ianmacquillin's blog

Christmas. Chestnuts roasting by an open fire. Sound of Music on BBC 2. And otherwise sensible and conservative people all over the country getting their kit off for a charity fundraising calendar.
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A couple of weeks ago, Adam Rothwell, director of ‘donor advice website’ Intelligent Giving, accused Joe Saxton of “sexing up” nfpSynergy’s research. The delicious irony here is that, while he was making those comments, Adam knew full well that he’d shortly be dressing up his own research in fishnet stockings and a peep-hole bra.
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My daughter, who is not quite yet eight, was out shopping with her mum last week.

“Mummy,” she said, out of the blue, “I’m going to give £10 of my pocket money to Children in Need.”
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A recent joint study by researchers at Oxford and Kent universities has found that men are likely to give more money if they are asked while they are in the company of women they find sexually attractive. In fact, they were between 25 per cent and 100 per cent more generous when they were in the presence of women they wouldn’t have minded getting off with.
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Professional Fundraising editor Becky Slack recently wrote on her PF blog about how the ‘six degrees of separation theory' could be applied to major donor fundraising.
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A couple of months ago, creative agency Bluefrog produced a report into the state of charity donor care/relationship fundraising/stewardship (choose your own term according to preference).
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A couple of weekends ago, my girlfriend Sarah and I attended a weekend event where Sarah signed up to a charity that had a stand at the event.
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I was having tea with a newcomer to fundraising last week and, as we were discussing what’s hot and what’s not in the sector, I brought up the subject of ‘stewardship’.
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There was a comment posted to my last blog raising this very question, although, like the old adage about there being 10 silent complainers for every one who complains publicly, I’ve heard plenty
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Fundraisers must be absolutely delighted with the figures about complaint levels contained in the Fundraising Standards Board’s Annual Review, which was published last week.
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