parkeslife

Bad social media

2011-04-19T13:14:00.004+01:00

A gripping, occasionally chilling assessment of the pros and cons of social media activism. Does the Internet in society empower or censor citizens?

Kind of makes you think twice about 'Liking' or 'RTing' something, huh?

The most advanced 360 degree video in the world

2011-01-31T12:15:00.018Z

An amazing innovation
Several cameras are fitted under a helicopter, recording high quality video in every direction.

They capture the view as the chopper swoops into ravines, skims along river beds and arches over mountain peaks. The serenity of wilderness lakes and the drama of ancient glaciers are burnt to hard drive in astonishing detail, from a perspective few people will enjoy for themselves.

(Btw, I know data isn't really 'burnt' to hard drive!)

The real innovation, however, is in harnessing the latest computer processing power to knit millions of frames of video together. The result is the ability to create a seamless view - up and down, side to side and forward and back.

The pilots could simply have posted a video of the view looking forwards from the cockpit as the helicopter navigated this stunning landscape. But instead this lets you relive the experience...

...as if you had been in the cockpit.

As if you had been there, looking around as they flew.

Try it for yourself!

Click 'play', view full screen and then click and hold the screen. If you move to the left it is as if your head is turning to the left. Look down as you soar over the jagged mountain ridge! Look back as you speed over cobalt blue cracks in the glacier.

Why do I like this?
Possibly because it combines many of my favourite things, including aviation (as you now know, from a recent post!), mountains, glaciers, forests, rivers, photography - well, video - and the innovative use of cutting edge technology.

However, I think the lesson about innovation is not that you always need to invent new things - but that you can seek to use others' inventions creatively.

What could 360 degree video do for your fundraising or marketing?
You cannot let (most) supporters wander round a lab, visit an agriculture project in the Andes, walk through a deprived inner city estate or dive on an endangered reef.

Photos simply cannot impress upon a donor what "the volcano has destroyed this town" means. I tried to capture a sense of it when I had the privilege of visiting Goma one week after the 2002 eruption to witness emergency relief by local NGOs ... but mere images can't convey the devastation...

I can think of a few charities that are already pushing in this direction. Take charity:water ('give one person clean water for $20'), for example, which broke new ground when it tweeted links to live videos of bore holes breaking into aquifers, bringing water to a village for the first time. Or PDSA, which created a virtual tour of an animal hospital to show what a donor's money could buy.

But photos - and even someone else's videos - are just so two-dimensional.

The donor is not there.

At last the technology is advancing, increasingly rapidly, to make it possible to put them at the centre of your work.

How do you approach innovation? And how do you harness other people's innovation, such as this?

Know what you're about

2011-01-11T16:43:00.006Z

In a classic piece of 'you'd-be-forgiven-for-thinking-this-is-bad-timing', I got back into running last year, just as the snow was starting!

Ignoring the cold weather, I'm getting into running in a more serious way than I have before. This is partly by following a really strict training schedule, prescribing exactly how I run, for how long and on which days. But it is also by monitoring heart rate and distance.

Push yourself too hard and you burn out - the reason so many New Years resolutions fizzle out.

Push yourself just enough and your body does amazing things! Like getting in better shape gradually.

And so, in my thirst for heart rate and distance data, I entered the market for a heart rate monitor.

I was really impressed by Polar's reputation and marketing. Including this video that does nothing more than explain the product and position Polar as the expert in the field.

Polar's strapline - listen to your body - shows how single-minded they are in aiming at this niche market. And it is clear that they know what they're about.

It made me reflect: how single-minded am I on what I'm about - and how single-minded is my organisation in what we're about in the minds of our audience? What about you?

Anyway, as it happens, and for all Polar's effort, I went for a Garmin! Which at the very least tells you that your consumer (or supporter for that matter) is hard to win over.

Pride

2011-01-03T20:52:00.010Z

As some friends and colleagues know, I'm something of an aviation 'enthusiast'.

Er, to the point where on a trip to Zimbabwe last summer I flew a Boeing 747 on my laptop flight simulator into Johannesburg while the real Boeing 747 I was in flew into Johannesburg (arousing slight alarm in a fellow passenger sat nearby)...

Anyway, ask me sometime and I'll bore you with industry trends, technological advances and simply why flying is so amazing.

The point of this post, to kick off 2011, is to sound an aviation-inspired cautionary note: don't let your pride get in the way of your judgement.

I was saddened to read of the accident on 28 July last year in which a C-17 Globemaster III cargo plane of the US Air Force crashed during a practice flight for an air show.

A report published in December concluded that the pilot pushed the boundaries of safe flying just too far - apparently disregarding the safety of the three crew flying with him.

The following video shows the flight from take off until a few moments before impact.

The plane ascends very steeply, much slower than the USAF's stated minimum speed. It levels off at only half the required altitude. It banks to the left at 60 degrees (the USAF's maximum is 45) and then to the right at the same angle.

During this final manoeuvre the speed had dropped significantly below the stall speed (when the wings can no longer keep the plane in the air), triggering audible warnings in the cockpit. The pilot routinely ignored these warnings and told others to do the same, saying they were inaccurate. But this stall was serious and the co-pilot warned him three times about the loss of control.

For some reason he left it too late to try to correct the mistake.

It was not even as if this was without precedent. This video shows a B-52 bomber crashing in 1994 in a similar way while practicing for an air show. The pilot broke similar safety regulations and he also died with three crew members.

So what are the lessons for you?
First, put yourself in the place of the pilots. Pushing boundaries is very important in any field if you are to outperform your competitors. But not listening to your own judgement - or the judgement of others - on when to stop is foolish.

Was it pride that led to these crashes? Maybe. "I'm not going to listen to them; what do they know? I'll show them..."

The lesson is clear.

But now put yourself in the place of these pilots' leaders. In both crashes the blame was placed equally on pilot error and on the USAF culture that allowed such disregard for regulations, just because the pilots in question were outstanding.

There is surely some echo here of what happened in the risk-taking culture of the financial markets pre-recession.

The lesson is less obvious here but one practical example comes to mind because I dealt with this just before Christmas. If you manage a team, do you take responsibility for ensuring that everyone with laptops has passwords enabled? No? What would happen, therefore, if one of them lost their laptop and the data on it was stolen?

If you're the pilot
The strongest lesson, however, must be for each of us in our own roles.

I am ultimately responsible for performing the job I have been given. How aware am I of my pride? How well do I listen to my own judgement or that of others?

As we head into an even more challenging economic environment in the UK, with austerity measures beginning to bite, can you balance prudence with ambition? Especially if - as in our case - you have bucked the trend of previous years?

Door-to-door?

2010-04-12T12:40:00.002+01:00

I love Skype.

From video conference calls to one-line greetings, it offers great flexibility in keeping in touch.

This morning a friend Skyped the following one-line question...

"Tell me why I would or wouldn't spend some money on door-to-door"

I had just a couple of minutes so I fired off a quick reply. Between new job, new baby and new house, my blogging capacity is still limited so I thought I'd share it with you here - as I wrote it...

"Would: what you see is what you get (to use a photography analogy), i.e. you get the donors you pay for, guaranteed. And the lapse rates are well understood so you can play with Excel to good effect to produce a forecast.

Wouldn't: it has gone to the dogs, i.e. D2D used to be a route to good quality, low attrition donors, a) because it was new and b) because some providers still used a two-stage approach where a leaflet would be left so the donor could take time to make the decision. That yielded lower volume but very high quality.

So, would I or wouldn't I? D2D is now in F2F territory with regards to attrition and I don't think I could justify the low ROI. That said of course, if other acquisition channels aren't working, the pay-by-results nature of D2D may push the swingometer back."

Do you agree?

What would you have said?

Self awareness

2010-02-19T16:24:00.004Z

Phew!

I was beginning to wonder if I would ever blog again.

Job: new, very stretching growth targets, new strategy to develop.

House: sold old house, found and bought new one, moving end March.

Baby: due, well, about now. In fact, was that my phone?

Anyway
Given time contraints, I would like to introduce a new style of blog here: the video blog.

Episode 1: self awareness. You may have heard me mention this, and I may even have picked you up on it if I've seen you not being self-aware.

It is perhaps the most important character trait to develop, in enabling you to reach your full potential.

Watch the video, smile, and please add comments below.

By the way, the blog post I refer to in the video is here.

Further posts are brewing so as baby, job and house settle down a little, I shall return!

Poacher, gamekeeper, poacher

2009-11-19T09:56:00.013Z

This week I leave Bluefrog, after two and a half years agency side, to return client side. I had worked in an agency before, prior to moving into the charity sector, but at a more junior level than Client Services Director.

So what has my side-swapping taught me?

Perhaps chiefly that there are misconceptions and prejudices – on both sides – that can get in the way of working constructively. Similarly, the two sides can misunderstand one another, meaning there are times when neither meets the other’s needs – for information or due process for example.

In the months ahead, as my perspective shifts as Director of Fundraising, I will no doubt gain further insights. In the meantime, and for what they are worth, here are my Top3 recommendations for clients and agencies on how to get the best from your relationship with the other.

CLIENTS

1. Brief well
This is the single most important piece of advice. Briefing well will have the biggest impact on how effectively the agency delivers.

As clichéd as this sounds, you get out what you put in. Work hard, do lots of research, find out about the audience, give context, define the proposition, be precise on budget.

Less is not more with briefs, even where it is 'just another appeal mailing'.

Mark shares more thoughts on brief writing here.

2. Don’t buy on price
Being price conscious is one thing. We're not out of the recession yet, after all.

But it has saddened me to have witnessed several examples of charities buying purely on price. They turned down Bluefrog's solution, despite the proven route to more net income that it offered, and bought something cheaper ... only to return months later and admit that rather than saving five grand, they wasted the entire budget.

Buy on value. Push your agency to prove the results on which their recommendation is based and keep your eye on net income. A great example of this is Bluefrog's high value donor segmentation, which sees mid and high value donors selected, talked to and asked differently. It costs more but net income is typically 50% higher.

You may need to persuade someone to let you spend a bit more but hey, you're fundraisers – you're supposed to be able to persuade.

More on price below...

3. Be respectful
In this post I suggested that each time you open your mouth, write an email or fire off a text, you can choose to communicate in a way that will open the other person up and result in a constructive conversation.

And it seems clear to me that where the other person is someone you're relying on to deliver a complex project with a strict deadline, this is even more important.

And so again, I have been saddened to see not infrequent examples of account team members being on the receiving end of really nasty phone calls or – more often – emails.

Your agency is not your punchbag.

I am a marketer when all's said and done, so unashamedly I offer the Four Ps of respecting your agency:

People. Don't stop at being nice. Be considerate too. Don't just expect people in the agency to work late, even if they regularly do; they're often paid no more than you and they would actually like to leave on time too.
Processes. Making last minute changes to creative not only shows poor project management, it puts an agency in a difficult position where it will have to work more than the allocated hours for a job and then face the unpleasant task of trying to charge you for some of that time.
(A)ppreciate (sorry). I witnessed an occasion just last week where a client sent a plant to a Senior Account Manager to say thank you for working late to organise an urgent print run. So out of the ordinary was this gesture, that she will happily go an extra mile in future. That client's work is now always a priority.
Promote. Agencies depend on word of mouth marketing. Do not be ashamed of mentioning that a piece of work was created with help from an agency. A client of ours was recently interviewed on a programme of work that we had helped develop the strategy for. Some of our ideas were being implemented with great success and yet there was not even a passing mention of our involvement.

The classic way to show disrespect for an agency – especially with digital work – is to haggle on price. This video illustrates an all too familiar experience.

AGENCIES

1. Clients have internal issues
Don’t underestimate or dismiss the challenges that many clients face internally.

I have worked in some truly stone age organisations, with internal bureaucracy that would make the government look like a start up on Red Bull. You need to find ways to help your client, not put them under more pressure.

Where internal politics or sign-off procedures threaten to derail your schedule or hamper your quest for a good case study, meet face to face with your client and explain the impact, and then work out a solution together.

2. Sell good stuff
Only recommend what will work, not just what will sell.

I seem to have been lucky with my agencies over the years. I have taken for granted that (most of the time) they have recommended the right thing. But in working at Bluefrog I have seen several examples of shocking practice from other agencies, who have presented slick creative that in direct response terms was always going to be as much use as a chocolate fireguard.

Not sure why, but inserts seem to be a favourite. Agency: "you should do inserts. Look, here's a nice design". Client: "ooh yes, I agree, how nicely designed". But on what basis does the agency think this will give the best return on investment?

Selling duds is short-sighted, as it damages all agencies' credibility in the eyes of clients.

3. Challenge inexperience
Don’t hesitate in going to senior client staff when big decisions are being messed up by amateur, inexperienced – if well meaning – juniors. [gasp]

I'm sticking my neck out here.

Slightly embarrassed, I have had to concede that charity marketing teams are rather too often not staffed by skilled marketers. Heads of department seem to accept on-the-job learning, where junior staff are allowed to direct agencies and inevitably produce weak work as a result. Imagine being in a plane when the captain announces, "afternoon, this is your captain; we're coming in to land shortly and I'm going to sit with you while a trainee pilot takes over - she's only read about landing a plane and is still getting to grips with the controls but we should be alright in the end."

Although a poor advertising campaign does not threaten life immediately, many charities who deal with life and death issues would have been able to save more lives if only the campaign had worked better. And there is an obligation to use donated funds to the best possible effect.

And so, be ready to challenge clients. I only stick my neck out like this is because I have seen enough examples of even large national charities running campaigns in the way I have described above.

DO YOU AGREE?
Do these factors resonate for you – whichever side of the fence you are on? Please add to them, agree or disagree by leaving a comment.

These final weeks in this role have been incredibly busy so I have not written as in-depth a post as I would have liked. Do fill in some of the gaps.

Finally, may I say very publicly how much I have enjoyed the madness, intensity, achievements, constant learning curve, many successes, fun and privilege of working with my client services and legacies teams, Mark and the other Frogs, playing a part in helping such fantastic organisations do industry-leading fundraising.

WWF Med shows how to use the media

2009-09-25T11:32:00.006+01:00

I'm a bit proud of my sister for this.

Co-ordinating a week of 14-hour days with different media crews from around the world is impressive enough.

But when each day involved taking a different team out into the Mediterranean on a WWF yacht to track and tag blue fin tuna, where each trip resulted in news coverage like this from Channel 4, it's very special.

Click here to read more about WWF's work to protect this amazing, endangered creature - a 4-metre warm blooded fish that swims at up to 60 miles an hour.

