Alex Aggidis, Author at Fundraising Everywhere

Office workers celebrating around a laptop

Written by Nikki Bell

The start to 2022 has been a constant blow to social media fundraisers.

With privacy updates, cookies on the way out, ad favouritism (and so many to compete with), the rising cost of living coupled with dwindling free time, the reach and CPAs relied upon for fundraising success are becoming increasingly hard to achieve.

What if I told you that the answer to unlocking millions in additional income could be right under your nose? ‘What is it!?’ I hear you ask. Well, your existing online audience of course.

What if I told you that the answer to unlocking millions in additional income could be right under your nose?

In this article, we explore the steps you can take to boost your Individual Giving programme, whether you’re from a small or large charity, and without the need to invest in or become familiar with new social media platforms.

Reduce your reliance on third-party platforms

We’re well aware by now that the ‘old way of doing things’ isn’t cutting it anymore. Our supporters’ needs and expectations have changed through Covid, and, the third-party platforms we use to drive leads are making it hard to gain reach.

So, how can you reduce your reliance on third-party platforms?

Take action to build online audiences but plan long-term for where they’ll end up.

Create touchpoints to move supporter interaction from third-party platforms like Facebook, TikTok, or Instagram, to your own list where you can manage and segment data to deepen relationships.

A simple way of doing this is with online events and webinars.

April’s Live Virtual Event Report uncovered that charities that used virtual events saw their social media engagement increase by 73%, and webinar use will continue beyond 2022 with 70% of charities keeping them in their programmes.

To find out how to host engaging and successful online events, speak to Everywhere+ – the virtual events platform for charities.

Jump from the burning platform

Recruiting for challenge events is becoming increasingly difficult for charities and many organisations are wondering how they can adapt their social media use to stay engaging and see results.

Ruman Hasan, Meta Specialist at Platypus Digital, said, ‘we’re working with charities to help them overcome their online challenge recruit challenges and have seen success with those that invest in middle funnel activity and think long-term.

Coupled with telemarketing and improved stewardship there are ways to build lists, relationships, and income with supporters’.

With the return of face-to-face fundraising and telemarketing activity picking back up, many organisations are working out how to match previous success tactics with current metrics for success.

Check out October 2022’s Individual Giving Conference where we’ll be exploring this in more detail.

Strengthen your platform

There’s no use investing in acquisition campaigns if your donors are leaving as rapidly as they join. By improving your stewardship journey you can add millions of pounds to fundraised income.

Virtual events are one way to deepen trust with supporters by involving them in your charity’s ‘behind the scenes’ activity in an accessible and sustainable way, and we strongly encourage charities to explore stewardship with a holistic approach that looks at journeys and moments working together.

To discover what ‘good stewardship’ looks like and speak to charities doing it well, join the Individual Giving Conference to see some examples.

As we continue into the unknown it’s important to remember there are so many opportunities to seize by thinking differently and adapting quickly.

To get the skills and confidence you need to grow your Individual Giving programme, register for the IG conference on October 27th.

With top speakers sharing insights, case studies, and practical tips to get your IG programmes booming – everything you’ll need is at this virtual event.

Available On Demand.

Vic Hancock Fell

Written by Vic Hancock Fell, Founder and Director of Fair Development.

I Co-Founded a small international development charity when I was fresh out of university, age 21. I had visited Kenya as a volunteer a few times as a teenager and I returned home filled with rage and sorrow at the injustice of what I had seen. I didn’t feel it or know it at the time, but looking back 14 years later, I was peak White Saviour.

I didn’t feel it or know it at the time, but looking back 14 years later, I was peak White Saviour.

A gradual realisation

“"I just don’t understand why INGOs need hundreds of people sitting in the North with huge teams to support Southern NGOs on the ground. Most of the resources get tied to these headquarters and little goes to the South. Real decision-making about what needs to be done and how is still decided by HQ-based Northern experts."” Amitabh Behar, the CEO of Oxfam India

I think it was around 2017 when I first discovered the #ShiftThePower movement online, but of course, knowledge of the troublesome power dynamics in international development work has been around for decades. The official Shift The Power hashtag was established by the Global Fund for Community Foundations (GFCF) in 2016 to engage anyone interested in a serious conversation about both the need and the ways to move away from top-heavy and top-down systems in international development.

I had been aware of the many troublesome features of Western international development work for a few years by this point: poverty porn, White Saviourism, safeguarding scandals (see Oxfam Scandal circa 2018), power and resource imbalance etc and I was starting to feel uncomfortable in my position as a white western person working in the international development space.

Making changes

Noticing these uncomfortable feelings develop, I began to advocate within the small INGOs I was working with and in the wider INGO community, against the harmful practices I had previously taken part in myself.

