Volunteers. Love them or hate them?

Love them of course.

If you let them spend time in or on behalf of your organisation – then you have to love them. If you didn’t really want to use them but you did – tough. You still have to love them.

How do you do this.? Well I have been doing lots of thinking about this and reckon I have an awesome idea. It is called a Volunteer Relationship Management approach. It must be good because it has an acronym already – VRM.

Apparently you can already take courses in it.

Courses… really?

VRM for me is doing a review of my SRM (Supporter Relationship Management) approach and adapting it for Volunteers.

Meet them – make sure you get their details and assign tasks based on what they’re good at and their availability

Understand them – make sure you know why they’re interested in your organisation, and create the relevant feedback communication (guess what – it will probably be similar to the stroy you used in your latest SRM communication).

Value them – Make sure that the tasks are meaningful, appropriate, and that you explain the worth of their efforts to the organiation’s success…. and the beneficiaries. And say thank you. And personalise that thank you.

Remember them – send them an update reminding them what their efforst achieved. And stay in touch with opportunities of how they can help again.

Check out this report on volunteering to get some more evidence of why you should treat your volunteers nicely. More than one third (36%) of volunteers reported they had not had any recognition for their good work in the last month of their volunteering

For the last eight years I have gotten used to people referring to the ‘dark side’.

Sometimes they mean ‘working for a corporate’. Often they mean ‘working for a supplier to the charity sector’.

Well… after twelve years or so of working for marketing agencies… eight in agencies that only worked with charities… I have joined a charity.

I am now working for the Inspire Foundation. I am the Director of Fundraising and Communications.

I hope you check out our website.

And I hope you try really hard to find the donate button.

But I doubt you will try hard enough… so of course feel free to leave me your details here and I’ll let you know when I’ve had it moved.

And please wish me luck or even ask me questions about what making the switch is like.

I just lost a pitch.

Phew.

The more I say it, the more acceptable it is. Because of course I did not walk into the pitch with a plan for “when I lose”.

I just lost a live pitch in front of around 200 people at a conference of people who work in charities. I pitched a poster idea for a made-up charity and so did some dudes from The Works. On paper a terrible loss of face. But of course, already the main feeling I have is… “I had to try”.

The thing about pitching is that you have to be prepared to give up all your power. You transfer all your power onto your audience. They determine whether you succeed or fail. The temptation to avoid pitching is therefore huge.

Furthermore pitching isn’t just about whether an idea is good or not. You have to work hard to get the audience to pass the power back. You have to convince the audience that they should yield to your idea and that by going for you and your idea – they will feel good.

In my case I failed to persuade the audience that they should feel good saying “yes” to me. Well except those who knew me already. Since I broke a few of my own fundamental rules… I figure I should share them here.

1. Never let your idea be shown until you have set the scene. It is important to get heads nodding before you get to the idea.

2. Read out your work. Do not assume that the audience have seen everything. Even if the point of your pitch is to produce a poster. Yes it is true that in real life no one will be there to stop cars and explain what they should be reading. But in the pitch you are there. And you should read it. Every word.

3. Don’t fail to seek feedback. It is important that before the audience are asked to decide which idea they like… they actually talk about your idea. This provides an opportunity to further discuss the merit of your work further.

There we go.

Better skill next time!

Image courtesy of John Hyatt http://johnhyattillustration.com

The advert above is often applauded as a successful advert. It is said that it generated over 5,000 applications for Shackleton’s adventure.

I learnt today that the advert may actually be a fake. Not just the illustration above which is of course fake (the English spelling of ‘honor’ is honour) but in fact that Shackleton may have placed an advert something more akin to:

“Hands wanted for long voyage in small boat. No pay, no prospects, not much pleasure.”

What the fake and the probable original share is raw honesty. Whilst none of us would suggest that charity marketing is full of lies. We should not neglect to tell our supporters exactly what the situation is. For example, if no breakthroughs have been made, we should explain why. Furthermore if we cannot explain why our service works, then we’re clearly not ready to be trusted with people’s money.

What the fake does offer though is hope. It presents the harsh challenge alongside the possible glorious outcome.

