I love snakes, fascinating and beautiful creatures. Most people, including me, are scared or at least very wary of them. But many kill them when there is no need. Australian snakes have a fearsome reputation which is pretty unfounded.
Fewer people have been killed by snakes in recorded history than cars kill in one month or so.
My sister knows my enthusiasm for the legless wonders and, joined by my parents, bought me a course to learn more about them for my birthday. But I'm going further and becoming a registered snake handler, on call to rescue snakes from my neighbours. As a volunteer for NSW Wildlife charity, WIRES, people will be able to call me to remove venomous snakes from their homes.
But the course was not without a few hairy moments - as this 'rescue' of an angry carpet python shows.
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Friday, August 21, 2009
England Youth Volunteer Awards
Do you know anyone who is a wonderful volunteer - and between 16-25? Nominate them immediately! You only have until the end of the month...
Read more, and nominate here.
Read more, and nominate here.
Google gives free stuff to charities
A little experiment a while ago showed me that quite a few charities are using Google Adwords in Australia. But not all charities are aware that this is free - Google will give you a grant if you are really nice*.
I thoroughly recommend that if you meet this criteria for digital fundraising that you apply for the grant, if you haven't already. DO NOT apply if you don't meet this criteria ; there are more important things to do that will raise you more money
I thoroughly recommend that if you meet this criteria for digital fundraising that you apply for the grant, if you haven't already. DO NOT apply if you don't meet this criteria ; there are more important things to do that will raise you more money
- You have someone responsible for planning and monitoring your online signups
- You have someone with the time to be testing different messages to drive traffic
- You know why you want people to come to your website
- You know where on the website you want them landing
- You have calls to action on every page of your website - even if 'sign up for free newsletter'
- You have a plan to follow them up, very, very fast (you have 30 days or so honeymoon and should be emailing them 2 or 3 times a week in that period, calling them if you are trying to get regular givers with ten days or so) - separate blog coming on this eventually (I learned lots about it at US conference recently)
- You are already on top of your mail program, and are calling top donors to say thank you and remind them about important mailings (there is no doubt that if you are not doing this, you'll make more money than spending the Google Adwords grant)
- You have budget to roll on paying for Google Adwords and other online media if you get it working
- You have someone who absolutely and totally gets how Google Adwords works.
- I am sure I've missed something... comments please!
*(They don't say 'nice' their version is slightly, but not much, more complicated).
Charities we noted were sponsoring words when typed in on an Australian IP Australian a couple of months back are below. With a couple of months of results, any feedback guys?
· Amnesty
· ACRF
· Leukaemia Foundation
· Greenpeace
· Unicef
· Starlight
· Saving our World
· Make a Wish
· Reach Out
· Planet Cancer
· RMHC
· RSPCA
· Red Cross
· Canteen
· Oxfam
· Sick Kids Foundation
· ChildFund
· Compassion
· World Vision
· Flying Doctors
· Save the Children
Sean
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Who Let the Dogs Out II
Are you a glutton for punishment?
I recently posted my keynote presentation at ADMA Forum - 'Who Let the Dogs Out' but have just found out that ADMA actually record them too. So you can watch the presentation.. and listen at the same time.
It is 48 minutes of me talking though - so be warned. Click here and then click on my name.
I recently posted my keynote presentation at ADMA Forum - 'Who Let the Dogs Out' but have just found out that ADMA actually record them too. So you can watch the presentation.. and listen at the same time.
It is 48 minutes of me talking though - so be warned. Click here and then click on my name.
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Charity board members and the door-mounted-brain-zappers
Last year I did a bit of work in Singapore. I met some lovely fundraisers who work in what is probably the most conservative fundraising environment anywhere in the world, with some really silly laws that prevent the country being a serious contender for being the nonprofit capital of Asia, something to which the Singapore government aspires.
Whilst there I was especially astonished at the level of interference by volunteer boards in the day-to-day running of charity business.
In one meeting I got up to have a closer look at the doors to the boardroom. The only explanation for what was happening in the boardrooms was that there must be tiny brain-zapping devices planted about head-height into the door frame.
Whoever put them there was clever - they were invisible to the eye, but, although improbable, they must have been there. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle helped me to this conclusion. "Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever is left, no matter how improbable, it must be the truth."