When I look back at old photos from volunteering trips to Sub Saharan Africa I am mortified for my early-20s self…It felt good to be able to change things in a small way, to move away from using poverty porn style images in favour of positive stories and imagery that centred the success, not the desperation of the person whose story was being told. In later years I would revisit the concept of telling personal stories entirely…this is something I’m still pondering.

I was starting to feel uncomfortable in my position as a white western person working in the international development space.

I started a new job in a small INGO, Raising Futures, in April 2018 and it was there where #ShiftThePower became more of a reality in my work. I reflected more on my own power and privilege and that of the UK charity I worked for by learning from places like No White Saviours, Charity So White and the Disrupt Development and Rethinking Development podcasts.

By the end of 2018, meaningful discussions were underway around significantly shifting power, money and ownership of work to our partner NGO in Kenya.

Over the last four years, together we have:

Transferred programme-related financial reserves from the UK to the Kenyan NGO bank account.
Gradually shifted operational decision-making to our Kenyan colleagues at all levels of the organisation from management to implementation staff.
Conducted separate Theory of Change and strategic planning sessions, resulting in our Kenyan partner NGO having their own strategic plan for the first time in 20 years.
Built a culture of openness, radical transparency and trust which has not only resulted in improved programming but boosted morale for the whole team.
Supported our Kenyan colleagues to localise funding and advocated our funders to cut the UK charity out as the intermediary organisation.
Written our commitment to #ShiftThePower into our strategic plan for 2022-2026.
In July I will step down as Co-Director in the UK to take me further on my own Shift The Power journey.

I’m not saying we’ve done this perfectly, we are still learning every day. Being vulnerable and honest about this journey, as we are still on it, is really important to us. We don’t want to do this behind closed doors and we want to advocate for other people and organisations working in the international development sector to join us.

I’m not saying we’ve done this perfectly, we are still learning every day.

What next?

Now feels like the right time for me personally to take a step back from international development work and minimise my own power in this space in doing so. I’m really passionate about encouraging others to start this journey whether that is in their own professional lives or within their organisation.

Want to learn more about our #ShiftThePower journey so far at Raising Futures? My colleague Mary Mwangi and I spoke about this at Fundraising Everywhere’s Small Charity Virtual Conference 2022.

Catch up on our 20-minute session, Shifting The Power To The People You Exist For.

You can catch up on the whole #SmallYetMighty conference here.

"In their current form, we simply don't need INGOs, unless they are going to #shiftthepower: how do international civic organisations empower and support the local? is the main question that needs to be asked."   Irungu Houghton, Executive Director of Amnesty International in Kenya

Written by Wayne Murray, Founder at Humanity Squared.

I write this as I see smug Tory MP’s proudly taking photo opportunities at food banks.

I write this as my son’s best mate casually said he only has a roast dinner once a month because his family can’t afford to have the oven on for that long anymore.

I write this as the elderly woman over the road cracked her hip in a fall and had to wait 7 hours for an ambulance.

The world is changing, and it ain’t all good.

Life is tough at the moment, and it’s getting tougher for many. I set up my own business against the backdrop of COVID. In fact, weirdly it was fuelled by COVID. As charities really started to think about doing things differently, rather than just talking about it. The world is changing.

I work with a deliberately broad range of charities. I have a 3-tiered pricing structure. The work that I do for large charities enables me to discount my rates for medium-sized charities. This in turn enables me to work with grassroots, community charities for free. It’s with the grassroots stuff that I see the future of our sector.

Driven by need. Powered by lived experience.

I’ve worked in the sector for 22 years, but the free work I’m doing now enables me to work with charities I’d just never been able to work with historically. A father and son running a food bank out of their shed. A gambling charity run by three people in recovery. Two women who distribute free sanitary products in their local community. All acutely driven by need, powered by lived experience and rooted in community.

All charities were small once.

It’s with the grassroots that I see the future of our sector.

All charities were small once. Set up by good humans and driven by immediate need. To fix something. To solve problems. The larger they grow, the further away from that need they get.

Many brilliant large organisations do what they can to reconnect and do it well, but there’s a natural tide that will try to push you in a different direction, away from the front line of delivery. Away from lived experience.

All charities were small once. Set up by good humans and driven by immediate need.

Why do you think so many organisations at the moment are trying to work out what their vision is? Because they’ve drifted.

Hierarchies can get in the way. They don’t often work.

I often talk about hierarchies within charity. How they don’t really work. How they get in the way. How more horizontal ways of working are more effective.

The same goes for the hierarchy of the sector and where power sits. Big charities at the top, smaller charities at the bottom. The big charities rarely talk to the small ones, and no matter how loud the smaller charities shout, the large ones don’t really hear, or notice them.