Charities - how and why to SEO Twitter

2009-09-15T08:35:00.033+01:00

Here's a brief post from search specialist Addam Hassan that outlines the importance of, and some of the ways to improve, the SEO (search engine optimisation) of your Twitter account.

Discussing the growth in Twitter, Addam points to recent UK data from Nielsen NetRankings, showing that in July 2009 28% of referring traffic to Twitter came from search.

The significance of this is put into context by a comment on the post: "recent Google behaviour also suggests that the algorithm is now ranking Twitter much higher than previously and so brands' Twitter accounts should be considered as another Web channel - which require the same amount of optimisation and ‘feeding’ in terms of driving traffic".

Nonprofit search terms
So how does the charity sector fare in a simple test?

The following table shows the position on the search engine results page (SERP) when the search terms were entered into Google; a simplistic test but an interesting reflection of the current prominence of Twitter. I only looked at the first ten pages of search results, so a blank result shows that no reference to Twitter appeared in the first ten pages.

If you know of any other studies like this, let me know by adding a comment!

Four steps to SEO your Twitter
Clearly, 140 characters doesn't leave a great deal of scope for complex SEO. However, there are four areas to pay attention to, and doing so should noticeably boost your results.

Twitter full name and Twitter user name. The full name (on my account that is 'Matt Parkes') should be clear - as close to you or your brand name as possible. The user name (on my account that is 'parkeslife') should ideally match it as closely as possible. For example, Save the Children's full name is clear but their user name is 'stcuk', which is good for tweeting - it leaves 134 characters out of 140 left in tweets where it is mentioned - but is not as clear and would interfere with search ranking. In contrast, Dogs Trust's account works very well.
Bio. Easy to overlook or trivialise, this little paragraph will be used by search engines in the same way as a meta description, affecting search results and also appearing in the search engine results page (SERP) description. The SERP description is important because it will be read by people as they glance through search results. From this perspective the bio used by Barnardo's - 'We Believe in Children - Do You?' - is somewhat ambiguous; what would someone see if they click through to that Twitter account? What keywords do you need to include in your bio?
Tweet content. Very simply, you need to be conscious of how frequently you use keywords - the more frequently they are used the more relevant that search engines will think your Twitter stream is. Feature keywords in the first few words of each tweet wherever possible - or at least regularly. This will ensure that search engines see individual tweets as more relevant than if the words appear later in the text. The example below from Adopt a Word's tweets illustrates this point, where a Google search on 'adopt a word' displayed this tweet (albeit a few search pages down).
Get linked to and mentioned. In a similar way to traditional SEO, you should make every effort to get mentioned on Twitter. RTs - retweets - work in a similar way to 'fwd' in email, except they embed a link to your Twitter account by featuring your user name preceded by the '@' symbol, e.g. '@parkeslife'. Search engines rank sites - and by extension Twitter accounts and tweets - based on many factors, one of which is the number of links back to them. This is why charities in particular need to see Twitter as a space where frequent interaction occurs - not as a platform from which to emit a monologue.

Do you have anything to add? I am in no way a search expert, so again, please add a comment.

Why bother?
A caveat to this post would be that Twitter's prominence in search results is only beginning to change now. Many of the searches above - and several others I tried - didn't yield any reference to Twitter, let alone individual tweets. It would therefore be easy to dismiss this issue but I think that to do so would be short sighted.

Tweeting is unlikely to be your primary communication channel with supporters, and simply ensuring that your website indexes highly is enough, surely? Not really.

You may not regard Twitter as a priority but (increasingly) your competitors might, especially unforeseen competitors such as charity:water, and their tweets could index very highly. In natural search results this will begin to erode the traffic that would otherwise have clicked straight through to you.

As you will understand if you have read any of Bluefrog's blogs, engagement is the most powerful force in fundraising, and it is the watchword of Twitter. In contrast, chances are that your website is a relatively static and flat environment - somewhere donors or campaigners visit only to download information or possibly to donate.

Twitter is - or at least has the potential to be - an interactive space where corporate gloss can be replaced by a human stream of consciousness. It has the potential to engage your supporters in an interactive relationship, giving you access to direct and immediate feedback.

Indeed, before this post ends, I should say that I find it completely baffling that so many charities - especially the big names (e.g. UNICEF UK) - do not follow all the tweeps who follow them. The reasons may not be as negative as those outlined by Seth Godin in this post, where he says the 'non' in nonprofit is significant because it reflects a general attitude to doing new things, but my guess is that "it'd be too time consuming to follow them all" has been said more than once.

Daylight robbery

2009-09-08T20:58:00.008+01:00

I'm aware that I risk mixing metaphors by using the image of the vulture after the heading above, but both are apt. You decide which works best.

I am frequently surprised by stories of publishing companies selling advertising space in various journals and magazines with the promise of great returns.

The sales tactic will be familiar to many readers.

"We have just had a cancellation, this is well below rate card, etc..."

Sadly, many fundraisers seem too soft to say no - or too inexperienced to ask for evidence that these ads work. And the publishers exploit their gentle nature mercilessly. I know of one small to medium sized charity that was spending £80,000 a year on advertising in solicitors' journals - as they are somewhat ambitiously called - without anything to show for it.

One of our clients surprised us a couple of years ago, when he announced, "oh, but you're wrong ... we did get a response from a solicitor's journal; we put a different 'room number' in the registered address shown in each ad so we could track any response". Astonished, we asked for more detail. "Well, in fact," he continued, "it was just on the envelope from the solicitor - the will inside featured an entirely different address."

We have given up hope of ever seeing evidence that these ads work.

Crucially, we can think of many better ways for a legacy department to spend even £500 - never mind £80,000.

But why my sudden catharsis?

Well I received an email today from one of the publishers in question, and I have reproduced a slightly edited version below to show that the [insert animal shown in photograph above] even try their [insert blog title] with agencies:

"I know that you are very busy this week, but I wanted to contact you as I have a last minute position available in the XXXX publication and as we spoke previously, I wanted to offer it to you first.

I spoke to your colleague XXXX who suggested that I contact you via email first.

The campaign has actually closed for this year, but one of my Fundraising clients phoned this morning and pulled out on a full page, as they are undergoing a re-brand and are unable to provide copy for me in time, really leaving me in the lurch and in a lot of trouble with Editorial. [I laughed out loud at that bit]

I know this year is going to be so important for fundraising and I have come to you at the very last minute, so that is why I are [sic] offering you this final last minute deal for a full page within the XXXX for the coming year.

We can offer you a full page, colour, glossy advert space within our limited preliminary section for £x for the coming year, and this is well below the rate card price of £y.

I can offer this to you at this price as it is a last minute deal and because I want to fill the space with a company that can provide a valuable and important service for charities. This means that you will be getting the same, full exposure as your competitors within the XXXX, but you would be paying a fraction of the cost.

I know you have been incredibly busy this week, but I am so confident with the XXXX publication, we have actually grown 14% in the last year, which really speaks for itself.

As I mentioned earlier, we are ready to sign off on the publication, so this would be your last opportunity to be a part of XXXX.

We can give you an extension on the copy deadline up until the 14th, so that you can sign the copy off when you are in the office.

I will call you back tomorrow to discuss this further."

Clearly publishers need to earn a living too, but my objection is the way in which, without exception, they are happy to take money from charities without being able to offer any guarantee of likely returns.

Fundraisers - take a stand against this!

Attrition – ignored for a decade?

2009-06-19T11:54:00.011+01:00

This graph illustrates Adrian Sargeant’s analysis of donor retention in the cash-giving files of the UK’s top ten fundraising charities in 1998.

Over the past decade it has become the most important graph in Bluefrog.

Published widely in 1999 and 2000, we must have quoted it 2,000 times.

It drives our approach to fundraising. We have invested hundreds of thousands over the years in seeking to understand it.

Stark
Why do half of all new donors never give again after year one?

And why, after five years, are we left with only 8% continuing to give?

When, in 2002, Ken Burnett published a new edition of Relationship Fundraising, it must in part have been because of his dismay at seeing these statistics, and what they reflected – that his 1992 edition of Relationship Fundraising was being ignored.

We even had a mini recession in 2001-2002, when the dot-com popped, to jolt us into action.

But it took Adrian himself to underscore the significance of these findings in 2004, in Building Donor Loyalty, co-authored by Elaine Jay. The graph above is Figure 1.1 in the book.

He comments on the shift among charities towards recruiting committed givers as a reaction to the challenges with cash donors, with committed givers yielding lower attrition rates – typically 20% at the time.

“Although that is a dramatic improvement,” he said, “it is still far from ideal. Imagine losing 20% of your friends each year!”

Worst case scenario realised
However, five more years have slipped by and we find ourselves in more difficult times.

I wonder whether Ken or Adrian envisaged this first decade of the 21st century ending with attrition levels among committed givers reaching 70% in year one.

But this is precisely the picture our analysis has uncovered. The following year-one attrition levels are for face-to-face recruitment:

Medical Research 64%
Overseas Development 65%
Mental Health 62%
Homelessness 64%
Elderly 70%
International Medical Research 64%
Children’s Health 64%

And this is not isolated to street recruitment. Average attrition levels for all types of regular givers were revealed by Rapidata in its analysis of Direct Debit cancellations in January:

However, Rapidata’s analysis, revealing soaring cancellation rates, can in some ways be misleading, implying that attrition has been problematic only in the last year. But take a closer look: before the credit crunch and recession, cancellation rates fluctuated around the 3.5% per month mark. In other words, we appear to have been content to be recruiting donors knowing that four out of ten of these supposedly ‘committed givers’ would turn their back on us within a year.

It is almost too late to wake up to what is happening. But it is imperative for the sector that we do.

We have ignored the fundraising prophets of doom (namely, Adrian and Ken).

As Adrian himself puts it, in his foreword to our lapsing research paper (PDF), “we continue to waste large sums of money on unnecessary acquisition and neglect the fact that were we to achieve even minute increases in donor retention the impact on performance would be profound.”

“Picking an easy number to illustrate,” he continues, “I estimated back in 2004 that a 10% increase in retention could lead to a whopping 200% increase in the lifetime value of the fundraising donorbase.”

Turning research into action
Bluefrog’s research into lapsers is one of the largest studies into the psychology of lapsing ever conducted. Based on its findings we have created a multi-step programme for donor retention from the point of recruitment. Called Protect the Donor, it is reproduced here in summary:

Start a relationship in the first place
Manage your donors’ expectations
Communicate in a way that pulls, not pushes
Think about the four donor needs
Provide choice
Know your donors. Look, listen and remember
Part as friends

For me, this boils down to one overarching recommendation: ensure that donors are engaged in the relationship.

Treat me like a real person
At the risk of this becoming a Sargeant eulogy, I think it is worth quoting him again – albeit alongside his co-author, Elaine Jay – in their 2005 research, Redefining Commitment.

They identified two different types of commitment. Passive commitment exists where a donor feels no strong desire for the relationship with an organisation to continue and has no sense of ‘bond’ to the organisation. Intertia is all that maintains the relationship. And the weakness of this paper-thin connection is now being revealed, as fundraising megaliths such as the NSPCC, report spiralling cancellations by their £2-a-month Direct Debit cohorts.

Adrian and Elaine define active commitment, by contrast, as ‘the genuine desire on the part of a donor to maintain a favoured relationship’. Child sponsorship is just one example of where this commitment can be seen – and our own work with ActionAid over the past decade reflects what others who run these schemes report, i.e. single figure attrition rates.

The challenge, then, is to nurture that desire and it is here that I turn to Gary Larson for inspiration, and his satirical cartoon series, The Far Side.

The point being that we need to go back to basics and put the donor first in our thinking, for that is what is important to her:

Engage her by using her name, often, e.g. on the cover of a report you’re enclosing with a request for money
Engage her by showing her you remember things about her, e.g. the month and year she started supporting you
Engage her by giving her something to do alongside donating, e.g. writing a card to someone who benefits from your work
Engage her by showing her you respect her, e.g. by asking her what she’d like to hear about
Engage her by connecting her to your work, e.g. individual stories of the difference you are making – think of the success of Charity:Water and KIVA
Engage her by “delivering on your promise” to her, as Karen Osborne puts it, and telling her how you used her money

Before the recession, this sort of thinking was called ‘stewardship’. That phrase is outdated. This is now called ‘a formula for survival’.

Harnessing talent

2009-06-09T22:47:00.005+01:00

The past few weeks have been even busier than usual, and blogging has been pushed into the background I'm afraid.

To avoid another day passing with no posts, I thought I'd share this email, which I received today, from a former team member - announcing some great news.

It struck me how important it is to spot and then harness talent, to avoid it being wasted. This person was in a role that didn't give any outlet for his creativity. I changed that, moving him into a donor retention marketing role, and he has subsequently shone in a similar position.

I'm glad I had the chance to manage him, and I'm sure he'll go onto great things. Anyone who writes emails like this to his mates will go far...

(I've anonymised it with XXXXs.)

---
Subject: Ah, what the hell...

Gentlemen,

Sometimes in life you've got to roll the dice. You've got to defy logic and all the evidence before your eyes, and go with your good old-fashioned gut instinct. You know what it's like. You're not sure why you're doing something, but you do it anyway. Think Kevin Costner in "Field of Dreams". If you build it, they will come… And 99% of the time you're right. At least that's what I've found.

Of course there are exceptions:

- When I hired XXXX
- When I hired XXXX
- When I said to my old boss "he's boring, but you can probably trust him" when she asked me about a potential new recruit. His name was XXXX. [he ended up moonlighting]
- When I stole booze from XXXX's house after her surprise birthday party
- When XXXX, XXXX and I decided to have a quick lunchtime pint in Brighton (after meeting a supplier) and 9 hours later I found myself on a train platform in East Croydon, smelling of sambuca
- When I started spread-betting (at the desk) on the Ashes on the first day of that really busy period in 2005

.. Ok maybe it's nearer 98% of the time I get it right.

Anyway, there I am on my XX birthday last week. I'm looking at my finances and everything's screaming bankruptcy:

Massive mortgage
Spiralling childcare costs
Enormous debt repayments

.. And I'm thinking to myself "XXXX, you're in the stickiest situation since XXXX bought a new dress and asked if it suited her.." There's no easy way out. Except maybe, just maybe there is. What's the one thing that might overshadow your financial meltdown? What's the one thing that doesn't cost much, is stress-free and doesn't have any long-term consequences…?

A wedding.

You beauty - a wedding. Of course. Hell they don't cost much, there's no stress and you can forget about it the day after.

