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] Jamila Daley: Um, so welcome. My name is Jamila, um, and oh, just said it. But welcome to Mastering Out of Donor Engagement. This is about captivating our donors through strategic touchpoints and creating those lasting connections that we need in order to continue to engage them and for them to, um, really, really just love us and what we do.

[00:01:26] Jamila Daley: Okay. Now let’s see if I can, okay. This is easy. Oh. This is very small. I apologize. I’ve just downloaded, um, everything into PowerPoint and it seems to have taken things a little bit smaller. But basically what I am, um, wanting you to do is pop your name in the chat, your charity name in the chat if you can, um, your charity type and your location.

[00:01:53] Jamila Daley: And feel free throughout this to be popping. Uh, questions in the chat box, um, throughout this, so that hopefully at the end I’ll have enough time to answer some of your questions. Okay. So let’s see if the next slide is any better. Okay, so that is super. So what we’re gonna be covering today is the importance of donor engagement.

[00:02:17] Jamila Daley: Not only that. The, uh, key touch points in your donor engagement journey? Um, well, it’s getting smaller and smaller. The simple, um, simple donor communication strategies that I have for you. Uh oh wow. Smaller again, storytelling for emotional connection. And implementation of effective stewardship and recognition strategies.

[00:02:43] Jamila Daley: Uh, I think guys what I’m gonna do though is so that everybody has this, the slides for them is I’m gonna send, um, through to the team a version of the slides that are ever slightly readable. ’cause the font is significantly bigger on the version I have. Okay. Apologies for that. So just a little bit about me.

[00:03:01] Jamila Daley: So, um, I’m not gonna go this far back, but this is me about two or three. Um, and yeah, my name’s Jamila Jamila Daly, and I’m the, um, founder of a consultancy, a fundraising consultancy called Tab People. Now, I’ve included a Christmas tree and the check because my earliest memory. Memory of charity, of fundraising, of giving was sitting at my mother’s feet at Christmas while she wrote out checks to her, um, her chosen charities that she, you know, I guess back in the day they sent out a lot more, um, donor.

[00:03:40] Jamila Daley: Engagement to, well, we didn’t have GDPR, so lots of more, um, what you call it, cold mail. Um, but she keeps on that. She liked and she’d write out checks and I just remember so vividly sitting and watching her do that and thinking it was an amazing thing, not really knowing what charity was. Um, and yeah, that was, I guess, the beginning of my journey into fundraising and charity.

[00:04:04] Jamila Daley: Um, I just didn’t know at.

[00:04:09] Jamila Daley: Okay, so for us, the importance of donor engagement, I’m just gonna leap straight in. Um, your engagement of your donors is, oh my gosh, it’s the cornerstone of your strategy. Um, and. What can I say? It’s about building strong relationships. It’s about engaging, it’s about building loyalty. It’s about, um, them investing in us and us investing in them.

[00:04:41] Jamila Daley: Um, and it is crucial. It is absolutely crucial. Um, the reasons for this are. Increased donor retention. So engaged donors are more likely to give us more money, um, remain, uh, committed, um, and foster that strong connection. When I, uh, one of the things I think a lot of organizations may be experiencing, especially at this time, um, during post covid, um, cost of living crisis is.

[00:05:13] Jamila Daley: Significant donor attrition or reduction in, um, the amount of, um, donations they’re receiving. Um, but one of the ways we can work, not work against this, but one of the things that we can do to increase this is to engage our donors, really get to know them, really let them get to know us. It will help us stabilize our donor base and our donor income.

[00:05:41] Jamila Daley: Another thing is our giving levels. Um, engaged donors tend over time, especially when asked, and that’s really important, especially when asked. I’ll say that again. Um, increase their giving levels to their charities. Advocacy, now it’s a big word, but really. Engaged. Um, donors advocate for the charities they tell their friends.

[00:06:06] Jamila Daley: Um, one of the charities that I worked with calls it gossiping their mission, their, their donors gossip, their mission. They tell their friends, they tell their families. They, um, tell their colleagues at work. They put it out to the professional networks, which for us, um, in the charity side means that we are reaching new people, we’re expanding our reach.

[00:06:29] Jamila Daley: Attracting new supporters that may be through whatever reason, whatever we’re doing in our marketing, in our outreach, we would never reach anyway, but we’re doing them through our engaged owners. Now, this is part of the same thing, but the UK giving report from this year, 2024. Says that donors tend to, uh, find out about charities that they support through their own experience, um, and, um, via their friends and families.

[00:06:58] Jamila Daley: And what that means is, um, hospices that have, um, had family members, um, that go through the, have massive amounts of donor loyalty, um, occurring in their.

[00:07:15] Jamila Daley: What’s the word I’m looking for? Like in their donor backgrounds? Um, in the donor database. I, I, I hate using that phrase, but they have them in their ecosystem. They’re part of their family. Okay. So.

[00:07:32] Jamila Daley: Lastly, it’s that lasting impact. It’s that final gift. Engaged donors are the ones who are more likely to leave a gift in their will for you, which is, yes, it’s the last gift they’re ever gonna give you. It’s probably gonna be the most significant. Um. That you, um, have, I’m sorry, I keep on getting distracted by the chat.

[00:07:56] Jamila Daley: I keep on seeing things moving, so I keep on looking to see if there’s a question. Um, but I think Tash is on that. So, um, I will leave that to Tash. Okay. Um, but what I really wanna just really drive home is how engagement, that donor engagement really plays a vital role in fostering that long-term support and loyalty that we need to survive.

[00:08:21] Jamila Daley: Um, and I’ve seen it in so many places, whether I, I, I did hear, um. Tail end of the last panel that Thankathon. Um, I’ve been experiencing quite a few of those recently and also talking to people about thanking quite a lot. And that is just such a powerful, actually powerful two-way, um, way of thanking and engaging, um, your donors.

[00:08:47] Jamila Daley: Um, I actually hear a lot more from the members of staff who just loved how it made them feel. Being able to thank somebody and doing over the phone and hearing that smile across the. Just amazing. Okay, so. One other thing we wanna do when we’re engaging our donors is communicate about what our donors, our audiences, care about, not just our own internal agenda.

[00:09:13] Jamila Daley: Um, we’ve all seen these examples where people are telling us, um. You know, what they’ve done, uh, how they’ve, um, the new photocopier they’ve got and how the donations have helped, you know, ease whatever it is administratively in the background. That’s all well and good, but is that really what our donors wanna hear about or do they wanna hear about what, um, has happened for their beneficiaries or in the initiatives that the organization has Now, this is really whistle stop, so I hope you’re taking notes, although I guess you’re recording this, so there’s opportunities to go back.

[00:09:48] Jamila Daley: So some of those donor touchpoints include, actually, let’s go back. What is a donor touchpoint? I don’t want to teach anybody to, um, things that they already know, but I feel like just in case there are a few people out there, um, that don’t know what a donor touchpoint is. It’s basically an opportunity, a connection between you and I.

[00:10:10] Jamila Daley: Me the charity, you, the donor, um, it’s, um, an opportunity for me to share information or an opportunity for you to share information. Um, so, and with your donor, that that information would be how much they wanna give you, what their name is, their email address, where they live. Um, for us, it’d be our campaigns, what we stand for, our mission, our vision, um, how much money we need to keep this going so that.

[00:10:38] Jamila Daley: We can help them, our donors achieve what they wanna achieve or see us achieve. And donor touchpoint can occur at any point in our donor journey. So from the time they first hear about us to their first donation, to through their second donation, we hope, um, through, um, to their. Oh, what do you call it?

[00:11:01] Jamila Daley: Becoming maybe a long term or regular donor or making a significant gift? Not necessarily that last time gift. Um, so as I said, it can occur at any point during donation, so before, during a donation or after a donation. And it can be, um, for example, information, our website, information on our social media via our newsletter.

[00:11:25] Jamila Daley: Um. If we have a print adverts or if we do posts, um, if any of our members of staff are lucky enough to be featured in media, um, mainstream media, those all don’t have touchpoints. And they’re important because they can influence people’s perceptions of your charity. Um, you have charities who have that.

[00:11:53] Jamila Daley: Look of being bootstrapped. Um, as in they always look like they’re quite small. And I’m trying to think of one that I’ve worked with recently, quite small. And, um, maybe just about to grow, but not quite there. Um, and that may not, that’s just perception. That may not be their reality. Um, I’ve worked with organizations that have got great, uh, branding and, um.

[00:12:19] Jamila Daley: Like comms because maybe that’s where their CEO or significant part of the team is working with, um, or coming from. But they’re actually a small charity. There’s two or three people in need. It’s just, it’s part of their skillset. Um, and I. So I’ve mentioned website as part of one of your, um, touchpoint. I think I’ve mentioned, um, your campaign as a touchpoint.

[00:12:43] Jamila Daley: Um, actually any donors advocating for you is a touchpoint. Um, any, anywhere that they see your name or make a connection to you is a touchpoint. Asking them for a donation that’s a touch point. Okay. So we can. Specifically with our touch points, we can motivate donors to make initial donations. So, um, I was recently working with, um, a small organization and they’ve never made, um, an ask before.

[00:13:21] Jamila Daley: Um, they have several projects. They had over 6,000 people on their, um, email and subscription list. Regularly, they had their own forum, so regularly engaging in their own form, but they never asked them for money before. Um, and so that, that, that was a touch point. Like we, we put together something that would, we could make an ask from, but we’d also done a lot of work as an organization to let them know what, what the need was, why they should get involved, why they should be interested, which motivated them.

[00:13:57] Jamila Daley: Motivated them to then make that initial donation. Off their first campaign. It was a beautiful site. It, I’m gonna be honest, everybody in the team was very, very nervous because they hadn’t done it before. Now, um, we can also try some of those touch points. Also, encourage, um. Those repeat donations, which really and truly as, um, somebody that’s a specialist in individual giving, that’s what I want.

[00:14:29] Jamila Daley: I, I, I would rather have somebody giving me 25 pounds a month, month in months out for a couple of years, ideally than somebody giving me a hundred pounds and me having to try to find, um, but being encouraged to give repeat donations. Um. So, um, maybe it’s how we ask. So on our donation form where we have the one-off gift tab or the, um, regular giving tab, and maybe they have different amounts so people can have a look.

[00:15:03] Jamila Daley: Um, maybe we also would talk about, um, or featured donors who want, who give us regularly and what that’s meant. It’s another way of banking those donors, but it’s also a way of letting other donors know that it’s an option for them. Um, let’s see. No, did it hit? Yeah. Okay. So, um, one of the things we also wanna do in, in our touch points is enhance our donor experience.

[00:15:32] Jamila Daley: So a lot of donation forms stop at things like just asking, um, for the name. Email address, address, maybe a contact telephone number, um, the amount they want to donate. Obviously the donation details, but other, there are other bits of information that we can gather to help us enhance their donor experience.

[00:15:56] Jamila Daley: So, for example, we could be asking, you know, like, do they prefer, actually, it’s pretty much a standard now, but asking if, um, people wanna receive information by email or by post or, um. SMS or WhatsApp. I’ve seen, I’m seeing WhatsApp groups, um, more regularly are being set up. So business WhatsApp groups, so basically where you can send out information, um, but that it’s not like a channel that everybody engaged in.

[00:16:26] Jamila Daley: It can chat. Probably just be admin so they can send out information and make sure that they’re, um, it’s, well, it’s a bit like a newsletter where everyone, we can make sure everyone’s receiving the information that we need them to receive. Um, and it’s also about just understanding through that their preferences, their needs so that we can improve their stewardship and enhance their donor experience.

[00:16:56] Jamila Daley: Um, I’ve personally found that, um, I’ve worked with. Uh, a group where they needed to do a bit of capital work. It was a, it a, it was a small piece of capital work. It was worth about 21,000 pounds. And they put up pictures and let everybody know about the scaffolding and why the scaffolding was up. ’cause it was a building that needed the work.

[00:17:22] Jamila Daley: Um, and

[00:17:26] Jamila Daley: three days, yeah, three days later, they received the check. So the person broke the check almost as, as soon as they received the email. Um, when we checked on our database, the, um, donor was a regular donor, but not a significant amount. Not somebody that we could think would be able to just turn up and sign a check and hand in a check within 24 hours.

[00:17:53] Jamila Daley: So again, you know, these touch points help us understand. Enhance our relationship with them so that when we make an ask or when we don’t have an ask, they are listening. They are ready to respond when we make an ask, if that’s what we’re doing, they’re ready to get involved. Okay. So I wanted to keep this quite simple because we do have only a little bit of time.

[00:18:26] Jamila Daley: Today. Well, you know, I could talk all day, but we only have a little bit of time. So a simple donor communication strategy for you all. Okay, so I hope you’ve heard this before, but I’m gonna say it again. Personalized engagement. Now I would describe personalized as making sure you’re using the person’s name.

[00:18:46] Jamila Daley: If they, um, donated to a campaign. You are, um. The name of that campaign you are mentioning how much they gave and actually how much, how thankful you’re, um, if there are already some outlines of what the outputs are, what you think the impact is, letting them know again, what those things are. It’s not about, um, and it can be automated, but still feel personalized.

[00:19:16] Jamila Daley: Um, it’s not about a bespoke letter that talks, um, um, about, um, how they came or everything you know about them and how they’ve come to support your charity. It’s, it’s just a little bit of information that makes it feel like they’re seen. They’re heard that they’re known to you, that you love them, um, and I would hope you would love them ’cause they’re their donors.

[00:19:38] Jamila Daley: So you are their, your lifeblood. It’s also about transparent reporting. So I’ve experienced in this, in a lot of areas, in a lot of charities where. They don’t say anything to anybody. So they ask you for money and then you don’t hear anything back until maybe their annual report, maybe their impact report.

[00:19:59] Jamila Daley: There’s no, like if I, if a, say for example, you’re an international charity and you’ve asked for money to build toilets, um, or a series of toilets, uh, in another country. I would say that, you know, you’d report each time a toilet’s been completed or started, you’d report back to your donor saying, we started the build, we finished the build.

[00:20:24] Jamila Daley: You know, like transparent reporting. We wanna make sure that people are informed about the progress, the outcomes of the initiatives, not just something just at the end, little and often. Um, this transparency helps us build trust and reassures our donors that their, their contributions are. Part are making a tangible difference.

