Nikki is the co-founder of Fundraising Everywhere, featured in 2021’s Digital Womxn to Watch, and an international speaker about building innovative and inclusive teams.

A photograph showing three people sat at a table, there are two open laptops on the table - the people at the table are smiling
Photograph by Brooke Cagle on Unsplash

In our latest research exploring how access to learning can help you thrive in your job, 62% of fundraisers said their biggest barrier to learning new things was finding the time to learn.

And I get it.

As an ex-fundraiser, I remember the packed diary with one eye on my target and another on the numerous tasks piled up to reach it.

Throw in personal lives with maintaining relationships, physical and mental health, and all of life’s little admin tasks, you have this (showing my age here by using a meme…)

KC Green - Gunshow Webcomics

But here’s the thing, you do have time to learn new things and in fact, I bet you’re already using it.

Here’s how…

Learning Isn’t Just About Formal Pathways

When sharing the insights from our research report, Sarah Crowhurst said, “At some point charities decided that learning and development meant going on an expensive in person training course. Getting accredited. Coming back with all the knowledge and insight to magically transform a project or process. But it’s so different to that”

And others agree.

In our results, online training, both live and on-demand, was the most popular format attended by 97%. We’re seeing evidence of this across the sector. As well as courses, workshops, and webinars provided by businesses and freelancers, Fundraising Everywhere supported 10,106 fundraisers with their professional development in 2024.

However, despite this, 50% of charities were offering funding for individual certification as their lead learning choice which is a huge time and brain energy commitment, not to mention inaccessible to many people’s learning styles. Most fundraisers stated their preference was conferences or adhoc training; mostly accessed online.

Statistics From Fundraising Everywhere's Learning And Development Report

‘Learning’ does not mean ‘classroom’, ‘qualifications’, or ‘courses’. Accessing a webinar, reading a blog, or attending a conference can help you learn something new.

Learning Can Happen In Minutes

I’m willing to bet you money you have either Instagram, TikTok, or LinkedIn on your phone.

And when you’re scrolling on those apps, you watch videos, read posts, and swipe carousels (and you probably end up in a scroll hole that you have to snap out of an hour later) 

I’m not here to berate you for that, it’s sometimes nice to let your brain mindlessly float off (especially when your feed is full of dog videos) – but I do want to highlight that every video you watch or post you read, you’re already learning something new.

Whether it’s news about the world, how to create airfryer recipes, or train your puppy; social media content is geared towards educational content to build brands, community, and businesses – so use that, and your time online, to your advantage.

Curate your feed so the things you’re learning are useful to the goals you’re trying to achieve and create a mindset that even minutes, not hours or days, you can learn something new.

Learning One New Thing Is Still Going To Help You Thrive

When investing time or effort into learning there’s a pressure to absorb everything and walk out away from the situation with your brain bursting out of your skull.

But that approach and mindset means your brain is focusing on keeping the information in, instead of absorbing what it means and how it can help you.

When approaching learning, accept that even learning just one thing is enough to improve your skills; and your ability to reach your targets.

Learning And Reflecting Keeps Your New Skills In Mind

There’s a tendency to rattle through our days when they’re so busy. And when we don’t make time to reflect, it’s easy for the things we do learn to disappear into the brain vault.

With your new mindset of being able to learn from multiple sources on a regular basis, be aware when those lightbulb moments are going off and make a note.

Share those learnings, and where you found them, on a regular basis with your team and discuss how they might be used.

Keep the habit of learning, noticing, sharing, and reflecting by creating spaces – conversational or digital – for you and your team to build healthier mindsets around what learning can look like.

In short (because that’s what we’re trying to highlight here) you are already learning something every day in the conversations you have, social media you engage with, and things you read – including this!

Be more mindful of those lightbulb moments where you have them and create more ways to seek them out.

And if you’d like to make it even easier to find hundreds of tiny lightbulb moments in one place, Fundraising Everywhere can help. Our on-demand microlearning resources mean you can learn any time, anywhere, and at your own pace. Then we have monthly live virtual and IRL moments where you can come together and share them with other people.

You can use promo code FREEMONTH here for you as a way of saying ‘well done for prioritising your learning by reading this article!’

Or if you’re a leader wanting access for your whole team like the folks at British Red Cross, WWF, Hampshire and Isle of Wight Air Ambulance, and Young Lives vs Cancer, contact Cam St Omer Donaldson here about getting involved.

