting that initial bit of kind of action, I guess it’s just encouraging that. 

[00:09:39] Simon Scriver: Yeah, I like that. Even digital incentives, if you’re a small charity without much budget, like these little digital incentives and downloads and stuff could be, could be really helpful. May maybe you could speak a little bit more about the campaign pages.

[00:09:49] Simon Scriver: ’cause I, I mean. I, I always find one of the benefits of third party platforms like yourself and especially just giving is, is because you work with so many organizations, you kind of optimize your pages, your journeys, your campaigns as a default almost, you know, across, across the board. But obviously people can put some customization in this.

[00:10:08] Simon Scriver: Are there any other thoughts on those campaign pages and, and maybe some examples that really stood out to you or, or some best practices when we’re, when we’re putting those together? 

[00:10:17] Sam Gurry: Yeah, definitely. Um, so I think with the campaign pages, the really good thing I’m just giving is that you can, you know, we spoke about preparing and planning early, um, but you can basically get it ready to go for next year if, or even 2027 if we’re thinking that far ahead.

[00:10:32] Sam Gurry: And you can leave it in the draft and then you can set it to go live on a certain date or do then. So my first recommendation with the campaign pages and optimizing it would be just get it set up as, as soon as possible. Um. And then the, the next thing is similar to a fundraising page really is making it as personal to your organization as possible.

[00:10:53] Sam Gurry: Mm-hmm. One thing that you, we are trying to create with a campaign page is that sense of community. You know, when people use the campaign fundraising link and they join the page, you’re gonna see all of their fundraising together. Um, all of the fundraisers down the right hand side. So you can also use the story section.

[00:11:12] Sam Gurry: Um. To really let people know the, you know, the, the impact they’re gonna have on the organization. Um, a bit more about, you know, the team itself, the power of video is really good. So you can embed videos onto our campaign pages. Um, I’ve seen in the past charities share, you know, uh, videos about their kinda training days or previous teams or just to give people a kind of idea of what the day’s gonna be like.

[00:11:37] Sam Gurry: Mm-hmm. So just making sure that you’re kind of taking advantage of all of those things to make it as personalized as possible. Towards the organization. Um, and then also just the visual side of it. You know, making sure that you can, you kind of put a banner around the outside that’s on brand. Um, if you’re not using a video, having a really engaging cover, cover, uh, image there.

[00:11:58] Sam Gurry: And then even things within the story themselves, putting things like. Shopping list items. Yeah, making it easier for your fundraisers to quickly have a place they can go to and, you know, share with their donors how much the donor support is gonna make. And, you know, encouraging people to hopefully give, um, a slightly higher donation.

[00:12:17] Sam Gurry: So, you know, there’s a lot that you can do there, but I think making it personal towards the organization and telling that story is, is key. Um, so yeah. I’m, 

[00:12:29] Simon Scriver: I’m cur I’m curious, like on a personal level, ’cause you obviously see a lot of these pages yourself in your day to day work and, and it, you know, at times it’s a, it’s a job.

[00:12:38] Simon Scriver: Like on a personal level, is there anything that jumped out at you in the last year’s marathon or anything that kind of made you stop to think like someone was doing it differently? And I mean, just giving, you’re always so good at sharing case studies and, and, and in this report itself, I, I will, I will re remind people to download it ’cause there’s some great case studies in here and like example pages.

[00:12:57] Simon Scriver: Anything for you, Sam, that like jumped out. 

[00:13:00] Sam Gurry: Yeah, so there’s a few charities, um, that jump out. One of them, uh, was Bernardo’s, uh, I mentioned they obviously joined our, uh, call before, but they’re a really good example of what they did this year in terms of their stewardship. So they had basically four overlapping email streams, um, that spanned across their entire stewardship journey.

[00:13:19] Sam Gurry: Um, and it was really, really kind of impactful ’cause it basically incorporated all of that. Personal connection and talking to people on, in various parts of where they were in the journey in order to kind of drive that commitment. Um, and they also added in extra touch points, basically from their journey from the year before to kind of show fundraisers how valued they were.

[00:13:41] Sam Gurry: Um, so they had two rounds of phone calls and they had good luck calls, um, handwritten cards, personalized thank you letters. Um, they had a letter from the CEO for standout supporters, and then. One thing that I think this year is, has been the kind of thread that’s run throughout everything in terms of stewardship is WhatsApp groups.

[00:14:03] Sam Gurry: Um, like I said, we, we had a kind of session with some of our charities last week and when I’ve been speaking to charities on, on wrap-ups and kind of reviews, everyone’s talking about how impactful the WhatsApp group had and people were really talking to each other and I think. A few years ago it was Facebook groups, right?

[00:14:20] Sam Gurry: And then now we’ve kind of moved on and now we’re all talking about WhatsApp group. So that, it’s been really good to see that. Um, and to go back to the phone calls that I, that I mentioned earlier, we again recently did a little bit of, um, research through survey. So talking to fundraisers that had set up pages on just giving, and it’s quite interesting to see the, um.

[00:14:44] Sam Gurry: The kind of difference in terms of what fundraisers are expecting and what fundraisers in terms of charity, fundraisers, uh, see that are really impactful. So I think the option to receive a call was like fourth on, on the list of what, uh, runners wanted. But then when we, uh, surveyed charity fundraisers, all of them said that phone calls were still the most impactful, most effective kind of bit of stewardship.

[00:15:09] Sam Gurry: So I think it’s also important to kind of keep in mind that. It there, there’s some, there’s some things you’ve gotta do for effect, right? You need to try and get hold of people and kind of talk to them and, um, encourage them and just let ’em know that you’re there. Um, I think phone calls is still the, the best way for doing that.

[00:15:26] Sam Gurry: So it might, may be a bit old school, but I still think phone calls are great. 

[00:15:29] Simon Scriver: Well, I, I mean, it’s so interesting when you ask like, like people what they want. ’cause I mean, I mean, a great example is if you ask someone, do they want a thank you? I mean, almost nobody will say they wanna thank and don’t worry about thanking, you know, save your time, save your money.

[00:15:42] Simon Scriver: But I mean, in reality it’s probably a hundred percent of us want some sort of acknowledgement or thank you. And I do like to just giving, put so much emphasis on that kind of supporter experience, that journey that goes on to it. Maybe you could talk, remind us a little bit about the tools you have.

[00:15:57] Simon Scriver: ’cause I know you kind of have these email journeys you can build almost conditional in terms of how people are communicated with, what are, what are your just giving users using on just giving to, to help these journeys along? 

[00:16:10] Sam Gurry: So in terms of journeys, we basically have our, um, our fundraiser lifecycle that everyone.

[00:16:18] Sam Gurry: On the platform, um, received. So we kind of went live with that in, in 2020. Um, and we, we ab tested it and we optimize it massively, and we see that people that receive that journey receive, um, 6% more. They, they raise 6% more on average. So we continue to optimize that. One thing that we are, um, adding this year is our fundraising heroes leaderboard.

[00:16:44] Sam Gurry: So. All of the charities that have places in London Marathon and, and used just given in order to, um, set up their pages will benefit from the, the heroes board. And essentially it’s, it’s a leaderboard that has an additional stewardship journey alongside it, letting people know when they’ve, um, unlocked badges in order to gamify fundraising.

[00:17:04] Sam Gurry: Um, you know, trying to create that little bit of friendly competition by letting people know where they are on the leaderboard. Um, mm-hmm. We’ve seen some really, uh, good success with that so far, um, and, and really good engagement. So by the time 2026 rolls round, we’ll, um, we’ll have that live across the, across the platform.

[00:17:22] Simon Scriver: Nice. Nice. That’s really smart. I mean, that gamification, it works so well, and I think it, it really, you know, especially for like London Marathon is, or any event, fundraisers. It really leans into the fact that it’s, it’s not all about the charity. Do you know? The charity is really important, but it’s also just about that experience and that fun and that you know, what the person is getting out of it individually.

[00:17:44] Simon Scriver: And I think you guys are so good at putting that forward. Um, in terms of, um, like throughout the rest of the report. ’cause it’s a chunky report, you know, like it’s really, uh, there’s a lot of meat in it and I highly recommend people download it. But what else jumps out for you in terms of insights in it that you would be kind of talking to your current.

[00:18:02] Simon Scriver: Uh, charities, um, portfolio about, like, what would you be recommending and pushing out there? 

[00:18:10] Sam Gurry: Um, I think in terms of if they’re planning, uh, and they’re thinking about the, the steps they’re taking for next year, it’s, um, it’s just thinking about the, the objectives. Um, so every charity is gonna have a very different objective, depends on how many places they’ve got.

[00:18:26] Sam Gurry: And I think if you’ve got less places, it may be more about kind of, um. How you’re gonna be recruiting people that that may have a higher average paid value to make up that gap. Or if you’ve got the charities that have got more places, it might be a bit in about ensuring that you’re able to kind of support people at the same level and and maintain the, the level of fundraising you’ve got there.

[00:18:46] Sam Gurry: So, um, I think that’s the really important thing as well. People just need to be kind of looking at what is the objective for next year. Mm-hmm. Um, and I would set, uh, yourselves kind of like key. Performance indicators, basically. I think that’s the, that’s the key thing. Um, and maybe not have too many. So is it that you are gonna be looking to increase the amount raised per runner?

[00:19:10] Sam Gurry: Um, you know, lots of charities that I speak to are increasing their, um, average minimum kind of minimum fundraising target this year. Okay. Um, so, so what would that look like and how are you gonna support runners to that? So I think that’s a key thing to look at. Mm-hmm. Um, and alongside that, how. How do you encourage people to keep fundraising more?

[00:19:29] Sam Gurry: So we, we’ve spoken about incentives, but are you gonna have milestones throughout the journey? Um, can you add in more incentives? Like I said, it, they, they don’t have to be, um, big costly things. It can be that you get kind of put as the social media fundraiser of the week and, and things like that. Like it doesn’t have to be, like I said, for, for charities that maybe don’t have the, the bigger budgets.

[00:19:51] Sam Gurry: It can be anything. It’s just those kind of. Things that make people feel good about taking part. Yeah. Um, and then also just other things around, are you gonna be setting, you know, deadlines in terms of like, people have to raise something by a certain date or are you looking to collect certain things, um, from fundraiser feedback?

[00:20:11] Sam Gurry: So I think mm-hmm. That’s the, the kind of main thing I’ll be looking at this year is, is look at some key performance indicators on how you are gonna impact those in order to grow. The fundraising overall for next year and give people a better, better experience. 

[00:20:26] Simon Scriver: Yeah, and I, and I really like that you acknowledge, you know, the smaller charities or those without resources like you, you don’t have to, it doesn’t have to be overkill with the data that you’re measuring and in terms of, you know, what you’re trying to do, but it’s about kind of stepping back and having that clear plan about.

[00:20:41] Simon Scriver: What, what are we actually measuring and trying to work on? What is the goal of this? I think that’s really important. I mean, what, what is, what is the goal your clients are talking about? Like, I mean, I, I assume you want people to repeat fundraising, but there’s also that transition into becoming donors, isn’t it?

[00:20:56] Simon Scriver: There’s also that transition into their companies getting involved and things like that. How, how do you look at it from a holistic point of view where you’re looking at all your fundraising beyond the London Marathon? I think that’s, that’s the 

[00:21:08] Sam Gurry: big thing, right? Isn’t it? And, and. The London Marathon fundraisers, sometimes, um, they will be fundraising for some charities because they wanna run a London marathon.

[00:21:18] Sam Gurry: I think that’s, we all kind of, yeah, yeah, yeah. Accept that. But it is also then a really good opportunity to, um, turn those people who may not necessarily know much about the organization or they may support it, but they may not have been a support before. And you can turn them into really, like, quite, uh, strong supporters.