[00:20:46] Jamila Daley: Um, yeah. Okay.

[00:20:53] Jamila Daley: Okay. So I love this one. Um, and I earned and odd about using the word exclusive, but recognition and attentive. And the reason I’ve used the word exclusive is ’cause I’m. For our long term, um, donors. Now, I’m not caveating that to, um, the size of donation because I have worked with an organization where a lady was giving, I think a month, um, but she did so for 30 years.

[00:21:22] Jamila Daley: So actually the lifetime value of her donation was, um, wow. Oh, I overrun a bit. Lifetime donation was about 30,000. Wasn’t as much as um, you know, others, but it was good. Okay. Feedback loops. Okay, so I love this feedback loop. So it is, we wanna understand their donor of motivations, but we wanna understand their concerns and expectations.

[00:21:54] Jamila Daley: So to do that, we ask, we thank, we report, we repeat. I would add in that, in that virtuous cycle, when we’re ask, you know, before we report or repeat, we ask them what they thought. So ask thank report, repeat, and then ask them a little bit more. Ask for some money, thank report, repeat, so on, so forth. Okay.

[00:22:21] Jamila Daley: Okay, so, oops, we’ve skipped a slide there, but. Storytelling, that emotional connection. We wanna interview people. We don’t want surveys, we don’t want, um, what should we call ’em? Uh, like fill in a form. We wanna interview them, find out what their stories are, because when we’re writing it, somebody else is not gonna get that emotional connection unless we can put it on the page.

[00:22:49] Jamila Daley: We wanna use simple language and short sentences. It’s an amazing fact. But in the uk, the National Reading Age is 10 years, so people aren’t stupid, not by any means, but if they need a dictionary to understand what you’re talking about, what your website says, what your campaign says, they’re not gonna engage with you.

[00:23:06] Jamila Daley: They’re not going to, uh. What’s the word? Give, use vivid stories and sensory descriptions to transport your donors and supporters into the situation so they can understand it. They can close their eyes and see it. Okay. Incorporate things that are relatable and resonate with your donor experiences and mission.

[00:23:28] Jamila Daley: Now this can be quite intangible, but I remember, um, a couple of stories. I can’t go into details ’cause you it’s personal stories, but I remember the fact that they kept on referring to the blue big pen being held in the hand and I couldn’t understand why they kept on referring to it and they explained because.

[00:23:45] Jamila Daley: With the story. There were lots of intangibles, lots of things that weren’t relatable, but one thing they, they, everybody had always used and kind of understood was this blue big pen. So it was something really small and minded, but I could relate, I could understand what that was. It was strange. It was interesting, it was fun.

[00:24:03] Jamila Daley: Um, and infuse emotion, highlighting the impact and the significance that they’ve had on your course. I’ve said this before and I wanted to include it. It’s not a written a mistake. Communicate about your audiences, what your audiences care about, not just what your your agenda is. Okay, so last part. I’m almost there.

[00:24:31] Jamila Daley: So these are some of the simple things I think you need to do. So promptly acknowledge and thank your donors for their donation, no matter the size. So if it’s email, if it’s a letter, you can decide what that thank and acknowledgement looks like, depending on size or what you do as an organization. But that thanking it goes a long way.

[00:24:57] Jamila Daley: Like I’ve said before, share the impact and the updates that illustrate how their donations are making a difference. Donors wanna see tangible results. Oh, I like the, so I’ve just seen the scrolling pop the questions in the chat. Oops. Yeah, please do. Um, recognize donor milestones. So annual milestones. So when that 12 gift for your regular, um, donor comes in, so that 12 once a month, that’s a year.

[00:25:24] Jamila Daley: Celebrate it, send ’em an email. I don’t know. Send ’em a postcard saying that they’re one year. You can think of other things. 10 years, um, when they’ve, um, donated a thousand pounds or 5,000 pounds. That’s, that’s a milestone. Recognize it. Celebrate it. Offer exclusive opportunities for deeper engagement. I love opportunities for volunteer roles.

[00:25:46] Jamila Daley: Now, not every organization can do that, but it’s a great way to do that. Another one is virtual events, where they get to sit around like a round table with the CEO and find out a bit more, ask questions. They get to feel engaged. They get to see seen. They get to invest in you, and you get to hear what they think.

[00:26:05] Jamila Daley: Okay? Constantly communicate and cultivate. So it can be little things like just letting, like I said, little updates. Um, especially during periods where you are not asking them for a donation, where you’re not asking them for no money. Like I said, stewardship builds don, you know, builds trust, builds loyalty over time.

[00:26:26] Jamila Daley: Okay, so these are my top tips. Keep track of what you want to achieve. Get your leaders and your colleagues to buy in, especially as they can make or break your donor engagement strategy. Get your, um, tailor your key messages to your different donor groups. There is nothing worse than re sending an email to somebody that knows 10,000 pounds, asking them to consider doing, doing a, uh, like a 10 pounds a month donation.

[00:26:50] Jamila Daley: That’s not the right message. Share your impact and show how they are making a difference. And if you doubt and if you, um, if you doubt, thank, thank, and then thank again. I’m gonna skip this one, but I’m gonna include it in the slides ’cause I think I wanna get to the questions. So any questions? Um, looks like there has a question.

[00:27:16] Natasha Evans: Yes. We’ve got some questions in the chat. Would you like me to read them out for you? 

[00:27:23] Jamila Daley: Yes, please. 

[00:27:23] Natasha Evans: Because I 

[00:27:23] Jamila Daley: can’t see 

[00:27:24] Natasha Evans: them. No problem at all. Um, so there’s one interesting one, which I’ve, I’ve heard this debate before, so I’m really keen to get your thoughts on it. Does celebrating donor milestones cause the donor to drop off?

[00:27:38] Natasha Evans: There is some evidence to suggest that it can 

[00:27:42] Jamila Daley: Yes and no. So for example, if you haven’t been doing anything to engage them and they’ve completely forgotten that they even donate, then yeah, they might think, oh, why am I giving them money? But if they’ve known that they’re being donated, you know, they’ve been donated to, you’ve engaged ’em, they’ve told you, you told them so many different ways of how they have made a difference.

[00:28:04] Jamila Daley: Mm-hmm. Then that actually gonna. Make a difference and keep the market going. And then maybe the next communication I may have is, would you like to increase your donation by 10% this year? You know, or something like that. But yeah, it’s two sides of a different kind. But there is, it is based on, I think, what we’ve done with them, not necessarily the, the milestone itself.

[00:28:25] Natasha Evans: That’s brilliant. I absolutely love that. I am going to rewatch this and take note for note. So if that question comes up again for me, I can literally, you’ve got,

[00:28:42] Natasha Evans: I was trying to leave enough time for questions. Well, I think we probably have time for maybe one more. Um, so there’s a question, which is when you mentioned the personalized gift acknowledgement. Is this only in the thank you after the gift or the journey to follow? 

[00:29:01] Multiple Speakers: Ooh, I like 

[00:29:02] Jamila Daley: that one. 

[00:29:03] Natasha Evans: So 

[00:29:04] Jamila Daley: personally, I owe no.

[00:29:07] Jamila Daley: Okay. I would say after the gift, because then if somebody thinks, oh, why they spending money on thanking me? Well, you’ve just given us money and we wanna make sure you feel special. But if they come down the line and say, Ooh. You know, like, I don’t know, six months later, we sent ’em a thank you gift. They’d be like, why are they spending money on this?

[00:29:28] Jamila Daley: I haven’t given them any money recently. Mm. Like, are they, do they have that much money? But, and it doesn’t have to be like, it can be digital. It can be, um, yeah, it can be digital. It doesn’t have to be a physical product, especially with the cost of postage these days. Um, it, it can be something like that.

[00:29:52] Jamila Daley: I cards. 

[00:29:54] Natasha Evans: Uh, yeah, me too. I actually got one myself. I loved it. Yeah, 

[00:29:58] Multiple Speakers: I have as well. I watched times. I was so disappointed when the working. 

[00:30:04] Natasha Evans: You expired too much. You pressed it too much. Watched it back. 

[00:30:08] Multiple Speakers: Yeah. 

[00:30:09] Natasha Evans: Oh, brilliant. Yeah, so shout out for.

[00:30:15] Jamila Daley: Platform. Absolute. 

[00:30:17] Multiple Speakers: Get any affiliates on this? 

[00:30:20] Natasha Evans: Um, is there time for one more question? I think let’s go for it because I really wanna, um, read out another one. Um, so thank you so much for this. It has been super interesting to hear from you about this. I have a quick question. This is from Lucy about how you would determine when having non donation related touchpoint in a stewardship journey that this is classed as marketing slash cross-selling.

[00:30:46] Natasha Evans: So I’ll take, I’ll give you a moment to digest the question. Okay. You can see that on your screen. 

[00:30:52] Jamila Daley: So I wouldn’t non donation related. So. It is not as a fundraiser. It’s not that I think everything is donation related, although I feel like I am very money motivated as a fundraiser. But I do think that everything, if we look at what business does, everything they do helps us to get to a sale.

[00:31:19] Multiple Speakers: Even if 

[00:31:20] Jamila Daley: it’s not like, buy my product, buy my product, buy my product, it’s like my product is better than this product. It’s, you get this, um, it’s, it’s, it’s the VIP of this or this person is wearing it. Or you know, like, so some of that’s social selling. There’s lots of things that aren’t necessarily asking you for a donation, but they are gearing you up so that when that ask comes it.

[00:31:47] Jamila Daley: You are more likely to make the donation. I hope, Lucy, that I’ve answered your question, but that’s how I’ve understood it. You can tell.

[00:31:59] Natasha Evans: Rather than having the asking for, asking for money, saying thank you, asking for money, saying thank you, you are peppering that experience with those almost like buffer moments to build up that loyalty, that trust, that commitment again, so that when you do make the ask, they’re like, yeah, of course.

[00:32:24] Jamila Daley: They’re gonna tell their friends, they’re gonna follow it. It on you’ll, you’ll find out about people you didn’t even know about. Like I’ve said, like I’ve had that before where they said, oh yeah, I’ve worked with an organization where they’re based in Essex, in a small mm-hmm. Area, Essex. And their like, their work is there.

[00:32:42] Jamila Daley: They don’t do any other work. The donation came in from Canada because they knew somebody who knew somebody who volunteered, who had a child that. And they knew we had a campaign like I would never have, like our campaign would never have reached them without us building up that loyalty, having those touch points and somebody saying, oh.

[00:33:04] Jamila Daley: Um, thankfully we also had a donation platform that accepted Canadian dots. 

[00:33:08] Natasha Evans: Hey, you’re ready and waiting to accept the donations. I love it. Yeah. 

[00:33:18] 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.

[00:33:30] Alex Aggidis: Thank you so much. See you next time.

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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. Welcome to another special episode of the Fundraising Everywhere podcast. My name is Simon Scriver. I am one of the co-founders of Fundraising Everywhere and delighted to be your host again today. Uh, and I have a super special guest there. I know I say that every, every episode. Um, but we are very excited because it’s birthday season.

[00:01:18] Simon Scriver: It is just giving’s 25th birthday, and you know how much we love just giving. So what we have done, if we, we have the wonderful Pascale Harvie, the president and general manager, just giving onto the podcast. I’m Pascale, you’ve been very good to make some time for us. You must be very busy. How are you? 

[00:01:36] Pascale Harvie: Uh, thanks for having me Simon.

[00:01:38] Pascale Harvie: It’s a pleasure. I’m good. I’m very excited as well. I’m excited to share the, some of the research that we’ve been doing and just overall, I think the team’s just really proud of what we’ve been able to achieve. 

[00:01:50] Simon Scriver: It’s been incredible and it’s been, I mean, just giving has become part of the lexicon, isn’t it?

[00:01:57] Simon Scriver: Like it’s a household name in turn. I mean, it’s almost a verb. And, and, and what you’ve achieved over the last five years, 25 years have been so impressive. But before we, before we get into it, I do want to, I have a little, a little virtual birthday cake for you, Pascale, and it’s not AI generated. I have respected the creative commons.

[00:02:16] Simon Scriver: This is, uh, this is a rightly attributed birthday cake to you, so I wanna say happy birthday, Pascale. 

[00:02:21] Pascale Harvie: Oh, I’m impressed. Thank you. Is that getting delivered to my front door, Simon? Because it, 

[00:02:25] Simon Scriver: well, I, I actually have, I have an extra special one for you. ’cause when I was looking for this, I found this weird cake.

[00:02:31] Simon Scriver: And I dunno what you, I dunno, if you know what this is. It’s a lace, it’s a lace monitor cake, birthday cake. Do you know what a lace monitor is? It’s, it’s from your neck of the woods. 

[00:02:41] Pascale Harvie: Um, you can have that one if you like. They’ll stick with the other one. 

[00:02:45] Simon Scriver: I thought that would make you feel at home. It’s a, it’s an eastern Australian, uh, and native lizard.

[00:02:50] Simon Scriver: Um, but, but Pascale, tell me, tell me a little bit about your history. How are you involved with just giving and, and what, maybe just a little bit about your journey to this point. 

[00:03:00] Pascale Harvie: Yeah. I have been, um, fortunate enough to be involved with just giving probably over the last five years. And prior to that, I, as you can tell from my accent.

[00:03:12] Pascale Harvie: Have come across from Australia. I was running a very similar business called Everyday Hero, uh, in the peer-to-peer space, uh, with the startup of Everyday Hero and working alongside of that and part of Blackboard for many years. And then with the acquisition of Just Giving came across to help steward and work along the wonderful team at Just Giving.

[00:03:35] Pascale Harvie: Prior to that, I actually worked in the not-for-profit world. I was fortunate enough, I worked with Oxfam. Corporate fundraising and then for a smaller organization called Child Wise, which looks after child sexual abuse and exploitation across Australia and Southeast Asia. Um, and I learn a lot in that journey.

[00:03:55] Pascale Harvie: Um, and I’m, I mean, look, I love the, I love the sector. I love the fact that we all turn up every day to help make the world a better place. And, um, it’s hopefully it’s what drives me and it’s what drives the team across just giving as well. And you, 

[00:04:12] Simon Scriver: and you’ve got such a wonderful team. I’m not just saying this, but our, my team or the fundraiser and every team are always raving about, um, how easy it is to deal with you and just the passion behind it.

