SOFII needs help

If you have been reading my blog, you know I love SOFII. But it is in trouble.

Please, if you are a fundraiser, read this and donate now. If today, the donation will be doubled.


This is the most important blog I have ever written about SOFII.

I do hope that you signed up and find the site useful. The revamped site is going to be much more user friendly, and even more useful.

But it won’t last long without funding.

You see, the fact is, SOFII was born from Ken Burnett’s passion for fundraising, with the support of some key friends – including us at Pareto. A bit like many things in new media, it was created as an idea – he just got on with it (good old JFDI attitude).

The plan was to see if it worked, if it was popular and then work out how to fund it.

But now, as a fundraiser, I need your help. Please will you make an urgent donation of $30 by clicking here. I’ve already put in a big chunk, and a couple of close friends have put something in, but there is still lots to go.

And if you make a donation today it will be matched – doubled – by The Big Give*; twice the value right now.

Like you, I care about making the world a better place. That’s why Paul and I set up Pareto, and probably why you work where you do.

Fundraisers have a huge role to play in enabling their organisations to have the maximum possible impact. But fundraising is tough.

SOFII helps fundraisers do their job. Fundraisers like Julia at the Centre for Companion Health, a small fundraising operation based in Brisbane, Australia.

‘When I was first told about the SOFII website site I was sceptical – a free site that shared fundraising initiatives from around the world – is this possible?

‘And then I realised it is possible, very possible, brilliantly possible!’
Julia is one of over seven thousand SOFII subscribers.

‘The SOFII site has an amazing array of top of the class, proven fundraising success stories and a mountain of ideas. To me this site has been gold. I refer to it all the time and wish I had more time to sift through every single document.’

The problem for SOFII is that I need to professionalise the site. I need to make it more friendly, have comments and voting available, and professionally manage the gathering and displaying of exhibits. And this is where I need your help.

Please, join me by making a gift – I am suggesting $30, but don’t forget that every dollar you give will be matched. Click here to donate before the Big Give time limit expires.
Julia has used the site in an incredibly practical way...

‘As a one person fundraiser – I need to be economical and targeted with my fundraising efforts – and this site helps me do this. I have downloaded so many of the examples, then adapted them specifically to our donors and our cause. It is like you get to see the secret recipe for fundraising – but you must add your own unique ingredients.

I have used SOFII for direct mail, donor care, thank you letters, donor surveys, campaign ideas, bequest (legacy) communication and also just for my own personal professional development in learning more about the scope of fundraising.’

Julia is in Australia, but SOFII is helping fundraisers in countries as diverse in fundraising and culture as Nepal, the UK, India, USA, Indonesia, Hong Kong and New Zealand.

Ken’s vision was to keep SOFII free and available to any fundraiser. And it still is. But I need those fundraisers that can help, to help.

Please, as a fellow fundraiser, help keep SOFII alive – and make a donation – grab your credit card, click here now and help fellow fundraisers around the world.

Thank you so much. I really appreciate your time reading this email. And thank you, thank you, thank you for making a gift.

Sean Triner
Fundraiser, SOFII user and donor.

PS Julia really loves SOFII. And she is not alone. With the revamp of the site, even more people will be able to use it to help their fundraising activities. Please join me in donating to SOFII here. How much to give? I am suggesting $30 because it is an amount that won’t be missed by most fundraisers earning over $40k a year. And if you give now, it will be doubled*.

PPS If you haven’t signed up to SOFII, please do so here!

Charity Newsletters are rubbish

OK, they are not entirely. But they also not necesarily the best thing fundraisers should be spending your time on.

Good newsletters are good, but let's face it - there aren't many of them - so stick with personalised letters. Tom Ahern, the world's leading charity newsletter expert disagrees.

Check out my debate with him on Sofii. And below are the slides from a masterclass in Melbourne where we 'proved' newsletters were rubbish - usually.

Newsletter Is Dead Melbourne

View more presentations from Pareto Group.

SOFII Saturday Showcase XII: A brilliant annual report

Let's face it, many charity annual reports are pretty crap. They are not strategic, very inward looking, feature photos of CEO and / or chairperson - sometimes receiving a check - a few charts and lists of donors. Boring, irrelevant and waste of time.

Even 'good' annual reports are built for many audiences and not focused. With annual reports being a necessity for most organisations, what do we do? Well MCC-Murray Culshaw Consulting in India will tell you how.

MCC may be Indian, but the MCC annual report exhibit on SOFII is brilliant for NGOs everywhere.

It is actually their own annual report. You would think that would be boring, and not relevant to most charities but MCC explain each bit of their report - why they put this information here, or display this information as a chart - inside their own report. That's right, their actual annual report is a learning and teaching tool.

To get your copy of this fantastic and ingenious annual report, visit SOFII, sign up and search for MCC.

Sean Triner

SOFII Saturday Showcase XI: Breakthrough's 'Is this Justice' Campaign

This exhibit on SOFII is introuced as "...a brave campaign that fearlessly speaks out against social injustice in societies where such issues are rarely discussed, far less confronted."

Visit SOFII and search for MM90 to see more about this wonderful and hard hitting campaign in India.