[00:21:35] Sam Gurry: I think. Um, again. When we had a session with, um, some charities a few weeks ago in the room, they were saying that there’s not many other parts of charity fundraising or, um, events, fundraising, or even when you look at kind of like individual giving or high value, where one person will get such a personalized 

[00:21:56] Simon Scriver: Hmm, 

[00:21:57] Sam Gurry: constant support over, you know, over, over a year.

[00:22:00] Sam Gurry: Sometimes if they’ve set up their pages straight away. So. It’s really important that you kind of support them and then afterwards look at what is the, what’s the journey afterwards? So straight after the event, um, are you gonna be encouraging ’em to take part in, in other things? Is it that you’ve got a, a retention event where you’re gonna get everyone back together and you’re gonna kind of, you know, you can do small awards ceremonies and things like that to, to kind of keep them, um, to keep them retained, but.

[00:22:31] Sam Gurry: Yeah, I think it is, it, it really is a really, um, important part of it is you’re turning these into supporters for life and like I said, the the amount of contact you’re gonna have with those people is, it doesn’t really happen anywhere else in, in charity fundraising. Really? 

[00:22:48] Simon Scriver: Yeah. That’s funny. It’s a really amazing point ’cause I’ve never really considered it like that.

[00:22:51] Simon Scriver: It is this like super unique. Communications channel where you’re, it’s like almost hyper-personalized, but you’re really embedded in their life for a, like an extended period of time, which, which is a really strange way to approach it. So again, I think that just leans into the point that you keep making about really planning this as a it, as it is a very specific audience and working with the tools you have to try and try and, um.

[00:23:16] Simon Scriver: Have a strong communication strategy as possible. So I, I mean, I don’t have a whole lot of time with you, but in terms of, um, just giving a, you know, I always sing just giving praises ’cause you guys have so many resources and, and your team is always so helpful when charities reach out. But what other kind of, um, support would you recommend people turn to with you guys?

[00:23:34] Simon Scriver: What, what else should they be taking advantage of that maybe not everyone is taking advantage of? So I’d say that 

[00:23:40] Sam Gurry: the London Marathon Guide is definitely, uh, the, the kind of first place to go, especially for London Marathon and the London Marathon Hub as well. So, we’ll, we’ll be linking out, um, to that, to make sure you have a look, but there’s loads of online charity resources.

[00:23:56] Sam Gurry: Um, so if you are, if you’re having any kind of questions about how to set up pages, how to set up campaign pages, um, you can head over to our, uh. The fundraising hub and there’s lots of articles there on, on getting set up and best practice. Um, I’d also recommend that everyone subscribes to our blog. So if you head over to blog dot, just give.com.

[00:24:20] Sam Gurry: That’s where we share all of our charity case studies. So, um, obviously I mentioned a couple on the call, but there’s so much, there’s so much good work that’s happening out there. And, um, so you can kind of see what other charities are doing. News about our product updates as well. Um, mm-hmm. So, like you said, we’re kind of constantly optimizing, adding new things so you can find out all about that.

[00:24:42] Sam Gurry: And then also just the latest insights and tips across, I mean, a range of topics. Obviously we’re talking about London Marathon, but there’s a huge, uh, array of things on there that we can kind of support about. Um. Then also we have our charity support team as well. Um, so I’d always kind of recommend if, if people do need help, then heading over to our help section on, on this site.

[00:25:07] Sam Gurry: And you can kind of talk to live chat or you can, um, email into our support team. Um, and actually my recommendation always for the charities that I work with is ensure that if you are kind of getting a lot of questions about just giving, um, from your runners. 

[00:25:23] Simon Scriver: Mm. 

[00:25:24] Sam Gurry: Just make sure if it’s about just giving kind of point ’em in the direction of our support team.

[00:25:29] Sam Gurry: Um, you know, we can take the questions off of the charity. Charities have got a lot on their plate. You’re trying to look after stewardship and everything else. So, you know, encourage, you know, fundraisers to kind of reach out to us as well if they need any support or they need help. Um, 

[00:25:44] Simon Scriver: yeah. Yeah, I mean, don’t rack your brain trying to solve a problem that’s already been, you know, exactly.

[00:25:49] Simon Scriver: Happening hundreds of times somewhere else. So yeah, I highly recommend that you guys are not yet. AI customer service. So I still recommend, um, people getting in touch ’cause it’s always that human help. Really appreciate that. And, and Sam, I um, where do people find you? Do you, do you frequent link LinkedIn these days or can people get, follow you for stuff on there?

[00:26:08] Sam Gurry: Uh, yeah, yeah, I’m on, um, I’m on LinkedIn, so, um, if anyone wants to, um, look at my profile, which isn’t hugely interesting, I guess, but, um, I’ll, I’ll put out a few of the updates that we’re up to here. Um, just giving, um, and kind of various charities that I’m, that I’m working with, um. But yeah, I’m, I’m, I’ll be sure to, I’ll be happy to have more connections on there.

[00:26:31] Sam Gurry: So, 

[00:26:32] Simon Scriver: yeah, appreciate that. Yeah, do reach out to Sam and, uh, and again, remember to download this report. We’ve got a link in the description there, so please go ahead and download it. There’s lots more insights in there. Really good to see the stats that are out there and some, I mean, your reports just given, put out so many regular reports, but they always have actual practical.

[00:26:49] Simon Scriver: Applyable tips, which I always think are great, but well done on this because, I mean, looking at the numbers, you know, like upwards of 40 million pounds so far raised mm-hmm. Is still going. And the volume of fundraising pages and people that are doing this is, it’s, it’s mind blowing, isn’t it? 

[00:27:05] Sam Gurry: Yeah, 

[00:27:06] Simon Scriver: it’s amazing.

[00:27:06] Simon Scriver: And I 

[00:27:06] Sam Gurry: think the, the events just showing no signs of, of, of stopping really, like mm-hmm. Year over year we’re seeing average page values go up. Um, like you said, activation rates, um, we’re seeing more engaged fundraisers as well. So yeah, it’s, it’s great to see, and I think that’s the other thing, that’s why it’s such a important part for us to be able to support that.

[00:27:29] Sam Gurry: It’s such a huge part of not only obviously, the UK fundraising calendar, but. Worldwide as well. So, um, that’s why we kind of have a big, big focus on making sure we’re being able to support charities with it. Um, and I should probably mention as well, if, if you do have any questions or you want insights in terms of your specific London Marathon performance, either get in touch with our success team, um, or get in touch with our, uh, account management team if you have an account manager.

[00:27:57] Sam Gurry: And yeah, we are all more than happy to, to help out with that kind of stuff. So yeah, make sure you take advantage of that as well. 

[00:28:04] Simon Scriver: Amazing. I really appreciate it. Thank you so much for your insights and thanks for talking us through that. Uh, and good luck to everyone who’s beginning, uh, or beginning to begin or thinking about beginning, uh, their London Marathon 2026 planning.

[00:28:17] Simon Scriver: There’s some really good stuff to get you started there. Um, but yeah, it just sounds like that kind of considered time and there’s still lots of opportunity there, so that’s brilliant. Sam, thank you so much for your time. It’s been such a pleasure to chat to you. Uh, I hope it hasn’t been too painful and, uh, and we might chat to you again next year when we’re kicking off 2027 if you, if you, uh, yeah.

[00:28:36] Simon Scriver: Still in, uh, able, in one peace of mind, able to deal with it. 

[00:28:41] Sam Gurry: Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Yeah. Appreciate you having me on. It’s been, um, yeah, it’s been good to talk about it. Thanks so much. 

[00:28:46] Simon Scriver: Amazing. And thank you all to everyone. Uh, my name is Simon Reiber. I’m the co-founder of Fundraising Everywhere. Reminder to download that report.

[00:28:53] Simon Scriver: Uh, the link is in the description. Um, but otherwise please do subscribe and we’ll be back for another episode. But as always, you can get in touch or find out everything that’s happening and going on in the fundraising everywhere world@fundraisingeverywhere.com. Take care everyone. Thank you.

[00:29:09] Alex Aggidis: Thank you so much for listening to the Fundraising Everywhere podcast. 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.

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This transcript was created using AI. If you spot any mistakes, please reach out. Thank you!

Transcript

[00:00:00] Multiple Voices: Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. , you don’t need to add me in there.

[00:00:31] 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 fundraising everwhere.com/podcast to subscribe Now onto today’s episode, enjoy.

[00:01:01] Lucy Lowthian: Well, hello everyone. I am Lucy Ian, and I’m a Senior Legacy Consultant at Legacy Voice, which is part of Legacy Futures, and I’m here today to talk about how to develop an effective legacy strategy. So thank you all for joining me today. You may have already written a strategy before or been involved in implementing one, but my main name today is to ensure that you go away feeling confident that you can create a legacy strategy and that you understand what some of the core elements are.

[00:01:29] Lucy Lowthian: Gifts and wills are obviously such a vital income stream for many charities, so having an effective strategy is crucial in order to maximize legacy income. But when we start to develop our legacy strategy, Adrian Sargent and Elaine Jay’s planning framework is a really good example of the different stages involved in a strategic plan.

[00:01:50] Lucy Lowthian: Most charities take the time to plan their fundraising activities, um, including legacy activities obviously, and that. That they will undertake throughout the year. And according to Sergeant and Jay, there are three core dimensions of a fundraising or strategic plan. So the first is, where are we now? So this usually involves a complete review of the organization’s environment and the past performance of the legacy function.

[00:02:14] Lucy Lowthian: So in this case, it is obviously legacies. The charity needs a complete understanding of its current strategic position in the donor markets. It serves to be able to set effective and realistic objectives for the future. But secondly, we want to, um, look at where do we want to be. So this is when the organization will map out what the legacy department is expected to achieve over the duration of the plan, and set out those clear objectives.

[00:02:39] Lucy Lowthian: And then the third stage is how are we going to get there? So this stage of the plan contains the schedule and the tactics that the organization will adopt to achieve its targets. The tactics contain the detail of how the, um, legacy fundraising will actually be undertaken. So the audit is, um, what helps with the first dimension to establish where the organization is now.

[00:03:03] Lucy Lowthian: The audit explores the macro environment in which a charity is operating, and it analyzes peer activity, the legacy marketplace, and the internal environment of the organization. And it concludes with a SWOT analysis. So summarizing strengths and weaknesses and opportunities and threats. So the audit, like I say, starts with the macro environment and we work from the outside in, starting with the bigger picture and moving to the internal environment, which we then pull together into a swot.

[00:03:35] Lucy Lowthian: So if you get the audit right at the start of the strategy process, everything else should hopefully flow quite easily from this. So I’m going to focus quite a lot of this session on the actual audit. So the macro environment has an effect on what we do, but it’s something that we can’t control. And like any other organizations, charities are susceptible to external factors.

[00:03:56] Lucy Lowthian: And when it comes to legacies, understanding the external environment is incredibly important, as many, many of these external factors can impact on future legacy income. And you might have come across the pest tool before, but if not, this is a tool that we could use to examine the wider external influences that might have an impact.

[00:04:17] Lucy Lowthian: This covers four areas, which are political, economical, social, and technological. And the slide on screen shows some examples of of each of these. By conducting a pest analysis. Fundamentally, we want to understand what are the key trends and what does this mean for me, and as an example, in the legacy context, if we consider political, there has been a backlog in issuing grants of probate.

[00:04:43] Lucy Lowthian: This has therefore had an impact until the shortfall in bequest has been recovered. Therefore the challenge for legacy managers is to deal with the peaks and troughs in workload that this situation brings, and to manage the increasing caseload as the situation resolves. There are also, um, a number of contentious cases.

[00:05:02] Lucy Lowthian: These are rising every year, so this is something charities need to be aware of, especially with the changes in will writing, such as an increase in online wills. But moving to economics, so legacy income is set to reach 10 billion by 2050. This is due to a rising death rate combined with wealthier, more charitably minded donors.