[00:04:22] Simon Scriver: And, and from when I’ve seen you speak, I’ve, I’ve sensed that passion and, um, and the fact that you’re an, you’re an ex, well not an ex fundraiser, but you’re, you’re a fundraiser. Do you know, we wouldn’t let you on the podcast if you weren’t a fundraiser. So you, you’ve earned your, so, so, so 25 years is, yeah.

[00:04:41] Simon Scriver: I mean, it’s, it is kind of incredible because it’s, that’s before I started my career as a fundraiser. It’s before Facebook. It’s before YouTube. It’s before it’s. It’s kind of mad, isn’t it? Like, I mean, how were people sharing, sharing, just giving pages before Facebook? Do you know? Like were we, were we spelling it out for people and writing it on a piece of paper?

[00:05:03] Simon Scriver: It’s hard to picture. 

[00:05:05] Pascale Harvie: No, you know, 25 years ago, actually, when you think about it, is not that long ago. It was the start of 2000 and we did have phones. We might not have had a Apple iPhones, but we did have phones and we did have the com, the internet. I think overall, you know, like we are incredibly proud to have been supporting fundraisers and helping people raise money close to their heart, raising over 7 billion for charities and causes during the last 25 years.

[00:05:32] Pascale Harvie: And to sort of mark that amazing, the, the amazing people, the amazing fundraisers that we see every day. And we’ve seen over the years, we launched a report, which explores the last sort of 25 years of giving. As well as delving into giving today and predictions about the future of fundraising, uh, and what that could potentially look like, because as you said, it’s a, it’s fascinating when you look back over the last 25 years and you look at where we are today to wonder what that’s gonna look like in another 25 years.

[00:06:03] Simon Scriver: And, and the rapport you’ve released that, um, kind of reflects on the 25 years. And, and as always, just given a very transparent about kind of sharing. Data, information and, and really learnings. You know, I, I remember gonna conferences, uh, more than a decade ago, listening to just givings learnings shared, and, and you bring that back to the office to, to implement.

[00:06:24] Simon Scriver: So I’m really curious. But beyond that, huge 7 billion pounds raised figure. What are, what are the other, the kind of things that stood out for you in the report? What were the other kind of highlights that you were taking around to people you, yeah. 

[00:06:38] Pascale Harvie: I think, you know, overall, and I don’t think it comes as a surprise to anyone, but the UK has a really strong culture of generosity.

[00:06:46] Pascale Harvie: So over 82% of people said that they’ve done something charitable in the last year that could be volunteering, donating could be fundraising. It’s a, it’s a large amount when you think about it, and 35% of people plan to fundraise again this year. So I think for me it was just reminding of, you know, it was a good reminder for all of us that in general people are charitable and there is a really strong culture of generosity.

[00:07:15] Pascale Harvie: However, really surprising to me was that we found overall Gen Z in particular have a strong sense of responsibility to give back with. And you know, over a quarter of them said that they wanted to make a world, the world a better place. What’s really interesting in that is their, our fundraising or out donating fundraising, um, people of my generation, the elder generation.

[00:07:41] Pascale Harvie: Um, and by actually double, they are raising or donating, which is incredible. And they’re also influenced by celebrities, influencers, which I guess is, um, something that we should expect. And even politicians, interestingly, um, Christiana Ronaldo came out as, um, one of the celebrities that people who had inspired people the most to do good in the uk, followed by Sir David Attenborough, which perhaps won’t come a surprise to many.

[00:08:11] Pascale Harvie: I also think probably the younger generation, they potentially, to your earlier point, may be giving more because they’ve grown up in a world where online fundraising is the norm. They’ve used technology from the start, and that makes it easy for them to donate in just a few clicks or to set up a page in just a few clicks.

[00:08:31] Simon Scriver: Mm-hmm. It’s, it’s been, it’s really interesting and, and I can hear you, your dog is chipping in with some key points there because I’ve probably about animal charities ’cause you haven’t highlighted that often, I think. Um, but, but that, that Gen Z point is, is really interesting. ’cause people like me who are aging rapidly, you know, many people kind of struggle to understand what’s happening a little bit with Gen Z.

[00:08:56] Simon Scriver: You know, even, even being online all the time. It’s moving very quick and it’s hard to keep up. How, how just giving, keep up with that multi-generation who are behaving very differently and the way technology is moving, how do you begin to even approach staying on top of it? 

[00:09:12] Pascale Harvie: Yeah, it’s um, it’s an interesting 

[00:09:15] Pascale Harvie: one.

[00:09:15] Pascale Harvie: I think we last year might have, I’ve lost track of time, but we, we released our first sort of integration of ai. Which was really about helping fundraisers write a personal story for their page, which we know helps people connect and understand their story better, which often leads to more donations. So the integration and making sure that you are looking around the corner as to what come, what’s coming and what and what technology we’ve got to help people on their journey, um, is really important.

[00:09:50] Pascale Harvie: Cryptocurrency. I tell you what, on top, the cryptocurrency is a huge opportunity for donation growth. Last year on the JG platform, we made it possible for people to donate via cryptocurrency. And two weeks ago we had our biggest donation ever of 75,000 that came through one go in cryptocurrency. 

[00:10:13] Simon Scriver: Wow. I 

[00:10:14] Pascale Harvie: know.

[00:10:15] Simon Scriver: And what, and, and I mean, you probably can’t. Or don’t know the story behind it, do you? No. Something, something’s happening out there, isn’t it? 

[00:10:22] Pascale Harvie: Yes. Absolutely. 

[00:10:26] Simon Scriver: Um, well, we’ll, we’ll get on, I, I’ll get onto the future a little bit ’cause I’m gonna get ask you to look into your crystal ball. But looking back over those past years as well, like I almost on a personal level, Pascale, what is, what stood out for you?

[00:10:39] Simon Scriver: What do you, what do you, if we did that? This is your Lifebook. Of just giving, what would be the big guests that came out, or the big moments that were highlighted? 

[00:10:49] Pascale Harvie: Yeah. You know, there are so many standout moments. The, yeah, I mean, I’m sure you remember the ice bucket challenge in 24, um, that really marked the start of viral fundraising campaigns and challenges.

[00:11:04] Pascale Harvie: So I think over 6 million pounds was raised for m and d related charities on just giving. Then obviously in 2020 when the world went a little bit crazy and we saw the world virtually come together amid Covid hyphen 19. Um, I think just looking purely at the NHS charities, I mean over 96 million pounds was raised for the N-H-N-H-S charities on just giving, and that doesn’t even count some of the, you know, the viral campaigns that were happening and people walking around their backyards.

[00:11:39] Pascale Harvie: Um. In the 2.6 challenge. There was just so many different virtual events that came together over that time. Actually feels like a lifetime ago, but at the same time, it feels like yesterday. 

[00:11:52] Simon Scriver: It do. Uh, do you know what, ’cause I mean, I’ll have to check the tape, but I think you said the ice bucket challenge was in 2024.

[00:11:59] Pascale Harvie: 2014. 

[00:12:00] Simon Scriver: Yeah. Yeah. I think, I think we’re think, oh, sorry. 

[00:12:02] Pascale Harvie: I didn’t mean to say that. 20. No, I, I think 2014, I think it’s 

[00:12:06] Simon Scriver: funny because it was like, I was like, yeah, that was only a few years ago, but it’s like, oh, no way. That is like, well over 10 years ago now. 

[00:12:13] Pascale Harvie: Yeah. 2014. Apologies, Simon. 

[00:12:15] Simon Scriver: But it, it’s been a, it’s been amazing.

[00:12:17] Simon Scriver: ’cause yeah, those things that you kind of forget about those, like big culture moments around Covid back garden, walking around. Um, um, do you know the. Just giving has have almost been a little bit of a constant throughout that. Do you know like that almost under, not, I don’t wanna say under the radar ’cause you guys are very much there, but it’s like you’re, the infrastructure that was there ready when those things kicked off, you know, it wasn’t built for that, it was just already there and part of our lives.

[00:12:47] Simon Scriver: And I think that’s like something to be especially proud of. Do you know that it’s not a forced thing, but you are just peppered throughout all these incredible waves and moments. 

[00:12:57] Pascale Harvie: Yeah. Well thanks for that, Simon. I think, as I said at the start, you know, like we are really privileged that we’re a part of that every day, and we’re really proud that we support those fundraisers, the charities, et cetera, to help people raise money for things that are close to their heart.

[00:13:16] Simon Scriver: Well, on a, on a person, I, you probably hate the personal questions, but on a personal question, like what, what stuck out for you in terms of either fundraising. Donating, you know, what is it that moves you? Because obviously we can look at the data 

[00:13:29] Pascale Harvie: Yeah. 

[00:13:30] Simon Scriver: And not, but all within that, there’s just all these millions of individual stories.

[00:13:34] Simon Scriver: I’m curious for you, do you, is there anything you remember where you really were pushed to give or take part in? 

[00:13:40] Pascale Harvie: You know, I can look at that in a couple of ways in answering it. I think there are so many inspirational people that we deal with on a day-to-day basis. Um, and we do feel incredibly lucky to witness this day in, day out.

[00:13:54] Pascale Harvie: Um. I’m going to mention a couple of fundraisers I think that have really stood out for me, um, over the last five years of being involved with just giving. Um, one of them is the heartwarming story of a hundred year old Margaret. So Margaret got poor eyesight and bad hands, and on her a hundredth birthday, she made over a hundred jars of marmalade, um, to raise funds for the Nightingale Cancer Support Center.

[00:14:22] Pascale Harvie: When we spoke to her, she had her son-in-law there who was helping her with her page and the internet and everything, but she, for her, she wanted to raise the money for the Nightingale Cancer Support Center and she made these a hundred jar of mom laid to sell. And you know, it’s just a really nice reminder for us that.

[00:14:44] Pascale Harvie: It doesn’t matter what you do, it’s just that act of doing something that helps, you know, it brings you part of the community. It makes you feel good. She was so proud of a hundred as she should be, jars of marmalade and what she’d managed to achieve considering her poor health and bad hands and all the rest of it.

[00:15:02] Pascale Harvie: And then you’ve got little kids like Frankie McMillan, who at just the age of just seven, he became the youngest Britain ever to summit to the highest point of man Olympus. Whilst raising thousands of pounds for charities and inspiring so many other kids to get outdoors and do healthy, amazing things that they love.

[00:15:19] Pascale Harvie: And then you’ve got people like Lloyd Martin. I mean, he’s on a mission to show the world the people with Down Syndrome can do anything that they set their mind to. And he set the Guinness World Record as the youngest person with Down Syndrome to complete a full marathon at the age of 19. Uh, I mean, he’s incredible, but I think.

[00:15:39] Pascale Harvie: You know, for me, one of the people that continues to inspire me is Adele Roberts. I mean, she’s an inspiration. She’s, as most of you would know, has bowel cancer. She’s a bowel cancer survivor, living with a stoma that she has nicknamed Audrey, and like Be’s whole story is just incredible. You know, she’s been fundraising for years now, and she’s even secured the Guinness World Record as the fastest person to run a marathon with a colostomy bag.

[00:16:06] Pascale Harvie: Her current fundraising challenge sees her running the world by taking on the big six marathons across the globe, and she’ll finish it at the London Marathon this month. I mean, it’s just incredible. 

[00:16:19] Simon Scriver: It, it is amazing. And it’s, it’s like, what’s that quote where, you know, in times of trouble you look for the helpers.

[00:16:27] Simon Scriver: Do you know? Yeah. You don’t, you don’t look for this problem. You look for the helper and it’s like when you browse, just giving, yeah. It’s wild, you know, it’s just, you know, you’ve, what, what was the number you had in your report? It was 13 million fundraising efforts, like 13 million people, and then each of those people surrounded and that, that effect and it’s just so wonderful.

[00:16:46] Simon Scriver: And one of the things I, I do love about just giving and, and is, is that you cheer lead. Do you know, you highlight these stories, you talk about them. You’re not, you know, you’re not talk, always talking about the platform, you’re not talking about the features. You’re not talking about the star. You’re always cheerleading and, and I’ve been really privileged to go to the Just Giving awards where you do that in spades, like, and where it, it is just been so, so incredible.

[00:17:10] Simon Scriver: Um, so I, I do, anyone who’s listening to this, I do recommend looking at this 25 year report. This we will link so that you can, uh, uh, um, read it and download it. Because again, you’ve pulled out these stories and you’ve highlighted it. I mean, that, that’s clearly a conscious approach. Is it Pascale from just giving, I mean, you are always talking about.

[00:17:29] Simon Scriver: Fundraisers and the, and the, and the causes and the impact and that in inspiration that that must be a conscious decision. 

[00:17:36] Pascale Harvie: It is, but it is about celebrating those people because that’s what I mean, and I, I don’t say it lightly when I say that we are so privileged to deal with these individuals on a day-to-day basis.

[00:17:49] Pascale Harvie: Grant that inspiration? Yes. It’s about the platform. Yes, it’s about the technology. Yes. It’s about being compliant and secure. And I can bore you, Simon, with what that looks like and how much, how hard we have to work to ensure that we are a secure, reliable platform that I know, uh, can trust that you or myself, whoever, to use it as a tool to give that it’s secure, safe, all of those things, and it’s leading with technology and helping the charities.

[00:18:17] Pascale Harvie: Um, to raise as much as they possibly can to fulfill their missions. But fundamentally, it comes down to these incredible individuals who do amazing things and the fundraising teams that enable these individuals to do really incredible things. It’s, um, yeah, so I see, yes, it probably is a conscious thought, but it, it truly is what we focus on as a business.

[00:18:40] Pascale Harvie: They’re amazing individuals that do incredible things and helping those charities. To support those individuals or to go further with their virtual events. 

[00:18:50] Simon Scriver: Yeah, I think, I think that I, your, your dog is just, uh, a chip in there with an agreement. No, no. We, we need a chorus of dogs cheering on after every, every time we make a good point.

[00:19:02] Simon Scriver: Um, but you, you said something there, which I do wanna highlight, you know, about the, the charity teams and the fundraising team who are, who are managing this, you know, who are that kind of bridge between the, cause the platform. Fundraisers, you know, they’re, they’re in the middle there and they work so hard and they’re, you know, so many people are having such a tough time at the moment in terms of everything that’s going on.