So last week I proposed to XXXX and she said yes.

And in one swoop, all my problems were solved.

It's a beautiful thing.

Direct marketing vs. community fundraising

2009-05-20T21:32:00.006+01:00

Chocolate.

The oldest trick in the book.

There were thirty people in each session, and it worked each time.

“Under six chairs, there are plates with big bars of chocolate on,” I began.

“Could those six people please unwrap the bars and pass the plate to their neighbour.”

Pupils began to dilate as the fresh aroma of quality fairtrade cocoa burst out.

“Could the next person break the bar in half, and half again, and pass the plate on,” I continued.

Pulses quickened as everyone saw and handled the rich texture.

I repeated my commands until each plate was heaped with broken pieces of chocolate.

Breathing was slightly quicker as I made my final request, saying, “now would the last person please pass the plates to me.”

Slowly, to emphasise the decadence that was heaped before me, I emptied each plate to form a single mound of chocolate. The scene must have resembled an ancient fertility rite.

Silence.

I looked up.

“Thanks very much,” I said, picked up a handful of chunks and stuffed them into my mouth. I chewed, and shovelled more chunks down the hatch.

Colour drained from faces. Small gasps escaped tightening lips. And something akin to the Rage virus from 28 Days Later flashed into hard, betrayed eyes.

I swallowed.

Deathly silence.

But my smile brought warmth back into the room, and people laughed, more because of the relief in realising that they had been tricked, than at any humour.

“Feels awful, huh?” I said. “You do all the work and then I get all the fruits of your labour.”

And in one fell swoop, I acknowledged their feelings, and showed that I understood their frustration.

My conference session on ‘direct marketing and the regional fundraising teams’ was off to a good start. I handed the plate round for a well-earned cocoa fix.

Integration! Inte-what?
ChildLine, not unlike many charities around the world, faced a dilemma. Fundraising had grown from a regional, community fundraising model, and eventually incorporated a centralised, direct marketing function.

I was head of the latter and was, therefore, evil personified.

‘Silo culture’ is a term that pretty well sums up the mess we were in. The regional teams mistrusted the head office teams, and vice versa.

After all, it was the regional (and by ‘regional’ I mean ‘regional and national’, for readers in Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland) teams who worked at the coalface. They worked evenings and weekends, organised events and built relationships with supporters … only for DM (read ‘unnecessary evil’) to send out a mailing to the furthest reaches of the land, and bleed all the money back to the centre.

It made you sick just thinking about them, in their swanky London office, with their ‘segmentation’ and ‘marketing agency’ talk.

And it was in these stark tones that I painted a picture of how dysfunctional our interdepartmental relationships were.

Satiated, but slightly uneasy, silence.

Someone licked the crumbs from a plate in the back row.

Distrust
With blood sugar rising, however, I knew I had them on side, and I began to tackle some more tricky issues. Like the fact that many of them held their own databases of supporters, and even mailed their own appeals in an attempt to boost local income.

The problems we faced can be summarised as follows:

Community Fundraising mistrusted Direct Marketing because they refused to allow them access to their database, refused to discuss collaboration and sent appeals into their regions with no consultation on timing.
Direct Marketing mistrusted Community Fundraising because they just wanted access to the database, tried to fill donor communications with news of local events and sent their own mailings to separately held but poorly managed databases of supporters.

If the regions vs. head office dynamic was bad, the community fundraising vs. direct marketing effect was terrible.

I illustrated this dynamic with the following diagram:

Does this resonate with your own experience?

Do add a comment if it does.

The thing I firmly believed, and still do, is that it does not have to be this way.

And the primary reason it can, and must, work differently is that the donor does not see the internal silos that get in the way of integration and collaboration.

Silos
If you have children, and if you have read the books about farms, you will know that silos are not military bunkers; the word was only used in that context from 1958 in fact. Silos are tall steel containers (originally pits underground) where forage – grass and other plants from fields – is stored as a winter feed for animals.

Over time, forage in a silo slowly ferments and becomes sour.

And doesn’t that depict just what happens when departments stop talking to each other and retreat into their own small world?

For our part, I’m pleased to say that in ChildLine we did break down the silos.

We found ways of working together, and our fundraising grew.

It began with dialogue. Surprising how hard that can be to sit down to talk. But we did, and we agreed to be open.

Two examples of the successes we achieved stick in my mind.

We agreed that the regional teams could send an invitation for local events, e.g. carol concerts, to a selection of the central database from their local area.

Uptake was good, and just being invited seemed to have an impact – analysis showed an uplift in subsequent giving from those who had been invited.

The second example is from the low profile worlds of payroll giving and legacies. The Direct Marketing team worked with the teams in Scotland and Northern Ireland as they used local influence to join consortia of charities that promoted each type of fundraising.

In the old world, this would have been inconceivable, as the question “but where would the money go?” would have torpedoed any attempt even to discuss it.

However, we did reach agreement on how the income would be reported.

And income ballooned.

Pitfalls should not be obstacles
Things can go wrong, when an attempt at integration is made. For example, if access to the database is unrestricted, supporters’ needs are often forgotten. I think of one organisation we work with, who were alerted to a problem when a donor contacted the chief exec to ask why he had received more than 50 pieces of mail and email, without counting telephone calls, just because he was a direct-giving donor, community fundraising volunteer and campaigner.

But the reason for my conviction that this is the way forward is that in my experience, an organisation’s fundraising benefits. At ChildLine, now part of the NSPCC by the way, the income curve became steeper as this collaboration took effect.

What silos do you need to take down? And how can you replicate this integration, so that you too see the following vision that I set out in those conference sessions become reality?

Events fundraising at its best

2009-05-11T22:13:00.005+01:00

I wrote an opinion piece for Third Sector last week, about a great example of events fundraising in Scotland.

In case you didn’t read about it, I thought I’d share it with you here.

In the summer of 2008, Scope and Capability Scotland joined forces to run the ‘Beyond Boundaries: Ben Nevis Challenge’.

The aim was to raise awareness of their work whilst forging new corporate partnerships.

TV presenter Ken Hames, who in the BBC’s Beyond Boundaries programme led groups of disabled people on treks around the world, approached Scope to suggest a race between teams of able-bodied people led by wheelchair users.

Hames offered to recruit the teams at his motivational training courses.

With a modest budget of £20,000, the organisers not only had to promote the event and arrange for professional marshals to be stationed at points along the route, they also had to commission special wheelchairs for the team leaders.

Eight teams of seven people set off at 15-minute intervals, starting at 6am. Each team aimed to raise £10,000, to be split between Scope and Capability. Two failed to complete the race, but still reached their target, with the event generating net income of £60,000.

Extensive print, radio and TV coverage was secured and participants posted videos on YouTube, including the following:

This is surely events fundraising at its best – partnership between charities, hard work behind the scenes, celebrity involvement and endorsement, several teams, corporate partnership and a tough challenge. But most of all, this was a great idea; and it is this spirit of innovation that drives all good fundraising.

Responding to Ken Hames’ suggestion and harnessing his enthusiasm as they did, the organising team were on the right track from the start. Getting his involvement in recruiting teams was inspired.

However, the success – and that pretty well sums up £60k net income – was only possible because of the fundraising teams’ willingness and ability to work collaboratively. Such collaboration is rare, but the public loves to see it and both organisations will have been seen in a positive light as a result.

The media attention ensured multiple objectives were met: income was boosted, awareness was raised and wider staff morale must have been lifted. And most importantly, by involving wheelchair users in the event, its overall value would have been immense – everyone involved on the day, and people who read or heard about it, will have been given a lasting impression of how able people with disabilities are.

Events teams at Scope and Capability Scotland – you deserve a raise!

Blender shows how to use cheap viral video

2009-05-08T07:58:00.011+01:00

The world of social media can seem bewildering.

From social networks such as Facebook and video sharing sites such as YouTube, right the way through to recommendation sites such as Digg and even the humble ‘rate this’ function found on any online shop, many marketers don’t know where to begin.

About 18 months ago, a pair of senior analysts at Forrester Research stepped in to the rescue. Their definitive Groundswell sets out how marketers can exploit these new opportunities. It includes, perhaps most importantly, a model for understanding your target audience and how to engage them in social technologies, by understanding their ‘Social Technographics Profile’.

Groundswell is especially useful because it enables you to keep apace with the ever-changing nature of these media: first, by setting out how to respond to these changes in the book, and second, by publishing updates and new findings on the blog.

Online video: why waste money on TV?
There are various case studies in the book, but I would like to focus on one that superbly illustrates how a little innovative thinking can give a huge return.

Blendtec is a manufacturer of expensive kitchen blenders. With dipping sales, they needed to find a way to stand out. One afternoon, their marketing director saw a pile of sawdust in the testing area – the result of a test to show that the blender was so strong it could blend a piece of timber – and realised people would like to see that for themselves.

He filmed his CEO blending various objects and posted the clips on YouTube. Viewers’ imagination was captured and, aided by a post on Digg, traffic soared. They started a blog, engaging with customers and fans, and people started to suggest increasingly bizarre items to blend. The clips have been viewed over one hundred million times – by people who chose to see them – and sales have spiralled.

The following clip is my favourite. The iPhone – will it blend?!

How charities can do the same
The following clips are both TV ads for charities. The first is the controversial but very successful ad for Barnardo’s and the second is the potentially more controversial ad for Women’s Aid.

Ofcom have banned the latter from running on TV.

Both portray the same truth: sickening abuse occurs behind closed doors. Both show the physical violence in a graphical way. One is allowed on telly. The other isn’t.

It is probably not possible here to debate the intricacies of the societal sensitivities that drive this. I wonder if we are subconsciously too ashamed to acknowledge that some adults treat some others in this way, simply because their strength is greater – whilst abuse of children is less surprising and therefore considered easier to watch.

In any event, the discomfort that the Barnardo’s ad generated is reflected in the number of complaints to the ASA.

However, both ads work incredibly well because although they show desperate images, they give the viewer an obvious way to respond – get involved, support the charity.

As Mark outlines in this post, the Barnardo's ad has been very successful. The ad has increased awareness of what Barnardo's actually does by 33% and, more importantly, 46% of people who have seen it say they are now more likely to support the charity.

Both ads have been viewed by many people on YouTube. The opportunity for Women’s Aid is to drive more traffic to the ads online, playing on the controversy, with clever use of channels such as Digg and Facebook – advertising on the latter being a relatively cheap way of driving additional traffic.

Big budget. Low budget.
You may have spotted a minor inconsistency in what I have written: both these ads were created by ad agencies, and required sizeable budgets.

However, the power of channels such as YouTube is that they can cost next to nothing. Fundraisers, and at the risk of being controversial I would say none more than community fundraisers, are often incredibly imaginative.

Look at what Blendtec has achieved. Although it uses humour, and doesn't deal with the hard-hitting realities that a charity ad might, charities can nevertheless learn some valuable lessons. What is your equivalent to Will It Blend?

£1 pack ancestor from the 1930s

2009-04-30T14:46:00.008+01:00

In a dusty back room of a crumbling, disused Methodist chapel, in a small village near Nottingham, an old bookcase stood against a wall.

Tall and dark, its years seemed to weigh even heavier than the stacks of papers that lined its shelves.

The Victorian chapel, seen here in Google Maps, sat on a tiny plot of land. With no space to park vehicles it proved impossible to sell; its owners eventually realised that for the land to be useful the chapel had to be demolished.

As the contractors moved in, to start the painstaking process of taking the building down – literally brick-by-brick to avoid damaging nearby buildings – they found something unexpected in that undisturbed back room.

Under one corner of the century-old bookcase, a broken leg had been replaced with a stack of what looked like sheets of coloured card.

Only when the heavy brown frame was removed did they realise that a small part of England’s fundraising heritage had been discovered.

FOOT OF PENNIES
A Google search reveals only two mentions of this device, both from the 1930s – one in another village near Nottingham, and the other from a village near Pontypool in Wales. Both relate to fundraising for Methodist chapels.

The Foot of Pennies was a variation on a theme still familiar today. It was a device for collecting coins that could be taken home and used in house-to-house collecting or simply in private, family offerings.

Low value engagement
In 1935, one penny was worth the equivalent of about £0.17p or US$0.25c in today’s currency, meaning the Foot of Pennies would only raise the equivalent of £1.33 or a couple of bucks.

And that’s not much more than the £1 pack of today. (Although of course one penny could probably buy more than £0.17 does now...)

My hypothesis is that although it proved a useful vehicle for raising funds, it was primarily intended to work in a similar way to the £1 pack – by engaging the members of the community and building momentum towards regular, higher value giving.

It strikes me that although it is indeed a foot long, it only contains eight pennies. Why not 12? The mini die-cut envelopes, each with a gummed flap, could have been stapled in two staggered rows of six.

In ‘old money’, twelve pennies made a shilling, which would have seemed a more natural fundraising target.

For the historians among you, 20 shillings made one pound, meaning 240 pennies in a pound – in the Anglo-Saxon years of England in the late 700s, 240 silver penny coins weighed 1 pound (1lb).

Maybe the Methodists of the 1930s were unconcerned with price points and maximising their fundraising targets.

What they did appreciate, though, was clever design. The part-gummed, die-cut, roll-folded coin strip was stapled precisely to allow a row of pennies to be inserted.

And given that in the case of this chapel, and in one of the two examples on Google, the Foot of Pennies was used to raise funds for Sunday schools, the coloured cards and relatively small donations would have worked well to engage a younger audience. (Indeed, I wonder how many of our older donors today remember the Foot of Pennies.)

The wording is also worth a closer look: “Kindly help to fill this in” and “Every little helps”. The former is polite and direct, whilst the latter helps overcome any barriers that the small donation amount may raise.

What an intriguing – if little-known – piece of fundraising nostalgia.

Do you know about the Foot of Pennies – or anything similar?
Please add a comment if you do.

I will ensure this is featured on sofii, but if you know of a museum of fundraising, or anything similar, where you think a copy of this should appear, do let me know.

Would you like to own a Foot of Pennies?
I have ten copies from that Victorian chapel to give away. Simply email me with your postal address and I will happily share this delightful glimpse into the UK’s fundraising history with you. First come, first served.

For the very first reply I receive, I’ll also include a 1930s penny found under the old bookshelf – where it had probably rolled during a particularly busy counting session!

Twitter, charities and fundraising

2009-04-28T10:58:00.009+01:00

This blog post will be out of date in a week.

Twitterati, hashtags, followfriday and retweet sound to most people like an obscure dialect from an isolated Himalayan valley.