[00:05:23] Lucy Lowthian: So they, this is what is going to drive this growth. So there’s huge opportunity there. And if we look at social, around 11 million people in the UK are aged over 65, and this is set to. Almost double by 2050. And the passing of this older generation will result in around 5.5 trillion pounds transferring between generations over the next 30 years in the uk.

[00:05:48] Lucy Lowthian: And as families become more complex, we’ll making will be increasingly important. And that’s again, something that charities need to consider and communicate. And if we consider technological, all generations, you know, including baby boomers, are now online for longer periods. Digital will therefore play an increasingly important role in legacy strategies moving forward, both in terms of legacy donor recruitment and retention.

[00:06:14] Lucy Lowthian: And it’s also sensible to include an online element where free will making is offered. So the next stage of the audit involves a peer review, and some sectors might consider this a competitor review, but I think in fundraising we see this more as a learning exercise. So we’re learning from our peers.

[00:06:35] Lucy Lowthian: And if we consider the first point on screen, so the who, we really do want to think about what we can learn from the individual charity when deciding upon peers to review. So for example, what are they doing well in the legacy space? Why, for example, might their legacy giving have been increasing in the last few years?

[00:06:54] Lucy Lowthian: And we might look at other similar charities working in the sector. So this could be those working in a similar cause area. Of a similar size or working in the same geographical location. Or we might choose charities that are often alongside the charity in a will, so our co beneficiaries. But it’s about deciding who would be the most relevant charities to include in the peer review, and you can then start to delve into their legacy programs.

[00:07:20] Lucy Lowthian: So. It’s not only important to look at what activity they’ve been doing, but you want to know if that activity actually receives or achieves results. Should I say? And this isn’t any point in, sorry. There isn’t any point in trying to understand best practice if campaigns aren’t generating results, for example.

[00:07:37] Lucy Lowthian: You can then start to identify some of the reasons why things have been successful and start to unpick the charity strategy and tactics and questions might include things like, you know, has their legacy income been growing? Do they invest in legacy marketing? Do they run an annual campaign? Do they undertake digital legacy fundraising activity?

[00:07:57] Lucy Lowthian: Do they have an effective stewardship and recognition program in place? So you are looking at all of these different factors to try and really build up a picture of what’s, um, working well for them. And you can then bring all of your findings together to identify common themes across the peers and understand what this means for your charity when developing your own legacy strategy, and what opportunities exist to enhance your own legacy program.

[00:08:23] Lucy Lowthian: Based on this sector, best practice. So you might find common themes with regards to marketing approaches and stewardship activities or around their levels of investment and products. And when you conduct a peer review, you can find lots of useful information from sources such as the NCVO and Charity Commission.

[00:08:42] Lucy Lowthian: There’s annual reports, the charity’s website and job descriptions even. But speaking to people who work there or communications that you might have received personally from the charity. But when conducting the review, just try to consider both their acquisition and stewardship activities. And this section of the audit considers the overarching trends in the market and their relevance to legacy giving before exploring who leaves legacies and why, and trends in legacy fundraising.

[00:09:14] Lucy Lowthian: So we can start by looking at who your market audience is. So for example, if you are a university, it might be your alumni aged 50 and over, and you can use your internal data to gain insights into what you know about your existing supporters. For example, charities might look back at their previous legacy gifts considering similar characteristics and demographics of their.

[00:09:39] Lucy Lowthian: Charities can also consider their legacy supporters relationship with the organization. So for example, um, previous ator and existing inquiries and pledge and pledges. So are they regular donors? Do they attend events? Have they used your services? So you can really start to build up a picture and see if there are any common analysis amongst legacy supporters and their relationship with you.

[00:10:01] Lucy Lowthian: And you will probably find that those who are your most loyal supporters are your best legacy prospects. Identifying the average legacy donor is a good starting point for identifying future legacy prospects and charities can then use these insights alongside what we know from external research, such as typical legacy support profiles and what we know about the different generations, including baby boomers and what motivates them to give to.

[00:10:27] Lucy Lowthian: I identify potential legacy supporters. You can then start to understand more about who they are and what interests them and why they would support you and where you can find them, and so on. And there were reports from Mintel Legacy Foresights, me and Ford. You know, they’re all useful starting points as well as online information tools such as ACON and Mosaic.

[00:10:50] Lucy Lowthian: It’s then important to identify key trends in wider consumer behavior. So for example, these might be to do with technology and consumer experience and individual identity. Looking at these trends and looking at what they mean for legacies. So for example, I. Technologies advancing all the time, and charities are increasingly embracing digital channels and offering virtual experiences, and they’re also starting to use tools such as AI to help with data analysis and copywriting.

[00:11:20] Lucy Lowthian: So it’s really about identifying opportunities that will enable growth in legacies. One of the final stages of an audit is about conducting internal analysis, so the aim here is to look at past performance and also current performance, including the structure and support systems that underpin your legacy activity.

[00:11:44] Lucy Lowthian: The main objective is to appraise what’s worked well or not so well. So in order to put the most effective systems and processes in place to support the Legacy program. Data can be gathered through a mixture of desk research and meetings and interviews with staff, but one of the most useful tools to help you do this in analysis is what we call the five Ms.

[00:12:09] Lucy Lowthian: And it’s probably most useful for me to run through some of the points that you can consider under each of the headings. So for example, if we take money, can you provide a breakdown of your legacy income, for example, of the last five or 10 years? Is it increasing or decreasing? And do you have a breakdown of legacy expenditure?

[00:12:26] Lucy Lowthian: So are you investing enough in your legacy program? How many requests do you receive each year? Are numbers, again, going up or down? And what is the split between pecuniary and Reid requests and what are their average values? And if we move on to men, so how many people work in the legacy team and what are their roles?

[00:12:47] Lucy Lowthian: Do you have the right structure and staff resource? And what, oh, sorry. Where does Legacies, and that’s both marketing and administration, sit within your organization, do your legacy programs and plans have senior and um, trustee support our wider staff and volunteers supportive of legacies. And have they received any legacy training?

[00:13:08] Lucy Lowthian: Then moving on to machines. So what databases and systems do you use to store legacy data? So that’s both supporter and financial. Are there any other databases and systems which hold additional supporter data? For example, you might have a separate one for volunteers. Are there other systems working well or have you identified any issues?

[00:13:29] Lucy Lowthian: And then minutes. So this is really around your legacy processes and procedures. You know, do you have these in place? So for example, administration, procedures, data capture, data protection, et cetera. And the final one is mission. So is there an organizational case for support? And do you have a legacy, vision and mission statement that sits underneath this?

[00:13:52] Lucy Lowthian: Do you have a compelling legacy proposition and key messaging to really inspire people to leave a gift to your charity and their will? So you’ve now gathered all the internal and external data that you need, which you can pull together into a swot, and this is a common tool available to charities, which helps to identify the charity strengths and weaknesses, as well as opportunities and threats.

[00:14:19] Lucy Lowthian: Strengths and weaknesses are internal to the charity and a charity. Strengths and weaknesses can provide the charity with a real advantage or potentially hold it back from grasping. These new opportunities and the opportunities and threats relate to the external environment and include factors that can can impact on the charity’s work both now and in the future.

[00:14:42] Lucy Lowthian: So for example, if we think about strengths, you really want to think about what the charity’s doing well and think about your internal resources. So what qualities set you apart from competitors and is there high awareness of the charity, for example, and with weaknesses? Are there weaknesses such as internal support or lack of resources and, and not the right structure?

[00:15:04] Lucy Lowthian: So what barriers are there to any future development and with opportunities, you know, are there new fundraising products and techniques to test? Are there opportunities to attract new audiences? And threats. Are there any current or future economic, legislative or political changes that will impact on the charity’s work?

[00:15:24] Lucy Lowthian: So these are just some of the things that you want to consider when building your swot, and we can then use this information to conduct what we call a SWOT matching exercise. So, for example, the best place to start is by matching your opportunities and strengths. And we call this the match magic box.

[00:15:45] Lucy Lowthian: And that’s because you’re using your strengths to really take advantage of opportunities. But you can also use your strengths to try avoid threats, for example. Or can you overcome a weakness to try avoid a threat as well. So looking at the strength and opportunity example on screen, you might decide to introduce a will making scheme that you.

[00:16:04] Lucy Lowthian: Contact your committed supporters about to encourage them to consider leaving the charity a gift in their will. Or if we take the weakness of a lack of legacy supporter journeys, we might decide to focus on ensuring we provide an amazing supporter experience in order to retain more supporters in a very competitive environment.

[00:16:28] Lucy Lowthian: So once you’ve completed the audit and you understand where the organization is currently and the external environment in which you are working, you can then start to develop your overarching vision, mission, objectives, and strategic pillars. A great way to do this is by organizing a strategy workshop so you could bring together key people from within the charity so everybody can contribute to the legacy strategy.

[00:16:54] Lucy Lowthian: And this also really helps with buy-in because people feel more involved and invested in the plans. I. So for example, you might want to include your CEO or fundraising director, trustees, your marketing and comms team, and so on. So think about who will be most useful when it comes to supporting the legacy program, and you can then start by agreeing what the overarching legacy vision is.

[00:17:18] Lucy Lowthian: The vision should be an image of the future you want to create or aspire to create, and it should be an inspirational, memorable, and concise statement which describes the world as you believe it should be. The legacy mission statement says What will be accomplished in pursuit of this vision, so it should be action focused and state clearly what you’re going to do.

[00:17:41] Lucy Lowthian: The charity can then move on to setting objectives, which keeps us focused so we know what is required and what is likely to be achieved. And objectives are usually formed based on previous performance trends and market research, and they should be linked to the overall fundraising strategy. And you may have heard of the term smart objectives, which are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and.

[00:18:11] Lucy Lowthian: Smart objectives help charities to set realistic and meaningful goals that they can deliver on. Objectives must therefore be measurable so the fundraising team knows if they’ve been achieved and therefore successful in their legacy plans. So as an example, an objective wouldn’t simply be to increase our legacy supporter base, but it might be to recruit 50 people with an interesting legacy giving in the next year, or to have.

[00:18:38] Lucy Lowthian: 200 direct legacy conversations each year. So they really do have to be, um, very measurable in terms of the, what you set yourself, um, targets to do. And it’s useful to break down legacy supporters by segment, and we can’t can consider geographical, demographic, psychographic, and behavioral factors to start to really build up a picture.

[00:19:01] Lucy Lowthian: Charities might want to target new audience segments, for example, if they’re seeking to expand their audience base, or they will define their segments based on the profiling of their existing donors. And as charities, um, might find their legacy donor profiles look very different. It really is worth charities looking back at their previous legacy gifts and looking at the characteristics of their legacy, that can be really useful.

[00:19:27] Lucy Lowthian: And as mentioned earlier, charities should also consider their current legacy prospects and pledges to really identify any commonalities and to understand more about their relationship with the charity. Charities might also want to be creative and try to bring to life their donor personas with identities and visuals and having donor personas can be incredibly useful for all teams working for the charity when it comes to their legacy plans.

[00:19:54] Lucy Lowthian: Identifying the leg average legacy donor is a really good starting point, as mentioned before for identifying future legacy prospects and it will assist greatly when targeting them so you can work out the best communication and the channel. This will be communicated through to reach them. And depending on the level of segmentation you require, you might decide to use a relatively simple behavioral segmentation model that starts with your warmest audiences in the first instance, such as volunteers and trustees moving outwards to those colder audiences.

[00:20:32] Lucy Lowthian: And then we move on to strategic pillars. So the term strategic pillars describes the critical areas of focus that will help the charity achieve its objectives. So whilst there is no one size fits all approach to defining strategic pillars by clearly defining the pillars, a charity can ensure that everyone is working towards the same goals, and that every decision supports the overall strategy.