[00:19:22] Simon Scriver: Yeah. So it, it’s great. You know, I find just giving a, always very supporting of their charity clients and, and I’ve said it to so many people for like, just pick up the phones just giving. ’cause it’s like, it’s just advice, you know? It’s almost like an advice line and a helpline. So on that note. I would love to come back to that crystal ball and, and think about, you know, what our learnings are over these last 25 years and what’s, what’s important for the fundraisers and the charities who are listening to this.

[00:19:49] Simon Scriver: You must talk to a lot of charities every day, every day, and, and hear their woes and struggles at the moment. Pascale, what do you think is, is important right now for the fundraisers who are listening? What do you think is, is, is ahead of them over the next, um, months and years? 

[00:20:06] Pascale Harvie: You know, it’s really interesting because the traditional fundraising, like bake sales, um, continue to feature, as does marathon cycling and walking events, and the viral moments like your ice bucket challenges.

[00:20:21] Pascale Harvie: So we, along with those sort of traditional activities, we are seeing gaming events becoming so much more popular with Gen Z. Also the trend of people taking on extreme challenges like ultra marathons, iron Mans and Skydiving. I think the, um, the second year, so 2001, uh, there was like 14 people that were fundraising for extreme challenges and last year there was tens of thousands of fundraisers.

[00:20:49] Pascale Harvie: I think things like the gaming is really interesting and again, I will say that one thing has remained constant and that is. To your earlier point, even in difficult times, people’s unwavering dedication to supporting causes that they care deeply about and their incredible capacity for kindness and generosity.

[00:21:09] Pascale Harvie: Um, and it does continue to inspire and it should continue to inspire and amaze us as fundraisers working for charities. It should continue to inspire amaze every day. I think from a charity point of view, when we researched the charity, 65% of those charities said that they feel positive. About their prospects with 94% of those charities saying that they’re on track to meet their fundraising targets, which is a really good thing.

[00:21:34] Pascale Harvie: Mm. 

[00:21:35] Pascale Harvie: But the interesting part was that only 5% believed that those aged 18 to 24, the Gen Zs have the biggest potential for donation growth. With over half the charities focused on those 35 plus to help drive donation growth. This obviously contradicts what the consumers have told us in our research. It also contradicts what I probably would’ve said to you prior to the research being taken.

[00:21:58] Pascale Harvie: So I think we should take a moment to think about it. I think they also say things like that they like the transparency, they like to know where their funds are going. So it’s important that we start to understand what they’re looking for and how we can show up in that area and also show up through different types of events potentially.

[00:22:18] Pascale Harvie: Um. I think the other finding was that 45% said the biggest opportunities for charities to boost donations was through further integrations of things like ai. Um, and again, I think it’s really important to make sure that you’re keeping up with technology called that’s the right word, trends. Um, because it’s expected, especially by those Gen Zs.

[00:22:42] Pascale Harvie: They are, they’re the ones that are gonna hold us all accountable to make sure that we’re up and, um. Ahead of the curve, basically with technologies make their lives as easy as possible. So yeah, I think there’s some really interesting things, but I think the age of the, um, of the fundraisers and the donors came as a real surprise.

[00:23:04] Simon Scriver: Yeah, I think that’s something definitely not to be sniffed at. And it obviously goes hand in hand with the technical, technical, I’m struggling as well, technological change. So, no, I think, I think that’s a really important and, and as we come towards this end, you know, I, I. I dread to ask you this, but we have to, it’s almost like fixed in every, in every interview now it’s ai.

[00:23:24] Simon Scriver: It’s what, what do you think, what, what do you have on in the path for ai? What do you think is in the pipeline? What should we be doing now? What, what’s your overall thoughts on AI and, and this weird place we’re at the moment? 

[00:23:37] Pascale Harvie: Well, I think we need further integration of ai. Um, you know, it’s relatively new.

[00:23:43] Pascale Harvie: We talk about it. We’ve got our on the JG platform, the new AI story enhancer tool. What we know from that is that it does make, it does help people raise more. So by giving people the tools they need to easily build a story in this case on their, um, peer-to-peer fundraising page. We know that that interaction helps them go on to raise more money.

[00:24:07] Pascale Harvie: So if that’s just one small slice of what, thinking about fundraising as a whole. It’s definitely really important to make sure that we are bringing it into our worlds. Um, I don’t think we sh it’s not these sort of tools, even cryptocurrency are not things that we should be scared about. I think these sorts of tools are things that we need to be embracing.

[00:24:27] Pascale Harvie: We need to be bringing in people who specialize in those areas, who understand it. Um, speak to the younger generation. If you don’t have people like that in your teams, understand where they’re thinking, what they’re doing. What that looks like. It makes a big difference. Uh, I just, I don’t think that we can pull the shutters down and continue fundraising like we always have.

[00:24:52] Pascale Harvie: We just need to embrace things like ai, which will not only make our lives easier, it will help us raise more funds. 

[00:25:01] Simon Scriver: That makes sense. And I, I think, I mean, like, I think I, and a lot of fundraisers look to just give him for that. Learning sometimes because you have access to so much, um, you know, so many different clients, so many different fundraisers, so many different pages.

[00:25:15] Simon Scriver: You have that kind of benchmark data, um, to see what is working. So I mean, I will be watching with the close eye how you guys start to use AI more and, and, and how that impacts results. That I think that’ll be super, super interesting. Super. Yeah. 

[00:25:28] Pascale Harvie: We look forward to sharing it. Simon. 

[00:25:30] Simon Scriver: Aw, you’re so generous with the.

[00:25:33] Simon Scriver: I love it. Um, but I will remind everyone again, just, uh, anyone who’s listening to this, please do. Um, look at the t what, what just giving a published for their 25th anniversary, uh, 25th birthday, sorry. Uh, it’s very, very interesting insights in there and as always, very generous. Um, and if you’re not on the just giving list, mailing list as a fundraiser, I feel like that’s an essential that you should be on that.

[00:25:53] Simon Scriver: Pascale, for you, what’s, what’s your personal goals as we start to wrap up? What’s your personal goals for the next six to 12 months? Where do you see yourself? 

[00:26:01] Pascale Harvie: Where do I see myself? You know, really honestly, if I look at it from a six to 12 month focus, I, we, there’s so much more that we wanna be doing from a just giving lens.

[00:26:13] Pascale Harvie: Um, we wanna make sure that we are embracing the technology side of it. We’re looking at the North American market as well, and also the learnings from there as to what we can bring back to the UK world. Um, so I think it’s as simple as saying that we. Literally, uh, my plans and the plans of the, the team that sits across just giving is to help make 2025 even better for the charity partners that we have, um, and that we work with and to, um, to enable the technology that we’ve talked about and be thinking around the corner so that we can, you know, bring that back to the not-for-profit world to help them continue to be as successful as they can be.

[00:26:56] Simon Scriver: I love it. I love it. And, and I, I mean to say thank you again because honestly, the impact just giving has had, you know, it’s peppered throughout my fundraising career. Every client I’ve ever worked with, every charity I’ve ever stepped in, you know, just giving us that, you know, it’s part of it. And the support we’ve got from your team and the support from just giving around our digital learning grant and the support you give to our community in delivering conferences.

[00:27:19] Simon Scriver: It, it really. It really is one of those suppliers where like, I’m proud to really work with them because it’s like, you live your values. Do you know, it’s not just like corporate spiel. It’s like every single person we deal with in your team has just been so wonderful and just so supportive. So honestly, happy, happy birthday and thank you so much.

[00:27:38] Simon Scriver: Thank you for, for everything you 

[00:27:39] Pascale Harvie: tam and thank you for your kind words around the team. You’re only as good as the people around you. Yes, Simon. And, and there is a incredibly fabulous team that’s across just giving, so thank you. And we love working with fundraising everywhere. By the way. We love working with yourself and Nikki and the team, and Cam and everyone doing amazing things.

[00:27:59] Pascale Harvie: So the feeling is mutual. 

[00:28:01] Simon Scriver: That’s great. I appreciate that. I, it’s, it’s so lovely team and we do have such a wonderful team. I mean, it’s not me, I mean, me and you, we just sit around and chat and take our dogs for a walk and stuff like that. It’s just the rest of the team 

[00:28:11] Pascale Harvie: try to keep the dog quiet.

[00:28:13] Pascale Harvie: Apologies again 

[00:28:14] Simon Scriver: for that. It’s No, I, I love it. I, I, I’m so obsessed with these little cute dogs at the moment. I’m, I’m desperate to get a little sausage dog, but, um, we can’t that for a different podcast. We’ll talk about that. Simon, 

[00:28:27] Pascale Harvie: thank 

[00:28:28] Simon Scriver: you so much for your time. Thank you everyone for listening. Again, please do check out, um, the report and everything published by Just Giving, and, and my name has been Simon Scriver.

[00:28:35] Simon Scriver: I am the co-founder of Fundraising Everywhere. Please do reach out to us if we can help with anything. Um, but otherwise, thank you all for listening. I. Great to be here. Great to still be here and have a good day. Take care. 

[00:28:47] 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?

[00:28:55] Alex Aggidis: And if you would like to give us a little like of Scribe, it really helps more fundraisers that 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: I love the, I love the brick work. It always means,

[00:01:01] Amy-Jane Meerman: yeah, it’s, uh, it’s real brick as well. Yeah. Oh,

[00:01:04] Simon Scriver: oh, fancy. You must, you must be very well, it’s very

[00:01:06] Amy-Jane Meerman: fancy. Yeah.

[00:01:08] Simon Scriver: Alright, well let’s kick us off. Hello everyone and welcome to the fundraising of our podcast. Uh, whether you are watching this back, uh, somewhere on social or you’re listening to us on, on, uh, our podcast.

[00:01:19] Simon Scriver: You are very welcome. My name is Simon Scriver. I’m one of the co-founders of Fundraising everywhere. Um, and this month we’ve been talking a lot about face-to-face and we’ve been talking a lot about telephone fundraising. Um, and a while ago I was fortunate enough to see, uh, my guest today speak, uh, at a previous conference, well, at a conference that I was speaking at where we were shouting about, uh, how great telephone fundraising is.

[00:01:40] Simon Scriver: And you don’t often see that. Um, and so we are very, very happy to have our speaker, uh, um, Amy Jane Mimon, who’s coming to speak to us at the conference. That’s happened on April 24th. We have our telephone fundraising conference, which is happening on April 24th. Um, so you can get tickets for that or you can watch it back on demand.

[00:02:00] Simon Scriver: Um, but let me go ahead and welcome our guest. Hello, Amy Jane, how are you?

[00:02:05] Amy-Jane Meerman: Yeah. Thank you so much for having me. I’m fine. Um, busy week, but, uh, that’s how it’s supposed to be. Yeah.

[00:02:12] Simon Scriver: Well, well call centers are never quiet, are they? And then you have to bounce, you have to balance it. So I’m so grateful that you’ve made the time for us.

[00:02:19] Simon Scriver: Um, because you, you are a big telephone person, aren’t you? I mean, what you, you work at the crew, uh, you manage the call center. Could you tell us a little bit about your role and what the crew do?

[00:02:29] Amy-Jane Meerman: Yeah. Um, so I talk, I will talk a little bit. So, uh, we are in Belgium. Uh, I’m Dutch, so, uh, sometimes I have to search a little bit for my words in English, but it will be fine.

[00:02:41] Amy-Jane Meerman: Um, yeah, about me. Um, I. 10 years ago, I, um, I did a, a job interview for being an agent at the crew. Uh, the first week I thought, oh my gosh, this is horrible. I wanna go, I wanna go. I wanna go. Um, uh, because you have to talk to people the whole day. Uh, you go home with, uh, pain in your ears, uh, and, uh, 10 years later I’m still there.

[00:03:07] Amy-Jane Meerman: So, um. It, it already shows my passion, I think. Um,

[00:03:12] Simon Scriver: I’m always curious how people fall into this. Was this, is this a job? ’cause it’s just like, here’s a job, or were you coming from, um, speaking on the phones? Or what were you doing beforehand, before you found

[00:03:22] Amy-Jane Meerman: No, I, I wanted, uh, I want, I was very artsy, so I wanted to do a, uh, and, uh, patronage and, uh, I, I did a lot of things in, uh, in, in, in the sewing.

[00:03:34] Amy-Jane Meerman: Um, so no, it was, it was just. I wanted to work somewhere and this came on my path. And, uh, like I told you, the first week, uh, became 10 years. Yeah. And

[00:03:44] Simon Scriver: this is, this has become your passion instead of creative being Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Really.

[00:03:49] Amy-Jane Meerman: Absolutely. Yeah. I, I have to, uh, to admit as well, if you, if, if I was, when I was little, uh, I wanted to be a superhero.

[00:03:57] Amy-Jane Meerman: Um, and so it was, okay, um, how can I become this superhero? And, uh, as time goes past, uh, and you get older, then uh, it all gets a little bit limited and, uh, you have to, to see what is really possible. Uh, so at the moment when I stepped in, in the call center, um, I already liked working for the NGOs. Um, and yeah, it, it, it’s a real passion because we are.

[00:04:24] Amy-Jane Meerman: We are, uh, doing lots of good on the world. Yeah. And I can do that from my hometown. So,

[00:04:31] Simon Scriver: and, and, and, and you guys have been doing some amazing work and, and I, I love chat. I love chatting to you and hearing you speak about it, but I’m really interested in how, in, in this kind of management style, ’cause there’s such an interesting thing when people start working in telephone fundraising or, or face-to-face fundraising, that those kind of what are viewed as like almost junior positions of fundraising.

[00:04:52] Simon Scriver: So many people kind of fall into it and, and so many people come out of it again, you know, you do, I mean, I’m not speaking for your call center, but call centers. I’ve worked with, there’s quite a lot of churn in that staff. Um, and you said yourself in that that first week can be hell. I’m, I’m really, I’m really curious.

[00:05:11] Simon Scriver: What kept you going? Then I’d really love to understand like how you bring that into your management now. Like how you get, get your new telephone people to not hate it in that first week and, and push through it. What’s, tell, tell. Start by, start by telling me about you. What, what, why did you stay beyond that first week?