But to some, they are the suddenly familiar phrases of the 140-character world of Twitter.

Outsiders have caught snippets of course. There was the celebrated “There’s a plane in the Hudson”, with the photo that fizzed around the newswires several minutes before even the NY authorities knew.

And who failed to smile when “Don’t tell wifey” accompanied a photo of Demi Moore in her undies, pressing Ashton’s trousers?

Even the cerebral world of BBC Radio Four has enjoyed its fair share of Twoops – my suggestion for ‘scoops via Twitter’ – with political blogger Guido Fawkes breaking the news of the leaked Downing Street slur emails via Twitter.

It is of little surprise, therefore, that charities and their entourage of suppliers and umbrella bodies have flocked onto Twitter.

Heavyweights and many smaller causes, all punching at the 140-character weight.

Twitter, if nothing else, is a great leveller.

And there has been much to excite charities – even in these opening months of 2009.

Twestivals – festivals in cities around the world, organised via Twitter – raised $250,000, which as the website states, “equates to 55 water projects in Ethiopia, Uganda and India, clean water for just over 17,000 people.”

The charity that benefited? The almost unknown charity: water, whose profile has skyrocketed on the back of Twitter – most recently through being the beneficiary of half of actor Hugh Jackman’s $100,000 offered via Twitter.

Mr Jackman’s generosity would, in my view, have been worth more if he had offered $10,000,000, an amount he may have noticed leaving his bank account. As it is, for an outlay of AUS$100k (US$72k!), he has generated publicity worth much more than $10m, at a return on investment of which any fundraiser would be envious.

From one low profile charity to another. Malaria No More has enjoyed similar exposure through Ashton Kutcher’s face-off with CNN. The cynic may say that the offer of $100,000 to fight malaria if he gets one million followers was nothing more than another cheap publicity stunt. Doubled within the week by Oprah, in her high profile entry to the Twittersphere.

Interestingly, the narrowly-vanquished CNN later mused on these developments and wondered whether this hype foreshadowed the beginning of the end for Twitter.

Back to charities, then, and their burgeoning use of Tweets. As a vehicle to facilitate campaigning and supporter mobilisation, it seems perfectly suited.

However, I wonder how many of these charity accounts are simply the ‘new media team’ (as they are often still called, sadly) – unused by fundraisers.

Whether Twitter remains, or even truly becomes, the great fundraising vehicle it has the potential to be is hard to predict.

But one dimension of Twitter that fundraisers around the globe could tap into, and benefit from for as long as its popularity lasts, is its value in connecting people.

I was trying to avoid the ‘networking’ word, but that is really what Twitter is good for. Not in the traditional sense, however.

Twitter connects people by enabling them to reveal the intricacies of their lives to one another. Not the inane “I’m waiting for a bus” Tweets, although many seem to enjoy sharing such details, but rather the moments of reflection, discovery or achievement that would otherwise pass unnoticed.

Skim reading is essential, with hundreds of updates a day to filter, but tools such as TweetDeck make the job easier … and a little perseverance is richly rewarded.

Bad losers

2009-04-22T21:01:00.001+01:00

Oops!

Even when we [very occasionally] lose pitches, we're not as sour as this lot from NZ:

Nice creative though!

Innovate

2009-04-13T20:06:00.013+01:00

Condé Nast has a tough job.

Consumer magazines is a notoriously difficult segment of the publishing industry.

A brief look at year-on-year ABCs shows just how tough things have got. The following charts show percentage circulation growth, first for men's monthlies, then women's monthlies, and finally women's weeklies - the worst.

Into this maelstrom, two high profile titles have been launched. And although each raises questions, as we shall see, they nevertheless prove that the magazine industry is bursting with innovation.

Of course this giant organisation must innovate, to survive, but its boldness and determination are what impress.

Condé Nast caused a stir with its Beth Ditto-bedraped Love.

Editor Katie Grand commented on the cover shoot: "Everything about the way that Beth looks reminds us not of her imperfections but our own. She has self-assurance and confidence by the truckload. She is happy with who she is and the way she is. Don't we all wish that we woke up in the morning and felt like that?"

Grand continued: "Everything has been botoxed, lifted, sucked and dyed out of the women that represent the absolute aspiration of real women."

Which I agree with. And which is why it is disappointing that the innovative remix on style that Love claims to be evapourates as the first pages turn to reveal the standard fare of botoxed ads for Chanel, Louis Vuitton, Cartier, Miu Miu, etc.

The publishing behemoth goes on to tell us of the future in its men's lifestyle/ technology title Wired.

Innovation streams through your fingertips, as the rough texture of the cover plays with your senses.

And the cover is not finished with innovation until you have opened the three-panel roll fold image of London in the future - helped by amazing photography from Jason Hawkes.

This in turn leads to a breathtaking four-page ad for Sony Bravia, inside.

Even the launch of Wired was handled innovatively, with bespoke audio ads, featuring editor David Rowan describing the new magazine in a 30-second spot, created exclusively for music platform Spotify.

Unlike Love, Wired is content-rich, and its blend of geeky technology and slick lifestyle content works well.

But given that this US title failed in the UK before, in the mid nineties, and given that beyond this high profile launch issue it promises little more than GQ or FHM without the objectified women, it needs to be carefully judged not to run aground.

However, the innovation in both titles is hard to miss.

And so, as we head back after the Easter break, how can you take inspiration from Condé Nast?

It strikes me that three aspects of being innovative stand out from their recent launches:

Never stop putting your customer or donor at the centre of your thinking. Continually ask how you can better meet their needs (e.g. the Beth Ditto image)
Understand that you don't need to do completely new things - sometimes just doing the old things differently is enough (e.g. the textured, roll-fold cover)
Look for ways to take your message to your target audience that your competitors still think are too fringe (e.g. the Spotify ads).

Bent out of shape

2009-04-03T20:34:00.003+01:00

How well do you take feedback?

For many, getting feedback on areas they need to improve can be crushing.

But if you want to go far, you must see it positively.

Feedback is your number one opportunity to develop.

Over the years, there have been [many] occasions when I have not met expectations, when I’ve dropped plates, when I’ve let people down. And in each case, I have endured embarrassing meetings with bosses – and not every boss has communicated constructively. (Although my current boss, with whom I had to endure one such meeting a year ago, handled it very well.)

However, in each case I have managed to coach myself through, and to take the feedback onboard. And I have grown.

The F word
Why do people avoid or deflect feedback? Clearly, factors such as poor self-esteem, low confidence and being unable to deal with conflict have a powerful effect.

But perhaps the biggest single force in getting those defensive barriers up is fear.

Fear you’ll be exposed as a fake. Fear you’ll be cornered. Fear you’ll be rejected.

In Tribes, Seth Godin argues that people are afraid of blame and criticism. He asserts that when people are not remarkable it is because they are afraid of criticism first and foremost.

If you’ve seen a colleague criticised by your boss, the fear sets in. Fear of criticism is a powerful deterrent and it doesn’t even have to happen for its effects to set in.

Now if you are in a position of leadership, you need to take this to heart: criticism stifles creativity.

There is criticism and there is feedback
A nagging, grinding negative voice puts a damper on anything. Mood hoovers can bring a team down … but leaders can be mood hoovers too, and they need to recognise that to be really good they must develop good feedback techniques.

Feedback, in contrast to criticism, can be the thing that turns someone’s whole career around.

Ten or fifteen years ago I worked with an analyst who needed to improve in some areas. Very bright, he was held back by certain weaknesses. Luckily for him, we had a great boss who gave honest and direct feedback (sometimes humorous too, like the time he got a flannel he'd bought specially for such an occasion out of his desk drawer and handed it to me, when I was dodging a question). The clincher for this analyst, however, was that he took the feedback onboard.

He is now Chief Marketing Officer for a global consumer brand.

To paraphrase Godin again, the only thing holding you back is your own fear. In every organisation, people rise to the level at which they become paralysed by fear.

The essence of leadership, he says, is being aware of your fear … and seeing it in the people you wish to lead. No, it won’t go away, but awareness is the key to making progress.

Self-awareness. Now there’s a big topic.

I liken it to sitting on your own shoulder, the whole day, watching yourself in each interaction, checking your reactions, gauging how you’re coming across to others.

Perhaps self-awareness goes hand in hand with being able to take feedback on board.

Without it, you react defensively. You even react aggressively, doing anything to deflect the comments. I saw this not long ago and it distressed me to see great talent wasted because the individual couldn’t take the feedback and admit they’d made a mistake.

How about you? Do you take feedback onboard … or do you get bent out of shape?

From a £1 pack to a £2.5m legacy

2009-04-02T03:09:00.006+01:00

In reply to Mark’s post about the pound pack, I thought I would offer two additional perspectives. The first is as a client who bought it, and the second is regarding its power in legacy fundraising.

When I arrived at ChildLine, my incumbent agency was Bluefrog. I remember the concern I felt when I looked at the database and found thousands of donors who had only ever given £3.

“What sort of mickey mouse agency is this,” I remember saying.

I was similarly sceptical when they came in to explain how it worked. I sat with arms folded, wondering how much more flannel they would spout.

But when I had seen a live campaign for the first time, my views changed entirely.

Like many others, I had dismissed the idea at the first hurdle. I was preoccupied with the low value cash gift, and failed to see the bigger picture.

In time, however, ChildLine had one of the most advanced and finely tuned mail acquisition programmes in the industry, generating thousands of prospects, thousands of mid value regular givers and thousands of core cash givers with each campaign.

And 'campaign' is the critical word in that sentence, as the pound pack approach is much more than a cheap tactical trick, but is instead a carefully refined strategy.

At ChildLine, in common with most other charities who used it, initial mail response was around 10%. (Bluefrog is still achieving 12% and more, e.g. for a cancer charity in November 2008.)

A significant percentage of these prospects can then be converted to regular giving via telephone and mail.

But what about those who don’t convert? At ChildLine, we developed the ‘nursery programme’ – a series of hard-hitting mailings that converted roughly 15% to the core cash giving file.

If, after six or nine months, they had still only given the original £3, we sent another pound pack. Response was well above 50%. And conversion calling to them generated more good quality regular givers.

Are you building the spreadsheet in your mind? It adds up.

What’s more, detailed trends analysis we performed on the database, broken down by recruitment source, showed the pound pack regular givers and core cash givers to be the most valuable on the file.

But why the mention of legacies?

A surprising picture is beginning to emerge of the power of this humble piece of direct mail. Three quick examples illustrate our discovery…

A young people’s charity which uses pound packs recently received a legacy of £500,000 from a taxi driver from Hornchurch who had given the organisation the grand sum of £1 several years before. He had resisted every attempt to upgrade, cross-sell or convert him. He had received Christmas card catalogues, legacy mailings and appeal letters. But his £1 remained his sole gift.

A large children’s hospital tested a pound-pack-to-newsletter-to-legacy-mailing strategy about five years ago. Responders to the pound pack simply received a newsletter to affirm their gift, followed by an ask for a legacy. Carefully targeted lists meant a strong response at every stage – and they have already recouped three times the original investment in legacy gifts from those responders.

Finally, only last night, at Remember a Charity’s advertising launch event, one of our clients – an armed forces charity – was telling me about a lady who responded to their pound pack two years ago. She had only ever given £1 to the charity, but when she died late last year she left £2.5million to them in her Will.

It would appear that the immediacy and interactive nature of giving pound coins via a simple card in the post engages even those prospective donors with little cash but great asset wealth – who may otherwise not make it onto a charity’s database.

Perhaps the most important lesson here is the reminder to treat every donor with care and courtesy – even those who only give £1 and who resist every subsequent ask for money.

From anything to everything

2009-03-28T20:42:00.003Z

A recent conversation between one of my colleagues in our legacies team and one of our clients’ donors went as follows: “Oh thank you for calling; I simply wanted to ask … how much can I leave to [charity name]?”

Slightly taken aback, but sensing a golden opportunity, he managed a calm reply: “Well, from anything to everything.”

“Oh good,” the lady said, “I’m so pleased. In that case, since I have no relatives, I shall leave you my entire estate of property, shares and cash.”

It struck me that this happy tale perfectly represents the way legacy fundraising is the confluence of three different streams of fundraising.

Over the years, this lady had been invited to supporter events, including project visits, but in fact had declined.

She had received direct marketing messages, including a recent letter, to which she replied with feedback on the reasons for her support, and an indication that she intended to include the charity in her Will.

On her reply form she had also ticked the box requesting an in-depth conversation with someone from the charity – entering into more of a major donor or planned giving type relationship, where her philanthropy could be unlocked with one-to-one contact.

As Stephen George of the NSPCC pointed out in a seminar at last year’s International Fundraising Congress (ifc) in Amsterdam, legacy fundraising often falls down because the fundraisers either come from a direct marketing background, and know little of major donors, or vice versa. And even fewer come from an events background – an area about which Iain McAndrew of Save the Children is so fervent an evangelist.

It is this combination of different facets that makes legacies such a dynamic and interesting area of fundraising. But for the same reason it is also one of the most challenging.

Given the potentially broad reach of the Remember a Charity social marketing strategy, about to be seen in a new advertising campaign, I anticipate charities seeing an uplift in enquiries and responses across the full spectrum of legacy fundraising.

If you find yourself in this position, will you be ready?

The Account Team is the agency

2009-03-26T20:09:00.007Z

When I was a client, my Account Team was the agency.

My Account Director knew my strategy and helped build my budget. She somehow also knew what was happening in the detail. And she was good fun.

My Senior Account Manager was in charge of all the jobs running through the agency. Her role was to deliver each project on time, under budget and over target. And she did.

My Account Manager made it all happen. She was the one who knew exactly which change had been made by whom, when. And she delivered.

Sure, I loved meeting the creatives. I often had lunch with the CSD or MD. I enjoyed getting into the detail of the digital stuff. I was reassured by meeting the production team.

But they were all incidental serfs, at the beck and call of my Account Team - somewhere in the background.

When I sacked the agency, I sacked them.

When I reappointed the agency it was because they responded.

And as success built upon success, and as my managers and their teams gave positive reports, I knew my agency choice was right.

Does this resonate for you?

Remember a charity

2009-03-24T17:55:00.004Z

Controversial charity consortium, Remember a Charity (RAC), is launching a fresh advertising campaign.

After a two-year absence, our televisions and radios shall once again crackle with this most serious of subjects. Or cackle this time round, as one of the most ingrained conventions of legacy marketing is upturned: humour has been injected into the creative.