Voice Your Thoughts 🗣️

Our platform is open to anyone and everyone in the sector that has an opinion, idea, or resource they would like to share to help make our sector better. If you would like write and share something, pop an email over to hello@fundraisingeverywhere.com and we will support you every step of the way to share your voice.

A woman with dark hair creating a supporter journey on a whiteboard
Photo by MoreOnion - Claire Works On A Welcome Journey

Claire is a digital mobiliser, fundraiser, and campaigner. Having worked in engagement and mobilisation teams at Greenpeace, ActionAid, Cancer Research UK and Amnesty International, she joined more onion over eight years ago. Since then she has delivered dozens of engagement and supporter journeys projects with organisations of all sizes and has trained hundreds of charity professionals in the same.

Crafting Powerful Supporter Welcome Journeys

At More Onion, we’ve had the pleasure to work with charities of all sizes on welcome journeys to warm up, convert and retain brand new donors. Here are some insights from a decade of testing and learning: 

What Is A Supporter Journey?

Just to start off with a quick definition to make sure we’re on the same page. We’re talking about a connected series of communications that feel like an ongoing conversation, instead of a seemingly random series of communications that might jump around topics and asks. Within a journey each email is created to meet a specific supporter need at that moment in time, balancing different types of asks, and evolving the narrative as the journey progresses. 

Typically supporter journeys are primarily delivered via email, however most journeys also factor in other key channels such as post and phone. 

The Value Of Supporter Welcome Journeys

That may sound like a lot of work.  But here’s why it’s worth taking the time to invest in great welcome journeys.

  1. It’s much easier to keep attention than to acquire it in the first place. If you don’t engage people quickly – it could be too late.

  2. Recruiting supporters is expensive! A great supporter journey helps to make sure it’s money and time well spent.

  3. Optimise your recruitment work. A well designed journey creates lots of opportunities for engagement and conversion early in the relationship. This allows you to strategically assess the performance of your recruitment projects. You can pivot your recruitment work to prioritise sources that are turning into great supporters.

  4. Learn more about your supporters. There’s no better time to get to know a supporter than right at the beginning of your relationship. Learn what motivates them and what ways they’d like to support your work. By asking the right questions up front you can make sure you’re building great supporter experiences for years to come. 

  5. Test, learn and get better quickly! Unlike most communications, welcome journeys are often automated which means they are scheduled to send X days after signup. This creates a fantastic opportunity to constantly review and improve your journeys based on real performance data. 

Crafting Effective Welcome Journeys

When it comes to creating an effective welcome journey, there are a few key tips to keep in mind. 

  1. Start where your audience is. The first few emails you send should be the same topic as the signup action – you can evolve the narrative in later emails if you need to.

  2. One email, one ask. If you have more than one thing to ask – send another email. If the ask isn’t worth its own email, it probably wasn’t worth sending in the first place.

  3. Remember to meet your supporter’s needs, not just yours. This might include building knowledge, feeling connected, seeing the impact of their gift, or building empathy. You can find out more about these types of emails in our engagement action and supporter journeys reports linked below.

  4. Be active. Don’t just talk at your supporters – involve them. The welcome journey sets the tone for your whole relationship, so if you just send broadcast messages without anything interesting or useful to do, they may quickly learn that it doesn’t actually matter much if they open your emails or not.

  5. Constantly test to improve. You can use optimisation testing (more resources below) on individual emails or entire journeys. This allows you to answer smaller questions such as what messaging to use within individual emails, as well as long term performance questions such as how often and how early to ask for (more) money. 

Free Resources

You can learn more about journeys, engagement actions and optimisation testing on these free reports:

  1. Report: Great supporter journeys, and how to automate them
  2. Report: Deepen relationships with engagement actions
  3. Report: Optimisation testing

We hope you find these resources useful when it comes to creating your supporter welcome journeys. 

If you’d like any hands-on support with your supporter journeys, reach out to us: claire@more-onion.com

Voice Your Thoughts 🗣️

Our platform is open to anyone and everyone in the sector that has an opinion, idea, or resource they would like to share to help make our sector better. If you would like write and share something, pop an email over to hello@fundraisingeverywhere.com and we will support you every step of the way to share your voice.