[00:05:30] Amy-Jane Meerman: Um, well it’s, it’s like, um. Life, live and, uh, I cannot tell your romantic story. Uh, I was alone, uh, at, uh, at a young age, uh, here in Belgium, married at a young age, and, uh, yeah, then was looking for, for a job. And, uh, and I. This was what I found and actually, uh, going to school and I always was not fitting, uh, I was not fitting in the school system.

[00:05:58] Amy-Jane Meerman: I was never fitting anywhere. Uh, and so I was very happy to, to be able to, to get a job like this. Uh, to be honest, I, I. I didn’t know if I could do it, if I was worried enough. And, um, all, all sorts of things that I have outgrown at this moment, but, uh, was very, very, uh, visible and very, uh, present at this, at that time.

[00:06:18] Amy-Jane Meerman: So it was not a romantic story of, oh, and then I saw the light and I saw how good the work was of NGOs. No, um, it was not that romantic. Um, but, uh, and. If, uh, if I bring my feeling at that first week, uh, back to, to this conversation, um, I see a lot of young people stepping in the call center, um, not knowing what they want to do, uh, dropped out of school, young moms and, uh, people with a lot of potential.

[00:06:49] Amy-Jane Meerman: So I, I want to. Really, uh, highlight that they have a lot of potential, uh, step in with very low self-esteem. Um, so yeah, it’s, it’s a little bit of an honor knowing that I came from that situation in now, being able to give chances to people that, uh, start the same way as I did.

[00:07:09] Simon Scriver: That is a beautiful story, like a true telephone fundraiser.

[00:07:12] Simon Scriver: You’ve, you’ve turned it into a, into a really beautiful, because it’s true. I mean, I, I did my days as a, as a cold caller outside of the sector and I’ve worked, you know, and managed telephone fundraising and it, there is a confidence that I found through it, and I have seen what you are talking about where people kind of discover their voice.

[00:07:33] Simon Scriver: A little bit or learn to learn to talk, I think. Yeah. And, and, and there is something about that, that apply that you then bring into every other part of your life. And more and more we’re seeing people who started as telephone fundraising move into heads of fundraising positions or even, even, you know, CEOs and things like that.

[00:07:50] Simon Scriver: Like it is a career path Now, do you, mm-hmm. Where do you see your team and your staff? Is it, do you see them moving into higher fundraising roles? What are the opportunities that you see with, with the people that you work with in that situation?

[00:08:05] Amy-Jane Meerman: I. Well, that’s why I’m really happy you invited me to talk, uh, because they are only going in those higher, or have building up their career into fundraising if we treat them well at the beginning.

[00:08:17] Amy-Jane Meerman: Um, I think that’s, uh, that’s a, a very important thing to save. If you put targets on their head and they have to call, call, call, call, call, uh, the, the whole 40 hours that they’re there, uh, they’re not gonna love their job. They’re not gonna love the fundraising. They’re not going to be. Committ it, uh, to, to NGOs and what they’re doing.

[00:08:37] Amy-Jane Meerman: They’re going, they’re going to be your biggest critics because you didn’t treat them well. So, um, I, I think that’s the most important thing for all NGOs doing tailor marketing, if it’s in-house or um, or outhouse. Um, be realistic. You’re not only, um, you’re not only trapping yourself by losing donors, precious donors, but you’re losing high potential in who’s going to be the next fundraiser.

[00:09:06] Simon Scriver: Mm-hmm. Do, do you find like your clients and the NGOs that you work with, do. Is there a pressure sometimes, you know, that kind of, that causes Absolutely. Causes this channel. Like, why, why is this? Yeah. Absolutely not always happening. Yeah.

[00:09:19] Amy-Jane Meerman: I, I absolutely, and, and, um, let me say, they are all so, um, so, uh, so loving of what they do and they want to change the world like I do.

[00:09:29] Amy-Jane Meerman: And, um, but they come in and they say, oh, I had a, I had a board meeting and they told me that the fundraising department has have to fix this. Problem. So they already step in with high expectations and Okay, they are going to fix our problem. No, we’re not. Mm-hmm. Yeah. No, we’re not. Uh, we’re going to help you.

[00:09:48] Amy-Jane Meerman: But fundraising takes time.

[00:09:51] Simon Scriver: It’s, it’s that, I mean, you talk so much about it. When I saw you speak that kind of learning and development and investing in our staff and team, what are, what are some of the ways that you, at the crew. I guess, I mean, I, I’d love to talk about the new people especially. Do you know, but, but everyone as a whole, like what, what are, what are the common things that you might do or, or how do you, how do you.

[00:10:12] Simon Scriver: How do you decide where your focus is when you’re trying to keep these people engaged and keep them working for you?

[00:10:18] Amy-Jane Meerman: Um, so again, uh, not a romantic story, uh, that I have to tell, but, um, I became, um, manager four years ago. So as I told, I started as an agent, uh, them team coach. Uh, I, I was project leader and um, my formal manager got sick.

[00:10:37] Amy-Jane Meerman: Uh, and it was, it was supposed to be like a tree. Uh, interim, uh, interim, uh, job for me. Uh, it was full vacation. I said, okay, why not? I’m gonna do it. Four years later, I’m still there. But yeah. Uh, again, nice story.

[00:10:56] Simon Scriver: I hope you, I hope they’re not still sick, are they? I hope, I hope it’s No, no, no, no. She’s,

[00:10:59] Amy-Jane Meerman: uh, she’s very well and still working, uh, within the company now, um, with another role she really loves.

[00:11:05] Amy-Jane Meerman: So, uh, that’s, that’s all, uh, sorted out. Um, but. You know, um, we came out of, of difficult times. Corona was not an, an easy time, face-to-face stopped, uh, which means, meant that, uh, we didn’t get a lot of contacts to call. Yeah. Um, so also before that, um, t fundraising was not at all as professional as it’s.

[00:11:28] Amy-Jane Meerman: Should be right now. Uh, I think there’s a big evolution in KPI controlling, uh, measuring and all stuff that did that wasn’t there 10 years ago. Um, in, in my view, um, so. I had to build everything from, from scratch. So having a, a whole team, uh, team coaches, um, making sure that onboarding for agents was, was well, well arranged, um, because indeed it is, uh, uh, it’s busy, it’s call center.

[00:11:59] Amy-Jane Meerman: Come in, sit on your chair and start calling because, uh, every minute has to be profitable. Um. We had to change that. We had to change to, okay. Take a step back. What do you need if you come in a call center? Um, I think the most important thing in my team is that they are part of everything. So it doesn’t work without the, the, the callers.

[00:12:25] Amy-Jane Meerman: Um, that’s, that’s the biggest part. If, if they’re not there, then what am I doing? Uh, so if they come in, um, we show them everything about. Us, uh, our way of working, um, making sure that they know, uh, everyone in the company that what is my role? What is the role of the DA data? Where can they go in in the first week if they have questions?

[00:12:48] Amy-Jane Meerman: Um, what is the system for, uh, asking, uh, asking, uh, uh, a day off, for example? We are very flexible because I think, uh, it’s needed. Um. Explaining all, uh, all, all the organizations that we work for. Um, and, uh, little by little explaining them, um, how it all works. Um, when I was an agent, I didn’t know how it worked.

[00:13:17] Amy-Jane Meerman: Mm. Uh, I didn’t know what return on investment was and, um, how important, um, it was to, to have conversion and, and calls per hour and, um, and everything that’s behind there. Um, uh, I. Didn’t always feel I was listened to. Um, and not by fault of anyone, but, uh, it’s difficult if you have a lot of people that you have to listen to, to, to really listen.

[00:13:43] Amy-Jane Meerman: Mm. Um. So I think them, uh, being involved in everything we do really makes it a part of, okay, we are a team and we’re doing this together and we’re getting results together. Um, so also micromanagement. That’s not how we do it. Uh, um, and if I talk about how we work. A lot of our projects or clients or new clients, yeah.

[00:14:09] Amy-Jane Meerman: But it’s not a social, uh, we have to have, uh, results. Yes, of course. I’m well aware. Uh, and it’s all possible even if you do it on a, on, on a human, uh, way. So it’s all, yeah, it’s all possible.

[00:14:24] Simon Scriver: I mean, it’s because it’s, it’s a similar conversation that that kind of, we were having when in, in my call center days, and, and I’ve seen lots of clients have, and it’s, it’s really, it’s really strange that.

[00:14:36] Simon Scriver: People don’t see, you know, that we, I, I mean, I include myself in it, that sometimes we overlook that investment in people and time into their training and making them, like you say, understand what’s going on around them. And, and we’ve kind of found ourselves in this, in this strange catch 22 situation where we.

[00:14:56] Simon Scriver: We, we feel like we can’t afford to put time into them, and then we wonder why they keep leaving and keep moving on, but then we don’t change anything. So what, what do you think is the, the future? Like how do you change it? I mean, you can control it and change it in your, your place, but what about the callers or what about the heads of fundraising who are getting it from their board and you know, all this pressure?

[00:15:18] Simon Scriver: How do we on a practical level, start to get people to take this training, this learning and development? How do we get ’em to take it seriously? I.

[00:15:27] Amy-Jane Meerman: Yeah, it’s, it’s, um, I, I just want to add as well that we are a call center of all kinds of people. Uh, we are very inclusive, and so everyone, uh, is welcome. And, uh, we really look at, at, uh, at what they can do rather than how they look or what their disability is, or, uh, um, so I think that’s a very, very important thing to say, um, because we have a team.

[00:15:50] Amy-Jane Meerman: If, if you accept everyone. Then it becomes a team that’s warm. Um, so I, I always look for, for people that, um, that yeah, that really are, um, that really are, uh, loving, uh, and, and warm and want to work for NGOs. I think that is already the start. So if you. Engage. Uh, if you have, uh, someone coming by that wants to work at our call center, we really already look at does this person fit in our team?

[00:16:22] Amy-Jane Meerman: Um, and yeah, you know, I don’t want car sellers. Uh, they, they can do leads very well and I’m aware, uh, well aware. Uh, and that’s all a hype now. Yeah. Leads, were gonna do a campaign on new donors and yes, we won it all. I get it. Yeah. Um, but no, uh, that’s not how it works. So. To to, to make it start by just being very realistic in who is in your team as well.

[00:16:49] Amy-Jane Meerman: So that’s the fir that’s really the first step. That’s our responsibility to have a team that, that works well together, that’s in there for the good reasons. Um, and. For, for the organizations. Yeah. You have to be realistic. You cannot get it all. Um, uh, um, I understand that you want, uh, 10 calls at 10, uh, uh, negative, positive calls per hour.

[00:17:14] Amy-Jane Meerman: I get it. Uh, I know that you want the highest conversion rates, and I want, I know that’s, uh, I know that you want return on investment as soon as possible. I, I get it. Um, and, but it’s. It can all be done if you do it very humanely. Um, I, I think sometimes if you look at organizations, they are very harsh for, um, the, the suppliers.

[00:17:39] Amy-Jane Meerman: Um, uh, if you look at the agents, they have to be, uh, ongoing every minute of their weekly, uh, weekly planning. Uh, so, um, and if I ask, okay, but the, the 38 hours, if you do 38 hours. Aren’t you getting a coffee? Do, don’t you do a talk with your colleagues? Don’t you do? Yeah. Can you pee? I think. I think you can.

[00:18:02] Amy-Jane Meerman: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, if we don’t treat them as robots and real human Yeah. Uh, then, then, uh, that’s a big, uh, problem solved. Then you have to invest time. Yeah. The, the thing that is, uh, that. That happens sometimes is that, uh, you have a, uh, you have your project and the projects, uh, manager of the NGO, um, and they have a lot of trust in us.

[00:18:26] Amy-Jane Meerman: Mm-hmm. Sometimes it’s a lot of trust, sometimes it’s a lack of trust, but, uh, it’s, it comes down the same thing. Um. They, they think, okay, hey, they have it under control. Uh, I, I, I, I leave it for what it is and I will see the results when, when it’s done. Um, and that’s such a shame because, uh, you have this, uh, really motivated team that wants to, that wants to call for your, for your NGO and wants to get, uh, good results and, um.

[00:18:54] Amy-Jane Meerman: Then engage with them. Come here to, to explain them. What do you do? Give them your passion, uh, and uh, come back to listen to conversation. Have, have good feedback, uh, moments, uh, after that. So I think it’s a partnership that is really important

[00:19:09] Simon Scriver: on, on so many levels there. ’cause you, you mentioned like a kind, a few stages in the chain and I feel like we are losing some of that.

[00:19:16] Simon Scriver: Um, team. Feeling a along the way. So sometimes it’s with like the, the agency managers and their staff, you know, not treating them, but sometimes it’s the NGOs themselves and how they view their suppliers is kind of over there. And then I, I would, I would argue it’s the same with like fundraising departments in an ngo O sometimes the rest on the board and the ceo, they, they view fundraising as something over there.

[00:19:40] Simon Scriver: Yeah. And so, well, I mean, we joked at, at at that, at a conference we both spoke at. We were talking about how. Telephone fundraisers are almost the bottom of the ladder sometimes in terms of how they’re viewed and, but really when you’re talking about results, I mean telephone is performing, isn’t it? I mean it is delivering sometimes way better ROI than some of the accepted channels.

[00:20:01] Amy-Jane Meerman: Exactly. Yeah. I find that

[00:20:03] Simon Scriver: really interesting.

[00:20:04] Amy-Jane Meerman: Yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s, uh, is such a good way to, to keep in touch with your donors. Um, also, and I think, uh, if you talk about all the KPI, uh, stuff, um, we forget about retention. Mm-hmm. Um, and, you know, uh, benchmarking with other call centers and I’ve heard it all.

[00:20:24] Amy-Jane Meerman: It’s okay. You can benchmark, uh, um, no problem for me. Uh, but you know, if, if you really want to benchmark, you have to wait six months and to see. Who of the donors is still there. Um, for example, you have all those methods of how to negotiate and no, and to get it into a yes. And, um, that’s, that’s great. But I called for some years, uh, and I’m so grateful that I had this experience.

[00:20:51] Amy-Jane Meerman: Um, and this is also what I tell every moment. I can pick up the phone and do some calls. Did you write a script? Then call someone and do your script. And I can assure you that half of your script goes away. Um, but do it yourself. Try to, to see what is possible. Oh, we don’t want calls longer than five minutes.