[00:20:58] Lucy Lowthian: They also help to determine which activities to focus on, but a charity does, um, need to be careful not to have too many strategic pillars because they need to be distinct and retain that focus. So the table on screen just shows some example pillars along, um, that top row and as an example, these might be related to things like marketing, activity, stewardship, and internal awareness and training.

[00:21:24] Lucy Lowthian: Once a charity is defined, its strategic pillars, the tactics, then sit below each pillar. And tactics are really the specific actions that need to be performed over the next few years to help achieve the objectives. And again, this is when a workshop can be incredibly useful to encourage people to really brainstorm what some of the different tactics might be.

[00:21:48] Lucy Lowthian: And when deciding upon tactics, um, keep returning to the objectives and the audit results to ensure the tactics are relevant and you can think about the trends and best practice that you’ve identified through the audit and peer review. And it’s important to be realistic as well when it comes to time and resource.

[00:22:08] Lucy Lowthian: Tactics can include a number of activities such as acquisition and stewardship, internal awareness, raising events and campaigns, developing processes and designing materials. And it’s also important to think about channels and how best to actually reach your target audiences.

[00:22:29] Lucy Lowthian: Scan charts are a useful tool when creating schedules to visually represent that plan over time, so you can decide when your activities will take place and who will be responsible for these. And you can also split this into, for example, years one, two, and three, and break this down further by month and quarter and so on.

[00:22:50] Lucy Lowthian: And the schedule needs to be continually mo monitored to ensure plans are being delivered on time and to amend this when necessary. And a key aspect of any fundraising strategy or plan is the budget. And the NCVO states your budget needs to be a translation of your plan into financial terms. So you should not be able to write one without the other.

[00:23:17] Lucy Lowthian: So they suggest the budgeting thought process should emulate the diagram on screen. So we need to plan what we want to do and then. Decide if we can afford to deliver it once we’ve considered things such as our resources and the costs of things. And a simple way to compile a budget is by using a spreadsheet and listing each item, including the detail and breaking down the income and expenditure of each.

[00:23:46] Lucy Lowthian: You can then work out the return on investment RA ratio, and if the income outweighs the expenditure, which hopefully it does. Budgets are an estimate because there is obviously no way of knowing for sure exactly what the numbers will be. They are based on previous evidence and almost like a best guest a guess approach.

[00:24:06] Lucy Lowthian: And despite an element of guesswork, creating a budget will help to establish the amount of investment needed in order to achieve the desired outcomes. Budgets should be continually monitored to check if income and expenditure is tracking as predicted, or if they’re up and down and plans might need to check accordingly.

[00:24:26] Lucy Lowthian: But monitoring the budget provides the team with a realistic overview of where the plan is and what they can expect the financial outcomes to be.

[00:24:38] Lucy Lowthian: Finally, um, you need to decide on the metrics and KPIs that will be used to monitor and assess the ongoing success of the legacy program and measure performance against objectives. As an example, we can start at the top of the funnel by monitoring the charity’s overall reach and the number of legacy conversations you’re having before moving down to monitor the number of considers and pledges.

[00:25:05] Lucy Lowthian: And then finally, we need to monitor the number of actual gifts being received by the charity so we can ensure the legacy program is effective. But when deciding upon metrics and KPIs. You need to decide who will measure it and how and where will it be, measure, measured, and how often. And ultimately, you want to know what went wrong and what went right and why.

[00:25:30] Lucy Lowthian: So thank you all so much for joining me today, and I hope you found this session useful, but please don’t hesitate to contact me if you would like more information following this session. 

[00:25:43] Alex Aggidis: Thank you so much for listening to the Fundraising Everywhere podcast. If you’re enjoying this podcast, why not share it with a fundraising friend?

[00:25:50] Alex Aggidis: 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.

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This transcript was created using AI. If you spot any mistakes, please reach out. Thank you!

Transcript

[00:00:00] Multiple Voices: Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. , you don’t need to add me in there.

[00:00:31] 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 fundraising everwhere.com/podcast to subscribe Now onto today’s episode, enjoy.

[00:01:00] Simon Scriver: Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of the Fundraising Everywhere podcast. I am Simon Reiber, one of the co-founders of Fundraising everywhere. Uh, and I have another couple of great guests on today. Um, but we’ve invited them on because you know how much we love research, you know how much we love reports and really we get a lot of questions from our members and our community.

[00:01:18] Simon Scriver: Um, you know, trying to compare themselves with other organizations. ’cause fundraising can be a very lonely job sometimes, especially in the area of trusts. Uh, sometimes you are the only person doing it and you really don’t often have something to measure yourself against. So I’m really happy today, um, that from gifted, we have Amy Stevens and Carna Beeson, who have joined us, uh, to share some of their findings from the 2025 Trust and Foundations Insight survey.

[00:01:44] Simon Scriver: Hello, Amy. Hello, Konna. How are you? 

[00:01:46] Amy Stevens: Good afternoon. Very well. Thank you. 

[00:01:49] Simon Scriver: I’m very happy to have you here. And I will say to anyone listening, great. Always love speak about research. Oh, sorry, I didn’t mean to cut you off there. Um, but yeah, thank you very much for coming. Um. The research that we are talking about today, you can find it@giftedphilanthropy.com.

[00:02:05] Simon Scriver: Um, it’s the 2020 5 25 Trust and Foundations insight survey, and you’ll find a link in the description of this. Um, but you guys, you guys put out quite a few of these reports and this is something that you’re trying to make an ongoing thing in terms of this trust and foundations insights. Amy, maybe you could tell me a little bit about your organization, because you, you are the chief executive, you are the, you are the person who set it up, right.

[00:02:27] Simon Scriver: Could you tell me a little bit about who you work with and what your organization actually does? 

[00:02:31] Amy Stevens: Absolutely. Yeah. So at Gifted, we are full service fundraising consultants, so we work from all different levels of support, whether that be a, a fundraising feasibility study, uh, before a major capital program to giving hands-on support in a fundraising program.

[00:02:49] Amy Stevens: We do legacy campaigns, uh, strategic reviews, um, but also support clients in particular with trust and foundation work, as well as their major gifts. So we try to, you know, do these projects. Uh, and I’ll kind of talk about it because he’s, he’s the man behind it. But we try and do these projects to just offer a bit of insight really for, um, our clients and for ourselves as well.

[00:03:12] Amy Stevens: We’re all still learning every day in this field, aren’t we? So it’s helpful for us as well as we go forward supporting our clients, but we work across the uk. Europe and indeed internationally as well. Um, across some key areas. We do a lot of work in the education space, um, a lot in health and welfare, um, education, like I say, um, increasingly animals and climate.

[00:03:38] Amy Stevens: Becoming more popular. Um, arts, culture, heritage, uh, we do the whole range. The only thing we really do not touch is politics because political fundraising gets messy and we don’t wanna be involved in that. 

[00:03:51] Simon Scriver: I mean, Amy, it sounds like you have enough stress on your plate. You’re already juggling, juggling on that.

[00:03:55] Simon Scriver: You do not wanna add politics to it. 

[00:03:57] Amy Stevens: That’s it. 

[00:03:57] Multiple Voices: Exactly. 

[00:03:58] Simon Scriver: Um, but I, I do love talking to people like you because you, you, because you work with so many different organizations, you almost kind of have this view across the sector of what’s going on. And I know. For a lot of fundraisers, it can be hard to know what’s going on around that.

[00:04:12] Simon Scriver: Connor, you are, you are the main driver behind the research. What, maybe you could talk us through who’s involved and kind of what, um, you know, who, who’s, who’s taking part in this that, that you’ve seen. 

[00:04:24] Konna Beeson: Yeah. So, uh, obviously this was geared towards anyone doing trust fundraising and I’ll we’ll break down in, in a minute sort of how that was made up and sort of who took part specifically.

[00:04:34] Konna Beeson: Um, I mean, first of all, probably worth saying that we were, we were really delighted with the, the sample size, which is quite difficult to get in with this sort of survey of 155 fundraisers took part. Um, which is, which is really, really important. Um, ’cause there’s nothing worse than sort of looking at, um, trying to get some data and extrapolating insights from it.

[00:04:52] Konna Beeson: And, you know, it’s got. You can’t really do it, um, with a small sample size. So that was really important. Um, we had quite a, a good range of different types of causes that took part as well. Uh, so the most common ones in the survey were health and wellbeing, disability education, and the arts being the most common.

[00:05:10] Konna Beeson: Um, but we did have representation from pretty much every, uh, type of charity, which is. Really, really good. Um, there are reasons for that as well ’cause of sort of our own, uh, pushing out on our own, uh, database, uh, to get people to take part, um, as well in And in terms of the, sort of the, the turnover and the size of charities, that took part as well.

[00:05:30] Konna Beeson: Um, most charities were under five mil, um, income, uh, 45% were under one mil. Um, so again, it’s, it’s a, you could argue it’s sort of quite representative of the wider sector in that regard. Um. In terms of, uh, you know, we did ask how many years that charity had had a trust and foundation program built in because it’s really, really important.

[00:05:52] Konna Beeson: ’cause someone starting out in year one is fundamentally different to year three, um, and beyond. Um, and the results were overall almost 70% of people that took part had been doing trust and foundations within that charity for five or more years. Uh, 12% for three to five years. Um, so we only had 2% that were literally starting out, which to be honest, kind of makes sense because.

[00:06:17] Konna Beeson: Probably got a lot less to talk about if you’ve only just started doing trust and foundations when you’re at least recapping on a whole 12 months. So, um, so 

[00:06:24] Simon Scriver: you, you just wanna see the results, don’t you? That’s the, you wanna see the results of the survey and, uh, yeah. Not even answer the questions yet. I think.

[00:06:35] Amy Stevens: The number that took part, we should give a shout out to all our friends and colleagues in the sector who shared it as well and shared it more wildly. So our friends over at, and they shared it with their network and we’ve then since shared their research projects. So it’s important we do that, isn’t it?

[00:06:51] Amy Stevens: Because you know, it benefits all of us in the sector. So thanks guys to everyone who helped us get people on board for the research. 

[00:06:58] Simon Scriver: A hundred percent a double shout out to Caroline at Al, um, because she’s so good to us as well. But yeah, to remind people, I mean, this is something you’re planning on repeating.

[00:07:06] Simon Scriver: So gifted philanthropy.com is the website. There’s contact details main list and, and the research itself there. So do sign up to it. Um, and sorry, Connie, you were, it’s interesting to think about the structure of these teams. ’cause you’re talking about the size of them. What, what do they look like? Is it, is it one trust person full time or is it, what kind of people were responding to you?

[00:07:26] Konna Beeson: Yeah, it’s a really good question. So we did ask that question specifically and accounted for it in the results as well. And it’s, uh, the results basically said that we’ve got a roughly equal mix of people either working one day a week or five days a week on trust and foundations. Because you may be a three days a week trust and foundations manager, in which case that’d be three days.

[00:07:46] Konna Beeson: You may be a general fundraising manager, in which case we kind of asked you to say, you know, on a rough sort of your average week. How much of your time is spent just in trust foundations, in which case you may have put two days out, the five, for example. Okay. And we accounted for that and all of the results when we talk about success rates and number of applications sent and things like that to see if there was a, you know, a clear sort of, you know, prorata difference and all those sort of things as well.

[00:08:09] Konna Beeson: So it’s quite, I 

[00:08:11] Simon Scriver: that’s, uh, I mean, do you get many where it’s, it’s multiple people responsible for trust who are doing five days a week? I mean, do you deal with a lot of organizations to that scale? 

[00:08:21] Konna Beeson: Yeah, ab Oh, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, as with a general rule of thumb, obviously the, the, the larger you go in terms of charity size, you know, the more you’re likely to have had a very established trust and foundations program, you’ve probably got at least one full-time person as well as an, as well as, um, some, at least a fundraising assistant that will do somewhat work assisting you.

