A personal reminder of the importance of feedback

Donors support charities because they are nice and they care. Our job as fundraisers is to make sure they have every opportunity to do so, and are encouraged to do so again.

There is some debate as to whether thank you letters should be sent to some, all or no donors following gifts. The arguments against are all focused on cost saving, and to some extent the assumption that the donors wouldn't want their money spent that way.

We at Pareto Fundraising encourage charities to say thank you every time someone donates, and send donor care letters updating donors on how their money has been used. Sometimes we fail to persuade them to do so.

But I had a little reminder today of the importance of feedback. I am currently in London, where I am presenting some fundraising training sessions at a fundraising conference.

Last night, as a friend, John Sauvé-Rodd was leaving I asked him what honey bees had to do with with fundraising - and told him about my blog.

A fundraiser that he had just introduced, Anetta Murphy, overheard and said - 'Oh, I know; did you write that blog about the honey bees in Canada?'

Now I had never met Anetta and she works for an agency in Dublin, but she told me that her boss, Damian had sent her the blog.

To this point I thought I had about ten readers of my blog (my sister, my girlfriend, my dad and about half a dozen Pareto Fundraising staff) so I was amazed - but more importantly incredibly motivated to carry it on and make sure I get more quirky, but useful, stuff up there.

OK, big ego boost too - but honestly, isn't that what donors need as well? (I don't say 'want' because they - like me - would deny that!)

So please, send me feedback too, I want to know who reads this!