[00:21:11] Amy-Jane Meerman: Okay? Try to call yourself and then you see that what is really possible, um, that is so important, and okay, if it’s, if it is longer than five minutes, uh, if it’s a great conversations and, and, and the donor is very happy with your cause and, and keeps on giving and maybe. Takes you up in their, in, in their, in their lack.

[00:21:31] Amy-Jane Meerman: Um, then it was all worded. Yeah. Yeah. We, we, we also forget. So, uh, yes. Agents, but we also forget that donors are people.

[00:21:40] Simon Scriver: Yeah. You know, and they really open up, they really open up on these calls, don’t they? They get into conversations

[00:21:48] Amy-Jane Meerman: if you do it well. Um, but if I have to, uh, if I have to like do this for all, uh, the demands of, of projects, and again, I get it.

[00:21:58] Amy-Jane Meerman: Everyone is on the pressure and I get it. Um, but I really have to look at, okay, this, I won’t tell the agents and that I will tell the agents because that is relevant. And the other thing, yeah, that’s not under their, their control. Very, very important that I do that because sometimes mm-hmm. Yeah. Uh, you, you should not break their mojo.

[00:22:18] Amy-Jane Meerman: Yeah, yeah. Uh, keep them going like they want to. Uh, like they, they’re going on well. Um, but yeah, it’s, it’s so important that we don’t, we don’t go into very commercial. Um, we want results. Uh, donors absolutely sense it and with good reason. Uh, um, you have to have the, the good. Good talks to, to have, uh, donor value for a long, long time.

[00:22:45] Amy-Jane Meerman: Um, where I wanted to go to as well. Uh, when I talk about retention, we often don’t get back retention. So we have a return on investment and looks very good and, um, but the retention is so important. Yeah. Uh, to see how the quality of the causes, how your strategy. Is going, uh, um, we sometimes we had, um, um, projects that say, okay, double the amount.

[00:23:11] Amy-Jane Meerman: Uh, so if you do the call for upgrade, then double the amount and first results looked fantastic. Okay? Lots of people doubled it. And, um, but if you looked at, at, uh. There was also a project that sent it emails to, uh, the donors that said no. Mm-hmm. Um, and uh, out of that came a lot of people that were not really happy with that question.

[00:23:33] Amy-Jane Meerman: Mm-hmm. Um, so what happens? Retention goes very bad and then your donor value goes down, but if you don’t look at it

[00:23:39] Simon & Amy-Jane: Yeah.

[00:23:40] Amy-Jane Meerman: Then you think you have done a good job. Yeah. Uh, and, and that’s so important too, if you want to qualitative. Good fundraising. Yeah. Uh, tailor fundraising, then it’s so important to, to, I think retention is one of the most important KPIs.

[00:23:55] Amy-Jane Meerman: And then you have complaints or is, is one of the most important KPIs. Yeah. Um, and, um, and yeah, we have to, to kick take. More care of that.

[00:24:05] Simon Scriver: Yeah. But I, I think the retention point is so important about, because it is so often that that agencies and, and callers themselves never get any feedback about what happens after that call, really.

[00:24:17] Simon Scriver: And so how can we expect to adapt and improve if that’s not happening? So I love the way that you’re leading on this. And I love, I just wanna say, I love what you’re saying about pick up the phone and try it, and then you’ll understand it because I think like,

[00:24:31] Simon & Amy-Jane: yeah.

[00:24:31] Simon Scriver: We have such a fear in the sector. You know, people who work in all levels of fundraising have such a fear of picking up the phone sometimes.

[00:24:36] Simon Scriver: But actually when you do it most of the time, the vast majority of the time, it’s a really positive experience, isn’t it? Yeah. And it’s just like, so, so I love that advice. That’s, that’s gonna be my send off for people is my thing to do. So I want you to tell me, Amy Jane. Before, and then we’ll quickly talk about your session.

[00:24:53] Simon Scriver: If someone’s picking up the phone, now imagine someone watching this or listening to this is picking up their phone. How do you get them fired up? What is your, what is your message to them, uh, as they switch off this podcast and pick up the phone for the first time?

[00:25:07] Amy-Jane Meerman: Yeah. Uh, so yes, I want them to call. Uh, so I’m, I’m going to think of something really good.

[00:25:13] Amy-Jane Meerman: Um, I, um, I’ve put you, I, yeah, I really, really cherish. I had some great stories and some great conversations that I would never forget in my life. Um, some, yeah, it’s, it’s special. It’s very special if you connect with someone. Um, and, um, what is my advice? So. Especially if you never called and you’re scared and, okay.

[00:25:40] Amy-Jane Meerman: I will tell you a story about, uh, about someone that came in our call center. I use it a lot for the new agents. Um, so there was a, an Indian guy. It’s, it’s to make the image a little bit, uh, visible. Uh, and at that time he could still, uh, look at every website and, uh, he was looking for cars under, under while calling.

[00:26:02] Amy-Jane Meerman: Um, and um, he said like, this. So Really he said, and he talked about, yeah, madam. You know, how many trees are going, do you know how many trees are lost each year? Um, and I thought it was so funny. Uh, it, it was, it was, there was no, uh, cells, uh, there were, the energy was so, so relaxed.

[00:26:29] Simon & Amy-Jane: Yeah.

[00:26:29] Amy-Jane Meerman: Um, and at the end of the day, he had, he had like top scores that I couldn’t, I couldn’t wrap my mind around it.

[00:26:36] Amy-Jane Meerman: Yeah. Yeah. As I was sitting next to, uh, next to the lovely guy, uh, and for a week and every day had he had like results that I couldn’t top. And yeah, I, the secret was he was calm. Mm. He didn’t say a lot. He just said what mattered because tree mattered and trees, uh, and people had, okay. Yes. Right. Yeah, they need more money for that.

[00:27:04] Amy-Jane Meerman: I understand. And so you don’t have to, to go into a whole scripting period and, and putting a lot of hours in preparations and no, just, just have a real conversation. Uh, have a real conversation like you, like you would with, uh, a close friend or not close friend. Um, look for me if I’m, uh, next. To someone on the streets, uh, I would begin talking.

[00:27:30] Amy-Jane Meerman: Uh, not everyone has that, uh, gift or curse. Um, so I understand if it’s, it’s scary to do, but just pick up the phone and if you don’t know the answer, you can say that. Mm-hmm. Oh, I don’t know. I come back to you on that, on this because it’s a very interesting questions. Or, or this is my first time calling, so if it’s not really, uh, uh.

[00:27:51] Amy-Jane Meerman: Ex, excuse me, I’m trying my best, um, be as humanly as possible. Uh, it’s okay. This is, this is a, um, this is a sector that you can be, that you’re forgiving, uh, forgiven for making, uh, here and there some, some mistakes and just do it.

[00:28:10] Simon Scriver: Mm. I love that. I lo I think that’s great, but, and humans are so forgiving and humans do love to talk.

[00:28:16] Simon Scriver: I mean, not always authentic, not everyone, but, but shockingly amount, like we fall into these conversations all the time.

[00:28:23] Amy-Jane Meerman: Be authentic. Be yourself and, and you. You can be yourself, um, if, if in every, any, in any sector, this is a sector to be yourself. Uh, so go for it. Yeah.

[00:28:34] Simon Scriver: You remind me. I, I’ll, I’ll just tell this story and then, because no one wants to hear from me, but you remind me.

[00:28:39] Simon Scriver: When I worked in a call center, non NGO years ago, and there was a guy and we were selling on the phone, and he, you know. Some people are so desperate to sell. And when I was new you, you’re so desperate. And this guy who was just such a good salesman and he was so relaxed. And I remember one time he, he, someone wanted to buy from him and he put them on hold and he went to the vending machine and he got a drink and he came back and he opened his drink and then took them off hold.

[00:29:04] Simon Scriver: And he was just like, there was none of that desperation. It was just exactly casual and it just reminded me of your.

[00:29:10] Amy-Jane Meerman: Yeah. Yeah. But that’s really the secret. So if I see people, especially if you get a lot of nos, and so, um, just just be honest. If you call people that, uh, don’t have a structural donation, uh, then maybe out of the hundred 10 will say yes.

[00:29:26] Amy-Jane Meerman: Um, so out of the 10, one will say yes. Uh, and so you will hear a lot of nos and it’s okay. A no is good as well. So that’s something that I learned in, in this call center as well. And no is very valuable as well. Uh, uh, have that No, it’s okay. Um, and um, if you look at it that way, then I. Then it’s, it’s, it goes on its own.

[00:29:47] Amy-Jane Meerman: You don’t have to pressure so much. You don’t have to push, uh, so much. And if you have a good, uh, uh, if you have a realistic and, and, and, uh, and good, I wanted to say story. It’s not a story if you have, yeah. You call for an NGO and they really have, uh, something that they need the fund for. People will understand.

[00:30:05] Amy-Jane Meerman: You don’t have to push. Um, again, about the retention, just going back a little bit, um. If it goes about, uh, people that say, I don’t have a budget. And I think this is a very important one. That’s why I, I want to put it in. Um, I don’t have a budget. There are whole methods to go around to this. No. Turning it into a Yes.

[00:30:28] Amy-Jane Meerman: And, um, they are very proud of, uh, also the agent. Oh ha. I, I, yeah. She said yes at the end. Um. We have to, we really have to, uh, look better at ethical how we, how we work. Ethical. You know, I called for a long time and, um, and if you have been poor yourself, my mother, uh, was, uh, was alone with, uh, with us children.

[00:30:51] Amy-Jane Meerman: She was poor. She’s very, very giving. Um, and um, when I was calling a lot of people. Are poor themselves. Mm-hmm. So if you know people that wanna help other people are often people that know how it feels to, to need help. Mm-hmm. Um, so we commercialize it in the sense of yeah. But if they say no, you just have to go around it.

[00:31:13] Amy-Jane Meerman: You have to say that. Yes, I understand it. And, and, uh, um, yes, absolutely. I agree that you have to do some efforts to, to motivate someone to give. So I don’t say no, don’t do it, but there is a line. There is an ethical line that you should not pass. Mm-hmm. Uh, if someone is talking about hardship and you’re still trying to push to get that result in, um, it’s, it’s not kind of ethical.

[00:31:39] Amy-Jane Meerman: And, um, I, I just want to, to return on the retention. If you do it and you’re very proud of yourself because I have done it, um, we see and analyzes that that person doesn’t stay a long time. Mm-hmm. Yes, you have upgraded for five euros, for example. Mm-hmm. Um, but if they only stay three months after that, then you better should have left that person.

[00:32:03] Amy-Jane Meerman: Be the gift that he already had and was comfortable with. Maybe he would have supported another 10 years. But, so I, I think the whole idea of, of, um, of tele fundraising, having to get these results. Continuity. It, it always has to be better and better and better. Mm-hmm. That, that is not okay. Um, I, I think sometimes we lose a little bit of what fundraising and people that are giving for NGOs, what that really means because we’re so under pressure.

[00:32:37] Amy-Jane Meerman: Um, and yeah, that’s important.

[00:32:39] Simon Scriver: Yeah. And I thi I think, you know, you said earlier about, about good telephone calls, and I think there is, you know, there’s, there’s this, sometimes there’s this split between either telephone’s great. And you just do as much as possible and sell, sell out, and also telephone’s terrible.

[00:32:55] Simon Scriver: Don’t touch it, don’t do anything. But you, you know, you and your team seem to have found this lovely space and, and you can feel it off you, the empathy mm-hmm. And the warmth. I can imagine that coming through in the calls and Yeah, and then it isn’t a sales call, it’s, it’s presenting this opportunity and if it’s not the right time for them, then that that’s okay.

[00:33:11] Simon Scriver: So I love what, yeah. I love what you, you

[00:33:14] Amy-Jane Meerman: know, the empathy and the warmth comes true and it scares. Uh, it scar projects because okay, she’s soft. Uh, and if I do pitches, um, for, for great NGOs where I really want to work with, um, there, there is a real reluctancy to, uh, to. Not to understand me, but to, to believe me, uh, to, to know that you can have good results by doing it a little bit softer.

[00:33:46] Amy-Jane Meerman: Yeah. Um, and, and that’s sometimes a point that I have difficulty with. Like, uh, yeah. But I care about results of course.

[00:33:54] Simon & Amy-Jane: Yeah.

[00:33:55] Amy-Jane Meerman: Um, so yeah, that’s a little bit of, of the challenge, uh, that we have in the fundraising, uh, community, I think. Yeah. Um, and yeah, my. What I really, really, really would love, and that’s why I am saying it right now as well, um, to have a universal, uh, way of looking at KPIs.

[00:34:17] Amy-Jane Meerman: Um, we have a very, um, we have a very broad, uh, result file with KPIs to exactly see if there’s a problem in the call list or there’s a problem with the agents or there’s another problem. Um, so I, I, I would so much love. To have a universal, uh, result file that we can all use and, and some of a method that we can all use.

[00:34:41] Amy-Jane Meerman: I think if there was. If there was a time to start doing that, it, it’s, it, we are there, we’re there, um, uh, to, to, to do the ethical fundraising and, uh, to care about all people in the sector. Um, it’s, it’s now the time to do so for organizations to share with other organizations what works and what doesn’t work for call centers to share their information.

[00:35:05] Amy-Jane Meerman: Um, I think it’s, uh, I, I, I know it’s. Difficult topic, but it’s time to do so. We are under pressure. We have to, we have to work together. Um, so that’s, that’s my message, uh, as well.

[00:35:19] Simon Scriver: I love it. And I think you’re leading by example and I’m so happy that you made the time to speak with us and you’ve been, you know, when I’ve seen you speak, you’ve been so open and, and so generous in what you share.

[00:35:29] Simon Scriver: So I’m really, really grateful for that. Amy Jane, and you are going to be speaking at the Fundraising Everywhere telephone fundraising conference, uh, on the 24th of April. Anyone who’s listening that wants to see, uh, uh, hear more from Amy Jane, uh, and see all of our other great speakers that is on the 24th of April, and tickets are available.

[00:35:46] Simon Scriver: You can check the description. Amy Janey, what are you speaking out about? About the conference.