[00:08:39] Konna Beeson: But, you know, there’s certainly charities that took part in this that said that they were one of, um, three. Um, pretty much part-time or full-time trusts, um, fundraisers. So again, it’s really the whole, the whole shebang. 

[00:08:52] Simon Scriver: Yeah. Yeah. They’re all in there. It’s brilliant. So let, let’s get straight on because, because I know people, I mean, the, the main thing I went straight to was the success rate.

[00:09:00] Simon Scriver: Yeah. Um, but in, in terms of, uh, some of the stats that came out for you, what jumped out at you? Um, leaning towards things like the success rate that we ly want to know. 

[00:09:08] Konna Beeson: Yes. Great. So, uh, we’ll give sort of the top line result. First of all, and this is really important because we did this survey the year before as well and we really sort of went, uh, in a lot deeper with the questions we were asking, and that was based on feedback that people gave from that survey as well, which is great.

[00:09:25] Konna Beeson: Um, so in terms of the average success rate, so. Everything, uh, included all in once. That was just over 35% and the average number of applications sent, uh, was 52. So this is all in sort of the 12 month period and that we asked leading up to that. Now. It’s really, really, almost somewhat obvious, um, to understand that an average success rate is really not useful to benchmark yourself against.

[00:09:51] Konna Beeson: Mm-hmm. There are so many variables, especially in this sector. Um, you know, your size, how long you, your charity’s had a program, do you have warm funders? Do you know what type of charity you are? All these sort of sorts of things. So what we. Really wants to do is ask more particular questions around that as well.

[00:10:07] Konna Beeson: And those are actually the more interesting insights. So in particular, um, when we asked, um, fundraisers taking part to break down sort of their success, how much was raised and how many was sent based on if it was a cold application to, you know, a new funder or to a repeat. Um, funder as well. So obviously a much warmer, um, funder getting sort of year on year or, you know, every three years sort of funding.

[00:10:32] Konna Beeson: Um, the breakdown of those was really interesting. So, um, what we found there was that there was a, a 2.6 times greater success rate for those repeat funders than cold. Mm-hmm. Um, and actually a greater ROI, um, two of about 1.7. Times, um, sort of the ROI compared to cold, uh, as well, which is really important.

[00:10:52] Konna Beeson: And the sort of the, the nerdier stats spray in me as well, looked a little bit deeper into that in terms of like the reliability of the statistics as well. And it, uh, for, um, repeat funding applications, it was a 0.9 sort of reliability metric, which. May not sound that attractive to some people taking part.

[00:11:10] Konna Beeson: But actually for those of you that do benchmarking and forecasting, that’s a really important metric. ’cause it shows you just how reliable, um, you know, approaching and developing those relationships with your existing funders actually is compared to just constantly, you know, spending your time trying to grow and approach.

[00:11:27] Konna Beeson: New funders all the time as well. 

[00:11:29] Simon Scriver: I, I mean, it, it kind of echoes every form of fundraising, isn’t it? That it’s, it’s much easier to raise money from people who are already supporting you than it is to find those new people. I mean, I mean, you guys have a lot of years experience in this, um, hands-on experience.

[00:11:43] Simon Scriver: I’m guessing that’s not a, a surprise for you. But, um, do you see many, ’cause I I think the pushback some people might have is, is many Tru Trust, many grants are just one year. Do you know? And there is sometimes that negative feeling that it’s like, well, you know, all this work is only ever gonna be for one year.

[00:12:01] Simon Scriver: But the, the feeling I’m getting from you is actually multi-year is more common than people acknowledge. 

[00:12:06] Amy Stevens: Yeah, I think, like you say Simon, it’s about relationships, isn’t it? So we see the full range across clients that we work with. Some that kind of have had support from funders in the past and then not spoken to them for eight years until they do their next capital project.

[00:12:21] Amy Stevens: Yeah. And then think they can just pick up where they’re left off. 

[00:12:24] Multiple Voices: Yeah. 

[00:12:25] Amy Stevens: And then others. So we’re currently working with a fantastic organization. That deals with young people with learning disabilities and their team have been phenomenal at impact reporting to their funders. So they’ve had funders that have given to them year on year for their revenue costs, for their general, uh, running programmatic costs.

[00:12:45] Amy Stevens: But they’ve been so good at impact reporting when we recently went out to them for the capsule project. They were all in, all of them at, at really good levels, and it, it was that relationships. So, yeah. 

[00:12:58] Multiple Voices: Yeah, let’s 

[00:12:58] Amy Stevens: not forget that with our trust and foundations, you know, it’s the same as any major donor or any other donor really, isn’t it?

[00:13:04] Simon Scriver: Yeah. Yeah, a hundred percent. And kind of in, in the report, you talk a bit about how much the income is raised. Do you see. Like is, is it like that first year is a taster for a lot of these grants and then they, you know, they fill you out and then we’ll give you more in the following years? Or what, what kind of trends do you see in, in how the amounts they give, um, changes over time?

[00:13:24] Simon Scriver: I. 

[00:13:25] Konna Beeson: Yeah. So I mean that’s, I mean, that’s certainly for somewhat obvious reasons, sort of the case. You know, if you are, if you are the funder mm-hmm. Um, and you’ve got a brand new charity you probably never even heard of them before and you’re, you’re probably gonna be a lot more risk averse to giving them a very, very large, um, grant and the first time.

[00:13:41] Konna Beeson: But once you’ve seen the work, they’ve got that monitoring evaluation, the impact reports. Possibly then done a site visit, if it’s a capital uh, appeal, or that their work is sort of on a site, you are personally far more invested in that charity and to make it a more informed decision to know where your money is gonna go the next time.

[00:13:59] Konna Beeson: Obviously, there are exceptions to that. So if you’re doing a large capital, uh, campaign, for example, you do. Tons of these. Um, yes, you are absolutely gonna be relying on cold funders as well as, um, repeat funders. Um, and they are still highly willing, you know, depending on what it is to give seven, eight figure grants.

[00:14:16] Konna Beeson: It depends on who they are. Is, is a bit of a nuance within that, but I. Absolutely. In terms of income raised, it’s quite important and we’ve got actually in the, in the report, uh, which everyone can see, uh, we’ve broken down sort of the total income raised as well, sort of by, uh, different levels because it’s quite important to be able to benchmark yourself against, especially in sort of, you know, the current landscape, whether you may get a lot of internal pressure to grow and like raise income and things like that.

[00:14:43] Konna Beeson: And, um, you know, what we saw is that I think it was 41% of people that took part said. That they, uh, raised between 50 and 200 k, 30% was between 200 and 500 K. Um, and then it was, you know, much smaller percentages, far above and and below that. So, um, we did break that down further by cause type, but they obviously, there, there comes a certain point in doing this sort of survey where you can only, uh.

[00:15:07] Konna Beeson: You can only sort of segment your data so far before it, uh, you know, becomes a little, uh, meaningless at that point. But I think that’s really, yeah. You having 

[00:15:14] Simon Scriver: one-to-one conversations by that point. 

[00:15:17] Konna Beeson: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And it’s not data anymore, you know, case studies. Um, but that’s really important to be able to benchmark yourself ’cause.

[00:15:24] Konna Beeson: I mean, obviously there is always gonna be a cap to the amount that any individual can raise, no matter what field. It’s, um, so that’s really, really important to, to understand 

[00:15:34] Simon Scriver: the, it’s interesting the range because, so sometimes in, in reports or talking about trust, I. It doesn’t really acknowledge the big scope of size of organizations you have, and I, I was really pleased to see in this report that you’ve, you’ve dove a lot into that.

[00:15:47] Simon Scriver: Amy, I’m curious as, as someone who runs like an agency, as a chief exec, do you get a good mix? Like at what point do you find people generally will employ an agency or an outsider like yours? Is it the medium and big? I know you work with all sizes, but what, when do people finally realize they need outside help with this?

[00:16:06] Amy Stevens: Again, varies greatly. Um, so we work with organizations of all sizes. We can one day be doing a, a trust and foundations training session with volunteers at a local church, and they’re gonna do the applications themself and they want the guidance on how to, how to do that. So let’s say they’re raising.

[00:16:24] Amy Stevens: 250,000 in total to a global organization. Connor and I have worked on 200 million pound, hundred million dollar, uh, feasibility studies in the last year where big organization, but everybody’s so busy that they can’t kind of have the headspace and also the objective view that consultants give on things to, to look.

[00:16:48] Amy Stevens: So it, it really varies here in the uk, um, you know, the big national charities tend to have lots of team in place already and highly skilled individuals in development. Um, so we do a lot of the middle range in the UK where there’s team in place who may be need to upskill or expand or they don’t have quite enough capacity, so, 

[00:17:11] Multiple Voices: mm-hmm.

[00:17:12] Amy Stevens: Really does vary, but we, we will, uh, we’ll deal with all size of clients, and to be honest, you get the same joy out of the, the really small ones as you do with the massive ones sometimes. So it’s just 

[00:17:21] Simon Scriver: Oh, a hundred percent 

[00:17:23] Amy Stevens: nice to have that mix. Yeah. 

[00:17:25] Simon Scriver: Yeah. I love working with smaller organizations, but, but it’s interesting because it’s like there is a need at every stage of that growth.

[00:17:31] Simon Scriver: Like even no matter how big you get, sometimes you do need it. I think almost the trust community I’ve found is like really helpful on, in Facebook groups and even the fundraising everywhere, community people sharing applications and people really kind of talking together about how it, how um, they can help each other.

[00:17:47] Simon Scriver: Which I, which I love. And just a reminder, just a little insert of an ad because I forgot to say, um, but not to forget the trust in Major Donors Conference, the Fundraising Everywhere conference where we focus on trusts and grants. Um, and that’s happening in December, so you can find that on fundraising of red.com.

[00:18:02] Simon Scriver: I forgot to say it, nobody reminded me. Um, so the other thing, um, that one of you mentioned last year’s report, and I haven’t actually compared them side by side, but in terms of, um, changes in, in year to year, how are you finding that evolving? 

[00:18:16] Konna Beeson: Yeah, so I mean the, the biggest thing that we did was, uh, go out and ask for feedback from everyone that took part, or at least, or even saw sort of, you know, the first survey and report that we did to say, you know, what are the sort of things that you’re looking, uh, to find out more about, uh, what would you like asked and answered.

[00:18:33] Konna Beeson: So we fed that feedback into the creation of this year’s surveys and we’ll absolutely intend to do that again. Um, again, obviously the more questions you intend to ask you, you are somewhat reliant on a larger sample size, so it comes with that because obviously you don’t wanna ask. Ask too many questions because otherwise you’ll just end up spending your whole day doing it, and no one’s really gonna do that.

[00:18:51] Konna Beeson: Um, so that’s really important to get that feedback. Um, in terms of like the main differences, it’s absolutely around sort of, you know, we asked this year for the first time around, you know, cold and repeat applications. We’ve asked around the use of AI and writing techniques. Um, the, the. Size and the types of grants as well is something we didn’t ask before.

[00:19:09] Konna Beeson: So something really, really interesting that I found interesting in this was when we asked what is the smallest value grants that you’ve applied for and the highest value grants that you’ve applied for. Mm-hmm. Um, which is really interesting. ’cause you know, the sector is so, so massive and. I guess if you were probably outside of the trust fundraising sector, you might expect, oh, the larger charities will be applying only for the large grants and you know, and like that.

[00:19:33] Konna Beeson: But what we found is actually 85% of people that took part said that the lowest grant that they applied for was up to five grand. Um, and when you, when you consider sort of the broad scope types and sizes of charities that took part in this survey, that really. Points to at least one potential cause and effect of where some of these issues around high competition and, and things like that are because we’ve got, and it’s somewhat disproportionate, uh, to small charities who are most of the time only going for the sort of the smaller end of the scale.