And who has brought about such renewal?

As anyone who’s worked with him knows, Stephen George, the body’s Chair, and Development Director for Legacies at the NSPCC, is bursting with energy. And, although not single handed by any means, his leadership, imbued with this dynamism, has both held the consortium together and driven it in new directions.

A fierce advocate of research, Stephen refers to its importance in this new phase of activity in every interview or speech he gives.

A scratch beneath the surface of the new logo alone shows that care has been taken to pay attention to feedback from research.

But despite the now visible progress, RAC remains controversial.

Controversial for one reason: a two-year gap in advertising and a perceived lack of visible progress, combined with the challenges brought by recession, has focused the minds of most legacy fundraisers. RAC membership fees have been weighed even more carefully, and a number of members have pulled out, asking the question, “is it worth it – what else could I do with that money?”

But as the latest advertising campaign breaks, and the inevitable learning and research that will follow it emerges, non-members may well be left wishing they were involved.

Charity consortia often go through rocky patches, where the merits of membership are debated, and any advertising that is generated is scrutinised.

And there will be much to debate and scrutinise now.

The latest RAC campaign is built upon the principles of social marketing, where an attempt is made to change behaviour at a societal level, over time – think drink driving or stop smoking.

It works by using research to uncover the nuance in attitude that affects behaviour. In the case of drink driving, the most recent campaign was built upon an insight that people’s resolve not to drink too much is blurred in the moment they face a “just one more?” decision.

We wait with fascination to see the impact of this latest campaign on the world of legacy fundraising. It is a bold and exciting direction. And 'bold and exciting' is just what we need.

According to the RNLI's Charity Monitor, 41% of adults aged 65+ have made a Will. And 41% of those have included a charitable bequest. That still leaves three in five that don't ... and given that the average for the population is only 15% of Wills with a charitable gift, we face an enormous challenge.

But whatever controversy and criticism – or praise and admiration – this campaign generates, legacy fundraisers could do well to look at themselves first.

Will they be so focused on RAC, their enfant terrible, that the breaking campaign finds them not ready to capitalise on the enquiries and responses it generates?

Romance them

2009-03-09T22:01:00.006Z

"So Posh, happy David is in Milan?"

"They died as heroes"

"Cheryl flies in, Ashley jets out"

As fundraisers, how can we interrupt our audiences, when we compete with such sugar-rush media?

(The three lines above are on the same front page of just one of today’s free evening papers in London.)

Well in fact, Bluefrog seems to be interrupting rather well – despite the economic gloom. Recent recruitment of cash donors runs at 6% and £11 average gift for one client. And two-stage recruitment of committed givers runs at 12% initial gift and 9% conversion for another. And it is hard to keep up with our adwords and Facebook campaigns.

But our isolated success acts as counterpoint to the fact that Direct Debit cancellations are soaring, as Third Sector reports today.

Why is it that even stewardship-toting NSPCC is watching donors herd onto their online banks and cancel at such intensity?

Simple.

There’s no romance left. One fundraiser recently said that signing up to a direct debit with his charity was like inviting a pack of vampires (if ‘pack’ is the right word) into your home.

But why have charities like the NSPCC allowed themselves to give in to the temptation to put their donors under such pressure? Like bankers peddling sub-prime debt, it seems that the quick wins of cash asks and upgrades has blinded many fundraisers into near oblivion.

The machine-gun staccato of appeal > upgrade > appeal > faux-feedback > appeal > upgrade > appeal has eroded any goodwill that may have been there at the start.

What appears to have been lost is the focus on the donor.

What do donors need?

Our research has revealed that a typical donor has various needs – sometimes as simple as an impulse to help, sometimes as complex as needing to grow or to define themselves. If, through the course of a communication cycle, you can show that by giving to your organisation, their varying needs can be met, you are far more likely to develop a lasting relationship.

Sounds a lot like romance doesn’t it?

I will never forget the moment, many years ago, when I was sat in a launderette, waiting for my washing to dry. Mercedes, the chain-smoking manager, in the middle of doing a service wash for a customer, screeched in delight, “Elaine, ooh, Elaine! Look at this! ‘Ere, can you imagine picking a bloke up in a pub ‘cos you fancied him ‘cos of the bulge in his jeans, only to get him home and find he’s got a pair of these on?!” (Holding up a ‘loin king’ padded thong.)

Looking back, I can see there is a salutary – if a little obscure – lesson for fundraisers in that.

As stewardship guru Karen Osborne puts it, standard donor communications are just, ‘this is what we promise to do with your money’. “Stewardship,” she asserts, is, “‘this is in fact what we did with your money.’ It’s the delivery on the promise.”

Just as employing loin kings is generally an unromantic tactic, so too is the harassment of donors for short-term gain.

If you want to foster long-term relationships with donors, build a mutual exchange with them: one that is fulfilling and stimulating for them.

ActionAid – and other development agencies that offer child-sponsorship – boast industry-beating retention levels. They understand that for their richly rewarded donors, cancelling a direct debit would be like cancelling a part of themselves.

Take a moment today to look at what they do well, and think how to apply it.

Negative waves

2009-03-05T21:22:00.003Z

Ever worked with a mood hoover?

Hell, they make life miserable, don't they?

Are you a mood hoover?

If you are, you need to dig into the pit of yourself and find a way to become solution-focused, rather than objection-focused.

If you have serious cause to be angry or miserable, you need to deal with it. You will become the cause of your own downfall if you don't, and you will see yourself managed out of your team or organisation.

No one likes working with a mood hoover, even if they laugh along with their negativity. Generally, people like to be around positive, successful, future-focused people.

And if you manage a mood hoover, you need to be brave and sit down with them to explain the impact they are having ... and set clear boundaries that give them no choice but to change.

Kelly's Heroes - to which I attribute around 65% of my personality, values and character - contains several moments of genius.

But the following scene (up to 4m 25s) is the best snapshot of the importance of positive waves I have ever seen.

Past > Present > Future

2009-02-27T14:20:00.006Z

What will have the biggest impact on the way you perform today? Your past, your present or your future?

Similarly, what will have the biggest impact on the way your team performs today?

Clue: it is not the past.

If you’ll forgive a generalisation, it is not the trauma in a person’s past, or the emptiness of their present, that makes them decide to jump off a bridge; it is the bleakness of their future.

Psychologists, in their complex and difficult therapy with victims of torture, understand that the most powerful aspect of this abuse is that the person’s future is unpredictable and beyond their control. They do not know what will happen next.

Thankfully, you and your team are not enduring something as horrific as that – however stressful things are – but exactly the same principle applies.

If things are uncertain, especially during times of change – and most especially in this climate of general uncertainty – people experience incredible stress and their performance usually dips. So you need to pay particular attention to their future.

As performance coach Struan Robertson explained to me once, you need to map out where things are going, as far as possible, to minimise the insecurity that comes from not knowing.

But even when you simply do not know or cannot say, you must go out of your way to make even the next few steps as clear as they can be.

Then you and your people will be better able to perform well.

Vision
But to turn this completely on its head, the principle of the future being the most powerful driver for performance can be harnessed positively.

Like the sails of a yacht bulging and creaking as they catch a strong wind, bringing a surge in acceleration as the prow cuts through the waves and the hull leans over under the force, so too the future can be something that adds momentum to your performance.

And it happens when you are clear about your vision and strategy. And when you successfully get all hands on deck, as you excite people into playing a part.

Go on! Lead your teams forward.

That was easy

2009-02-25T18:59:00.003Z

So says the Staples strapline.

And it is.

Call the freephone number. Speak to someone lovely. See the stationery arrive.

Would supporters say the same of your charity?

How are they treated if they request information – or make a donation? What is it like to deal with Supporter Services?

I was asked by one of our clients to speak at their recent fundraising conference. At one point I said that to see the supporter at the centre one must see Supporter Services as the bedrock of fundraising.

What struck me was that afterwards one of their team said to me, “thank you for saying that … no one ever mentions Supporter Services”.

Yet in fact, how often do you send thank you letters, handle complaints or update someone’s contact details?

Work hard not to overlook this most valuable of departments. Look back at my post See > Do > Get and do all you can to harness this potential opportunity to make your organisation stand out through great service.

Data protection is a virus

2009-02-18T10:13:00.007Z

The general obsession with data protection is now pandemic.

Pay attention and you’ll see opt-ins and opt-outs everywhere. No one remembers why they are there, and as defences weaken, the nation’s websites, mailings, ads and emails are becoming increasingly infected.

Charities seem to have fallen prey to a particularly virulent form of the disease.

“[Charity name] promises to respect your privacy. The data we hold is
in accordance with the Data Protection Act (1998) … [tediousness tediousness] … not disclose, or share personal information … [endless tedium] … like to keep you informed … [tedious suspicion-raising waffle] … if you do not want to receive … [oh great, here’s my way out] … ticking the box.”

But data protection (DP) rules are actually rather simple.

And more relaxed than most people realise.

On the Information Commissioners’ site, your legal obligations under the Data Protection Act (DPA) are helpfully summarised. The crucial question sits at number two on the list:

‘Do the people whose information I hold know that I've got it, and are they likely to understand what it will be used for?’

What I find time and again is that marketers are hamstrung by over-zealous legal, communications or database teams who – and this is the critical point – follow the letter and not the spirit of the law.

Black and white
Sometimes, I acknowledge, the legislation is starkly clear, and in writing this post I am not advocating that you find ways to act illegally. For example, you must have an opt-in for email or SMS contact. Period.

But don’t you also need an opt-in for telephone contact?

Not necessarily.

For cold contacts, new supporters and many existing contacts, yes.

But with existing contacts who have received calls from you in the past and haven’t asked you to stop calling, you can rely on ‘implied opt-in’. As you can see from the question above, the Information Commissioners would ask you, “how and why did you gather telephone numbers, and would the person reasonably expect a call from you?”

So what about screening against TPS?

Yes, you must screen even existing contacts against TPS (telephone preference service) – although, again, you can rely on ‘implied opt-in’ if they have received calls in the past and not complained … which means you can call these people.

OK, it’s beginning to sound complicated.

The small print
There are eight Principles, upon which hang the entire legislation, documentation and industry of data protection in the UK.

And the second is the most important when considering communicating with your audiences.

“Personal data shall be obtained only for one or more specified and lawful purposes, and shall not be further processed in any manner incompatible with that purpose or those purposes.”

…which roughly translates as: “you can get and use someone’s details only if they’ll reasonably know what you’ll use them for”.

In addition, the rule above only applies if at least one of these Conditions are met, and for most marketing purposes this will be Condition 1:

“The data subject has given his consent to the processing.”

Presumably this means marketers do not need women’s consent? (Top tip to the Info Commissioners on inclusive language: edit > replace all > ‘his’ with ‘their’.) Anyway, off my feminist soapbox and on with the task in hand.

It is certainly easy to see how charities get caught in the myriad snares lurking in DP legislation.

In the document ‘Data Protection Good Practice Note – Charities and marketing’ the Info Commissioners outline how they would ideally have non-profits apply the DPA. But in setting out such good practice, they have erred towards a more literal interpretation. The following sentence is a good example:

“When you collect information from people and are in direct contact with them, such as in a phone call or on a website, you should give them an immediate opportunity to object to future contact”

Notwithstanding the point I made above about opt-ins required for electronic communication, this sentence is simply too absolute – if applied literally.

Be reasonable
There is a difference between the letter of the law, good practice, acceptable practice and bad practice or breaking the law. The latter is clearly foolish and will bring reputational and financial damage on you and your organisation.

But to zealous communications and legal teams who insist on strict adherence to the precise wording of the Act or even good practice, I say to you that as the world changes around you, such strict legalism will make your fundraisers’ jobs far more difficult than it already is – and because it will limit funds raised, it will directly threaten your charity’s services.

I say this for two reasons. First, it is clearly not possible in a piece of legislation to envisage and account for every scenario it will be applied to.

But second, and more important, you do not need to be so strict.

The following sentence from the Info Commissioners’ guidance on email marketing referring to opt-ins, and the way in which they need to be worded, is just one example that shows this:

“‘Similar products and services.’ In our view, this means ‘what products and services do you reasonably expect to hear about from this organisation’.”

‘Reasonable’ is something I have found the Info Commissioners to be.

So, to bring this already lively post to life, let me give some examples…

If someone donates to your charity for the first time, in response to a mailing, you do not need to give them an opt-out.

Gasp!
Yes, that’s right. As long as you aren’t planning to sell their details (in which case you would need one), the supporter would reasonably expect that you will get back in touch – to thank them and probably (given that this is your job) to ask for more money.
They would not, however, reasonably expect you to send them something every week, call them each month and knock on their front door at Christmas

Similarly, when someone replies to a press ad that is offering information on legacies, you do not need an opt-out.

Really?
Yes, that’s right.
The supporter would reasonably expect you to contact them with the information – unless they think you’re rude.
And they would also reasonably expect that you’ll follow them up, not least to see if they have any further questions – or simply to check whether it arrived.
Nor is it unreasonable to send them occasional updates on your work.
They would not, however, reasonably expect to start receiving monthly appeal mailings, campaigners mailings, Christmas card catalogues and weekly phone calls.

And, just to be clear, in each of the above examples, if you wanted to call, text or email them, you would need an opt-in … although the following is sufficient: “Where you can contact me” – under the line asking them to write their email address or telephone number.

To further illustrate the dangers of over-application of the DPA to charity marketing, two recent examples come to mind.

The first is from a large national charity who, until very recently, included an opt-out on every piece of mail communication to donors. Every newsletter, appeal letter and thank you letter included a tick box, offering them the chance to become ‘no-mail’. This was lunacy. Even though supporters have the best of intentions when they opt out – “it will save them money,” they think – they invariably give less as a consequence.

The second was the enquiry form on the legacy pages of a major UK charity’s website. Beautifully designed, with award winning usability, the site’s effectiveness was ruined on the final screen. Just before hitting ‘submit’ the visitor was presented with three DP clauses. The first was an opt-in for email and telephone and the second was a lengthy explanation and an opt-out for them selling your details. But the worst shooting-themselves-in-the-foot moment came with the third, which required an opt-in: “Keep me informed of [charity name] products, offers and appeals by mail”. Somewhat unsurprisingly, most enquirers were no-mail – which meant the system flagged them as being unable to receive even the materials they had requested.

As I hope I have illustrated, the Information Commissioners are most interested in your overall treatment and protection of supporters’ data. They want to see that you will communicate with people in a way they would reasonably expect.