[00:35:51] Amy-Jane Meerman: Yeah. Uh, so firstly, I just want to say thank you so much for how you organize all of this. You have put a lot of, of work in the before, um, the sessions and, and I think that’s so special. Um, so I just want to thank you for, for the guidance, uh, that you give the speakers.

[00:36:09] Amy-Jane Meerman: I, I, I really want to say that as well. Um, what am I speaking, uh, about? So it, it comes back on the same, I’m a people person. I want. Talk about how, how much I love people and how interesting it is to, to connect with people. Uh, but not only this, I think, um, I I wanted to variate a little bit about, uh, about the topic than I already did, uh, in, in session that we were in together.

[00:36:35] Amy-Jane Meerman: Um, but um, yeah, the, the pitfalls and, uh, and. The, the opposite. So the, the wins that you can get out of working with tech. Um, so AI is a very big topic, you know, it’s great and I love it. It’s my best friend, Che Chit. I love Che Chit. Uh, if I, if I work through the, the, the night and, uh, and up till, uh, one or two o’clock, yeah, let’s hip focus, um, then, uh, then that’s my best friend.

[00:37:06] Amy-Jane Meerman: And, and, you know, uh, you get a polite answer back and it’s great and you want it to, to have ideas for scripting or what to talk about in podcast with Simon, then, then it’s just easy. You ask it, you get it back and um, great. But I have seen so many things go around and, uh, many promises made and, uh, and yeah.

[00:37:28] Amy-Jane Meerman: Of course you have wins, big wins, and you have pitfalls. And, um, I think if you are under pressure, then it’s a very, very difficult path. Uh, and, and you don’t know what to choose. So, um, I’m very passionate to talk about that as well because I’ve seen so much in the last four years.

[00:37:45] Simon Scriver: Yeah. Is a, is AI gonna take a, well, no spoilers, you can tell us.

[00:37:49] Simon Scriver: Yeah, it’s

[00:37:49] Amy-Jane Meerman: a spoiler

[00:37:50] Simon Scriver: take over. Telephone fundraising, I feel like. Yeah,

[00:37:52] Amy-Jane Meerman: yeah, yeah. Then you really have to, to visit the session. Uh, yeah, yeah,

[00:37:55] Simon Scriver: yeah. But Amy Jane has, has the answer, so I’m really, I’m so happy that you’re gonna be presenting and thank you so much,

[00:38:02] Amy-Jane Meerman: Amy

[00:38:02] Simon Scriver: Jyn. For anyone listening or watching, where’s the best place to find you?

[00:38:05] Simon Scriver: Do you hang out on social media or LinkedIn, or how do people get in touch with you? Yeah, yeah,

[00:38:09] Amy-Jane Meerman: yeah. LinkedIn, uh, for now it’s LinkedIn. Um, so there you can find me, uh, our website, of course, uh, the crew, Belgium. Uh, and yeah, thank you so much for asking that as well. Uh, you are all welcome to connect, um, because I have a lot of things to tell.

[00:38:26] Simon Scriver: Brilliant. Well, I’m, I’m so glad I’m here to listen to it. So, yeah.

[00:38:29] Amy-Jane Meerman: Thank

[00:38:30] Simon Scriver: you very much, Amy. Jane. Can,

[00:38:32] Amy-Jane Meerman: can I just share one last thing before you end? Um, okay. So the last thing I want to share with the world, uh, is, uh, what I tell all the agents the first day that they begin. This is the place where you are going to discover that there are more good people than bad.

[00:38:49] Amy-Jane Meerman: Uh, and, and that’s how I want to end this, uh, this session.

[00:38:54] Simon Scriver: I love that, Amy Jane and everyone, it’s such a delight. So, great. Thank you very much. And to all of you listeners, I wanna say thank you so much again for tuning in. Uh, whether you’re watching this, uh, listeners to this on the podcast, watching it back somewhere on LinkedIn, um, or maybe you’re watching it, uh, after the conference even, don’t forget the telephone fundraising conferences happening on the 24th of April, and the link for that is in the description.

[00:39:17] Simon Scriver: My name has been and is Simon Scriber. I am one of the co-founders of Fundraising Everwhere. This has been the Fundraising Everywhere podcast. Thank you everyone, and have a good day.

[00:35:26] 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.

[00:35:39] 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: It is I, a few people have said to me in the past, I like to say this, but that cringe is good, especially in fundraising. Like when things are a bit cheesy, when things are a bit cringey, it seems to make people, I dunno, a bit more open to things or a bit more, I dunno, what do you think? Do you like cringe?

[00:01:10] Alin Dinu: I, I don’t like, and I, I don’t like it. And I think it’s particularly uncomfortable, but it, in a way, it’s a process of growth if framed in the right way. So I’m just, it’s in a way, a little bit like going to the gym. I don’t like necessarily going to the gym, but it feels good afterwards.

[00:01:34] Simon Scriver: That’s good. I like that On, on that note.

[00:01:37] Simon Scriver: Let’s start officially, let’s kick off the Fundraising Everywhere podcast. Hello everyone. You’re all very welcome. Uh, my name is Simon Scriver. I am one of the co-founders of Fundraising Everywhere. Um, and I’m speaking to you today. Perhaps you’re watching Live on LinkedIn. If you’re watching Live on LinkedIn, then do feel free to put in a comment, say hello, throw in your questions, throw, throw in your own thoughts as we get this going.

[00:01:57] Simon Scriver: Um, or perhaps you’re listening back on the Fundraising Everywhere podcast. And if you’re listening back to Fundraising Everywhere podcast, then you’re very welcome. Thank you for joining us. Make sure you do subscribe. And do check out everything that’s going on@fundraisingeverywhere.com. Uh, we are coming into the big month of really face-to-face and telephone fundraising.

[00:02:14] Simon Scriver: We seem to be all about face-to-face and telephone fundraising in April. Um, and in particular, we have our face-to-face fundraising conference, which is happening virtually on the 23rd of April. If you haven’t got your tickets for that, you should find a link around here somewhere in the description or go to fundraising everywhere.com.

[00:02:29] Simon Scriver: But we’ll be talking about All Face. Things face-to-face. And then myself and Nikki, we will be heading over to the amazing face-to-face fundraise, international Fundraising Congress, uh, which is happening in Vienna, where I am looking forward to meeting my guest. Face-to-face. Face-to-face at the face-to-face.

[00:02:45] Simon Scriver: Uh, ladies and gentlemen, my guest today is Alan Denu, uh, who, I mean, you are a face-to-face, so you’re all passionate about face-to-face. But Alin, you’re very welcome. Who are you?

[00:02:50] Alin Dinu Hey Simon. Thank you
very much. So my name’s Alan Dinu. Uh, I wake up in the morning in order to inspire people to communicate better so we can feel the world, so we can, uh, build the world filled with nourishing relationship.
The relationships I’ve been into face-to-face since 2016. I started to save the children. It was kind of a little bit of synchronicity. Uh, we found each other on the streets. I, or I was organizing some, uh, events, uh, back then motivational events with this charity that I started, and we kind of fell in love with one another.
They liked my services. Then they found, they found it useful. They invited me to work and that’s where it all started. I just, I just wanna say that, uh, I, uh, I’m gonna buy three tickets for your Congress on the, for your conference on the 23rd of April. And I’m looking forward to meeting you, Nikki, Danny, and, uh, sbe and yeah.

[00:03:51] Simon Scriver: Yeah, I made it. That’s great. Social proof for anyone watching. If, if, if Alan’s buying a ticket, then you surely must buy a ticket. So you got into face to face. You were recruited on the street, like that’s how you. Kind of discovered this career that is face-to-face fundraising is, is from a face-to-face person themselves.
Uh, in a way I was, uh, shifting careers from sales and I was working in like life insurance, life insurances, and I was selling industry products like electrodes, welding wires, stuff like that. And I wasn’t really satisfied because something was missing. And what was missing was exactly the part of, Hey, where’s the contribution part?
I wanna do my part. I wanna, you know, we make the world a better place. Anyway. And one thing, one thing led to another, I started the charity called Anything Is Possible in Romania. It’s called Totally Possible. So anything is possible where we’re supporting. Um. Like, uh, sports people who didn’t have material means, but they were really talented and we were, we were organizing these events where we would, they were all based on mindset.
So, uh, I was searching for charities where I could just offer services, like these mindset services, motivational trainings, and so on. And one day as I was walking down the street, I met the Save the Children fundraise face-to-face team. I just stopped and I said hi, and they invited me to speak with their coordinator, which was this girl back then called Carmen.
Then I invited them to one of my events, and then they just said, Hey, like maybe you want to start working a little bit with our face-to-face team. And I said yes. I, I, I had just learned social dynamics, like it was fresh in my head and like in my bones in a way. And all that I learned from social dynamics was practically almost what face-to-face fundraisers were doing on the streets.
Mm. So we were a perfect match. When I came on board in 2016, there were, I think five people there, four team leaders and one fundraiser. They were having challenges of, uh, recruiting people, but holding them. And one year later when I left, there were, there were about 50 people in the, like nationwide. Wow.
And the team had Korea. Amazingly, in this process, I really fell in love. I mean, I discovered not only that, uh, it’s uh, an industry that I like, but also something that I’m good at. And because it practically makes the world a better place, it’s kind of, I mean, not kind of, it’s my iki guy.

[00:06:20] Simon Scriver: I, I mean, so your role, role now, I mean, what you’ve grown into essentially is you are a co a co.

[00:06:26] Simon Scriver: I mean, you seem to be, have, there’s a number of words that describe what you do, but coaching is a pretty good sense. You are coaching face-to-face fundraisers under your company now, uh, DDO, uh, DDO. And you, you guys basically train up and help people get that mindset, get into a space where they become better face-to-face fundraisers.

[00:06:44] Simon Scriver: Is that what you’re doing? Definitely,
and we’re not only working with fundraisers, but we’re working with leaders and managers as well. Mm-hmm. Uh, practically what we’re doing is every organization and charity, uh, I mean charity and the agency, they, you have as a charity and, uh, NGO, uh, I mean, you have performance goals and in order to achieve these performance goals, you need a few things, but alongside performance, something which is very important is culture.
So you have these two things, culture and performance. So performance is, in my mind, look, looking at it very simplistically, it is about goals. You need to know where you’re going. It’s about mindset. Definitely you need a good mindset in order, in order to achieve those goals. And you need skills like fundraising skills, how to stop people, how to pitch, how to handle objections, or as a manager.
Or leader, how to have one-on-ones, how to facilitate meetings, how to solve conflicts and other stuff like that. So this is the performance side, but also if you’re focusing only on performance, I discovered that it doesn’t really work. I mean it works, but your, the turnover is high and is frustrating and the costs are very high, especially recruitment, recruitment costs.
So we’re also supporting organizations in developing healthy cultures, which is based, like has a basis on values. And healthy relationships. So Jules and I were very complimentary because he’s, he’s, uh, focused on performance and skills and mindset. And my side is how to coach people, how to coach organizations, really developing and strengthening cultures where fundraisers and leaders come to work.
The ideal is with joy and enthusiasm, but at least not to come, like, I have to go to work. No. Like, I wanna go to work.

[00:08:35] Simon Scriver: Mm, there. Do you find there’s a strange clash in, um, in charities because often charities, they, to me, they almost feel like two, two organizations. Sometimes you’ve always got the kind of charitable side of it, but then you’ve got the fundraising side of it, which often feels like it’s, it’s very much its own thing, you know?

[00:08:52] Simon Scriver: And you often hear about rest of an organization clashing with fundraising or almost being embarrassed of fundraising. And especially with face-to-face. We see that worldwide sometimes, like organizations are. Struggle. They struggle to like welcome in their face-to-face and things like this. So when you look, when you see the culture in there, do you see a conflict of cultures between these or how do you manage that, that work you do with fundraising culture plus the culture of being a charitable organization?

[00:09:21] Simon Scriver: Is there a conflict there or is it, does it just work for you?

[00:09:27] Simon Scriver: Okay.
Nice one. So one thing, we’ve been working mostly with face-to-face teams. So on this side, the face-to-face teams are a little bit separate than the The whole organizations. Yeah.

[00:09:43] Simon Scriver: Yeah.
So we’re supporting face-to-face teams to really strengthen their cultures and develop. Uh, healthy relationships so that it’s easy for you to come to work with joy and develop, and then, uh, also achieve your goals.
Step stepping a little, uh, stepping a few steps like, uh, back. Um, yeah, I’ve noticed I. Quite a few times that there’s a little bit of tension between the face-to-face, um, department and the other, uh, departments. But this is happening only when the leaders of the organization don’t know or don’t understand what face-to-face fundraising really is and how valuable it is to the health of the organization.
Yeah. So for. Uh, uh, I worked with this organization that the leader, the, uh, the director, he used to be very connected to the face-to-face industry, so like having this understanding. He was very much well paying, he’s very much welcoming. The, the fundraisers in the whole of the, like the whole of the organization.

[00:10:50] Simon Scriver: Yeah. Yeah. How, how can you, if you are dealing with, um, you know, the people you deal with, you deal, you work with people on all levels, so like junior people who are kind of even on the street now up to management levels. How do you, how do you work with someone if they aren’t supported by that culture around them?

[00:11:09] Simon Scriver: Because I imagine that’s one of the biggest challenges you have is like, you can change and work with people as much as you want, but if they’re in a, in a difficult environment or an environment that doesn’t support their fundraising goals. How do you kind of approach that with them? Do, do they, do you tell ’em to just escape or how can you start to like manage it from within?

[00:11:29] Simon Scriver: So,
uh, yeah, so these are, there are a few nuances here. I think the simplest answer there is, is. Organizations that come to us, they’re in a process of of development. So this process of development means also training. Training doesn’t really work without executive coaching. So in order to change the team culture or the organization culture, we really need, we really need to start from the top, like from the head

[00:11:59] Simon Scriver: it.
So if I’m working with the head of the organization, then, then that’s simpler. I, I mean, they can’t, they can’t go anywhere and their goals are usually. Uh, ES escalated, not escalated. They, they’re the goals of the organization. Yeah. Very tid. Very strongly. Exactly. Exactly. So if I’m working with someone, let’s say underneath that they have issues or challenges in the culture, I.
Like ethically, I just support them achieve their goals. Really, as a coach, this, this means I’m, uh, orienting you, orienting you as my client to really achieve whatever you desire. Mm-hmm. So sometimes, yeah, this means not necessarily encouraging because I’m not encouraging my, my clients are the experts of their lives.
I’m just, just being present with their process and sometimes asking some questions or clarifying some stuff that they say or they want to achieve. Hmm.

