Mike's musings

Whatever thoughts have been on my mind will probably end up here. Updated weekly, but perhaps more initially as I throw in some older things.

Saturday, January 29, 2011

Don't Panic

Friday, January 28, 2011

Excellent procrastination-pulveriser!

I think this is brilliant – and I might have to start following his vlog now.

Anyone fancy doing this over here? 

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Skills and abilities

What are the most important skills and abilities that your staff need to develop?

I'm a big fan of developing creative thinking as a skill, but I'm not sure it's top of the list for every role.  So what is?

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Thursday, January 27, 2011

Beannachar

met with some of the students from Beannachar this afternoon.  I've never seen anyone speak with such joy about their work, and I know some people who love their work.

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Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Manga Dreams - Exhibition

Monday, January 24, 2011

The best car on Sunday's TopGear

Friday, January 21, 2011

Charity? Ewww! ??

Laurie Pringle, Charity Chatter posts this,

So I ask you, does the word ‘charity’ have more negative than positive connotations?

Mike

See it here or read below

It's NOT Charity!

I am seeing this more and more from... of all places - charities! The great folks at Feed The Children, have a whole video about it. You can see it here:

The organization ACCION uses the URL: http://www.itsnotcharity.org/

Liberty Hill's tagline is "Change. Not Charity."

The word "charity" has always had negative connotations. My grandparents were working poor people. My grandfather was a proud man. One day my grandfathers boss (the owner of a scrap iron facility) heard that my mother and uncles didn't have boots for winter, and he drove to their house with several pairs of boots for them. My grandfather initially refused to take them because he didn't accept charity. The boss convinced him that it was a gift for his 15 years of service. Grumbling, he took the boots and my mom enjoyed dry, warm feet that winter. We hear stuff like this all the time:

  • "He's a charity case".
  • "I don't want your charity".

I've even met people who have received help from charities who are embarrassed to discuss it.

Time for a change?

We can't change decades of negative thinking overnight. But if we want to change the perception of charity, perhaps charities should stop piling on and further driving the word into the mud?

Or... maybe we should just accept that charity has negative connotations and start calling ourselves something else? If even charities accept that the word "charity" is a bad thing and are attempting to brand themselves as "not charity"... then it's time to either change perceptions or change the word we use to describe what we do.

I realize this isn't the first time this topic has come up, but we don't seem to take the topic very seriously. In Canada, we're seeing record declines in the number of people donating to charity. In the face of serious and consistent declines in the numbers of charity donors... perhaps it's time for a serious discussion about whether or not the sector as a whole needs to drop the name "Charity".

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Thursday, January 20, 2011

Wakeup Call to charities? @KMPR

Ken McEwen recently posted on an article by Jane Simms from the Director Magazine entitled “A wake-up call to charities” with the by-line "The third sector must be more businesslike to survive in an era of austerity, spending cuts and donor fatigue".

 

She’s not the first to say the third sector needs to be more ‘business-like’, and she certainly won’t be the last.  She’s right and she’s wrong.

 

In her article, she points out precisely the two conflicting views that she shares with many people that lead to charities being less effective than they could be.  Firstly, she says she wants charities to become more business-like, but then she says “we don't want charities to behave as businesses”.

 

Charities face this pressure all the time – on the one hand people want them to behave more ‘professionally’, on the other they wouldn’t like to see, for example, charity directors receiving higher pay, or spending ‘too much’ on ‘admin costs’ like advertising or training.  At the moment, a CEO moving from the private sector to a similar sized organisation in the third sector is looking at about an 80% pay cut.

 

Charities investing this year for long term gain are judged by the effect on this year’s “admin cost” figures.  Charities need to feel able to make the best long term decisions, without worrying that they’ll end up in the papers under the headline “charity wastes 40% of its money on admin in economic recession”.  A headline like that could more than wipe out the gains they’d expected from say investing in a new computer system this year so they can better monitor their work and communicate better with supporters (which would create long term efficiencies and savings),  This is despite the fact that admin costs are a rubbish way of judging how good a charity is – New Philanthropy Capital have more to say on this, and I’m not going to get too hung up on that old debate, if you want to look into it, check out Dan Pallotta (here or here) , or NPC here, or even better here. 

 

Jane gave the example of her father getting direct mail asking for donations to old people’s charities – well it depends on the ask.  I’ll bet he also gets direct mail asking about stairlifts and shoes for back pain, statistically older people donate to charity more than younger people– much the same as they buy stair-lifts more.  Like businesses, charities segment their supporter markets, although I agree it could be done better.

 

Better understanding of your donors, your supporters and potential supporters does take time.  And money.  Jane’s right in that charities do need to spend more time in connecting with their donors, but all too often, it’s cheaper (in the short run) to hope that your direct mails are going to the right people, and trust that they’ll contact you if they don’t want to hear from you. 

