A new charity commission

Australian Treasury department are holding consultations looking at the new 'charity commission' for Australia. If fundraisers don't consult it could be very damaging for us.

If you are working for, or on the board of an Australian charity please make sure you, your board and your CEO know what is going on.

Info from the new Commissions site:

Australian Charities and Not-for-Profits Commission (ACNC). The ACNC will be an independent regulator and will:

• be advised by an Advisory Board chaired by Robert Fitzgerald AM
• report to Parliament through the Treasurer
• be staffed by around 90 officers, with potential for growth if additional functions are added
• be supported by the ATO in the provision of back-office services

Sounds terrifying - charities will be governed by Treasury.  That is too late to change, but what the rules are can still be influenced.  No time to delay people - they start their job on 1 July 2012.

I know it is boring, it is Government but if we don't consult and get this right, it won't be boring I can promise you that.

http://acnctaskforce.treasury.gov.au/content/content.aspx?doc=home.htm

How good are you, really?

We are hearing lots of horror stories about the fundraising markets of Europe and in the USA, but drilling down we see that there are lots of organisations that did grow through those economic woes.

Here in Australia, things appear to be going well still. So well that a few foreign charities are looking more seriously at fundraising over here. But are appearances deceiving?

There is only one way to find out - look at the data.

Over the past few years a group of Australian and New Zealand charities have been pooling transactional data to see how donors actually behave - what their average donations are, their attrition rates and more, including what percentage of donors put the charity in their will.

Of course, all the private data of individuals is kept confidential and not shared, but the wealth of information in the report is phenomenal.

A free report is available for all participating charities, and more in depth individualised reports can be purchased.

Charities interested only have a couple of weeks to register though.

More information:

http://www.paretofundraising.com/benchmarking/ or call me.

Sean

No wonder cat and dog charities do well

Back in 1994, a little kitten was born.  My friends (and mentor and brilliant fundraising copywriter) Tim and Karen gave the kitten to my partner (Stef) and me.  We lived in Walthamstow, NE London.

When he was about a year old he we returned from work and couldn't find him anywhere.  Eventually someone working in the museum opposite our home found him in the museum gardens.

He had been attacked by greyhounds.  Badly mauled, he had bits of insides poking out.  We took him to the vet and he was given pretty low odds to survive.  But the vet did a fantastic job and he pulled through.

He was a tough cat, and a tease - he used to wind up dogs and other cats all the time.  He was pretty hard actually.

We got another cat, Brian, who was nowhere near as tough and also a bit soppy and needy.  Stef used to say that Tetley took after her, and me after Brian.

In 1997 Stef and I broke up.  I moved to Brighton for a few months before South London for a few years then on to Australia in 2002.

Stef left Walthamstow in the late nineties, and took Brian with her, but Tetley didn't go and became quite a character.  A bit like a slightly less adventurous Red Dog from Louis de Bernieres book (and new movie) on the Australian mining town dog.

Life moved on, and Tetley became a memory, like any ex-pet does.  But I once got chatting to a stranger a couple of years ago in Hong Kong (or maybe Singapore) who had lived in Walthamstow.  They knew Tetley, and knew he hung about the Museum still, which was kind of nice to hear.

But imagine my surprise when Stef sent me the link below to these articles.  Tetley died at the end of September and had a New Orleans style community funeral.  I wish I had known - I was in Europe then too.

Please take a look at the story.  It brought tears to my eyes and happy memories to my heart.  (Though I was one of his bully victims.  Maybe Stockholm Syndrome at work here). Click the links below the photo.




Funeral for Tetley.
Nice photo and article.

By the way, Tetley was named after the beer. Then they named a beer after him. Funny old world.

How to set up a charity in Australia

So you want to do some good, and establish a new charity to help someone or something?  An option is to set up your own charity.  This is rarely the right option for the cause, though it may be the right option for you.  Whilst it seems, on the face of it, a selfless act setting up a charity is often as much about you as the cause.  This is not a bad thing - after all, Barnardos, Greenpeace and MSF wouldn't exist and be doing their great work if they hadn't been set up by someone.