Knowledge should bubble up.

Let’s build capacity and power from the bottom up because it’s not trickling down.

I also often talk about how knowledge and innovation bubbles up through organisations. How it isn’t the role of leaders to have all the answers, but to create a culture where those bubbles can grow, and to use their power to do something with them.

This should be the same for the broader sector too. Small charities are on the front line. It’s where all the knowledge is, all the innovation and all the fresh thinking. But this isn’t bubbling up through the sector.

Even more worryingly, knowledge from the large charities isn’t trickling down to the small ones either. There’s a huge disconnect. The big charities have funding, infrastructure and power, but the small charities have the knowledge, lived experience and relevance.

If you have power, you need to give it away.

That’s why it’s important that all organisations, agencies, consultants and individuals with power,
know what they need to do with it. You need to give it away.

The big charities have funding, infrastructure and power, but the small charities have the knowledge, lived experience and relevance.

Use your knowledge, your time and your passion to help smaller charities. Let’s build capacity and power from the bottom up because it’s not trickling down. And it’s not working.

Let’s be less focused on building bigger brands, growth for growth’s sake and status, and think of what our key role is in driving actual societal change.

Then let’s do it together. And it all starts with small charities. Learn from them. Support them. Centre them.

Catch up on the Small Charity Week conference that champions small charity legends.

Watch the Small Charity Virtual Conference On Demand.

Written by Mandi Hine, Community Manager at Fundraising Everywhere.

For May’s exclusive Members Clinic we were joined by the always amazing Richard Sved. He gave us a whistle stop tour of the book he has co-authored with Dr Claire Routley - Fundraising Strategy.

Your strategy in 10 questions

The book (and Richard’s session) is very helpfully broken down into 10 questions (chapters) for working through your Fundraising Strategy. There is no set order when drafting a Fundraising Strategy, although the book is arranged in what Richard and Claire feel is the order that's most logical.

Most importantly, your fundraising shouldn’t ever stop just because you are taking time to think strategically about it!

5 important things to consider when writing your strategy

1. Set your objectives

Where are you now?
Where do you want to get to?
How are you going to get there?

2. Audience

Identify the most appropriate audiences - come up with a “persona” (or personas) for your most active or desired audience.
How and when do they give?
Why have they chosen you?

3. Style and content

Consider the most appropriate messages to communicate to those audiences by looking at
- Tone
- Brand
- Case for support

4. Tactics

What tactics are you using currently?
Which streams have worked for you before?
Will these continue to work in the future?
Don’t forget to look at your donor experience

5. Analysis

How do you monitor and control your fundraising performance and risk?
How will you know if something has gone well or not worked out?
Have you got a contingency plan?

But why do I need a Strategy?

In short, taking the time to plan ensures that, rather than diving straight into your fundraising with a few ideas around current trends or hunches about what might work, you will have carefully thought through the actions you’re going to take.

How can I avoid strategic wear-out?

Encourage
- Diversity in culture, skills and perspectives
- Innovation - disincentivise behaviours that suppress it
Generate a flow of information on the external environment and share it with key people internally
Benchmark against the wider industry;
Invest in market research to spot developing trends
Monitor and control your strategies robustly
Know that strategy development is an evolving process!

Importantly, remember, in the words of Wayne Murray -

“Your strategy isn't a document. It’s a set of mutually agreed decisions, created by all and owned by all. The document is just the receipt.”
Wayne Murray, Human Focused Strategy at Fundraising Strategy Virtual Summit 2021

Next steps

If you want to learn more about this topic, check out these 7 top strategy webinars available On Demand:

You can also get in touch with Richard on Twitter or LinkedIn.

Want to join next month's Members Clinic, plus receive loads of great member benefits like automatic access to all our upcoming events and everything On Demand?

Find out more about membership.

You can join as an individual or save as an organisation.

Photo by Jen Theodore on Unsplash

Written by Leesa Harwood, owner of By The Waves Charity Consulting and charity adviser, leadership coach and mentor.

Back in January, I wrote an article about my experience of burnout and how I could see the same signs in those around me.

The energy spike that usually accompanies the beginning of a new year failed to materialise amongst many of my third sector colleagues and I worried about their wellbeing. There was a huge reaction to the article leading to an online session to share experiences and advice.

Since I wrote my article in January, I continue to see symptoms of burnout and stress amongst sector leaders and their teams.

The more insecure we feel, the more we feed the other symptoms of stress, getting caught in a downward spiral

Five Signs of Stress

1. Loss of perspective

The small things get bigger as you lose the ability to step back and put problems into perspective. Soon, your head is filled with small but noisy problems punching above their weight.