SOFII Saturday Showcase IX: Polish scouts

Every taxpayer in Poland is entitled to choose a non-governmental organisation that can benefit from one per cent of his or her personal income tax.

How cool is that!?

Well, pretty cool, except charities still have to compete to get people to choose them.

Check out the Polish Scouts exhibit on SOFII (register then search for MM51 or Polish Scouts).

Oh, and for those who will be celebrating Christmas - Happy Christmas! Happy holidays for those who have a holiday and, well, all the best to the rest of you.

Sean Triner

SOFII Saturday Showcase VII: White papers and working groups

Another feature of SOFII is the 'Top Tips from Leading Fundraisers' bit.

Gordon Michie from Relationship Marketing wrote a whitepaper all about Stewardship, available on SOFII.

In it he covers all sorts of things about what is stewardship, differences between UK and US definitions, barriers to adoption and what happens next.

In a tremendously exciting climax, the white paper concludes by calling on the Institute of Fundraising to set up a working party to develop a code of practice on fundraising stewardship.

If working parties and White Papers float your boat, I am sorry - there are not too many of them on SOFII. But there are tons of great exhibits, and Gordon's Stewardship paper is useful for fundraisers either side of the pond - and beyond UK/USA too.

To find it on SOFII, register and search for Gordon Michie.

Sean Triner

SOFII Saturday Showcase VI: Bringing the sense of touch to fundraising

UK agency bluefrog are well know for their brilliant creativity. One of their clients Sense, who work with deaf and blind kids, use face-to-face (direct dialogue) to recruit regular givers. bluefrog worked with Sense to find a way for strangers to identify with the kids and motivate them to decide to help Sense.

Tim Longfoot, then a bluefrog director (now a director of Open) worked with a specialist face-to-face fundraising agency, Gift, and Sense to develop a unique approach to direct dialogue.

Close your eyes and just think for a moment about kids who are deaf and blind. How can you make that positive? It’s a tough cause, and quite difficult to put across in print.

Tim reckoned face-to-face was ideal. ‘Imagine the isolated world of a deaf/blind child…’ says Tim ‘Yet the most amazing things can be done to reach these children, with Sense’s help. Our fundraisers are trained to show this to potential donors in the most dramatic and involving way.’

How did they do this? When a passer-by is prepared to stop and listen, there and then on the pavement the fundraiser will create for them the imaginary silent world of a deaf/blind child. In one hand the fundraiser holds a length of chain, in the other a piece of soft cloth. ‘Touch is crucial communication for a deaf/blind child’ explains Tim. ‘We ask our potential donor to close her or his eyes and grasp the chain in their hand. They imagine the chain is from a child’s swing and can see immediately the pleasure of a child holding such a simple gift; how it reaches in to the child’s silent world. The piece of cloth represents the mother’s sleeve as she adopts the open-armed greeting that for these children symbolises ‘love’. In this simple, involving way people are able to touch and feel what it means to be a child with neither sound nor vision. Often, they are touched by this experience and many willingly agree to help.

Sign up through the SOFII home page and search for Sense to see the whole exhibit.

Sean Triner

SOFII Saturday Showcase V: The essential foundations of fundraising

As well as exhibits like last weeks, SOFII also includes pearls of wisdom from lots of different fundraisers in its 'Top Tips from Leading Fundraisers' section.

Ken Burnett, founder of SOFII tells us his 'Essential Foundations of Fundraising' which is a list of 29 'basic principles of our trade' ripped out from his book, Relationship Fundraising.

Here are a few to whet your appetite:

7. Fundraising is about needs as well as achievements. People applaud achievement, but will give to meet a need.

14. You don’t get if you don’t ask. Know whom to ask, how much to ask for, and when.

16. Successful fundraising involves storytelling. Fundraisers have great stories to tell and need to tell them with pace and passion so as to inspire action.

21. Great fundraising is getting great results. If your results are mediocre, your fundraising probably is too.

29. Always say ‘thank you’, properly and often. It’s also a good idea to be brilliant at saying ‘welcome!’.

Ken reckons you should click on his list, print it out and stick it above your monitor. Not a bad idea. Sign up to SOFII and search for 'Essential Foundations' to get the full list.

Relationship Fundraising by Ken Burnett, published © 2002 by Jossey-Bass Inc.

Sean Triner

SOFII Saturday Showcase IV: CCIA bequest pack

One of the great things about SOFII is the fact that the whole packages are often exhibited, sometimes - as with th LM38, 'Children’s Cancer Institute Australia bequest conversion pack'.

It is a great 'bequest conversion pack' for CCIA. It shows why SOFII is so great for you too; you can download and see the whole pack.

Yes, kids with cancer is a a great proposition, but the same tactics and ideas have worked for other charities just as effectively so don't be afraid of trying.

And the agency that did this piece is truly amazing - they get consistently fantasic results for many Australian, Canadian, New Zealand and Hong Kong charities - check out Pareto Fundraising's website for more information!

To see the whole exhibit, sign up for SOFII and search for CCIA.

Sean Triner (um, director at Pareto Fundraising in case you didn't spot the bias).