But, and it is a big but - there are now so many charities it is unbelievable.  And many of these are set up and run by well meaning amateurs trying to do some good and make themselves feel good about it.  Maybe they are angry about injustice or just want to do their bit.

Setting up a charity is almost certainly not the best way to help change the world.  Volunteering, fundraising or donating to an existing charity is likely to have a greater impact.

The only factor that would make setting up your own is passion - it is more likely that you will throw everything into 'your own baby', which is not a bad thing.

Even so, make sure you do your research and speak with the experts.  Understand the impact that what you will do will have on other organisations.  Remember that the thing you are excited about is likely to be because you happened to see and witness it, but it is probably not the most pressing problem in that country or region.

Here are some examples of how well meaning amateurs think they are doing good but could end up causing more damage.
* Several INGOs pull out of a region to force an end to specific corruption; you come in and innocently perpetuate the problem.
* A business owner introduces a malaria eradication program in a village in a poor country she has vacationed in.  Infant mortality from malaria in that village goes down - but malnutrition zooms up and conflict with the next village escalates.  An experienced NGO would have combined the malaria reduction with sexual and reproduction advice and worked with local villages to implement and spread the model.
* A returning holiday maker decides to distribute pens, school bags and other stationary to a school they happened to visit.   When the kids go home, bullies from other schools pick on them and nick their stuff.
* A manufacturer decides to sell shoes to affluent westerners and distribute a free pair to a poor person in a particular country. Unless the shoes are made local to the poor beneficiary, it is likely that the shoe manufacturers in their region will be put out of business; creating more problems.
* A woman is helped to set up her own business buying fish direct from the fisher, not the local wholesaler.  This makes her business better, but of course damages the wholesaler.

None of the above examples are necessarily wrong; and maybe the benefits outweighed the advantage - but all of them had undesired and unexpected impacts that only someone who is involved in such work could predict.

Usually the side effects are benign, and manageable but occasionally things go horribly wrong.  Stories like this one about a false orphanage run by an Indian missionary are rare but people are often desperate when they are poor and it is easy to make up a scam and take advantage of well meaning tourists.

Of course, established charities make mistakes too - but on balance they are going to get more things right than wrong.

If you still want to set up a charity (in Australia), check out Philanthropy Australia's guide here.
http://www.philanthropy.org.au/research/faq.html

Sean

Add 'eradicated polio' to your CV?

Jonas Salk made it possible.  After inventing the polio vaccine, he was asked who would own the vaccine.  He replied "Well, the people I would say. There is no patent. Could you patent the sun?"  A true hero responsible for providing the key tool to hammering polio.  It was quickly snuffed out in nearly all countries and is now endemic in only four countries - Afghanistan, India, Nigeria and Pakistan.


We are amazingly close to finishing the job - just $535m short of funding in early 2011.


But now an Australian student will be able to add those words to his CV, along with an inevitable "Young Australian of the Year" award.  


This Australian, Michael Sheldrick, was the final speaker at the FIA WA Conference a few weeks ago.  And his talk was incredibly motivating.

Even though he says "I am not a fundraiser" I think it is fair to say he bloody well is.  He managed to convince the Australian PM to give $50m, provide a platform for Bill and Melinda Gates to chuck in $40m and a few other Commonwealth countries in the UK to pitch in too.  Combined with the brilliant efforts of the global Rotary movement millions of kids will grow up, like Michael did, to never experiencing the disease. A seriously large chunk of that $535m will be knocked out thanks to the work of Michael. He is quick to point out that it was not him alone.


Managing The End of Polio Campaign was his role with Global Poverty Project. "It was very much a team effort and would not have been possible without 'All hands on deck'. In particular, a stand out Concert Producer."