2. Irritability

You find yourself snapping at those around you. A short temper and sharp tongue mean that friends, family and colleagues feel the impact of your lack of patience, perspective and rising stress levels.

3. Control

The more out of control you feel, the more controlling you become. As a leader you begin to interfere and disempower those around you, picking at the detail and wrenching projects away from others in a desperate attempt to regain control.

4. Ill health

Physical and mental health diminishes under acute stress. You don’t sleep, and feel tired all the time. You suffer from anxiety and depression. But as a leader you have been taught that resilience is non-negotiable. So, you keep going, deny your vulnerability and wait until you break before you finally stop.

5. Insecurity

As your performance as a leader starts to suffer, so does your confidence. This inevitably leads to self-doubt, a lack of confidence and an overwhelming sense of insecurity. The more insecure we feel, the more we feed the other symptoms of stress, getting caught in a downward spiral.

Leadership burnout is not inevitable. There are things we can all do to protect ourselves and each other from stress.

Beat burnout

At Fundraising Everywhere's Leadership Festival 2022 in the Culture Tent, Madison Gonzales (CEO of Morning Light Inc) brought burnout back into the spotlight. I for one am very grateful.

Leadership burnout is not inevitable. There are things we can all do to protect ourselves and each other from stress. If you or someone you know is experiencing from one or more of these signs of stress, catch up on Madison Gonzales' session as she guides us through ways to prevent burnout.

Madison shares how to make our workplaces happy and healthy places to be, with practical tips and reminders we can all take back into our work environments so we can foster a positive environment for all.

Building a culture where leaders and their teams feel confident, healthy and supported has never been more important. Catch up on Madison's and the other great Leadership Festival sessions On Demand.

A huge thanks to Leesa Harwood, who was Growth Tent Partner at the Charity Leadership Festival 2022. We collaborate with people who care about the future of our sector on our events. Each Tent Partner brings their insights and audience, meaning we can empower and upskill more people. Tent Partners may earn commission from tickets purchased through their links.

Shutterstock

Guest bloggers, Anne Race & Henry Rowling of Flying Cars Innovation, share their gems of knowledge to help you innovate, and most importantly, succeed.

So - your new plan for the year says your fundraising ‘needs to be more innovative’. The pressure is on to develop new campaigns with big income potential. You need to raise more money to support more people and build a better world.

But how do you get started? Developing a culture that is supportive of innovation takes a lot of work. Many organisations are set up to maximise return on investment from existing campaigns. Not to create and test innovative new fundraisers.

Here are our top tips on how you can start to build a more innovative culture.

1. Audience insight

You need to make sure your audience is heard within your organisation. Too often, we develop products that do not answer the unmet needs of your audience. When developing a new product or campaign, you should start by identifying a target audience and gathering insight. Find out how to start gathering insight that matters at the free Innovation Masterclass we are running on May 12th.

Start by identifying a target audience and gathering insight

2. Innovation process

To become more innovative in the future, you need a process to take you through the key stages:

Set the right brief
Speak to the target audience to gain insights
Develop ideas rooted in audience insight
Prototype, test and pivot your shortlisted ideas

This process cannot be based on how you develop business-as-usual campaigns. You should refine your innovation process as you work with it.

3. Make space for innovation

Often organisations ask that innovation happens in addition to an already packed portfolio of fundraising campaigns and products, as well as other projects that need to be delivered. This adds stress and puts pressure on already stretched resources. Make space for innovation by stopping some campaigns that aren’t adding enough value. We all have campaigns that deliver marginal gains. Assess your portfolio and stop something to make room for the new.

4. Failure

Build a culture that is supportive of failure. By definition, innovation has a degree of risk attached. But it’s purposeful, managed risk, and ideas are planned for failure. If everything new we tried worked the first time, fundraising would be super easy. But learning from our failures and embedding that learning into your organisational knowledge is vital for innovation. You should encourage your senior leaders to talk about their failures if you want to become more innovative. That will permit everyone to be open and honest about what is and isn’t working. Check out the Charity Leadership Festival May 24th which has a session on this very topic.

Build a culture that is supportive of failure.

5. Sign-off

You should review your sign-off and slim it down as much as possible. In innovation, speed matters. Because not all ideas work, but because you need to burn through the ideas that don’t work for the audience as quickly and cheaply as possible to find the gems. Slow sign-off takes you further away from a win. Ideas designed by committee usually become less attractive to the supporter. Try to devise an agile sign-off process for innovative new campaigns.