You see, very powerful, rich, clever business people, would spend the day wheeling and dealing, laying off hundreds of people, hiring loads more, spending millions on marketing, buying a foreign telecommunications company before breakfast, and brokering a deal between China and Australia to buy uranium over lunch.
Then they would go to the charity board meeting, walk through the door with the zapping things and turn into absolute gibbering idiots. They would start arguing about the colour of the logo at the charity ball, who would sit next to who and then give the fundraisers grief for not performing miracles and recruiting tons of donors with no money to spend.
On top of that, they would be scared to actually ask a friend for money for their charity.
In Hong Kong I investigated to see if the same thing was happening there. The answer was yes, but thankfully with a few exceptions (more exceptions than Singapore).
I reflected on my experiences of being a fundraiser and director at my previous (UK) charity employers and my experiences in Australia, New Zealand and Canada. It would appear that these zappers are pretty universal in boardrooms around the world.
So, fellow fundraisers, what are we to do about it?
Well the first thing is to understand why charity boards exist. They are there to govern. Not to manage and certainly not to do.
You may have heard the phrase ‘... in America, it is Give, Get or Get off...' which us Australians (and Brits) used to think was the case for all charities in the USA. Well, news flash - it isn't: most charities over there have board members who refuse to ask for money too. Just get over it. It is not their job to ask - it is yours. Sure, you can try and get some of them to help but don't depend on them.
There is a great book, Tiny Essentials Of An Effective Volunteer Board by Ken Burnett. Buy it. It is cheap, and tiny - and takes about an hour to read. Get all board members to read it and it will revolutionise your charity. Whatever happens, it will revolutionise your career.
Ken thinks there are five key roles for boards:
1. Watchdogs (protect public interest, brand [mission] guardian etc)
2. Strategic oversight (help develop strategy)
3. Hire and fire CEO, including monitoring performance / targets etc
4. Support management
5. Understand and approve finances
That seems sensible enough. What goes wrong though is that many boards have a total lack of understanding about fundraising. Fundraising is like a secret that is on view for everyone to see, but non-fundraisers don't actually know what happens.
The non-fundraising people of the world think charities get money from events, companies and possibly just by magic. They don't really think about it.
They don't know that across the sector, government is the biggest contributor.
They don't know that of non-government net funds only about five to ten per cent comes from companies, and about the same comes from events.
They wouldn't be expected to know that bequests account for about a third of net funds, and that those pesky junk mail letters and cheeky backpackers are dragging in nearly half.
They have no idea how expensive it is, or that everyone doesn't do things for free.
They expect charities to get free advertising, free print and free everything else.
Your board members - no matter how clever they are - don't get this either. How can they do any of the five key roles without understanding fundraising?
Logically, a charity board should comprise people with different areas of expertise enabling them to govern wisely, asking the right questions, setting the right parameters, recruiting the right CEO.
Some charities aim for a wide spectrum of board members, but it is a mystery why they never seem to ask fundraisers to be on their board.
I wondered about this; why don't boards ask fundraisers to go onto boards? Maybe they are worried about having a fundraiser from the competition on the board? What about consultants like me then? I would never want to be a board member of a client, that has a clear conflict of interest, but surely I have something to offer?
I thought maybe it was just me - bolshy, agitating, impatient; mathematician fundraisers with my personality would probably be too much. But I chatted with a few other consultants and senior fundraisers and found I was not alone.
Probably this is self-fulfilling; as I said before, boards in general don't get fundraising, so they don't understand the skills they need.
The solution is obvious. Boards need to be taught the basics and economics of fundraising. The reality. We need a board fundraising induction kit. A couple of years ago, I offered free places for board members accompanying staff to fundraising training courses but got hardly any take ups.
A typical master class nowadays will have less than five per cent of attendees being board members of a charity.
But there is a board management and fundraising kit, and I suggest you put it together for each and every one of your board members now and for every new board member appointed. The kit comprises of:
The Essential Trustee: What You Need to Know (Free - UK)
Ten Basic Responsibilities of Nonprofit Boards (USD$27- USA)
Board Membership with Purpose and Fun (Free - UK)
Facing the Financial Crisis - Ten Smart Things Your Board Can Do Now (Free - USA)
A Process For a Formal Governance Review and Evaluation (Free - UK)
I originally wrote this for Fundraising and Philanthropy Magazine and their monthly e-bulletin.
