Let's talk about our cock-ups

Howard Lake | 3 July 2007 | Blogs

I’m going to the Convention next week with a bit of a heavy heart.  I know that I’m going to hear about lots of people doing great stuff, achieving excellent results and everyone patting each other on the back.
That’s all very well, but where are the cock-ups?  Where are all the people saying “we tried this and a right mess it turned out to be”.  Cock-ups are much more important than successes, because you can learn so much more from them, and every successful organisation has a string of cock-ups – things that simply didn’t work for one reason or another.
I’ve decided to write a book about cock-ups “101 Fundraising Cock-ups and what we can learn from them” and the call will be going out to people to share their cock-ups with me – confidentially if you insist, with names changed to protect the innocent.  Cock-ups big and small, ones you managed to hide from the boss, other people’s messes you had to clear up.  But I want to hear not just about the cock-up but about what you learned from it and how you applied that learning in the future.
Come on folks, let’s learn to celebrate the cock-up and learn to swim in the choppy waters of the SNAFU! 

About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale. He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.