When your hands are tied
You could, if you really wanted to follow best practice, add a line to recruitment pieces saying something like, "We promise to look after your details in line with the Data Protection Act, and will not share personal information supplied by you with any third party organisations without your consent."

And from time to time (e.g. somewhere on your website and annually by post) you could tell existing supporters: “We promise to look after your details in line with the Data Protection Act, and will only use them to contact you about our work. If you would like to tell us how you would prefer to hear from us, please contact us here….”

Finally, at all times you must be able to demonstrate that the supporter is always able to contact you to opt out of further contact … and that you have systems in place to ensure that you can administer their wishes.

If you have specific questions – or if you can't believe that what I have written can be true – the Information Commissioners’ helpline is incredibly helpful: 08456 30 60 60. They will happily discuss any specific issue you may be facing.

As you’ll hear if you call them, one of the phrases they will use most is, “what would the customer or supporter reasonably expect?”

Very important stuff this. Interesting, isn’t it?

In opposition of ‘that’

2009-02-10T17:32:00.002Z

The world of mail order has the worst offenders.

“Buy this plastic kitchen implement, and bring a professional touch to that favourite dish.”

“Order these cheap carnations for that special person in your life.”

“Watch for that look of surprise when Tiddles sees this miniature wreck in his bowl.”

That?! Which?!

‘That’ is lazy copywriting. It reveals a writer disinclined to do the hard work that is sometimes needed to paint a picture in the reader’s mind.

‘That’, and a list of equally over-used words and hackneyed phrases, is, I am horrified to report, beginning to appear in wider marketing copy. Even the sacred turf of fundraising is under threat.

If you have any influence at all in the creative process in your organisation, please join me in driving this menace from our land.

Top3: What commercial marketers can teach their charity peers

2009-02-09T06:53:00.004Z

Just like commercial marketers, charity marketers are in the business of building brands and generating income profitably. What the best commercial marketers do very well, however, is to maintain a single-minded focus on performance.

And that manifests itself in several ways. In the second in a series of Top3 posts, I shall consider what some of these are.

At Rapp, there is a ‘testing bible’ that contains over 25 years of testing on NSPCC direct marketing. I remember in an agency meeting one day, sat overlooking Hammersmith bridge, asking why the NSPCC used plain outer envelopes – featuring no more than the logo.

“Ah,” came the reply, “five years ago we completed a series of tests that showed that a plain OE uplifted response.”

There it was. My perception that they were weaker was an unfounded assumption. (Although in fact we had tested them at ChildLine and found that plain outers only worked occasionally.)

“But in fact,” they continued, “we’ve seen that ChildLine’s outers for lower value segments almost always feature headlines or some other artwork. And they work well, from what we can gather.”

I confess that I felt a little smug.

“So we’re going to test them.”

The reason I dwell on that episode in working with Rapp is that except for some of the larger charities – especially those with very experienced DM managers – most charities are not good at testing.

Some simply make assumptions and do not test. They follow their heart, swayed by a moving concept presentation, or their own preferences. Sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn’t.

Of course there are still exceptions, but commercial marketers generally test more rigorously. From something as basic as only changing one variable at a time, to more complex testing such as subtle home page variations on a website.

US luxury goods store Neiman Marcus has been incredibly successful online, and growth has far outstripped offline growth in recent years … imagine buying a £4,000 handbag via mail order! But the success is due in no small part to the rigour of the testing. Every minor tweak to the home page is tested with AB testing – i.e. one visitor to the site gets homepage A, whilst the next sees homepage B.

Similarly, in the UK, lastminute has developed a testing matrix that splits visitors to the site into one of six segments. They have found that this enables them to test any combination of variables and ensures the homepage works the best it possibly can.

And this gives a clue to a related, but separate, point. In general, commercial marketers only make changes or take action when something is proven. In my experience, charity marketers make decisions more subjectively, e.g. “I think we should change the colour of the ‘donate now’ button; red looks horrible.” But commercial marketers are much more likely to be heard saying, “our conversion rates are falling slightly; I wonder if we should change the colour or size of the ‘submit’ button; let’s test different versions.”

Nevertheless, sometimes even the best testing is insufficient to prevent poor results. However, commercial marketers are – generally – quicker to pull the plug than charity folks. They are better at facing up to reality, and chopping out poor performing parts of their programme (and staff for that matter).

They also begin the fight-back a little quicker. Contingency plans are implemented straight away, with pre-determined budgets. Energy and focus are ramped up, and they will naturally work even harder until things turn around.

Sadly, this is often not the case in charities. They are sometimes not even on top of their numbers until several weeks down the line. By the time they grasp that failure is upon them, their next campaign is ready – using the same formula.

In a way, the Top3 things that commercial marketers can teach non-profit marketers are very closely linked. And they are more about professional discipline than about tactics or techniques:

Testing rigorously
Rarely doing anything unless it’s proven
Monitoring performance – when they do take risks, they ensure results and data will be immediately available, they will monitor them and they have strategies in place to manage the various outcomes.

Charity marketers often show creativity and innovation, but those qualities alone will not lead to the greatest success. The perception that the sector can sometimes be somewhat amateur in its overall approach is not entirely unjustified.

Which Top3 would you suggest?

Break the rules

2009-01-28T18:57:00.001Z

I saw this ad in the back of a cab.

What struck me is that according to the rule book, you can’t get much worse creative. Difficult typeface to read. All upper case. Upside down!

But it works.

It reminded me that consideration of target audience comes above everything else.

Five minutes in a taxi is plenty of time to gaze, work it out, absorb the message.

Genius.

Next time you’re developing creative, sit back for a moment and think about which rules you could break.

Keep on your toes

2009-01-27T15:59:00.003Z

My wife says that unless you can teach a group about a subject in three bullet points, you don’t understand it.

Her logic (and temperament) become inconsistent when I suggest that I understand her but couldn’t possibly sum her up in three bullet points.

Still, her assertion often comes to mind when I think about the fast pace of change in the worlds of fundraising and marketing.

Some might argue I need to get out more, but from time to time I challenge myself and glance through the IDM’s syllabus for the Diploma in Direct and Interactive Marketing or conference outlines, such as the IoF’s Strategic Fundraising Management conference.

I ask myself whether I could stand up and speak on all of those topics if called on at short notice. And I set about plugging any gaps in my knowledge.

Try it.

Top3: what charity marketers can teach their commercial peers

2009-01-22T20:44:00.004Z

Admittedly, there is a swathe of charity marketing that is muddled, wasteful and not strategic.

However, it would be grossly inaccurate to deny that in many instances, charity marketers use more sophisticated and more effective techniques than their commercial counterparts.

This is the first in a series of 'Top3' posts, in pairs, using the format ‘what A can teach B', followed by, 'what B can teach A’.

Here’s my suggested trio of things the Dark Side could learn from non-profit marketers.

Personalisation
Basic, huh? But how many times have you received communication from companies who appear to pay no attention to who you are?

There are so many good examples from charity marketing to draw on, but one in particular comes to mind.

A couple of years ago Bluefrog’s data planners started introducing ‘ultra-personalisation’ with various clients. This is where each mailing, telephone script or digital communication contains details personalised to that individual.

From a simple reference to the number of years the donor has supported, to relating the number of doctors in a large rural area in Uganda to the equivalent number of doctors in the nearest town to where the donor lives, this has steadily increased value across the donor spectrum.

Segmentation
I have been banking online for nearly a decade. Every year of that with the Co-operative Bank. Why, then do I still get statements or letters through the post with leaflets promoting online banking?

Here’s an idea, Co-op: split the mailing into two segments; A. already bank online, B. don’t bank online. Marginal increase in production costs but a saving on print and a saving on customer irritation.

Of course, the likes of Tesco do segment - into many thousands of distinct segments in their case - and create carefully tailored messaging to each segment.

But charity appeals are among the most consistently complex and effective models of segmentation. Not only are donors split by simple value bands, they are also often segmented by recency, type of giving, number of relationships, contact preferences, age and propensity. Among many more.

At Bluefrog, we have for several years also advocated segmentation by low-value and mid/high-value donors. The proposition is often the same, but when served different creative, the latter group responds radically differently.

Although costs increase, net income always goes up – sometimes doubling.

Early commercial models include BA’s Club World, but such communication products are still relatively rare.

Thanks
Give to charity and you get a warm feeling. Some charities mess it up, by bombarding donors or conveying wastefulness, but on the whole, people know they will feel good if they give (through meeting their donor needs).

Charities who really tap into that do so by calling on a host of techniques – perhaps most importantly of all being the thank you.

Send the same generic thank you time after time, and donors will switch off. The best charity marketers know that, and certainly at Bluefrog we advise a fresh thank you letter be written with each new appeal or communication, to be ready as soon as the gifts begin arriving.

If you buy a new car, you expect a certain level of attention – although a fawning, sickly ego stroke takes it too far.

But imagine if commercial marketers said ‘thank you’ with every purchase, in the same way even a small donation is received with gratitude by most non-profits? Particularly online, there is so much scope for personalised, relevant thank yous and feedback requests – why, then, do so many insist on regurgitating the ‘transaction confirmed’ messages they wrote in 1998?!

What do you think? Which aspects of non-profit marketing would make it into your top three?

Two weeks in. 2009: the challenge you can overcome?

2009-01-19T21:44:00.003Z

This post from The Agitator got me thinking.

Reflecting on the knee-jerk reaction of some fundraisers to cut back in the face of recession, Roger comments: "The most practical course of education for most fundraisers would be experience on a well-run farm.

"They would learn the cost of not investing in seed corn (donor acquisition) … they would understand that an investment in weeding (donor cultivation) and good fertilizer (information and accountability for donors) is essential for sustainability.

"And, if they were fortunate enough to work on a farm with an orchard, they would come to understand that it takes three, sometimes four, or even five years to bring in a profitable harvest of fruit from newly planted and continually pruned trees."

Bluefrog’s experience in the past four months has shown us that despite the naysayers it is possible to fundraise successfully in the gloom.

Three conclusions stand out to me:

Keep recruiting. We saw Christmas mail acquisition for a cancer charity perform as well as ever before.
Keep asking. A Christmas appeal for a homelessness charity beat target by 30%.
Push legacies. I’m not talking about a ‘give now, pay later’ message; just a straight forward promotion of gifts in Wills. Every legacies campaign we’ve run with clients in the past six months has beaten expectations – most recently for a development charity.

However, don’t use recession as a lever. One test we ran with a medical research charity showed that when the recession was mentioned it lowered average gifts.

Another post from The Agitator. Tom asks what makes a ten-year donor. As he suggests, January 2009 perhaps more than any other new year before is the moment to find out.

What clues are there among loyal donors as to how to improve retention? And in particular, are long-term supporters lapsing now – or giving at lower amounts than usual?

We know that legacy propensity leaps when someone’s been around for a decade – by seven times for one children’s charity client. And that seems to confirm that there is something special about this group – their continued giving is more than simple inertia.

So go on! Talk to them, seek feedback from them and run analysis on their giving histories.

After all, some of them will have been giving since the last recession – or even longer.

Why fundraising is like making cappuccino

2009-01-14T00:14:00.010Z

“Grande skinny caramel macchiato, extra hot, with three shots, extra cream, marshmallows, double vanilla and a dash of cinnamon” is heard rather too often for my liking.

This is sacrilege against the art of coffee making.

And I use the word ‘art’ advisedly. The perfect espresso is created only when the following six elements meet in harmony:

A perfectly maintained and spotlessly clean espresso machine
A quality blend of perfectly roasted, fresh coffee beans
A grind that is neither too course nor too fine
A carefully judged dose of the ground coffee
A tamping technique that is neither too firm nor too light
A portafilter tightened just enough to keep the coffee compressed and the steam pressure in

And then to craft a cappuccino, the densely foamed, steamed but not-too-hot milk is added, so that the following rough proportions are achieved:

A third espresso
A third milk
A third foamed milk

The best coffee in Shoreditch, if you find yourself in Bluefrog’s neck of the woods, is to be found at Food Hall, on Old Street.

Each cup is given the attention that a sculptor would give a masterpiece carving. And take-away is as good as drink-in … although a purist would argue that cappuccino cannot properly be drunk from a paper cup.

Am I sounding pretentious yet?

Time to infuse [sorry] fundraising into this.

Raising money
Why compare coffee and fundraising? Well, truth be told, simply because I love coffee. But bear with me and you’ll see that there are some really helpful parallels.

First, the espresso machine. This is your fundraising department and as you know, if that’s not working well, everything else is doomed. The metaphor can be taken further, however.

Espresso machines work under incredible pressure, and in a similar way, fundraising departments work with an ongoing challenge to find budget, high demands from Trustees, and a constant strain to develop the next target-beating campaign.

But the best Gaggia won’t make good coffee if it is neglected. And NCVO’s Third Sector Skills Research published last July was just one report to lament a skills shortage in fundraising. Unless we invest in developing skills, our fundraising will get more and more watered down.

“Credit crunch”, I hear you shout. Indeed, and several major players are certainly feeling more crunch than credit at the start of 2009, but scheme’s like the IoF’s Fundraising Learning Online are to be applauded, in making basic training affordable.

One thing remains unavoidable in a recession: those who continue to invest through the hard times will emerge ahead of the pack.

And so onto the next element: coffee beans. The basic ingredient. In fundraising that’s your strategy. It doesn’t matter what you do with a poor strategy; it is still a poor strategy, and it will only get you so far.

Adrian Sargeant’s regular sessions at IoF and IFC conferences on building a fundraising strategy give the basics. I’d hazard a guess, however, that fewer than half of the top-500 fundraising departments have developed a strategy with even that much thoroughness.

Cranfield School of Management run great courses on strategy development, and they can sometimes work with charities on a consultancy basis.

The grind, number three on the list, is your target audience. Not that I’m suggesting that donors are a grind.

In coffee making, it is important that the ground coffee is neither too course nor too fine. So, too, in defining your various audiences, it is important neither to view them as too homogenous a group, nor to break them into thousands of small segments.

The key, of course, is to understand your audience. To really understand what each set of donors – or prospective donors – is like: what motivates them, how do they give and how can you build relationships with them? There are myriad resources out there to help get into donors’ minds – CharityBloggers, for example.

But the best technique of all – and I aim this comment mainly at direct marketers, who, I’m sorry to say, are generally useless at this – is to speak to donors or read their correspondence.

In a brief spell in commercial brand marketing, before coming to Bluefrog, one of the brands I oversaw was Listen2. Primary audience: 65+. Not only does my iPod now contain some Mantovani and Vera Lynn, I made sure I spent time opening post and in the call centre.