It's a good fundraising rag - even for those beyond Australia's shores.
Whilst there I was especially astonished at the level of interference by volunteer boards in the day-to-day running of charity business.
In one meeting I got up to have a closer look at the doors to the boardroom. The only explanation for what was happening in the boardrooms was that there must be tiny brain-zapping devices planted about head-height into the door frame.
Whoever put them there was clever - they were invisible to the eye, but, although improbable, they must have been there. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle helped me to this conclusion. "Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever is left, no matter how improbable, it must be the truth."
You see, very powerful, rich, clever business people, would spend the day wheeling and dealing, laying off hundreds of people, hiring loads more, spending millions on marketing, buying a foreign telecommunications company before breakfast, and brokering a deal between China and Australia to buy uranium over lunch.
Then they would go to the charity board meeting, walk through the door with the zapping things and turn into absolute gibbering idiots. They would start arguing about the colour of the logo at the charity ball, who would sit next to who and then give the fundraisers grief for not performing miracles and recruiting tons of donors with no money to spend.
On top of that, they would be scared to actually ask a friend for money for their charity.
In Hong Kong I investigated to see if the same thing was happening there. The answer was yes, but thankfully with a few exceptions (more exceptions than Singapore).
I reflected on my experiences of being a fundraiser and director at my previous (UK) charity employers and my experiences in Australia, New Zealand and Canada. It would appear that these zappers are pretty universal in boardrooms around the world.
So, fellow fundraisers, what are we to do about it?
Well the first thing is to understand why charity boards exist. They are there to govern. Not to manage and certainly not to do.
You may have heard the phrase ‘... in America, it is Give, Get or Get off...' which us Australians (and Brits) used to think was the case for all charities in the USA. Well, news flash - it isn't: most charities over there have board members who refuse to ask for money too. Just get over it. It is not their job to ask - it is yours. Sure, you can try and get some of them to help but don't depend on them.
There is a great book, Tiny Essentials Of An Effective Volunteer Board by Ken Burnett. Buy it. It is cheap, and tiny - and takes about an hour to read. Get all board members to read it and it will revolutionise your charity. Whatever happens, it will revolutionise your career.
Ken thinks there are five key roles for boards:
1. Watchdogs (protect public interest, brand [mission] guardian etc)
2. Strategic oversight (help develop strategy)
3. Hire and fire CEO, including monitoring performance / targets etc
4. Support management
5. Understand and approve finances
That seems sensible enough. What goes wrong though is that many boards have a total lack of understanding about fundraising. Fundraising is like a secret that is on view for everyone to see, but non-fundraisers don't actually know what happens.
The non-fundraising people of the world think charities get money from events, companies and possibly just by magic. They don't really think about it.
They don't know that across the sector, government is the biggest contributor.
They don't know that of non-government net funds only about five to ten per cent comes from companies, and about the same comes from events.
They wouldn't be expected to know that bequests account for about a third of net funds, and that those pesky junk mail letters and cheeky backpackers are dragging in nearly half.
They have no idea how expensive it is, or that everyone doesn't do things for free.
They expect charities to get free advertising, free print and free everything else.
Your board members - no matter how clever they are - don't get this either. How can they do any of the five key roles without understanding fundraising?
Logically, a charity board should comprise people with different areas of expertise enabling them to govern wisely, asking the right questions, setting the right parameters, recruiting the right CEO.
Some charities aim for a wide spectrum of board members, but it is a mystery why they never seem to ask fundraisers to be on their board.
I wondered about this; why don't boards ask fundraisers to go onto boards? Maybe they are worried about having a fundraiser from the competition on the board? What about consultants like me then? I would never want to be a board member of a client, that has a clear conflict of interest, but surely I have something to offer?
I thought maybe it was just me - bolshy, agitating, impatient; mathematician fundraisers with my personality would probably be too much. But I chatted with a few other consultants and senior fundraisers and found I was not alone.
Probably this is self-fulfilling; as I said before, boards in general don't get fundraising, so they don't understand the skills they need.
The solution is obvious. Boards need to be taught the basics and economics of fundraising. The reality. We need a board fundraising induction kit. A couple of years ago, I offered free places for board members accompanying staff to fundraising training courses but got hardly any take ups.
