Fundraising Consultants Blog

Sometimes we seem to be caught between two worlds.  One the one hand we have the old school organisation made up of individuals in teams and teams in departments - or worse, divisions.  One the other, we have nimble, agile loosely connected groupings of fire-starters full of energy, and sometimes, direction.

The advantage of the latter is that more gets done.  The danger, the message is confused or just plain misleading!  The advantage of the former is that the message is well, 'on message'.  But that it takes forever to get anything out. 

Know the feeling? 

I was inspired at this year's Institute of Fundraising Convention by a session called unfundraising.  The general idea being that you allow others to get excited and spread the word without wanting to control everything - facilitate, but don't seek to control.  There were some convincing arguments that it's getting ever harder to fundraise for core costs and that projects are increasingly where it's at.  And if you can find a prolific blogger with a large following or a celeb or two to join the cause, you're away.

But so many charities are still stuck in a rigid way of working and too focused on what's happening within the charity - and not even within the service delivery part of the cause - often the attention is heavily focused on fundraising and communications at the expense of the cause.  These are the charities that are spending a small fortune on direct marketing, often with ever diminishing returns.  The irony is it has never been easier to communicate - and as long as you really are doing something worth talking about, people will talk.

Unleash the power people!

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