6. Diverse thought

As you develop a new campaign, you must ensure you have diverse voices in the room and process. Qualitative insight should be created from a diverse panel within your priority audience. Your ideation sessions should also be as diverse as possible, again within the boundaries of your priority audience. Try to involve people from around your whole organisation to get varied ideas on how to tackle the problem you are solving. Diverse teams develop broader ideas and have more life experience to draw on.

You must ensure you have diverse voices in the room.

7. Work on the right brief upfront.

When we work with clients, we ensure we are working on the right brief. This means we set a big exciting goal upfront - to set ambition and get the organisation excited. We then identify a precise audience. The insight we are looking for goes beyond your supporter segmentation - Segment 3; ‘Colin the Contented commuter’ or ‘0-24 £10-50 cash giver’. What do they think and feel, what do they want and need? Why are they the right audience? Doing this work upfront ensures you know the goal for the audience and what success looks like. Sometimes briefs can be confused or unclear and people can find themselves working on the wrong problem.

If you address the 7 areas above you will be well on your way to greater fundraising innovation. For more tips have a read of 5 ways to build a successful innovation team and attend the Flying Cars Innovation Masterclass on May 12th.

Photo by Sergey Shmidt on Unsplash

Written by Mandi Hine

Why Members March?

What is Members March, and why should you get involved?
After all, you’re already super slammed, pulled in multiple directions and wondering why (or how) you should try and make time for one more thing.

I hope my 5 top reasons to embrace Members March will convince you that getting involved will actually make your life a little easier.

But, the first thing I need to tell you is;

It's all about you, (it's all about you)
It's all about you baby, (it's all about)
It's all about you, (it's all about you)
It's all about you...

Sorry, I couldn’t help myself (and I do love a bit of McFly). But really, this is a month dedicated to our brilliant Members to support your 2022 goals.

This month we're hosting special events exclusively for our members including goal-setting, catching up on content, and speaking with our expert guests in one-on-one consultancy calls.

Let's dive in...

1. You'll gain clarity on your goals, and how to get there

Whether they’re big life-changing goals or smaller feats, we all have goals we want to achieve. However, we don’t always make time to really consider how we’ll get there, or why we need to.

Join us each Monday where we'll support you to set your goals and intentions for the week, month, and even the year ahead. Our expert team will share advice and insights from their combined 50+ years of fundraising experience, plus signpost to existing and upcoming Fundraising Everywhere events that are available to help you achieve your goals.

2. We'll help you hold yourself accountable

Want to prioritise your professional development but struggle to find the time? Have a lot of on demand sessions to catch up on but don’t know where to start? I totally get it.

Join me, at our weekly watch parties of the top-rated Fundraising Everywhere sessions. Each week is themed so you can choose the day(s) that fit with your goals. You can watch your session with the group or choose from our hand-picked selection. We'll discuss learnings together with one another.

Upcoming themes

14-18 March: Community and events
21- 25 March: Marketing and social media
28-31 March: Digital

3. You'll get expert coaching with our sector's best

Got a burning fundraising question you’ve always wanted to ask, or a big challenge to overcome? Book a 30-minute expert coaching session.

Each week we will be bringing you one of our handpicked experts to offer one to one coaching sessions on a range of subjects – from strategy to wellbeing, digital and community.

Upcoming coaching sessions

5. It’s included in your membership, so there's nothing extra to pay!

All of the above is included in your current membership. So, what are you waiting for? You can take advantage of as much or as little of the content as you wish.

Reserve your place at all our Members March events via the Members Room on your account.

Not a member yet? Don’t worry, you can join today and get instant access to all of the above plus all our other amazing member benefits. Use promo code MEMBERMARCH to get one month free membership and get stuck in right away.

1. Research and prepare

We trust fundraisers LOVE research. Not just the obvious stuff in a funders’ accounts but also the wonderfully random information available widely on the interweb (Google – I’m looking at you).

Corporates require a more sophisticated ask than trusts. You have a veritable spider web of options for reaching out and getting to know them better. Much more so than the typical route taken by a trust fundraiser (research, phone, write application, get funding).

Next time you’re looking at a new supporter, go deeper than you normally would into your research and spend some time mapping out:

Company activities, geographic location, history, competitors
Find their why – what is the problem they’re trying to solve?
Who are their directors, shareholders, senior staff members? Are they connected to anyone from your charity?
Who are the decision makers at the company? What are their interests? Which networking events do they go to? Have they written articles on LinkedIn? What are their opinions?
Do they work in partnership with anyone else?

All of this information will help you to form better partnership proposals and have better conversations.

2. Outputs, outcomes, impact and speaking their language

Gifts from trusts often require more in-depth monitoring and reporting than those from corporates.

Because so many trust fundraisers also have experience in grant fundraising, they are often really good at articulating and quantifying the difference a gift has made.