Honest challenges and hope – two more ingredients for successful fundraising communications.

This wonderful ad was spotted in Sydney’s Daily Telegraph.

There beneath the inevitable article about Obama… was an advert for the hair removal product ‘Veet’, and the simple line “Goodbye Bush”.

I share this because it reminded me that sometimes it pays to think about when your audience will be zoned into your cause, and so it often pays to have a “quick-fire” strategy already mapped out for taking advantages of these moments of high interest.

This doesn’t need to be limited to charities delaing with crises or disasters.

A health charity may feel it appropriate to advertise when a celebrity dies – it doesn’t have to be done without sympathy. A doggie rescue charity may keep an eye out for a famous celebrity losing his or her dog. An environmental charity may use a newspaper heading to spark a new campaign.

Think about your potential spikes in interest, and then develop a strategy for ensuring you can respond quickly and creatively.

You can look more closely here at this inspiring reminder of the importance of timing here…

Simple combination of message and channel results in this great anti-censorship ad for Amnesty International.

Call to action should have been to go to website.

I’m often asked whether charities should spend time developing product or campaign names. I believe that the answer is often to consider whether it is a trick question or not!

The question above is of course, a trick question.

If you are going to remember, recognise, and value the support of ‘regular givers’ you are going to need to acknowledge their act of regular giving, and probably their status as a ‘regular giver’.

So… rather than use a piece of unfriendly, generic jargon such as ‘regular giver’ to personalize your communication.. why not spend a little time developing a unique name for them.

Here are some examples… if you would like more details of why I have grouped them the way I have, ask me for my opinionaid!

Group 1: Futuremakers, Full Stop supporter
Group 2: Field Partners, Discovery Partners, Frontline Member, Friend of PAWS, Golden Hearts supporter
Group 3: Human Rights Defenders, Frontline Member, Child Sponsor, Heart Saver, Kennel Sponsor

Above is a picture of a stencil I created in December 2007. It was uploaded onto flickr around February 2008.
Below is picture of campaign developed for Road Safety in NSW, in May 2008.

Whereas I was angling for an imitation iPod ad, they have cleverly focused on replicating the chalk outlines of dead bodies using the headphone cable. I may get around to trying this out on a street pavement one of these days, as I am sure that the right placement will make the stencil image work strongly too. But really have to take my hat off to this simple, visually strong campaign.

It is the 40th Anniversary of Woodstock this year.

I came across this clever copy on a piece of merchandise being sold to commemorate the event.

Setting aside my amusement at the idea of selling merchandise for Woodstock, I felt that the copy was really well written. But more than that I realized it sums up eloquently the role of a charity brand.

A charity brand should support the accomplishment of the charity’s aims.

This means that it shouldn’t interfere. Nor should it consume too much resource. But I believe that if a brand helps achieve anything positive for the organisation – even a more motivated and effective workforce…. then the brand has helped support the accomplishment of the charity’s goals.

This is hard to measure of course… which is why I believe charity branding exercises get such a bashing… but that doesn’t mean that branding shouldn’t be considered an important part of the mix.

A beautiful example of good charity branding I believe is Macmillan in the UK. The branding work they undertook remained true to the brand values the nurses themselves had already created.

Ever since, they’ve stepped out of the shadows of cancer and received the recognition they deserve.

I am attempting to read several books at the same time. I get over excited when I get books for Christmas, try and start them all, and then find myself wrangling over which deserves gets my full attention.

It always gets me thinking about the direct mail letters that charities send out. People like to read… so how do we ensure that they feel compelled to give the letter more of their attention than the cereal packet, paper or blog?

I had only moved maybe twenty feet when she saw me, let out a most electrifying vocalization that I could only call a ‘roar’, and she bolted after me. I can still see her clearing the log in as much detail as if it were yesterday. I began to run for the heavy timber but after a few steps, realized it was futile. The choice was then to get knocked down or lie down myself and play dead.

Do I have your attention?

Using first-hand testimonials is a great way to capture attention. And better still by italicizing it, you draw the reader’s eye to it.

‘Bear Attacks… their causes and avoidance’ by Stephen Herrero grabbed me that way.