The dose comes next and in my mind this equates to the offer or proposition. Clearly, this comes after understanding your audience, but it is nearly as important.

I’ve seen ads bomb for lack of attention to what the audience will be likely to do (e.g. direct debit ask when a cash ask would have been better).

Successful trust fundraisers will tell you that unless you really understand what the Trust is looking to support – and precisely which aspect of your work will push their buttons – no amount of hard work on the application will get a result.

Corporate partners, similarly, are usually looking for the right type of charity partnership.

And what you tell donors their money can achieve is equally critical.

The Prostate Cancer Charity’s Research Action Fund that Bluefrog created, works very well as a high value donor recruitment tool. And this is mainly because it maps precisely onto the sort of work the prospective donors want to support.

It is perhaps a stretch to see how tamping – the next element – equates to creative. But that’s possibly because not many people have used an espresso machine.

The skilled use of a tamper, to compress the ground coffee into the filter, needs something of a creative flair to get just right. I hope the next time you buy a coffee you get to see this in action.

In fundraising, whether it is community fundraisers sending invitations to a carol concert, major donor key workers chatting to someone at an event or the acquisition team in direct marketing developing a new DRTV ad, the message must be put across effectively.

Marie Curie’s Great Daffodil Appeal is an interesting example. For such a well-loved brand, warmly embodied in yellows and blues, opting for black as the primary colour for this annual appeal was a brave move. Blacks and greys evoke death, which for a cancer care charity is upfront but also seems a little risky.

It looked very nice on big cross-track posters in the Tube. But one can’t help wondering what the community fundraising volunteers, like those in the pictures, prefer wearing – black or blue. And what do individual donors think?

Finally, timing – when to tighten and stop tightening the filter holder. Often fixed, e.g. around Christmas, timing is rarely given enough thought. There is a tendency – if one thinks about timing at all – to try to out-do the competition and move an appeal a bit earlier.

Christmas card catalogues in August? Of course. And if you don’t get yours out in August too, you’ll lose sales. How long before someone tries July or even June?

Admittedly, you only have limited scope on testing timing, as your hand will often be forced by what other departments or competitors are doing.

Email is one area where testing is both possible and worthwhile – assuming you have sufficient volumes of responsive data. A few years ago, I heard a consensus emerging that Tuesday morning or Thursday lunchtime were the best times to send an email. But that has now changed, and the clear advice from digital experts is to do your own testing.

As I said elsewhere, from a stewardship point of view, the timing of feedback and thank you messages will be very important as the recession deepens. Specifically, I recommend now!

Frothy coffee
Cappuccino is anathema to true espresso lovers. Some argue that once milk – or even hot water – enters the dark nectar, it is ruined.

Others, however, enjoy delving into the velvety softness, allowing the warmth and strength to be drawn through.

In a similar – but less suggestive – way, a contrast can be drawn between fundraisers who see themselves as solitary espresso and those who strive to achieve a cappuccino-like mix. The former keep their head down and concentrate on the task in hand. Sometimes brilliant, often a little weak or bitter.

I would argue that the latter group, however, are more consistent.

They turn espresso into something greater, by mixing one third themselves, one third creative agencies and consultancies, and one third peer networks and industry bodies like the Institute. Not that I would suggest that the IoF is frothy and full of hot air.

Although they risk becoming a little bland, fundraisers who seek input from others and build upon the experience of peers and the industry stand a much better chance of being successful.

Donor needs
But going back to the “grande skinny caramel macchiato, extra hot, etc…”, maybe Starbucks and their 20,000 variations on a cup of coffee are right on the money. What they do is to recognise that customers have needs, and the most important of all is to be treated as an individual – to be given what you want in return for your money.

And anyone who’s read Mark Phillips’ post on donor needs will immediately see the parallel.

As Mark says, donors want to know what a charity has done with their money, rather than read about what the charity does (or what a corporate partner has given, or what policy statement they’re issuing); it's a very subtle difference, but a very important one.

But how do you implement that in practice?

At the risk of being clichéd, I shall draw this post to a close with a reference to Barack Obama’s astounding fundraising success.

As Nick Burne comments in PF, Obama succeeded because he, ‘made the campaign about me’.

Nick observes: ‘A statement on the front and top of Obama's website read: “I'm asking you to believe. Not just about my ability to bring about real change in Washington … I'm asking you to believe in yours." And it wasn't just a statement. He backed it up by giving me ways to get involved online. I could be a hero – part of the change. It was about me, my friends and family, and who I could influence.’

And in September 2008 alone he raised a record-breaking $150m, largely from ordinary Americans, primarily because he understood their needs.

Interference

2009-01-11T22:06:00.002Z

Performance = Potential – internal interference – external interference

…or so the management theory goes.

This one works well if you’re mind-gyming yourself, i.e. when you’re talking yourself through a challenging situation, such as working to a deadline or when you’re working through conflict.

Mental self-control is critical if you’re aiming to perform to a high standard. And when you train yourself, you begin to notice the external interference, e.g. the negativity of others or the unexpected meeting that puts you under more pressure.

You also learn to notice the internal interference, such as your own doubts, tiredness or stress. And that’s the very moment in which you need to draw on your strength to put that interference aside.

Listen, you’re good. You know you can get through whatever situation you’re facing. Left to get on with it, you’ll ace it.

Understanding interference is also helpful when your team fades on you occasionally.

Building on see > do > get, if you discipline yourself to see that each individual has high potential, you can end up wondering why they under perform sometimes – which, let’s be honest, no amount of positive thinking can conceal.

So what are you to do? Well, given that we’ve seen how coaching yourself through challenges can help, it is nearly as simple as applying it to the people you’re leading.

But only ‘nearly’ as simple. You’re not a rugby coach, and your team may react unfavourably to a pep talk. Rather, you can employ one of a range of techniques that help them to mind-gym themselves.

First, listen, and make sure you understand what’s interfering with their potential – is it internal or external? Chances are, it’s some internal interference, fuelled by external interference such as change, job insecurity or poor management in your organisation. Tell them how you see the situation, or how you dealt with something similar. In time, you can even talk them through the concept of the mind gym.

Finally, get involved and be seen to be working as hard they are, conveying a drive towards a common purpose, and leading your whole team towards high performance and strong motivation.

See > Do > Get

2009-01-05T13:19:00.004Z

It is hard to work with dimwits.

It is hard to lead idiots.

It is hard to manage incompetents.

Especially when you're angry with them.

Especially when one or two of them really should go, for the greater good.

But is is essential that you do. Otherwise your feelings spill out and seed discontent, which in turn can seed mutiny.

Sounds extreme but I've seen it time and again.

Happily, there is a solution.

SEE > DO > GET

This is another of those annoying rules of management that sound silly but are remarkably true. My thanks again to performance coach Struan Robertson for helping me improve my management with this.

If you allow yourself to see your staff as incompetent idiots (SEE), you begin treating them as such and expecting nothing more than that from them (DO). And it is therefore no surprise if that's all you get from them (GET).

If, however, you discipline yourself to see each of them as potentially high-achieving members of your dream team, you will begin to talk to them and treat them as such. And it will probably surprise you when they perform well.

In fact, in time they'll excel.

Sounds too simplistic to be true doesn't it?

You will certainly still need to deal with one or two people whose performance or negativity has the potential to drag everyone else down, but I promise that you'll be happy you adopted this mantra.

And your people will appreciate it too.

Clearly, it begins with the decision to see them differently, and when you take this step, another hidden benefit emerges. The mantra could be expanded as follows...

SEE > FEEL > DO > GET

...you start to feel better about working with them.

Developing mental self control like this is what I like to call 'mind-gyming'. (Wish I'd registered mindgym!)

When you mind-gym yourself, coaching yourself through challenges, you take your performance to a different level. And this is never more valuable than when you're managing people. How you are on the inside affects how you are on the outside. And people notice it.

So start 2009 with a new resolve to SEE everyone differently, measured by their potential not by their shortcomings.

The power of the image

2009-01-03T21:27:00.003Z

Strange that the first thing I write on photography begins with an illustration – albeit a photo of one.

This image deserves attention for many reasons.

It is among the best examples in history of the illustration genre of imagery. Clean and simple, with powerful use of colour to capture shadow and detail.

And its use among political campaigning seems very fitting. As does the way this particular photograph captures the gritty hard work of the campaign trail.

But it is also a good place to start looking at what makes good photography. If I were to speak of some of the essential components of a good photo, portraiture would be a good place to start.

The eyes are on the top third. In fact, Barack’s eyes each sit on the intersection of the top horizontal third with each of the two vertical thirds.

(Draw an imaginary horizontal line, one third of the way down the picture, and another two thirds of the way down. Now draw vertical lines one third and two thirds of the way across the page. These are your thirds, and any photo is magically transformed if the focal point – or just the horizon or a figure or a line – lies on them. Especially on the intersections.)

Next, see the way he’s looking from left to right, tilting his head and looking into the picture. In fact, his left eye, sitting on the intersection of the top and right hand thirds, otherwise known as optical dead centre, is the point where one’s eye is drawn in the image.

Perfect.

We could dwell on the tight crop and shallow depth of field to make the background melt away, but that would be unnecessary, as the eyes have it.

PROGRESS and HOPE are both captured in Shepard Fairey’s iconic image. And this illustrator’s rise to even greater fame – let alone that of his subject – is well deserved.

Imagine what he could do with a camera.

My crunch hunch

2008-12-23T10:17:00.004Z

Optimism is dead. Regarding the wider economy, at least.

You no longer hear the occasional optimist saying things will pick up in the spring. Everyone agrees that things are going to get worse.

As winter suddenly bites in January and February, the only thing getting brighter will be the sky as the days gradually lengthen. The economic outlook will get darker.

The post-New Year lull can often feel a bleak time of year but in 2009 it could be dreadful.

Over 80 percent of marketers are investing in CRM because of the economic downturn but this sudden focus on relationship marketing comes too late.

With brand and product homogeny, and the relentless growth of online retailers fueling the Long Tail, differentiation by customer service is increasingly important. A concept widely promoted in the 80s, it is sad that so few brands really embrace it.

Charity brands from the NSPCC down are losing direct debit donors at an increasing rate, and commercial brands such as Dixons are reporting rapidly dropping sales. The sorry demise of Woolworths, it has been said, is only the beginning.

Improved customer service seems to be one of the few ways left to avoid catastrophe as the recession bites.

(Interesting, then, that just at this critical moment BT axes 10,000 posts ... and if you have ever had the misfortune of calling BT Customer Services, you will agree that this move does not inspire confidence in future levels of service.)

Marketers must start to engage with customers – really engage, by taking time out to sit on the phones and take Customer Services calls for example! Similarly, fundraisers must start to engage with donors, for example by regularly spending time with Supporter Services, opening post and seeing what they're saying about their appeals.

In September, CAF and ACEVO reported that 88% of charity CEOs expect income to drop over the coming year. And recent press reports appear to be confirming this outlook.

While 62% of charities expect to increase fundraising investment to mitigate the effects of the recession, according to IoF/PwC/CFDG's Managing in a Downturn research, some charities are already on a slippery downward slope. They are the ones whose copies of Relationship Fundraising have been gathering dust for the past decade, while they’ve persisted with the charity equivalent of the assault on Falluja.

So what can you do to stem the attrition of donors, and protect your income in 2009?

If I were back in that position, I would seek to communicate – at least twice between January and March – the following key messages…

“THANK YOU”

“THIS IS WHAT WE’VE DONE WITH YOUR MONEY”

‘Your money’ is the vital phrase. And it is one that I think deserves a moment’s reflection.

This slightly old fashioned notion of it being ‘my money’ is very relevant in times of recession. It’s my money. Why should I continue to give donations on the vague promise that, ‘this is what you will do with it’?

I want to see what you did do with it.

Otherwise, I’m not so sure about giving you any more.

As Karen Osborne puts it, this ‘delivery on the promise’ is what donors want – and it is the best way to unlock their next gift.

The good news is that Bluefrog has developed several solutions to this challenge that are already reaping rewards for clients.

My hunch is that unless charities lead on this message in 2009 they will end the year with fewer than half the active donors they have now.

Keep the change

2008-12-22T21:59:00.011Z

Managing change well can result in stronger, better teams. Managing it badly just produces a box of bad or bitter apples, with many good apples falling out along the way.

Leading people through change is always tricky. Whilst there will usually be around ten percent who are positive, there will always be another ten percent who are negative.

This latter group – the ‘mood hoovers’ – need skilful handling, including the judgement on when not to waste any more time on them. This is especially true when one of the aims of the process of change might be to shed this ten percent.

But it is the remaining 80% who need most careful handling.

When it’s all over, you need them to hit the track sprinting.

My thanks to performance coach Struan Robertson for what follows. I was lucky enough to be coached by Struan for a couple of years.

To emerge from change with your 80% intact, you need to start with a plan.

And your plan needs to fill in some blanks. It needs to fill in the blanks in people’s heads.

When change begins, everyone has questions. But the answers are blank – unless you are ready to fill them in for them.

If you don’t, the mood hoovers will be only too pleased to help.

The questions people have can be summarised with five Ps:

Picture
Purpose
Process
Payoff
Part I play

Picture
Your people – let’s call them changelings – appreciate knowing what’s going on. It is incredibly stressful to be in the midst of something over which you have little control and about which you know nothing. You won’t be able to tell them everything, sure, but you can convey that you are telling them as much as possible.

Changelings need to see where this is going.

Purpose
Why? Why is this happening? Why are things changing?

People are amazing. If they can see why something’s happening, they can adjust much more quickly than you’d imagine.

Changelings need to know.

Process
If you’re restructuring or merging with another organisation – or simply introducing a new procedure – your changelings will react much better if they know roughly what will happen when.

They will also stick with you through the various stages if they know how things fit together.

Payoff
Will it be worth it?

Or if I run with you through this process, if I back you on this, will I regret it?

In many ways, changelings need to answer this for themselves, but you need to give them enough to go on. And it needs to be more than empty reassurance.

Changelings aren’t daft.

Part I play
This is the most important P.

If I can’t see how I might influence the outcome, I will start to switch off.

Changelings need to feel involved, and as with Payoff, they should be able to fill this one in themselves. You have to make it clear that they need to engage.

And this leads nicely onto another dimension of managing change: coaching staff through it. For the mathematically minded, the following equation states an immutable law of change…

EVENT + RESPONSE = OUTCOME

A changeling [often] has no control over the EVENT.