[00:20:03] Konna Beeson: Mm-hmm. Um, but you are also competing with, let’s say, 85% of the rest of the sector at that lower level. And you obviously then get that burden on the funders themselves who are, if they’re sort of maybe a smaller funder or historically they’ve always maybe done grants of around five, uh, to 10 K max.

[00:20:22] Konna Beeson: They’re quite from this data anyway. They’re probably getting the brunt of that higher competition. And then what they do with that is sort of, you know, this ongoing conversation now where we are seeing, you know, more and more funders every day to close the doors, um, either indefinitely or to review the strategies.

[00:20:39] Konna Beeson: And so we’re gonna see quite an interesting landscape and I think that pointed to. Um, that points to one reason for that, which I’d never seen before. 

[00:20:48] Simon Scriver: Well, what does the, what I mean, unpack that for me a bit, because that, I mean, that doesn’t, that sounds like almost an efficiency problem if, if you have these huge organizations who are, who are dealing with massive grants, but are they’re also putting time into these sub 5,000.

[00:21:03] Simon Scriver: Am I interpreting that wrong, or what, what’s your take on that? 

[00:21:06] Konna Beeson: I mean, I would say ultimately, even if you’re a, you know, a. A hundred million pound health charity in the uk. You are, you still have need, you’ve still got people or research or whatever it is to support If there are funders out there that are, even if they’re only giving grants up to 5K or 10 k, I say only.

[00:21:23] Konna Beeson: Um, and that funder exists primarily to support, let’s say, cancer research initiatives. Of course, you’re gonna apply to it because you’re eligible to apply for it, and that work is still just as vital as anyone else. The, the, the, i, I suppose the ramification of that is. It’s re, it’s. It’s on the funders really.

[00:21:42] Konna Beeson: And we are seeing it, as I say, we’re seeing more and more and more funders realize that we may have to change how we do our approach. Um, whether we more do proactive searching ourselves and don’t invite applications like unsolicited, uh, which we are seeing sort of more of that. And there’s some data on that, um, which I’m sure we’ll go on to.

[00:22:02] Konna Beeson: Um, 

[00:22:02] Amy Stevens: I think it’ll see next year what, what comes out on that. Basis, won’t it? We see if it is a real developing trend or if it was a bit anomaly, really? 

[00:22:12] Simon Scriver: Yeah. From the, from the mi from the mindset of your client, uh, your clients, Amy, if they. You know, obviously they only have limited number of hours in the day.

[00:22:21] Simon Scriver: And, and you guys have, I know, touch on, on fundraiser burnout and, and overworking. I mean, does it, does it make sense for, like, how do you pick and choose how many grants you apply for? Because you can apply for as many, you know, you can keep, always do more hours in the day, which is what many fundraisers find themselves doing.

[00:22:39] Simon Scriver: But at what point do you say, I’m only focusing on, on this subset of grants, or what, what’s your thoughts on that? 

[00:22:46] Amy Stevens: So we, we have conversations with, with clients. You know, almost daily on this kind of subject. Um, and it’s often really important with setting sites for trustee leadership campaign boards.

[00:22:58] Amy Stevens: You know, the senior leadership team at charities who think that their trust fund RA raise should be applying for 250, uh, different grants every year when actually, you know, research like this proves if you actually invest the time into looking for the right match, getting yourself a, a top 30 to start with, that you can be working on.

[00:23:18] Amy Stevens: Building networks. We know that even within trust and foundations, if you can have a connection to a trustee or somebody involved in the organization, if you can get them to visit, your chances of success are so much higher. 

[00:23:31] Multiple Voices: Mm-hmm. So 

[00:23:31] Amy Stevens: we really try and get clients to focus on, you know. A, is there any easy wins to build some momentum, but then where do we go, where’s the next best bets and how can we build those relationships rather than the, the blanket approach?

[00:23:45] Amy Stevens: Because it just, it doesn’t, doesn’t yield the results. 

[00:23:50] Konna Beeson: Yeah. It’s, it’s worth adding to that as well in terms of like the data in the survey. So the one thing that we did ask in, in the first. Survey and then asked again in this was, uh, what we looked at the differences in success rates based on the total number of applications that you sent.

[00:24:05] Konna Beeson: Because what we found in the first time we did this, uh, survey was that there was a really clear, um, drop off after, you know, a certain amount of applications was sent in terms of success rates, which you could. Quite easily attribute that to, you know, burnout and, you know, your, your quality in applications and things like that is diminishing ’cause you’ve only got so much time in the world.

[00:24:26] Konna Beeson: So we asked that again, looked into it again and we found pretty much exactly the same finding as you did the year before. Which is great because it’s more validity to the findings, uh, to have year on year, the same trend. Because what we basically saw was that sort of between 25 to 50 applications, um, that.

[00:24:44] Konna Beeson: Sort of like the, the sweet spot, especially around 30 applications tended to be sort of overall your your best success rate, even though it. 

[00:24:54] Simon Scriver: Is this per year? Sorry, just to clarify, is that per year you’re talking? Yeah. Yeah. Sorry, go on. 

[00:24:59] Konna Beeson: Yeah. Uh, yeah, so, um, now the, the success success rates were, you know, much higher if you only send up to 10 applications.

[00:25:06] Konna Beeson: Um, but I would say for sort of your, your average charity anyway, the sweet spot tended to be around 30. Um, so sort of between that 25 to 50 range anyway, you know, there was a, um. A, a 62% sort of success rate for, you know, for warm funders, I believe it was. And, um, and it was around 39% for cold. But then that diminishes in, uh, that goes straight down, uh, again, the further go down in the, uh, the number of applications you send.

[00:25:32] Multiple Voices: Mm-hmm. 

[00:25:32] Konna Beeson: So that’s not necessarily to say that, you know, doing more than that in terms of applications wouldn’t. You’ll you more income because it, it depends the value of the grants you apply for, which ones are successful and which aren’t. But it is a mathematical formula to factor in to when you’re doing a forecasting for that question of how many did we apply for?

[00:25:52] Konna Beeson: What’s our pipeline look like? How much time do we spend on each one? Those sorts of things. ’cause there is, generally speaking, a calculation you can do to work out again. Well at this point. Uh, you know, I could do twice the amount of work and 

[00:26:04] Multiple Voices: yeah, 

[00:26:04] Konna Beeson: exact same amount of income, so it’s actually better for me to do half of them spend, spend that extra time on potentially better writing.

[00:26:12] Konna Beeson: But also that relationship building, which you know, quite often, if you can get that weigh in of some kind, is going to be far more impactful to your success than probably anything else. Um. I 

[00:26:23] Simon Scriver: mean, it looks like, like a clear indicator of that law of diminishing returns where it’s like, yeah, you can keep squeezing out the more hours you do, but the, like you said, there’s that sweet spot where you are putting the right amount of time into them and, and still taking care of yourself because I imagine you two have seen a lot of the burnout where.

[00:26:41] Simon Scriver: Because it is a never ending thing, you know, fundraising, you can always do one more. So I, I, I do love that you’ve touched on that in terms of being realistic about what you should be putting into this and not just trying to squeeze out as much from every fundraiser as possible. I appreciate that. Yeah.

[00:26:56] Amy Stevens: We see staffings under huge pressure, don’t we, Connor? Client teams we work with who just need that extra capacity. They’ve been pulled in every direction. So having that focus to go, okay, I’ve got 20 applications to do. Is, is a good thing rather than looking at an endless list of 200 and and feeling overwhelmed by it.

[00:27:15] Konna Beeson: Yeah. And some of it’s around actually being able to use things like this to set sort of some expectations for boards as well. Mm-hmm. Which is something we talked about the first time we pulled the analysis for this together. Um, is that, you know, especially if you’ve got maybe a board of trustees that just don’t know fundraising as well, you know, you could.

[00:27:32] Konna Beeson: Perfectly be excused to think, okay, we raised this much last year and we did X amount of applications, let’s do 10% more. Um, that will get 10% more income perfectly, I guess fine of a, of a rationale if you’re not in fundraising and dunno the sector. So 

[00:27:46] Multiple Voices: mm-hmm. 

[00:27:47] Konna Beeson: It’s really helpful to have sort of year on year validity to these sort of things.

[00:27:51] Konna Beeson: So anyone having those issues can say, actually you need to trust me. Like if this is the pipeline, this is the best route. Um. To actually help avoid burnout as well. 

[00:28:01] Simon Scriver: I think that’s a great point. And a reminder, you can get a copy of this report@giftedphilanthropy.com. Um, and I think that’s a great idea to bring it to your board or bring it to your CEO if you get, are getting that unrealistic pressure to show, show what’s going, going on there.

[00:28:14] Simon Scriver: I think that’s a great suggestion. Um, one of the, one of the caveats always on benchmarking reports, and you said it yourself at the beginning, Connor, is, is, you know, you have to sometimes be a bit careful comparing ourselves. ’cause an average is. Can sometimes be very misleading to, to, to what an individual is going through, uh, or what a listener is going through.

[00:28:32] Simon Scriver: And, and one of the things you delved into is the different types of causes and different areas and what they respond to. ’cause I know that that’s, in my fundraising career, that’s one of, been one of the constant, no matter what, who you talk to. All the other causes are much easier to fundraise for 

[00:28:47] Multiple Voices: whoever you 

[00:28:47] Simon Scriver: speak to is working for the, the most difficult.

[00:28:50] Simon Scriver: So, but, but did you see a, a, a kind of cha uh, a difference between the different areas? 

[00:28:56] Konna Beeson: Uh, yes. Uh, so, um, what I did in terms of to, to retain the statistical, you know, validity of the findings as well. I looked at the different types of charities, uh, like sort of the most common ones. He took part, so those were, that were at least 10, I think it was 10 to 30% of the sample size for each of these different areas.

[00:29:13] Konna Beeson: And I, I looked into the success rates of those as well as the total income. They raised sort of compared to the average, so you can help benchmark as well. So in terms of success rates, some of the, the headlines, if you will, is that, um, those in the disability, um, sector had the highest repeat funder success rate of 75%.

[00:29:34] Konna Beeson: Um, but they had the lowest cold success rate of 22%. Um, so kind of a, an either side situation there. Um, arts and culture and like community, um, charities had the highest cold success rate. Or 34%. And Heritage, um, they had sort of the, the highest overall, uh, success rate of about 50%. Um, and actually they, they had the lowest number of applications sent as well.

[00:29:58] Konna Beeson: We ended up averaging about 6.6, um, which is, there’s lots of different reasons for that. Amy, I know you’ve, we’ve talked about 

[00:30:04] Amy Stevens: Yeah, it’s interesting, isn’t it? Because we can mull it over and, you know, I can give my opinion on it, but we never really know the reason why, obviously. Yeah. But I think, for example, with Heritage, so.

[00:30:16] Amy Stevens: Heritage First is education. For example, education. You have a cohort of people, don’t you? As a university, you’ve got your past students and your current students as a constituency to go and ask for money. Mm-hmm. So they may be less reliant on having to work on those grants, whereas I. A heritage venue or a cultural organization.

[00:30:34] Amy Stevens: You may have a membership scheme, but it’s not quite the same. So they’re probably historically more reliant on grants. Um, and I would say as well, having those lots of capital projects and bigger capital projects within that field health as well. Um, you know, you have discrete build projects or equipment or, or what have you, don’t you, so it is interesting to see how yeah, the different groups crop up.

[00:31:01] Amy Stevens: So. I think kind of was the, the cold success was high for the more community based organizations, wasn’t it? 

[00:31:08] Konna Beeson: Yeah. Arts sort of culture and community is how Yeah, 

[00:31:11] Amy Stevens: we, we felt that might be due to a funder priority shift because we’ve seen that move towards grassroots organizations. So more first time new organizations may have been funded, which could cause that skew, but it’ll be interesting to see how that maps out in next year’s report as well, and see if we see any other correlations.