During a Bright Spot Members Club webinar I attended a while back, Tom Hall from UBS informed us that major donors (especially those who are self-made) expect their gifts to act as investments with measurable benefits.

Leaders at the top of successful companies (and therefore the people that you’re seeking to work with) want this too because they are often the same people.

To better quantify the impact of your work:

Spend some time with your project staff and finance teams.
Work out how the benefits and impact of a gift have translated in financial terms.
Seek to demonstrate that the return on investment you’re delivering is the best value it can possible be.
Articulate it simply and clearly – get a colleague (a trusts and foundations colleague mayve?) to check your work.

3. Focus not on the activities but on the outcomes and the cost of delivering the work.

Rather than showing your prospective corporate supporter how they can ‘donate to a charity’, demonstrate how they can ‘solve a problem’ or ‘change the world’.

Be clear also on sustainability (loads of trusts are now asking this question).

No one really wants to fund projects in perpetuity and charities are being encouraged more and more to seek forms on income generation to support their ongoing work.

4. Be specific and a bit geeky when it comes to target setting

Because grant making trusts often provide quite a predictable stream of income and one on which many charities tend to lean heavily, trust fundraisers are often quite specific about target setting.

The potential for repeat gifts from trusts is also high when you deliver on their expectations (same with corporates – think long term here!)

Know from your research and your conversations with your colleagues at each company you’re working with:

What their typical giving is. Is their COY partnership a set amount each year for example?
What has their charitable giving achieved in the past? They might not know – get them to find out…
What have similar relationships with other corporates yielded for your charity in the past?
How warm are each of your relationships? How close are you to making an ask and how long will it take for the cash to materialise (this depends on the method you’re using to fundraise)
ROI for corporate fundraising is low at the start but grows over time, £3 / £4 for every £1 spent is a good guide

Caroline is an expert in trusts and foundations, major gifts and capital appeals and has raised millions for good causes and runs LarkOwl with her partner Tony which supports charities with income generation from fundraising and commercial sources.

She writes a weekly blog which she shares with over 2,000 fundraisers every week via LarkOwl’s Nest Egg newsletter. Her writing has been featured in Fundraising Magazine.

For the past three years, LarkOwl have published research on the Return on Investment for different areas of fundraising. Their recent report published in September 2021 can be downloaded for free from their website.

Want to learn more about trusts or corporate fundraising?

Join us at our Grants Conference in December.

Check out Corporate Partnerships Everywhere Conference 2023 coming up in March, too.

Written by Jo McGuinness MInstF(Dip), Head of Philanthropy & Partnerships at Children 1st

Dear recruiting managers,

I write this to you as something needs to change with the traditional way of recruiting.

This sector is great, but whilst we champion wellbeing, diversity and fairness externally in our charitable work, we are failing those who seek to support these efforts as potential employees.

Back in April 2021 the role I’d held for almost 4 years was highlighted for redundancy. I launched into job hunting immediately – as the sole earner in my family, I had to have an income.

A countdown clock started ticking to find a suitable role; a role I could stay in for a couple of years, remote working and a minimum salary so I could provide for my family.

Between April - September, I applied for 31 jobs, averaging 5 per month.

In total, including looking at job boards, researching roles and organisations, time spent writing covering letters, copying and pasting info from my CV into applications forms, preparing interview answers, fulfilling task briefs and the interviews themselves, I spent in excess of 70 hours job hunting.

70 hours roughly equates to 11 hours of work each month over and above my day job.

Job hunting currently is taking place against a background of a UK in crisis. We’ve got so used to the constant hum of tension, fear and anger that it’s easy to think we can all push on as usual and expect what we expected in 2019.

We can’t. People are struggling.

Job seekers feel fear even more acutely than before Covid-19, everything is more precarious and different things, such as an employer’s home working or maternity policies, are more important than before.

Appreciate the power dynamic. Do what you can to rebalance it.

The minute a job seeker looks at your advert they are on the back foot. Everything is done to your standard; your schedule and they are at your mercy. Anything you can put in place to make the process fairer, more transparent and kinder – the more applicants you will get.

Of the 31 roles I applied for, only 17 offered a conversation for interested candidates. As a job seeker, I cannot tell you just how useful those conversations are for candidates. They shed light on what’s important to you and your organisation and you get a feel for the humans behind the ad.

Of the 17 conversations offered (I took them all up), only 4 were with the actual recruiting manager – all others were with recruiters. Still of value but less insightful.

Please don't forget your manners.

Of the 31 applications made, 5 didn’t notify me at all of whether I was successful or not (I assume not!). Given the average time I spent on an application was over 2 hours, letting applicants know if they’ve been successful or not – a two-minute email, seems a polite thing to do.