A typical master class nowadays will have less than five per cent of attendees being board members of a charity.
But there is a board management and fundraising kit, and I suggest you put it together for each and every one of your board members now and for every new board member appointed. The kit comprises of:
- two books - Tiny essentials of an effective volunteer board (Ken Burnett), Tiny essentials of fundraising (Neil Sloggie)
- a few other publications (listed at the end)
- a presentation (at least annually) about fundraising, not your fundraising but the sector's
For your presentation, I recommend you nick bits from Givewell's annual report on giving but keep it simple. Although not written for this purpose, my white-paper ‘Ten tips to fundraising in a recession' has a load of useful charts and a good section on why return on investment is the wrong measure for fundraising.
I asked Ken Burnett for his top half dozen tips for effective boards and he sent me 21.Here is a little selection.
The board serves the organisation, not the other way around.
- Make sure everyone fully understands the different roles of the board and the management ‘top team'. Management manages. The board governs. Define the different roles, making clear what governance means.
- Keep the CEO involved (and management team too). Never meet without the CEO, unless in a crisis that involves replacing the CEO.
- Reduce paperwork. Make sure your meetings serve the need of the organisation, not the trustees.
- Get the board's balance right: introduce formal terms of service, retirement policy, gender balance, age, representation from the field, regions, retaining institutional memory etc.
- Run good, enjoyable and informative meetings. Make sure they start and end on time.
If you are a fundraiser, you may feel that you have little influence on the board - particularly as to how it is selected and run. If you are right about that, then it means the board needs you more than it knows. Go through the proper channels (usually the CEO) but make sure they know about the help they can get, and that you are only trying to help your beneficiaries.
Good luck.
The books mentioned can be bought from White Lion Press. My white paper is available by emailing Justine.
The Essential Trustee: What You Need to Know (Free - UK)
Ten Basic Responsibilities of Nonprofit Boards (USD$27- USA)
Board Membership with Purpose and Fun (Free - UK)
Facing the Financial Crisis - Ten Smart Things Your Board Can Do Now (Free - USA)
A Process For a Formal Governance Review and Evaluation (Free - UK)
I originally wrote this for Fundraising and Philanthropy Magazine and their monthly e-bulletin.
It's a good fundraising rag - even for those beyond Australia's shores.
Monday, August 17, 2009
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.
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.
Monday, August 10, 2009
Stupid charity ads
Charities wasting money drives me nuts. Especially (but not only) 'awareness' advertising for fundraising. Often free design from clever, top flight ad agencies.
ADMA, the Australian Direct Marketing Association has invited me along to help judge work for awards beyond charities. I really enjoy this, but it never fails to confuse my commercial counterparts that I only work for charities. Their confusion comes from the fact that they are pretty honest about the fact that they don't charge charities for work, 'they just do it for awards - great for marketing'.
But I won't name them, because I am too, um, polite. (Though Todd Sampson, CEO of Leo Burnett in Sydney said it in front of hundreds of people at the FIA Conference, so happy to name in - and give him respect for honesty.)
Jeff Brooks, creative director at Merkle has no such qualms. His blog, 'Donor Power Blog' is brilliant stuff, and one of my favorite areas he blogs about is 'Stupid Charity Ads'. Here he doesn't mess about and says it like it is - including taking a very unsubtle shot at Todd's agency and their WWF ad.
Check out these 'stupid charity ads' including the 'Leo Burnett edition.'
Sean
ADMA, the Australian Direct Marketing Association has invited me along to help judge work for awards beyond charities. I really enjoy this, but it never fails to confuse my commercial counterparts that I only work for charities. Their confusion comes from the fact that they are pretty honest about the fact that they don't charge charities for work, 'they just do it for awards - great for marketing'.
But I won't name them, because I am too, um, polite. (Though Todd Sampson, CEO of Leo Burnett in Sydney said it in front of hundreds of people at the FIA Conference, so happy to name in - and give him respect for honesty.)
Jeff Brooks, creative director at Merkle has no such qualms. His blog, 'Donor Power Blog' is brilliant stuff, and one of my favorite areas he blogs about is 'Stupid Charity Ads'. Here he doesn't mess about and says it like it is - including taking a very unsubtle shot at Todd's agency and their WWF ad.
Check out these 'stupid charity ads' including the 'Leo Burnett edition.'
Sean
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