[00:31:31] Simon Scriver: Yeah, I mean, I, I assume we are seeing kind of, there is that more fashionable trend that comes in every year. I mean, I think like climate change are obviously very much in the news that maybe weren’t so much years ago. I know in Ireland the homeless crisis is, is you know, of epidemic proportions and so you begin to see a shift towards that.

[00:31:50] Simon Scriver: How quickly does it fluctuate or how, maybe more importantly, how responsive do fundraisers need to be to that? 

[00:31:57] Amy Stevens: I, I think one of the main drivers of that, what we’ve seen a lot of here is the generational wealth shift. So private family trust and foundations particularly who. Um, you know, we’re, we’re military funders.

[00:32:12] Amy Stevens: We’re heritage arts culture. Now the younger generations are taking over it’s social causes, it’s environment, it’s homelessness. 

[00:32:20] Simon Scriver: They’re so woke, they’re all so woke. 

[00:32:23] Amy Stevens: But there is a real shift in that we, we’ve kind of seen priorities changing as the younger generations wanna fund what is important to them.

[00:32:30] Amy Stevens: So that’s interesting, I think. Yeah. 

[00:32:34] Konna Beeson: I, I suppose almost the other side to that as well as like, just being sort of the funder’s own sort of interest in deciding where to go as well is that we’re actually, you know, COVID was five years ago. Um, what, what happened during COVID as well as, you know, everything else, um, was that we suddenly sort of along, um.

[00:32:50] Konna Beeson: Along with the, you know, the cost of living crisis and all these sort of things happening in that sort of same two year period so to speak, it was that all of a sudden we’ve got hundreds of thousands of completely grassroots, you know, charities. Yeah. Um, that had never really had to apply for grant funding before.

[00:33:05] Konna Beeson: ’cause they were always fine. They would do their gala ball and a few things, and that they, they would sustain the income that they needed. All of a sudden they’re all looking at their budget spreadsheets and thinking we can no longer just survive just off of what we were doing. So seeking grant funding is the natural next step, but that’s, that is the vast majority of the total number of charities are in that sort of the far under, you know, under a million.

[00:33:28] Konna Beeson: Um. So what’s happening there is that I think there was somewhat of a push as well for, um, that funders identified this and saying there is a massive need of rise. We are gonna quite literally see small charities at the backbone of every community shutting their doors forever. And I think there was an adjustment there as well to be more receptive to cold applications from smaller organizations.

[00:33:48] Konna Beeson: So it’s almost a bit, almost forced, forced their hand in some regards, if that makes sense. But 

[00:33:53] Multiple Voices: mm-hmm. 

[00:33:55] Simon Scriver: Yeah, that’s can fund, I mean, how much can fundraisers respond to these like global trends? And can you change your, I mean, I suppose you’re changing your ask. You’re changing your, not necessarily your project, but the way you present it based on those terms.

[00:34:09] Simon Scriver: How fluid do we need to be? 

[00:34:11] Amy Stevens: I, I think this is a really, really tricky subject because yes, you can look at, there may be a big funder who is all about climate and you think, can we tie in one of our projects to make it climate? But we are always really clear with our clients of what is your core purpose?

[00:34:29] Amy Stevens: Okay. Don’t change who you are and what you do to meet a funder’s criteria because you’re not being true to yourself as a charity and what you’re there for. Mm-hmm. So, I, I really struggle with that personally. I dunno how you, how you feel about it. 

[00:34:44] Konna Beeson: Yeah. Well, I. It always comes down to the case with support at the end of the day.

[00:34:47] Konna Beeson: But if you, you, I think so I don’t like saying this, but it sometimes comes down to just a feel as when you’re doing a trust application, for example, you kind of know if you are kind of trying to shoehorn Yeah. Um, you know, the, the things into make it fit, you know, trying to plug your square into the circle hole kind of, kind of thing.

[00:35:04] Konna Beeson: Yeah. 

[00:35:05] Multiple Voices: But I, I 

[00:35:06] Konna Beeson: do think, um, even we talk about this a lot, um, anyway, but I think this is actually where that relationship building side of things is really important for. Um, not just because it enables you to get ahead so funded that may have been in your pipeline. If you’re able to reach out to them, you, you’ll know first or early or, or whatever it is that if you are actually in with a chance, even though you may 

[00:35:27] Multiple Voices: mm-hmm.

[00:35:28] Konna Beeson: It may seem on paper, on their website, like, uh, you know, what we fund in eligibility. It may think, yeah, great. That seems to fit. But actually it’s, when you speak to them, you realize that no, we’re really only looking, you know, the border, this type of things. Um, so that’s really important. But the other side of that as well is that if you’ve got these, you know, good and you know, warmer relationships that you’ve built with funders, even when and if they do change their, uh, strategic direction.

[00:35:53] Konna Beeson: It’s not necessarily gonna put you out. In fact, I literally just secured a, a 20,000 grant for a, um, one of our clients this week, um, from a funder that, um, changed their strategy in the last six months and said, absolutely we do not fund this type of work. But we had a. A somewhat of a way in and we, we framed it that way and not a shoehorn.

[00:36:16] Konna Beeson: So that was kind of a persuasive shoehorning, if you will. But I don’t, I don’t have a good enough phrase for it. Um, but that’s, that’s, it’s a 

[00:36:23] Simon Scriver: skill of fundraising, isn’t it? It’s matching. It’s matching the people who wanna help with the people in need. And I mean, that’s what you guys, you know, that’s your track record.

[00:36:30] Simon Scriver: So it’s, it’s great. This, um, in terms of the report work, uh, ’cause I’m conscious of time, but what else jumped out? In terms of overall trends, like what else would you, did you come away from it that. I suppose you’re gonna apply as you work with your clients. 

[00:36:45] Konna Beeson: Yeah, so I’ll give probably the two main, uh, trends and takeaways if you will.

[00:36:48] Konna Beeson: The first one is a, I would say a really positive thing, um, which is that most trust, uh, fundraisers that took part in the survey actually forecasted their income over the next 12 months to grow or stay the same compared to the amount of people that said, um, they expected it to, to decrease, which is.

[00:37:04] Konna Beeson: Great. Um, because I know there’s a lot of gloom in the sector and, and, and things like that. And I think that really paints a good, a good picture. And I, I did look at the different types of charities and it was, there was no real difference between that. So that’s always good to know. Um, I suppose the other thing is, you know, we talked about the number of trusts not accepting unsolicited applications anymore.

[00:37:22] Konna Beeson: Um, 78% of people that took part said that they were finding that to be more. Of the case than ever. Um, so what we did in this survey was that we asked for those of you that have been successful in, um, getting funding from funders that are no longer accepting unsolicited applications. Um, like how did you do it?

[00:37:39] Konna Beeson: Mm-hmm. And, um, 35% of them was due to some kind of connection, whether it’s historic, whether it’s ’cause you know, a board, maybe it’s, uh, an existing funder of yours. Um, we’re happy to introduce you to another fund that you didn’t know of as well. Um, so that’s really important. Um, 23% approached anyway and got funding.

[00:37:58] Konna Beeson: Um, 

[00:37:59] Simon Scriver: I wanna, I wanna start on that because that’s certainly not something we would endorse or promote that know, but it’s, it’s quite an interesting statistic, I think, and it 

[00:38:09] Amy Stevens: could be a bit because. I, I, I’m a don’t take no for an answer kind of person. So sometimes if it’s no unsolicited approaches, but you are the perfect fit, 

[00:38:19] Multiple Voices: yeah, 

[00:38:20] Amy Stevens: I’ll still contact ’em and say, listen, I know you’re not accepting them, but we’ve got this project, so maybe you could let us know when you’re coming back online.

[00:38:26] Amy Stevens: Yeah. Yada, yada, yada. Just to try and start a conversation. So it may be that some of those approached anyway, actually. Did the relationship build? 

[00:38:36] Simon Scriver: Yeah, it’s a soft approach. And, and, and going back to the, the stat before Connor said about, um, 35% due to connections, it’s almost like you might not be accepting, but if there’s an introduction, if there’s a referral, and, and I think that that really jumped out at me at how many were due to connections.

[00:38:52] Konna Beeson: Yeah, I think that the last important point on that is that 19% said that they were actually approached proactively. 

[00:39:01] Simon Scriver: Wow. And 

[00:39:01] Konna Beeson: the importance of that is because we, I, I’m not gonna say obviously who it is, but we had several people that, um, said that in the survey, left a comment to say that we were, we know that they found us.

[00:39:13] Konna Beeson: Via chat pt. Um, and that’s because, you know, uh, we are just actually just, I thought we, I thought 

[00:39:20] Simon Scriver: we could go one podcast without mentioning chatt. Unfortunately not. No. Uh, 

[00:39:25] Konna Beeson: but we just, we’ve, funny enough, we’ve just done a blog on this and our website around, you know, uh, you never really needed to be, you know, visible, um, for a trust fundraising point of view.

[00:39:34] Konna Beeson: But now, you know, especially I would say the majority of funders are under resourced under. Staff and things like that, why wouldn’t they use the tools that they’ve got to try and find a proactively find,

[00:39:53] Simon Scriver: I 

[00:39:53] Amy Stevens: think’s got a connection issue. 

[00:39:58] Simon Scriver: Oh, Connie, you back? Can you hear me? I’ll just make sure you are. Oh, you’re freezing again. 

[00:40:05] Amy Stevens: Yeah. I think it, it leads on to kind of the, our last point really about fundraising and AI and, sorry, and how we need back, we do need to be up on it despite, yeah. Sometimes battling against it a little bit.

[00:40:16] Amy Stevens: Really, 

[00:40:18] Simon Scriver: I, I, I’m gonna hold it here and just kind of, can you hear me

[00:40:25] Simon Scriver: Well? I don’t worry. I’ll edit this bit out, but I’ll just, I’ll just try and get Connor back. I think his internet 

[00:40:33] Amy Stevens: might have. Yeah, I can 

[00:40:34] Simon Scriver: am my back probably now. I can hear. You can can hear you now. Can you hear me right? Yeah, that went completely. Sorry about that. Dunno why. Yeah, I think there’s a little bit of a delay there, but we’ll just make sure there’s nothing else running on your computer or anything or anyone playing Xbox or anything.

[00:40:52] Simon Scriver: No, no, no, no. I, I message my girlfriend 

[00:40:54] Amy Stevens: background streaming video or, yeah, 

[00:40:56] Simon Scriver: yeah, yeah. Just download and stuff. Um, that’s, well, well, we’ll, we’ll trim it together. So basically, um, we talk about the chat GBT thing. If we can pick up from there. So, Connie, you, you. 

[00:41:11] Konna Beeson: Yeah, go for it. Yeah, I’ll say the, the point again.

[00:41:13] Konna Beeson: So yeah, I mean, what we found is that 19% of people were approached directly and, uh, a lot of them gave a comment in the survey to say that they were told by the funder that they found them. Because of they chatt, GPTs, you know, top, you know, X types of charities in the Southwest or whatever it was. So that is really important because, uh, we’ve just done a blog on this, on our website around, um, something called a EO, uh, which is different to SEO, which is effectively how do you become visible on like, you know, conversational AI platforms like chat, GPT, because.

[00:41:49] Konna Beeson: It just makes total sense that funders themselves, as they’re under-resourced, are gonna be using tools like that as well to proactively find charities to support and, you know, you wanna be visible if you can. So looking into things like that is gonna be, I think, I think within the next like three to five years especially, we’re gonna see a very stark difference in charities that have done that well and those that haven’t.

[00:42:09] Simon Scriver: I think it’s such an interesting point and we’ve noticed the same with the Fundraising Everywhere. Website is more traffic coming from chat, GBT and, and yeah, a lot of conversations, but people not really knowing how to address it. So it’s interesting to hear that you’ve got a, an article in on your website around the A EO.

