# Giving Hope – to fundraisers and the organisations they work for

- Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/2019/07/23/giving-hope-to-fundraisers-and-the-organisations-they-work-for/
- Published: 2019-07-23T10:59:35+01:00
- Author: Howard Lake

**Australian fundraiser Peter Dalton has distilled his 30 years of fundraising experience
in a new book, Giving Hope.**

The book, sub-titled ‘the journey of the for-purpose organisation and its quest 
for success’, is co-written by Robinson Roe, the managing director of OneTrust Australia
and New Zealand.

Together the authors researched over three years the work of three Australian organisations
that they describe as ‘brave’: 

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 * Plan International Australia
 * Mater Foundation
 * Oxfam Australia.

Dalton’s book grew out of his experience working with many other organisations but
was also influenced by the [work of Professors Adrian Sargeant and Jen Shang](http://studyfundraising.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Great-Fundraising.pdf).
Their research into leadership as a contributory factor to ‘great fundraising’ mostly
convinced him, but he began searching for another factor. This led to his partnership
with Robinson Roe, who brought a for-profit sector perspective to these and related
questions.

During their research the pair noted that all three organisations kept coming up
against key six organisational challenges to fundraising, and these became the focus
of the book. They are:

 * staff turnover
 * cost ratios
 * tied funding
 * the product or hope/ misery dilemma
 * crowded market
 * pecking order challenge

The authors concluded that skilled fundraisers will often fail not because of their
own experience or capabilities but because of the structure, culture and attitude
to organisational learning of the charity that they work for. They highlight the
need for charities to focus on organisational leadership and development, and the
clear link between these, when done well of course, fundraising success and an organisation-
wide improvement.

Peter Dalton explains in the book:

> “Many of the very best fundraising professionals recruited to For-Purpose Organisations
> are being set up to fail, even if the Organisation has a good understanding of
> fundraising. They will fail because the Organisation recruiting them has the wrong
> structure, the wrong culture, and does not have the organisational learning culture
> to enable great fundraising to thrive.
> “I realised what the problem was but didn’t know how to solve it, how to change
> the organisational culture of my clients, leading to great fundraising. “I needed
> to find an organisational change guru to solve my fundraising problem. What I 
> didn’t realise, when I invited Robinson Roe to co-author this book, was the very
> organisational changes needed to create great fundraising also change how Marketing
> and Programme Delivery Teams relate to Fundraising and to each other.
>  
> “Even more profoundly, I discovered that the changes needed to achieve great fundraising
> could positively impact the entire For-Purpose Organisation and realign it to 
> its purpose.”

The title of the book, _Giving Hope_, is partially about the role of fundraisers
and their organisations to change people’s lives. But it is also almost a dedication
to the many fundraisers that Dalton came across who were working in the charity 
or for-purpose sector with the intention of making a positive difference, but whose
abilities were frustrated by the bureaucracy of the organisation they were working
for.

This is what is indicated by the book’s subtitle – “The journey of the for-purpose
organisation and its quest for success”. It is far from a fundraising “how-to” guide,
but a guide for organisations that employ fundraisers in how they can can change
and develop to make the most of that resource.

_Giving hope: The journey of the for-purpose organisation and its quest for success_
[was listed earlier this year on UK Fundraising’s bookshop](https://fundraising.co.uk/2019/04/12/giving-hope-the-journey-of-the-for-purpose-organisation-and-its-quest-for-success/).
You can order if from Amazon using [Bookindy](http://bookindy.com/) to buy it from
your local bookshop, or from [Hive](https://www.hive.co.uk/Product/Robinson-Roe/Giving-Hope-The-Journey-of-the-For-Purpose-Organisation-a/23549854).