Candidates in this sector are often partly drawn to roles due to an affinity or appreciation of your cause, so ask yourself – would you simply not reply to a potential donor if they contacted you?

Not having time isn’t a valid excuse. Make time.

While we are on making time and doing the work, please provide useful, constructive feedback.

It’s disheartening to invest time only to receive no useful feedback on why your application wasn’t progressed. It also asks questions about the transparency of the process.

Some of the no-so-helpful feedback I received when unsuccessful included;

“It was a really competitive process and I don’t have exact feedback on what was lacking in your application I’m afraid.”

“Having had such a good response to the advert, I have selected another candidate for the role with more relevant experience.”

Ugh.

Equally as frustrating is vague feedback given post-interview where you leave the candidate unsure as to what exactly you wanted to see. An example of this was when I was told by the recruiting manager that they “hadn’t really seen my personality” in the interview.

What does that mean?

What am I to do with that feedback?

Please, check your feedback is specific and something that the candidate can improve upon for similar roles in future. You may not see this as your responsibility, but it is. The candidate has given their time, if you have offered feedback you have the responsibility to ensure it is constructive.

Don't think we don't see the red flags.

Employee expectations have changed since 2019. We know that work can be done on the whole, equally as effectively at home.

We can build incredible relationships in the virtual space.

We know it’s better for our health and well-being to spend time doing things we want to do rather than sitting in traffic or on a train.

Roles requiring hybrid working without clear rationale are popping up more on job boards, and it’s not clear why.

If this includes your role, really question yourself – why have I put a requirement for the post holder to come into the office 2 days a week? Is it because there are specific tasks that can only be completed in person? If so, make those tasks clear in the advert.

If you don’t have tasks that can’t be done remotely but you still ‘need’ someone in the office then challenge yourself.

Are you coming from a place of privilege where cost of travel isn’t a big factor for you so paying that to ‘enjoy’ time in the office feels reasonable?

Are you someone who likes the hubbub in an office? Great, but that doesn’t mean others feel the same.

Do you want to see your direct reports busy working, or have them near you in case you need to performance manage?

Yes? Then send yourself on a management training course immediately for the benefit of yourself and your employees.

I pushed back on numbers of days mandatory office working with so many of the roles I applied for and if it wasn’t so frustrating the responses would be funny;

“Well, we have an office and the trustees want us to use it.”

“We need someone from fundraising to be around in case a supporter wants to drop cash in or collect a bucket.”

“We need you to be available for any last-minute meetings.”

Stop it, you're embarrassing yourselves.

Other red flags include;

Not being willing to offer flexible working
Requesting in-person interviews, (typically in London) for remote based roles advertised as UK wide
Not having time to speak to a candidate either prior to or following the interviews
Not being clear on the salary band,
Requiring irrelevant educational qualifications
Or stating ‘equivalent experience’ but not defining what you mean by that.

My absolute favourite red flag is the phrase that needs to be banned with immediate effect;

‘the candidate will need to hit the ground running’.

Usually accompanied by other delightful descriptors such as;

‘fast-paced environment’ and;

‘wants to live and breathe the success of the team and the charity.’

Let’s be frank. Most of us need a job because we have bills to pay. We work in the sector because we choose to, and mostly because it’s a great place to be.

We don’t work here because we want to join a role without suitable induction plans in place, where expectations will be heaped upon you from the get-go, which is what ‘hitting the ground running’ is code for.

Or where we are expected to live and breathe our job. We can care, of course we care – and we should. But please, your candidates are only human. They have other interests and a fair expectation of support and a positive work/life balance.

By including statements like these you are giving an insight into the potentially negative culture, and unachievable expectations the candidate can expect.

Go back, work on that, and recruit once that’s in a better place, or – be honest. You need a candidate to hit the ground running because the workload is 50% more than it should be. In which case, pay more too.

This isn't to say all practise out there is bad, its not. There are shining stars. I just wish I'd seen more of them.

And they aren’t hard things to do. Every recruiting manager could take up at least 1 or 2 of these examples;

Show the salary and remove all unnecessary educational qualifications.
Run your adverts and candidate packs through gender bias software, available free here.
Reduce your essential/desirable criteria down to the bare minimum. You shouldn’t need more than a few points.
Don’t ask candidates to complete your own application forms. CVs and covering letters are ok, but even better (and more supportive of diversity, inclusion and accessibility as it prevents unconscious bias), is to ask candidates to answer anonymous screening questions relevant to the role.
Share the interview questions in advance. Lots of folk are trying this now (like Fundraising Everywhere, see Matt Smith’s twitter post). The results are overwhelmingly positive. Doing this supports accessibility, different kinds of thinkers, or those who struggle with nerves.
Share the grading criteria you have used and make time for specific and constructive feedback.

