What is wrong with the Australian NFP Sector?

Excellent one hour program from the ABC about the sector in Australia.

With 700k NFPs in Australia, are we a mess?

Listen to 'Inventing the Third Sector' ABC Background Briefing, which was broadcast on 17 May.

Download podcast / MP3.

Keith Roberts (ex Epilepsy Action) and Tony Thirwell (Heart Foundation) speak a lot of sense about traditional fundraising charities, but the program goes beyond that to give a lot of insight into the non-charity NFPs. Elizabeth Cham and Mark Lyons (philanthropy academics) give some put the case for better regulation, and the case against using cost of fundraising as a useful measure.

I must say that Elizabeth goes off on one about face to face fundraising in a very non academic way, suggesting that charities use face to face for the wrong reasons. She suggests they do it to keep their fundraising costs down, which makes no sense to me having frequent opportunity to look at the data and costs / income involved.

She calls it 'chugging' which kind of shows her colours on this issue straight away!

She says "...but they're out there in the streets with these chuggers - you know, you can't move in any city in the world almost, without bumping into not so much the beggars but the chuggers, the charity muggers - who are out there saying, 'Are you going to give us your credit card so we can take $10 from you?'"

Elizabeth - people only give when asked, and face to face activities has raised at least a billion dollars in Australia - from a new audience of previous non-givers. She is also not happy that the face to face canvassers are only paid on success - which is the case for some, but not all of the companies.

She hints that this is morally contradicting charities own '...very, very strong policies about proper labour costs when [you're] operating internationally.'

Everything else she says is pretty damn spot on though; a thoughtful and useful show, worth an hour of your life.

In preparation for me being on 'Australia Talks' - ABC National 'intelligent talkback show', the producer asked me lots of questions about face to face, cost of fundraising and regulation so I guess this is all still pretty hot stuff for the media. (The show is on Thursday at 6pm, Podcast will be available on the ABC website afterwards so people in other time zones can listen later. OK mum?)

Sean

Learning fundraising - fundraising conferences and more

It is an interesting business this fundraising for good causes. We all love it, most people I know are in it because they want to 'make a difference' and we all do our best for our charities. But it still isn't a profession. So where do we get our training?

There are qualifications - the CFRE is the one that I most familiar with, but I am sure there are more. (Please share them by commenting on this blog).

I am lucky that my job allows me to visit loads of conferences, where I learn more and also get to present a bit. But sometimes I find out about a new conference I have never heard of, so I thought it useful to publish a list of conferences I know... Please add more by commenting.

I really don't care if the title is conference/forum/workshop or whatever, I am just looking for learning opportunities for fundraisers - and the relevant website, and when it is please!

As well as conferences, Pareto Fundraising offers tons of training too. Mostly in Canada, Hong Kong and Australia more information can be obtained here.
Links are usually to the parent body, since actual conference sites often change.

Australia - FIA Conference. Annual, next February '09
Australia - Australasian Fundraising Forum. Annual, most recent August '08
New Zealand - FINZ Conference, Biannual, most recent May '08
India - SAFRG. Annual, most recent Aug '08
UK - IOF Convention, Annual, next 6-8 July 2009
Netherlands - IFC, annual, next 14-17 Oct 2008
USA - AFP, annual, next 29 Mar - 1 Apr 2009
USA - DMA/AFP 'Bridge' Conference. Annual, most recent July '08
Brasil - Brazilian Fundraising Conference, Annual, next 5-7 Nov '08 (NB the website was not working for me when I put this up, and my Portuguese is not good enough to search in the right lanuage).
International - IWRM. Maybe annual now? Most recent was Malaysia, May '08

Oh, and if anyone knows of a list somewhere else, I would rather point to that and save me some time! The closest I ever got was to follow guru and Resource Alliance chair, Mal Warwick.
I will get the list up in a friendlier format on our revamped website in the new year.

Sean Triner, Pareto Fundraising