[00:42:26] Simon Scriver: Um, stuff, but it’s, it’s, it’s, I mean, talk, talk me through it a little bit because essentially the chat, it’s like scraping information from your blogs, from your social media, from basically everywhere you put out. So by, by an increased presence, you mean kind of general marketing, general branding out there.

[00:42:44] Simon Scriver: It, it differs 

[00:42:46] Konna Beeson: in the sense that this is a, I’m gonna really dumb down SEO now and I hate myself for it, but that’s perfect for me. Perfect. The beginner’s guide to this is that, you know, SEO is sort of jamming your blogs on your website and things like that with all the keywords so that Google eventually knows this is, this organization is the expert in this field because of the keywords that.

[00:43:08] Konna Beeson: The, the converse to that, which is now around a EO is because, um, things like chat, GPT, they aren’t just about a question answer type facility. They are built to be conversational. That’s actually what they’re for. Um, so. You are, you are more likely to be sort of featured within that if you’ve got more sort of, you know, conversational pieces, like, um, and it’s easier to understand and it can read the resources on your website, for example, if they’re in that sort of, it, rather than just keywords.

[00:43:41] Konna Beeson: ’cause the keywords don’t tell you enough. It, it is more than clever enough to know and it wants, you know, if someone’s typing, you know, who does the best, you know. I don’t know. Um, support for Learn Disabled people in in, in Bristol and Somerset. If you’ve got a lot of resources on your website, which you’re talking about, you know, this is why we are the best, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

[00:44:01] Konna Beeson: Or this is what we do to support, learn disabled people in the Southwest. And it’s, it’s. Rather than just sort of jamming keywords. I think I, I’ve really dumb down that it is just really well worth looking into it. Um, 

[00:44:11] Simon Scriver: yeah, it’s, it’s so interesting ’cause I think like PE people already thought they could game the algorithm a bit and, and maybe not very well a lot of the time, but I think it’s gonna be, you know, almost impossible to game it.

[00:44:22] Simon Scriver: Like you have to have good quality information. You have to be genuinely pushing stuff out there to be noticed by these, these, um, tools. That’s my feeling. I dunno. Yeah. In terms, in terms of ai, you, you also talk a little bit about how fundraisers themselves are using it. What, what, what were you finding in that?

[00:44:42] Konna Beeson: Yeah, so we asked, you know, like how much time you spend in your activity and things like that. But as well as, um, do you use AI in any of your trust fundraising work? And what do you, what do you value most and least. Um, in terms of helping you, you know, grow income. So what we found is, I was quite surprised by this, but 42% of people said they haven’t used any AI tools at all, which I was, I was very surprised by that.

[00:45:05] Konna Beeson: Um, of those that did it was, they said it was most valuable for, say, cutting word counts or like, you know, consolidating work you’ve already done. So, a case of supports for, you know, three different ones, a different word, learns and trying to consolidate it before you edit it. Yeah. Uh, no. Huge sort of shock there.

[00:45:23] Konna Beeson: The biggest thing was actually, in terms of prospect research, um, most people found it useful for getting a higher quantity of prospect research, but the least useful for the quality of prospect research. Yeah. Which effectively you can say it is kind of pointless in that sense. However, even as from at the time that we did this survey.

[00:45:43] Konna Beeson: The ability of tools like Check GBT and, and, and Google’s deep research models and things like that have already developed so much, um, that it’s going to be, I mean, we can already do now very high quality realtime research on websites and it’s gonna advance very, very quickly. So I can actually see that area being a big opportunity actually for the sector sector to, to be able to spend less time on research, have very good quality prospect research, and be able to spend more of that time on the writing and the relationships.

[00:46:11] Konna Beeson: I think. Um, yeah, 

[00:46:13] Amy Stevens: I think it’s really helpful for a bit of fact finding as well. So I was writing an application for a, a small NGO in Kenya recently, and I needed some additional demographic stats of like a comparable area to back up what I was saying. Put it in chat, GPT, and then obviously you have to fact check.

[00:46:32] Amy Stevens: Mm-hmm. In, instead of having to kind of go through, you know, 30 different Google pages that came up, gave me an answer that I could then just go to. Is this a bonafide source? Yes. Okay, great. You know, so it is very time consum uh, time saving for things like that. Yeah. 

[00:46:50] Simon Scriver: Yeah, and I think a really important point about the fact checking because sometimes you, you literally just have to push back, but it’s so true.

[00:46:55] Simon Scriver: I mean, even just to get you pointed in the right direction or to make you think of things you hadn’t thought about. Yeah. I mean, one thing, one thing I’ve, I’ve found is like putting in things like grant applications in and asking it to like. Dissect it and tell you what’s wrong with it. And a lot of it you’re like, nah, you don’t know Stupid Chat chatt.

[00:47:12] Simon Scriver: But every once in a while it’s like, ah, that’s a good point. I haven’t thought about that. I think there is a lot of value in it. And I think, like you said, Connor, it’s changing so quickly and already changed since you’ve written this, that, how, how did fundraisers stay on top of it? I mean, obviously fantastic training@fundraisingeverywhere.com, uh, and also by reading your stuff@giftedphilanthropy.com, but where, where.

[00:47:33] Simon Scriver: Where do you guys, as trusts, grant application people, where do you stay up to date with this? I mean, 

[00:47:39] Konna Beeson: I think. Well, literally what you just said. I mean, you know, platforms like fundraising everywhere and all these things out there. Just be being mindful of, uh, you know, the sort of, I guess the leaders in, uh, the sort of the wider sector, not just in the UK as well, but this is, this is a global sort of fundraising area as well.

[00:47:55] Konna Beeson: So looking, you know, to the US and things like that as well to see, you know, who’s speaking on these topics with the most knowledge. I think that’s really important. Mm-hmm. Um, it is hard to keep up and then it’s hard to know. Everyone sees people on LinkedIn talking about, you know, the latest buzzwords in AI and they do the really, really, really long posts and.

[00:48:10] Konna Beeson: Can’t stand it. Um, um, it’s hard to know who’s actually knows what they’re talking about and who doesn’t. Yeah. So I think that’s where organizations like yours are, are really valuable in getting the right speakers who are evidence experts in, you know, in AI and fundraising and things like that. Um, things are gonna change very, very quickly, but I think in a good way.

[00:48:28] Konna Beeson: Um mm-hmm. If, if we can overcome what would inevitably be sort of a skills and knowledge hurdle, um, in how to really use this for prospect research in particular, um, because. The, the things will advance far more quickly than everyone can sort of catch up and learn how to adapt their approach. I think we’re gonna have, there, there’s gonna be inevitably some kind of skills, knowledge gap and mm-hmm.

[00:48:51] Konna Beeson: So, you know, especially maybe smaller charities that aren’t gonna have, like, you know, training budgets and conference budgets and stuff. I think that’s gonna be quite a, i, I suspect it’ll be a stark difference, which is something to be very mindful of. Um, over the next few years, 

[00:49:04] Amy Stevens: my take is, let’s use it as a tool, but let’s not forget about human relationships.

[00:49:10] Simon Scriver: Mary, I love it. The, um, any, anyone who comes out with that, when we talk about anyone who uses the word human, I’m like, I’m in love with this person. Um, okay, so what does this mean for, um, for like the, the average fundraiser Who’s listening to this? Someone who’s back in their office, maybe a solo. Grant, um, fundraiser, or maybe they’re doing it as part of their job.

[00:49:30] Simon Scriver: What, what would you kind of take out of this or take back to your clients as, as maybe action points? I know that’s hard to kind of do, to do a to do list, but how would it feed into their strategy, do you think? 

[00:49:42] Amy Stevens: So for us, we’ve seen. Lots of small charities particularly need to diversify. So I think this shows us that.

[00:49:51] Amy Stevens: Is trust and foundation still a valid, you know, source to, to obtain your funds from? Yes, absolutely. If you’re doing it properly, but things are shifting. Um, and particularly in COVID, you know, we saw hospices who had relied too heavily on charity shop income and then, you know, they were closed and they needed to really diversify.

[00:50:13] Amy Stevens: We’ve had others who relied on statutory funding, which potentially given current situations could be, you know, going down. Um. Let’s not forget things like legacy fundraising. Um, quite often charities put that off, uh, and, and well, yeah, it doesn’t yield immediately, does it? And actually have they invested in that year on year.

[00:50:35] Amy Stevens: So it’s bringing all the strands together, including the trust and foundations and using research like this to inform your trust and foundation strategy. Um, but just trying to be realistic and think, you know, where are the, the income sources for our organization and what, what do we need to invest our time in really?

[00:50:56] Konna Beeson: If, if there’s one like really practical takeaway that probably everyone could do as well is exactly based on what Amy just said around all the consolidating all the different areas of fundraising, uh, that you could or are doing, is making sure that you’re not working in silo as much as possible. So even though.

[00:51:13] Konna Beeson: That would often happen. I would say ENT trusts more than any other area. We’ve talked about relationship building and the, and the importance of that. More several times in this, go away and ask whoever it is, needs to ask in your leadership team. When was the last time we’ve done a network mapping exercise of our board, of our corporate partners, of our community groups, our major donors, and things like that.

[00:51:34] Konna Beeson: Even that could potentially, um, massively benefit, um, you know, link you to funders you didn’t know existed with a really clear way in, um, you know, it’s just really, really valuable, um, to do things like that. 

[00:51:46] Simon Scriver: Yeah, I think, and you are, that’s kind of peppered throughout the report and the findings in the report is how important those relationships and ongoing relationships are.

[00:51:53] Simon Scriver: So it’s, it’s not. Like call fundraising. It’s not just like a chop shop, just getting the numbers in and then them disappearing. It’s, it’s actually putting in time to building those quality relationships, which is very clear. Uh, coming outta this, this has been great. This has been really interesting. Uh, con of, remind us, remind our listeners where is the best place to, um, get this report.

[00:52:14] Simon Scriver: So if you go to 

[00:52:14] Konna Beeson: gifted philanthropy.com and then you can go on our fundraising resources section of the website. The, uh, the original webinar we did on there, uh, going through it line by. Um, and also if you go to the bottom of the website, uh, as well, you can subscribe to our mailing list, which aside from our mailing list, uh, purposes is you’ll get first dibs on doing it next year, um, and getting the survey next year and things like that as well, which we’re gonna, as I said, we’re gonna really want a lot of that feedback from people to inform the next survey that we’ll probably do at the very end of this year.

[00:52:47] Konna Beeson: So sign up to that if you can make sure you respond to the next survey when it comes out, and we all help each other. 

[00:52:52] Simon Scriver: A hundred percent. Yeah, if we can get more people responding to this, then we’ve got more useful data. So I really do recommend everyone go to gifted philanthropy.com, get a copy of the, uh, report and sign up some email unless you will find the links.

[00:53:03] Simon Scriver: Um, in the description of this, where do we find you guys? What’s your social media? De jo? Amy? Do you hang out on LinkedIn or what your We do hang out 

[00:53:12] Amy Stevens: on LinkedIn. Yeah. Uh, that’s our only platform, really, LinkedIn. Um, but yeah, you can reach us through the website or on LinkedIn and, uh. I’m happy to have a chat.

[00:53:23] Simon Scriver: Amazing. Very good. Um, yeah. Brilliant. Well, thank you so much guys. Do check out Amy Stevens and Caron on link, uh, on LinkedIn, uh, and do check out Gifted Philanthropy. Thank you both so much for your time. Thank you all for listening. Um, don’t forget to see what else is coming up on fundraising everywhere.com.

[00:53:40] Simon Scriver: We have our Trust of Major Donors conference in December. Um, but we’ll be, have, have plenty which is relevant to you in, in the run up to that. So do keep an eye on fundraising everywhere.com. Thank you everyone and have a good day. 

[00:53:53] Alex Aggidis: Thank you so much for listening to the Fundraising Everywhere podcast. If you’re enjoying this podcast, why not share it with a fundraising friend?

[00:54:00] Alex Aggidis: 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.

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