I see the sector’s recruitment practice improving almost every day as more recruiting managers challenge themselves to do better, but we can do better and faster.

So, my challenge to you is, are you going to get on board or get left behind?

Yours,

All frustrated job seekers out there

Want more content like this?

Check out the *free* webinar Jo spoke at on this topic: How to recruit talented people in 2022.

I couldn’t sleep on Thursday night. I started going over a conversation in my mind from the Events Fundraising Virtual Summit session I’d run that afternoon.

It was a 40 minute round table session to share the of impact redundancy and furlough on events and events fundraisers. Many stories and experiences were bravely shared and it really struck me that for many there hasn’t been a proper opportunity to reflect on the experience of redundancy and furlough. As well as to share and hear from others in a similar boat.

A lot of this is still very raw.

Some of the common themes that came up included:

Reduced Team Size & resource constraints.
Feelings of isolation.
Feeling like events fundraising got the worst deal/suffered the most – whereas other areas of fundraising were more “pandemic proof”.
Many cancelled events – feeling a lot of hard work had gone to waste.
Anxiety not knowing how long furlough would last.
Plus guilt and sadness for colleagues who weren’t so lucky and lost their job.
Taking a backwards step career-wise or needing to learn new skills fast as having to fill gaps where needed.
Knocked confidence, feelings of low self-worth & low self-esteem.
Ongoing recruitment freezes.
Events staff seconded to other roles.
Expectations/internal pressure that a smaller events team can still deliver on same programme/strategy.
Sense of loss and no closure.

We’re being told that life should bounce back now, but with all the limitations and challenges the pandemic has brought, on top of the mental load of this period of trauma, much of which hasn’t been acknowledged or dealt with, how can we get back to normal events fundraising? What even is normal?

The following are some things that have helped my members within The Collective, a community I run for Event Fundraisers. Maybe they’ll help you too.

Talking about and sharing your experiences with peers.

Knowing you’re not alone in your feelings can be so helpful. Admitting how hard you’ve found this and how the effects are still being felt, is a healthy first step. There is absolutely no weakness in admitting how hard this has been and continues to be. In fact, it takes courage and strength.

Use coaching questions to address the challenges you are experiencing with your manager and wider team.

When we’re feeling anxious and overwhelmed it is harder to think logically. Coaching questions can help ground us and re-engage our and others’ logical brains. Keep asking questions of yourself and those around you.

Ceri Sunu delivered a fantastic session on Winning Minds & Buy-In for your Events at the Summit. Ceri shared some coaching models that can be utilised when you want to influence others, including more senior colleagues.

These questions can be used in other situations too. For example, when you’re given yet another piece of work or another event to plan and you know you’re already at capacity, how about asking;

What is the priority here?

What do we want to achieve by doing this?

What could we do differently?

What’s the impact of doing that event? Or not doing that event?

Be mindful

Try and make a habit of taking time out of your week to reflect on the past 7 days; what lessons have been learnt, challenges and wins and then what your focus will be going forward. You can do this individually or as a team. In The Collective we do this weekly as part of our regular Thursday Catch Ups. These periods of reflection help you pause within the chaos, untangle experiences and spot patterns and meaning.

Recognise there may now be better ways to do things than in 2019.

This could be a fantastic time to instil some new ways of working for yourself and your wider team or organisation. There might be different events that work better than the ones you used to do, a more hybrid approach to your events to ensure accessibility and maximise participation, there might be different ways to divide the workload up, different systems you can use, different processes. Don’t forget your audience have also been through a traumatic 2 years. Their needs, wants and desires may well have changed too. If you’re not sure, ask them.

Be compassionate and understanding of yourself and others.

If the Summit roundtable proved anything it was that these feelings are not isolated cases. This is widespread and it is unchartered territory. Your leaders haven’t been in this situation before either and therefore some mistakes are inevitable. They may be under enormous pressure which is getting filtered down to you.

It might feel like there is major catching up to do after so long without in-person events and so long out of the office but remember that the smallest steps, those little 1% tweaks over time amount to big change.

Just as it took us several months to get our heads around lockdowns and covid restrictions, it will take a period of adjustment to move into this next phase.

You’re not alone

I started The Collective right at the start of the pandemic as a place to get more peer support, a safe space to share and bounce ideas around with other forward-thinking event fundraisers, plus attend training and workshops for continued professional development so fundraisers can thrive and do their best work. If that sounds like you, give me a shout.

The Collective is always open for new members and this is a great time to join.