You couldn’t tell agency fundraiser from charity fundraiser
Howard Lake | 17 September 2014 | Blogs
Yesterday I listened to 19 fundraisers (should have been 20 but one wasn’t able to make it) talk about the fundraising ideas from the past 130 years that have so inspired them that they wished they’d thought of them.
Of the 19 people who presented at the SOFII event, 10 worked for a charity and nine for a commercial supplier to the sector – including a digital consultant, a trainer, telephone and direct marketing agency staff and a street fundraiser.
Apart from the 18 excellent (and one that was OK) ideas presented, the thing that struck me most was that everyone displayed similar levels passion and commitment to fundraising and the impact fundraising has on the world. So much so that I would defy anyone to have sat in the room and, without knowing who worked for whom, predict with any degree of confidence who were the charity staff and who worked for suppliers.
Fiona Lishman of On Agency presents the #FindMike campaign at IWITOT14
Those vocal members of the anti-fundraising brigade who complain about how third party agency fundraisers are mercenaries with no real commitment to the causes they work for should have gone to IWITOT yesterday and put their theories to the test. They would have found them wanting.
The people on stage yesterday were not agency fundraisers and they were not charity fundraisers. They were fundraisers.
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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.