It is so tempting to write up his story here, but it would ruin it - it is best coming from him.  He is a gifted storyteller, and this was key to his success. Check out his video.


Following the rock concert he was involved with, a government minister asked him to introduce the minister to Bill Gates.


If you see him speaking somewhere, go see him.  For those coming along to the Pareto party in Melbourne on 1 December don't worry about asking him to tell his story, he is happy to tell all. 

Sean 

Major Donors

The barriers for asking for large gifts from individuals are numerous.

"I need to do more research"
"The timing is not right"
"I don't know how much to ask for"
"The chairman should ask this one"
and lots more

Many of these are valid, but ultimately not asking is a failing strategy.  If you want to get $1m from someone then  you almost certainly need to build a relationship with them, and going straight in with an ask will not get you that $1m.  But done well, a smaller ask is unlikely to put them off their bigger one.  In fact, it is part of building a relationship.

If that person was already a donor, then there is some form of relationship already in place.

For example, to lift a donor from $500 - which they donate in response to your annual Christmas appeal - to $5,000 is much easier than following the full seven steps to developing major donors; and it helps bring them along the journey too, if you follow it up properly.

If you have a lot of higher value donors who donate to your appeals, but you don't really do anything else with them, try ringing them up and having a chat.  Ask them why they support you, if they have friends that do too.  Try and set up a meeting.  Maybe 1 in 3 or 4 will catch up with you.  There you can look to ask them for a more substantial donation.

It isn't that hard, and I have worked with many organisations to formalise this approach as a process, and with all but one it has led to significant extra income at little cost - and bringing those donors closer to a really big gift.  I call this 'Major Donors: Next Week" because you need to do it next week, or it doesn't work.

Lucky Australians can find out more about major donor fundraising from an excellent bunch of practitioners at the Fundraising and Philanthropy "Art and Science of Major Gift Fundraising" event at the end of the month.  A bargain at $600.  Check it out here.

Frankie Airey helped raise around $500m in one campaign.  Gulp.

Charlotte Grimshaw will also be speaking at the event.  She can help identify potential major donors from any list of donors.

Social media and fundraising; learnings from corporate world

The final session of day one at the WA state conference was with a young entrepreneur award winner, Tenille Bentley.
A very interesting session, beginning (like all social media sessions) with all the huge numbers but refreshingly localized for Australian market. Mind blowing numbers; I loved one analogy - as Australians continue to give up cigarettes they become addicted to Facebook. The infamous unfair break, the smoko, is replaced by the facebooko (or face-o).

Some good tips-
- Only worry about Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn.
- 80% of your social media communications should be about your topic, indirectly about you - only 20% about your products (something I call 'Fluff and Bite')
- don't think of social media with a 'what is the ROI' approach. That is like asking 'what is the ROI on my mobile phone'. It is about relationships
- gave example of peril of ignoring social media; someone working at Dominos spits in a Dominos Pizza, video goes viral, Dominos no idea why or what to do about it. Eventually they counter on YouTube and begin to recover sales
- always have policies that people agree to to allow you to remove inappropriate comments. But be aware they will just post them elsewhere
- all charities should have a Business Facebook page. Allows for analysis.
- great use of you tube, blender manufacturer blends things like iPads.
- how often should you update?
** Facebook 2 x a day on business page plus 5+ conversations on others walls
** twitter 5-10 days
** LinkeDIn once a day, business focus
** YouTube when you have something good and worthwhile
- biggest growth on Facebook is 55-65 year old women

Frightening end- managing a social media brand takes about 26% of a working week.

So if you haven't got time to do it, see her because that is what her company provides. Nice, subtle pitch!

Good stuff. The challenge for the fundraisers here is, of course, what role social media can have with their fundraising.

For me, social media is still best used for retention strategies, particularly for online and face to face recruited donors, and overlaying it with Game Layer is the best idea.

Tenille Bentley,