[00:12:53] Simon Scriver: What, what do, what do they, I mean these, because you work with a big range of clients, like what, what do they often miss? Do you know, because you, because like you say, it’s, they have the answers within them.

[00:13:02] Simon Scriver: They know themselves best, and you are just kind of drawing that out of them. What have people usually not considered or what’s holding people back from, from achieving these goals that you’re helping them work towards?
I think most often than not, it’s. A place where they feel comfortable and a place where they feel free to express themselves authentically.
So they’re missing confidence and safety. Mm. If you have like, um, yeah. If you have a place where it’s comfortable for you to express yourself authentically and you enjoy coming there, most often than not, you’ll start moving to. Exploring your potential rather than if it’s a place where you have to go there, you are not let paid enough.
Uh, the boss or the manager or the leader always presses you, you know, Hey, you haven’t done that, you haven’t done that. It’s always about the results that you, what you haven’t done. Then there’s, I’ve seen that there’s no real place of, Hey, who am I in this process? What do I bring to the table?

[00:14:08] Simon Scriver: Ha.

[00:14:11] Simon Scriver: Why is that? Is it, is it a fear? It’s a fear from leadership. It’s a fear from leadership of losing control or of thing. You know, I mean, is it the same symptom we see in face-to-face where people are afraid of what’s being said on the street instead of letting their face-to-face be themselves? And, and I agree with you like very often, like as, as you let people.

[00:14:34] Simon Scriver: Have creative control and let people be themselves, like the results shine through. But how do you balance that with the leadership who you know that, especially the old school, you know, the old fashioned kind of organizations who’ve been there a while or someone’s been in the role for, they hold onto these things and they don’t want to allow that breathing space is, I mean, is that something that can be changed in a culture or are you doomed if you have that around you?
Are we speaking about people who would like to change and understand the consequences of a healthy culture? Or are we, are we speaking about giants, uh, dinosaurs who are just waiting to, let’s say, just move on?

[00:15:11] Simon Scriver: It’s interesting, I dunno, because I mean, if you ask any of these people, they’ll all say they’re open to change and we embrace change and, you know, we are looking to the future and things like this.

[00:15:23] Simon Scriver: We, we’ve read the mission and the vision and the values of all these organizations. Like they’re all saying they embrace the future. But when you think about the star, the people who are listening to this, like I, I would, I would be willing to bet there’s more than a handful who are working in organizations where they feel they have no, no freedom, no freedom.
And it’s sad when this happens.
So, again, some nuances here. If I’m looking from a, from the perspective of the person, like let’s say this quote unquote dinosaur, right? A person who they think they know better. They, they have this, they have, maybe they have, they’ve had, they’ve had a few good results in the past. But times have changed and they haven’t changed to keep up with the new times.
Right? What’s new now? And they’re not willing to adapt or to be flexible or to just improve a little bit, like communication wise, maybe some skills, leadership skills, management skills, whatever it’s needed for that project. Uh, if I was managing this person. I would take every situation by hand. So if he was working for me, let’s say I’m the, the senior manager, and they would be the mid, uh, mid-level manager, I would just delegate and I would just, what’s the word?
Um, set healthy boundaries.

[00:16:57] Simon Scriver: Mm-hmm.
I wouldn’t allow this type of people that much freedom. So this is what you need to do. You need to do it this way in order for fundraisers or in order to create a healthy culture. Healthy culture. What’s happening when they’re the boss, right? When they’re the manager and you know, I’m stuck in a place where I don’t want to be.
Well, that really depends on you if I was there. I really appreciate freedom and I really appreciate, appreciate creativity and being able to express myself. I would probably search for something else, but, but, but before searching for something else, I, I would make sure that I give my best. I mean, 1, 1, 1 thing here that, you know, Jules is, uh, really teaching very well is mindset.
And one of the, uh, things about mindset is how to change your state. So one criteria of change criteria, uh, or tool to change your, your state is in, uh, inner dialogue, which practically is reframing. So let’s say, you know, my boss is really like, is really cutting me short. Hey Alin, you haven’t done that.
You haven’t done this, this, you’re behind on that thing, whatever. Like, uh, not allowing me any breathing time. So if I’m really dedicated and I’m like, and my way of growing, uh, I might ask myself from time to time, how is this situation the best teacher for me right now? How is this? Think how is the situation or the relationship helping me achieve my goals or become the person that I want to become?
Mm. And sometimes I’m changing, and in the process of me changing, they change as well. Or after I change a little bit or more, uh, either I discover a new, a new job or a new job discovers me. Either way, this is the best scenario.

[00:18:41] Simon Scriver: I mean, I, I’ve had some terrible bus buses in the past and I, I mean, I will say one thing I learned a lot.

[00:18:46] Simon Scriver: Like I learned a lot. That’s my positive. I have a great, I have a great bus these days and I have to say, um. I wanna, I wanna ask you then, in terms of trying to be a bit more positive in terms of what, what good looks like in, in your experience? Um, uh, with Ddo Ddo face-to-face training, that’s DIDO if anyone is looking for it.

[00:19:07] Simon Scriver: Um, and do follow Alin on, on LinkedIn. Alin’s vocal on link LinkedIn, so he is, he’s definitely worth follow. Um, but in the, in the organizations that you guys have worked with, what, what does a successful program look like? Like what is the structure of that? What’s. You know what signs of good,
uh, there are a few signs. The easiest from my perspective is when fundraisers and leaders enjoy coming to work. Another one is when people spend time outside of work. I think maybe this is one of the, the, the most confident signs that you have a good culture. People go out, have a beer, spend time, go partying, whatever, go fishing to each their own.
So this is one thing. And when it comes to the architecture, there are three elements that I discovered, really build a healthy culture. One is having regular team meetings. When you do team meetings. Regularly, either weekly, I, uh, I have a friend who’s doing them daily, but they’re shorter, maybe bimonthly, whatever works for you and for you, the format of your organization, what’s happening in, during the, the team meetings, if you facilitate them right then this helps, uh, fundraisers and people participating really bond.
Once they bond, it’s really, it becomes much more easier for you either to lead them wherever you want to lead them. I mean, achieving your goals, definitely. Or. Setting some healthy boundaries and. Development also happens during the team meetings if you are willing to train what the team needs right now.
And I’d like to discuss a little bit here because there’s that, uh, I’m sure most of the people looking at us right now, where in the future they know about the four stages of forming teams, which is forming. Storming, norming and performing. And anyway, there’s a journey as well. So a clever leader, I think a person who really wants to facilitate for the betterment of the team.
They look at their team, where the team is right now, either forming, storming, norming, or or performing, and they facilitate the team exactly with what they need, not what they think they need. I wouldn’t have, uh, to, I wouldn’t bring get, to, get to know exercises to a performing team because it would be boring.
Mm-hmm. At the same time, I wouldn’t bring, you know, high level trainings or high level skills or challenging people from. Like a forming stage with something that they don’t know. They don’t really know how everything works. They don’t know their roles in the team yet. There’s still a few stages that they need to, let’s say, conquer.
So this is one thing, and also the four elements that really make up a good team meeting is, are actually fun. We need people to have fun. You need people to grow. So facilitate something, bring something that they, they grow, uh, make sure. You set and review goals, this helps a lot. And one thing that I’m really proud of discovering, I call the minutes, minutes of virtue.
So I make sure that almost ev, I mean, everybody gets to hear their voice during the team meetings,

[00:22:27] Simon Scriver: and
I have 10 to 15 minutes a slot. Aimed exactly for people to vent. So really, and I have this, this structure, uh, nonviolent structure or LET, whatever, it’s something that I’ve developed, developed over the years and sometimes there’s a lot coming, you know, popping out.
We set for 15 minutes and we end up like, um. Venting for 45 minutes and sometimes we sit 14, uh, 10 to 15 minutes in silent silence. And I make sure to tell, to tell them that. I know that sometimes when you sit in silence, you might feel uncomfortable or cringe as we said, uh, a little bit in the beginning, but being able to sit in silence with someone and, you know, um, not taking out your phone or not, you know, think about something else.
Yeah. That. Increases the intimacy. Intimacy level.

[00:23:21] Simon Scriver: Yeah. So
I practically, it helps a lot. It helps with lowering the conflict levels, uh, or number of the conflicts of conflicts. And also it increases, you know, people being, becoming more comfortable with one another. I.

[00:23:35] Simon Scriver: Yeah, I think that, I think, I mean, I, I’m a man who loves to vent and I could do it most of the day, but I think, I think there is that, that notion that you, you know, meetings and stuff can get littered with venting and you, you find yourself just venting throughout it.

[00:23:47] Simon Scriver: So I actually really like the idea of creating a space for it to like, get it done. And like you said, there’ll be times where you realize. This isn’t worth bringing up. I’m just venting about it. ’cause it’s part of our conversation almost. But actually this isn’t really an issue. It’s just like, this is our job.

[00:24:02] Simon Scriver: This is something we’re working through. So I quite like that. Alin, you strike me as a man who en who gets up every morning and enjoys going to work. Do you enjoy your job?

[00:24:10] Alin Dinu: I really enjoy my job. I mean, I’ve done this when I work for Save the Children, I’ve done this. A little bit without being the, getting paid.
And even if I would win the lottery, I would still do work in face-to-face fundraising. It’s really my iki guy. I mean, uh, it’s all about communication. It’s about, uh, contributing, uh, people grow and yeah, it, I forgot the other element of eki. I, but definitely it’s, it’s, uh, ticks off all the elements.

[00:24:40] Simon Scriver: I love it.

[00:24:40] Simon Scriver: I love to see, I love to see a man who’s passionate about this job. How would your coworkers describe you? How would your business partner describe you?
Perseverant, first of all?

[00:24:49] Simon Scriver: Yeah.
This, this is one thing. Uh, I’m very resourceful. I mean, if you are working with me, definitely I’m finding solutions to whatever, like what the, the challenge, what challenges might appear.
Uh, I’m, some people would say I’m very communicative. I mean, not talkative, but you know. Uh, I think listening is my strong point.

[00:25:11] Simon Scriver: Hmm.
So when my friends, or my coworkers, or the people that I work with, uh, chat, most of them, I hope, you know, I’m not mistaken. I, I hope they feel understood. And this, like, I, I really, uh.
Beyond all of this, like beyond the fundraising and the growth and everything that we’re doing, I strive to really develop relationships, first of all.

[00:25:38] Simon Scriver: Mm-hmm. There’s a real skill in, in that, you know, in that listening, that building relationship, that empathy, do you know, which I think is, it serves people in face to face and, and fundraising general serves ’em very well.

[00:25:49] Simon Scriver: But it’s lacking in, uh, you know, in a lot of places. And sometimes it, it can be a real challenge, but it’s, it’s been such a pleasure chatting to you. So I’m gonna see you face to face in person at the International F two F Fundraising Congress, uh, which is happening in April in Vienna, uh, in Australia.

[00:26:05] Simon Scriver: You were there last time. You enjoy it? I was there. Yeah. I loved
it. Uh, a funny story, something very funny that happened last Congress. I came there, uh, I was really searching for a partner, uh, a partner that, someone that I would offer value, you know, I would be able to contribute with, uh, internationally.

[00:26:28] Simon Scriver: Yeah. And
there, like one of the workshops, uh, I met Jules there and we chatted a little bit out like, uh, in the hotel area. I shared a little, a little bit about who I am, you know, what I was doing, how I’m focusing on the process. He also shared about, you know, focusing on the process and trusting the process with his own clients that he had as a consultant back then.
So we ended up like. Connecting and also continuing to connect after the conference like once per week. And what began as a one or two hours, uh, short meetings every week, uh, ended up becoming a business that were working, uh, weekly and were having clients and were supporting and or developing, uh, materials.
And our dream is to really build. A digital platform where fundraisers and leaders have on demand training exactly for what they need based on micro learnings, which I think is one of the things that are. State-of-the-art and training right now?

[00:27:29] Simon Scriver: Yeah, well, I mean, I mean, I’m hearing a lot of echoes, so it’d be good to chat.

[00:27:32] Simon Scriver: ’cause I, I met my business partner Nikki, uh, at a conference years ago and we set up fundraising everywhere.com. Um, and so for anyone listening to watching this, you can find learnings online, uh, including our virtual face-to-face fund, ring fundraising conference, which is coming up on the 23rd of April.

[00:27:49] Simon Scriver: Um, so if you can’t make it in person to Vienna. For the International Congress, then the Fundraising Everywhere Conference is happening at the end of April too. Grab your tickets there. Um, go over to fundraising everywhere.com and you can see all of the events we’ve got coming up. But Alin, that’s it.

[00:28:03] Simon Scriver: Where can people find you? Where’s your social, social media of choice these days? Are you a LinkedIn man, guys?

[00:28:10] Alin Dinu: I’m a LinkedIn man. I also have a, uh, an Instagram, uh, account. It’s called the Face-to-Face Coach. Also, we have a website. Which is ddo face-to-face dot com, so, or ddo f two f.com where, uh, there’s a lot of resources. You can take some of, uh, leadership assessments or fundraising assessments. It’s very simple to use and also if you get on there, you might find something that you might be valuable.

[00:28:36] Simon Scriver: Amazing. Yeah, I do encourage people to check it out. Alin, so lovely to see you. Thank you for being on this. Really lovely to, to chat to you and to anyone watching.

[00:28:44] Simon Scriver: Uh, my name is Simon Scriver. I am the co-founder of Fundraising Everywhere. It’s been lovely talking to you Again. If you’re not already subscribed to the podcast or following us on LinkedIn, then please do. Um, and also head over to fundraising everwhere.com where you’ll find all of our events coming up, uh, including, as I said, the face-to-face fundraising conference happening in April.

[00:29:01] Simon Scriver: But that’s me, that’s Simon saying goodbye. Have a good day. I’m grateful to be here. Grateful to chat to you all. Uh, take care everyone.

[00:35:26] 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.

[00:35:39] Alex Aggidis: Thank you so much. See you next time.

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