SOFII Saturday Showcase III: Why you should check us out

Don't take it from me that SOFII is great. Listen to these three reasons to check it out.

SOFII Saturday Showcase II: Bob Monkhouse from beyond the grave

Bob Monkhouse. Brits aged 30-100 will be familiar with him. Maybe a few young 'uns and a few foreigners too.

Bob was pretty funny, if pretty mainstream. But he is being funny now, despite being dead, in his latest campaign for prostate Cancer.

Here he is, pointing out how he doesn't want you to die like him.



Visit SOFII for more on this campaign (search for MM199), and tons more brilliant ideas to nick to make more money for your cause. The Showcase of Fundraising Innovation and Inspiration.

Sean Triner

SOFII Saturday Showcase I

Who were the first to set up regular giving programs? Greenpeace? World Vision? Maybe Dr Barnardos in 1890s? Nah, check this out!
Check out SOFII for more interesting stuff like this, and loads of practical examples from contemporary fundraising.

Sean Triner

Great fundraising ideas

Following an inspirational and useful IFC (a fundraising conference) I am now camped up in sunny London before my return to Sydney next week. Whilst here I have had some really great meetings with charity folk and some friends who have just opened up a new UK agency, Open Fundraising.

I have known these guys for quite some time, since they were with bluefrog, another London based agency who I worked with when I was 'charity-side'. bluefrog are well renowned for their innovation and great creative approaches, and thinking about them - and the current economic stuff made me think more about good ideas and where they come from.

My friend Ken Burnett emailed me today about the fact that in times like this, ideas are more important than ever.

"Many currently established methods of donor acquisition can be seen to have arisen as innovations when the need was greatest.

See ActionAid’s insert story on SOFII, and Greenpeace’s development of face-to-face. Plus an array of legacy marketing and other initiatives that arose directly out of fundraising uncertainty.

The whole idea of SOFII itself becomes even more appropriate in tough times. Why trouble to think of your own great idea if you can borrow someone else’s? Why take a risk testing the unknown when you can see how well or otherwise similar initiatives fared, when used by others?

To quote (very reluctantly) Donald Rumsfeld, fundraisers suffer from too many ‘unknown unknowns’, particularly in hard times. So I hope you’ll direct your followers to SOFII, where as many of the ‘known knowns’ as we can uncover are being gathered and displayed to help fundraisers to shed light on the best ways of doing things, however hard times get. And all for free, too."

I am going to pick on a couple of good ideas every weekend for a while, and blog them up to remind people to check it out.

Please, take time to sign up for SOFII- it is a charity, it is free and it is bloody useful with tons of ideas there - just for you.

Sean Triner

Sean is always learning

A few years ago I watched a chap called Gavin Coopey do a training session called 'Innovate or Die' at a fundraising conference. In it, he did tons of interactive exercises and showed us some really cool tools for brainstorming.


I loved it, and shortly after, he began work at Pareto Fundraising as a senior consultant (by the way, there are some pretty rigorous recruitment criteria for jobs in Pareto companies, it is not just a matter of doing a good presentation!)

Gavin has presented this session, to great reviews, through Pareto Fundraising masterclass and training sessions, again receiving great reviews.

I love new ideas, and pushing barriers. We need to be constantly learning, testing and proving (or disproving) concepts. We have a few rules at work:
1) Always give advice that is in the long term interest of our clients' beneficiaries.
2) Always do the work 'The Pareto Way' - which means following our established and proven strategies, tactics and ideas
3) If you want to challenge individual tactics within the Pareto Way, you must test them against your own ideas and prove one way or the other.

(I will do another blog or article about what exactly the Pareto Way is, so come back soon!)

This means we can be cautious and innovative at the same time. New staff are taught 'The Pareto Way' but then given the chance and opportunity to challenge their bosses and the founders of the company. We are effectively telling them to prove us wrong.

As well as staff intelligence, agencies like ours have another resource, which in-house teams can never have: A load of clients, also with great ideas and challenges. Again, we work with our clients to challenge the Pareto Way, most clients work with us on testing tactics, constantly trying to improve and change little bits, ideas and big strategies.

Often the first job with a charity is a mail appeal, and with that first mailing we tend to apply all the Pareto Way tactics. The first 'test' or 'trial' is of course to prove to the charity that these tactics work. (Which they always do; if the charity goes for it, we usually at least double their income - the most recent new client saw income lift from about AU$200k to nearly $1m*, nearly five times as much money from the same donors/customers...)

*Aussie, Canadian and US dollars are all about the same at the moment.

But after that first mailing, where do we get our ideas from?

Over the years clients have asked to try new things, and so have our own staff. However, on top of that we still need inspiration for learning, grabbing new ideas.

One option is seminars and conferences - fundraising ones, but also non-fundraising sessions. I got some great ideas at the last couple of conferences I've attended (to share in a future blog). Another good resource is The Showcase of Fundraising Innovation and Inspiration. Email Maxine there for a free id and password.

Of course another great source of ideas is to rip them off others. Keep your commercial direct mail and emails, and donate to loads of charities and spot different things they send you.

Remember, no matter what results you get and what successes you have had, you are always learning.