But they have 100% control over their RESPONSE.

A simplistic but insightful analogy is that of the brown bug.

A brown bug lived in a brown field, and everything was familiar. The brown bug was good at being brown – surviving and thriving.

One day the field turned green. Being a brown bug in a green field was not good. Predators were drawn to her and potential mates avoided her.

So the brown bug had a choice: leave and find another brown field or stay and become a green bug.

She decided to stay and embrace the change. And as it turned out, things were much better in the green field. Food was much more plentiful – and happily, potential mates were very fit indeed.

A little trivial for most business changes, but the principle is sound: each person can choose how they respond, and if they respond as ‘change agents’, i.e. actively and positively engaged, you have a great team.

In summary, it really boils down to conveying three things to your teams:

that they have been considered
that they are appreciated
that you want them to be onboard

Go on! Lead people through change.

What is genius?

2008-12-18T11:11:00.004Z

Well this is...

As is this...

Genius is the ability - and inclination - to look at something through your lens and turn it into something new.

Or to come up with something totally new.

Most people focus on ability, and there are myriad blogs, books and videos about increasing your ability. But true genius emerges only when you have the inclination to let it out.

Consciously switch your head on, open your eyes and ears, plug into it.

Moonlighting - sheer betrayal

2008-12-03T00:36:00.001Z

18 months is a long time to be shackled in charity HR bureaucracy.

Endless 121s, consultation meetings, capability procedures and finally disciplinary procedures. All in an attempt to ascertain why a previously satisfactory, if a little dull, manager had suddenly unplugged from the grid.

Even his team weren't sure what he was doing - working three days from home and only two in the office left plenty of room for speculation.

The best explanation I could come up with was that his wife must have some form of mental illness.

But no amount of guesswork could prepare me for the shocking discovery that he and his not-ill wife had set up an ad agency from home ... highlighting its 'ethical' credentials.

But moonlighting is hard to spot unless you micromanage - especially if, as in this case, the individual does just enough to avoid dismissal. There were so many other competing priorities that I never had long enough to focus on this issue in enough detail. If I had, I might have spotted the inconsistencies, and may have saved his team twelve months of frustration.

Sadly, one thing's now sure. His betrayal of his team means my starting point is "no" if someone asks for flexible working.

The Mo thing I'll miss most

2008-11-28T17:30:00.003Z

Perhaps the nerve endings around the hair follicles stimulate neurological activity.

Or maybe stroking things with your finger tips gets you thinking.

Whatever the physiological explanation, my Mo helps me think! Problem solving has never been so swift. Pondering my next move has never been so fruitful.

So it will be with a tear in my eye that I defy you all. The vote says "No!" but my common sense and self-respect says "Mow!"

Thank you to all who sponsored me.

My Mo - I saw it in a shop window!

2008-11-26T13:04:00.005Z

Nearly there!

Four days to go and I think I went through the pain barrier today.

Walking past a shop window on the way into work, I glanced inside but caught a reflection of a moustached fellow looking back. Not someone with a strange upper lip infection but someone with a bona fide Mo!

However, by the time I reached the office the feeling of pride had faded, leaving me to seek inspiration in a mug of coffee, as you can see. Which worked actually.

Meanwhile, Barnardo's ad campaign broke this week. It is not unfair to say that working for marketing teams in brands such as this is what really drives me. Coffee provides caffeine but this stuff injects rocket fuel...

What do you think? It's a powerful ad. Attention (yes) > Interest (yes) > Desire (ish - not sure what I'm supposed to do) > Conviction (yes - Barnardo's seems to be in the zone) >>> but as ever, the challenge for fundraisers will be to convert this brand campaign into Action.

The power of anger

2008-11-25T18:02:00.002Z

Here's the thing. What do businesses, friendships and families have in common? They are made or broken with good or poor communication.

Poor communication can disable you. It can ruin a family. It can kill a relationship.

Even very blunt and direct people can communicate well though. The key is to learn how and when to use different styles.

However, really good communication begins with listening. Two ears, one mouth.

And one of the most perilous times in communication is when one person is angry - or worse, when both are.

Anger is perhaps the most frequently misunderstood emotion. It is almost always a defence, covering up someone's real feelings - consciously or unconsciously. People often get angry when they are hurt, and when this anger is stirred they can become aggressive.

The trick is to hold tight, let the aggression come out, and learn to speak at the right moment in the right way.

Take an apologetic, understanding stance and the aggression and anger fade. Take a defensive and contradicting stance and the situation spirals.

Then, with all the strength you can find, pick your way gently through the mess to achieve a constructive, reconciled outcome.

Fine.

But being hurt or angry is never an excuse for personal, wounding comments. You need to learn to pause before breathing fire or taking out your verbal sword and slaying someone.

And if you're on the receiving end of such an attack, you have to learn to respond in a way that will increase the chances of an constructive outcome.

> see Working the Crowd.

If the other person is too angry to calm down, you have to take a break - suggest that the conversation continues later. No amount of good communication skills can deal with someone who won't calm down.

Working the crowd

2008-11-25T14:48:00.001Z

Stand up comedians live or die by it.

If they don't work the crowd, to get them on-side, they get booed off stage.

In business, and in fact in every interaction in day-to-day life, people who work the crowd do better than those who don't.

Each time you open your mouth, write an email or fire off a text, you have a choice. Do you say whatever you're thinking or feeling in a way that will open the other person up and result in a constructive conversation?

Or do you say it in a way that will get their defences up, and result in conflict or an unsatisfactory result?

It's your call - every time.

Not a very funny comedian but he does a good job of working the crowd.

Three weeks and three reactions

2008-11-21T14:24:00.002Z

Movember marches on, and the MoBro's Mo grows long.

Some quite like it.

Most ridicule it.

But my wife says it is, "singularly unattractive", and insists I walk along the pavement two yards ahead of her.

Should I shave it though? When you've sponsored me, please vote!

Building a team - be ruthless

2008-11-20T21:22:00.003Z

In the mid 90s I was a member of a five-person team on an expedition to a remote village in the Western Himalayas, Pakistan's Karakoram range, or "Black Wall".

We needed a woman and a man with local language skills, and so it was that we selected a guy who at first glance seemed perfect. Affable, intelligent, and the son of Pakistani parents.

However, something in me was unsure. He seemed ever so slightly arrogant and once or twice failed to deliver on agreed action points on the list of preparations. I was not leading the team, however, and it was not my call.

Fast fwd four months and we were in the village, situated at 6,500ft in the fertile floor of an enormous valley. Hundreds of miles long, the valley wound its way between 24,000ft peaks up to the Chinese boarder. The section where we were was forty miles end-to-end, four miles wide, with peaks down either side and at each end that towered three miles above us.

Three or four weeks into the expedition, we had a day's R&R. This guy in question and I both wanted to revisit a high goat pasture we had seen a week before. Hidden by a giant fold in the rocks and directly beneath an overhanging glacier, the goat herder's stone hut was one of the most serene places I had ever been to.

We set out early and made good progress in the lower part of the climb. Through apricot groves, past white mulberry trees surrounded by huddles of ancient buildings, and up to the mountain track flanked by fragrant wildflowers. The path wound its way between fields, following the lines of irrigation channels that fed the crops with silty water from the river. This river tumbled down from the glacier high above the village, into the mighty river thousands of feet below in the bed of the main valley.

The path led up into a narrow gorge, carved by centuries of glacial run-off, with near-vertical sides that were lined with boulder clay, towering hundreds of feet either side. Boulder clay is a mixture of sand, silt, gravel and boulders, which is created by the seasonal advance and retreat of the glacier, grinding over the rocks high above.

Although we had to rest frequently, as the air became thinner over 10,000ft, we reached the goat herder's hut by lunchtime and sat chatting with him, sharing our food in return for some lussee (cooled goats yoghurt). Lunch over, the two of us took time to wander the vast pasture separately, agreeing to leave in one hour.

Teetering at 13,000 feet at the lip of the gorge we had just climbed, and surrounded on three sides by 10,000ft walls of ice and rock, the scale is impossible to describe. Probably a mile and a half long by a mile wide, the pasture is nearly silent, except for the distant sound of the glacial run-off, some eagle cries and an occasional groan from the glacier, which would send an eerie echo into the cobalt blue sky above.

I got the photos I wanted and returned to the rocks that we had agreed to meet at. Just after 13:00 and plenty of time to descend before the late afternoon light would fade into the evening darkness.

One peculiar aspect of Himalayan valleys is that two or three hours after the sun passes its midday zenith, it sets very quickly, as the 24,000ft mountains on one side cast a shadow onto the slopes of the 24,000ft mountains on the other side. An hour later, you can see the movement of the shadow, as the sun paints the opposite side of the valley with gloom.

So it was that TWO HOURS later, my team mate arrived, and gave an inadequate apology and explanation. There was no time for argument. We decided to return to the village as we were not equipped to spend the night up there in sub-zero temperatures.

We made quick progress, descending a few thousand feet before the light began to fail. We were half way between the pasture and the village - and we realised our mistake. The light faded much quicker once we were down in the gorge and soon the sandy grey boulder clay faded into the gathering dusk.

It became impossible to follow what faint path existed and we soon found ourselves at a dead end. We were probably 300ft below the top of the gorge side and I guess we were 100ft lower than the path. Scrambling had given way to technical climbing without ropes, and our advance was halted by a 50ft lump sticking out from the side of the gorge.

I managed to climb around it and reached a much easier place, where a small stream had carved a natural path. I could see that this ran past the original path lower down, near the place where it began to open out and ease off.

I turned back to help the other guy and was reaching down, ready to help him up. He was just out of reach and was climbing up the side of a tiny channel carved by another stream.

I think we both realised what was happening in the same moment. The TV-sized boulder he was pulling himself up on began to move. Boulder clay is incredibly unstable, and as he froze he understood it was already too late. Sand, stones and boulders began to shift all around him.

He looked up into my face and said, "Matt, I'm not going to make..."

And the sound of the river in the gorge below was drowned by a crashing roar, as chunks of the boulder clay around me fell into the channel after him.

I saw how big the boulders were that tumbled down onto him but I had to retreat as the ground under my feet began to shift too.

I climbed down a little to see if I could see him but the channel was clear, but for the dust that hung in the air. The roaring of the rock avalanche subsided and the sound of the river far below filled the air.

I called his name but there was silence.

My heart pounded even harder as I realised that the whole area around me had been destabilised. I turned and climbed back up, as quickly as I could, even as boulders began to give way beneath my feet.

As my mind raced, thinking about returning next day to find his body, I began the easy descent in the stream bed I had seen earlier.

Then, to my complete amazement, I heard his voice.

He was at least a hundred feet further down the side of the gorge, but I found a vantage point and peered over to see his dusty and disheveled face looking up. I directed him over a ridge above him and up to the stream bed.

He had literally miraculously escaped serious injury and was just bruised and scraped.

We rested for a few minutes and then started the descent once more. We jogged where possible but mostly clambered down the rough slopes in the semi darkness.

It was pitch black by the time we reached the apricot groves, and finally, after several trips and falls, we reached base camp in the village, exhausted and conscious of how close we had come to not making it back at all.

The moral of this long tail?

Trust your instincts when building a team. And be ruthless if you have doubts about someone you interview.

Oh, and never climb to 13,000ft without overnight gear.

How classical music defines a person

2008-11-18T07:12:00.004Z

At my local train station they play classical music very loud whenever young people are on the platforms. I think it's meant to be a deterrent, to get rid of them. In fact, the target audience seems to hang around longer, perhaps enjoying the free Baroque tunes.

As the Mo creeps onward, I am frequently struck by how it alters my appearance and others' perception of me. There is still a look of suspicion in many eyes, but as I walked onto the platform today with my jacket, pullover, shirt and Mo two people stepped out of the way deferentially.

I could almost hear the classical music being switched on for my benefit, and thought how different it would have been if I had been wearing a hoodie. I thought of Barnardo's Chief Exec Martin Narey's words, "we must end this discrimination against young people". As he says, no other minority is demonised in the way children and young people are in Britain today.

My Mo twitches uncomfortably as I watch this Barnardo's teaser ad, ahead of their new advertising campaign beginning 24 November, calling for a change in attitude...

Half way and getting serious

2008-11-14T13:16:00.002Z

Don't worry. This won't be a millimetre-a-day chronicle of the Mo.

But we're two weeks into Movember, and the reaction from clients is getting more serious. I've just been told I look 'European', and yesterday someone called me 'disturbing'.

Think I'll use the phone as much as possible in the next two weeks.

Pity gives way to wariness

2008-11-13T13:25:00.005Z

I suppose one can see why my fellow passengers are a little suspicious.

I'm clearly not a fashion student or member of a band - in which case the Mo could be seen as a conscious statement. But nor do I look completely out of touch with contemporary design.

As I sit on the train, working on my MacBook and listening to my iPhone, I've begun to notice the look of pity changing.

People are now wary. "He must know how odd he looks," they think, "yet he remains completely serious."

And wariness seems to be a licence to stare...

Train journeys are the worst

2008-11-12T10:06:00.000Z

Every morning and evening for the past ten days I have been an object worthy of public inspection. And it's getting worse.

Some people quickly look away when I look up. Others blush. Others stare more intently. For some, there is a strange look of pity - "isn't that terrible," they think, "such a prominent skin infection."

Today I forgot the mo and started to think to myself, "I didn't think I looked any different this morning; huh, maybe this shirt looks particularly good." It was only when I noticed that look of pity that I suddenly remembered the growth.

So please, for pity's sake, visit my Movember page and sponsor me!

Why bother?

2008-11-11T15:20:00.000Z

If you are able to sponsor me in this ludicrous venture, your gift would be put to good use!

Donations are made directly to The Prostate Cancer Charity, who will use the funds as follows:

Research on a range of subjects from new drug treatments to studies exploring the practical support for carers of men affected by prostate cancer.
A dedicated lobbyist to work with government and other policy leaders for improved access to prostate cancer treatments.
Infrastructure investment to ensure resources are available to drive TPCC forward.
Funding of a specialist nurse and awareness raising activities within the African Caribbean community who are at greater risk of prostate cancer.
Recruitment of men with prostate cancer to provide voluntary peer to peer support, and to raise awareness.
Additional specialist nurses for the TPCC Helpline which provides information and support to callers affected by prostate cancer.

So thank you in advance for your help.

Movember - time for new growth in my life

2008-11-10T22:17:00.000Z

New growth = blogging at last.

New growth = a MO!!!

To sponsor me, please go to my Movember page.

Thanks!