 

But the fault doesn’t lie entirely with ‘charities’.   It’s with all of us.  It goes a bit deeper into society than Jane suggests...  As she closes, she says that “people want to give, but the easier and more enjoyable it is to give, the more we’ll do it”.  I think the second part is true.

 

There are steps forward being made in making it easier to give.  Everyclick – the charity search engine have recently launched the “Give as You Live” application.  Brilliantly simple, trying to tap into the growing area of changing behaviour slightly to give to charity while doing much the same.  Justgiving, as she mentioned has boosted sponsorship income making it easier to gather and claim the gift aid on it.  Interestingly, both of these innovations have been made by private companies – companies willing and able to invest the money into something knowing there’d be a long term return.

 

Jane says that people want to give, but I’m not so sure.  Giving, although slightly increasing in the long term, has remained fairly stagnant as a percentage of GDP since the 60s, at about 1.5% in the UK, 2.5% in the US. 

 

Personally, I no longer believe that people want to give to charity.  They want to try to solve problems and change the world, and they do this by giving to a charity that they think can.

 

There’s a third factor she’s missed.  People need to be asked.  People don’t tend to give to charity unless they’re asked.  It might be a personal ask, or asking through an ad or a piece of direct mail.

 

I don’t entirely disagree with much of the sentiment Jane’s expressed, but I wouldn’t call it a wake-up call.  Charities have been working to find more innovative ways to connect with their supporters since well before I was a fundraiser.  Charities have been aware that continuing to do the same thing yields slightly worse results. 
Face to face fundraising was innovative when it started – now not only do many people dislike it, it’s becoming less effective (it still works rather well, it must be said).

 

When I first read the article, something jumped out at me, which was the reason I started to write this now lengthy post.

 

I'm all for helping worthy causes, but feel uncomfortable asking people to sponsor me to do things that I will thoroughly enjoy and will give me an enormous sense of achievement. So I will fund my adventures myself and/or make a donation to charity”

 

I think this illustrates where the relationship between the charity and the supporter has gone wrong.

 

If Jane believes in the work that the charity is doing, then why does she feel uncomfortable asking people to donate to it?  Is it because, maybe due to the nature of the challenges –it seems (to her) as if she’s receiving the money, not the charity?

 

 

I think the charity in question has slipped up here – and perhaps it just comes back to scarce resources.  I wonder, what do they know about Jane?

 

Do they she feels uncomfortable asking people for sponsorship to do things she’ll enjoy?

Do they know why she supports them?

Do they know her background, roles, and skills?

 

In Jane, they have the potential for a powerful advocate, and I can only see two reasons she isn’t already.  First, she isn’t engaged enough, she can’t tell the story of why she gives.  The most effective fundraisers (and I don’t just mean paid staff, I mean people who fundraise), have a fire in their belly or a bee in their bonnet and an utter conviction for what they’re doing.

 

If Jane’s not engaged enough, she won’t have that – she’ll probably believe that it’s a worthy cause, and will tell people so if asked, but she won’t enjoy telling people about this great organisation she knows

 

The second reason might be that the charity hasn’t given her ‘permission’.  They haven’t spoken to her, kindled this flame, stirred her soul and given her the tools to go out and start evangelising.

 

It would take time and effort to do this for every donor, for every marathon runner and every Icelandic trekker, but the charities that are spending the time and money doing it, are the ones that are inspiring people to change the world a bit by working with them.

 

I think the real wakeup call is to the specific charity that has Jane on their Iceland trek list, which can see that she’s not nearly as engaged as she could be.

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What do they teach kids these days?

Excellent wee film on the youth of today, and the youth of my era (ish)

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Wednesday, January 19, 2011

LeonardCheshire accept chunky donation from tobacco company. I know what I think, what do you? Big debate @ThirdSector

LeonardCheshire accept chunky donation from tobacco company. I know what I think, what do you? Big debate @ThirdSector

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Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Pay by results advertising! FAd or future? http://bit.ly/fFu25H

I think this is a great idea, but will it work for both parties?

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Monday, January 17, 2011

Burning Bright @falsettosocks #in

Somehow, and I’m still not sure how, after living more than two thirds of my life in Scotland (and I’ll bet there are some who know me who are astounded I’m not actually Scottish), I’ve never yet made it to a Burns Supper.

In the interests of research, I’ve been looking on YouTube (how often do you hear that), to find out a wee bitty more, sorry, mair.

Thank you so much, Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre for the new Scottish Enlightenment.  

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Saturday, January 15, 2011

So will joining twitter destroy my productivity?

Friday, January 14, 2011

Things real people don't say about advertising...

Or should you read this as “things people aren’t saying about your advert...”

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Monday, January 10, 2011

who offers the best productivity / time management training in Scotland?

who offers the best productivity / time management training in Scotland?

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Untitled

who offers the best productivity / time management training in Scotland?

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Latest car tech from the US

Only about ten years behind Toyota, but never mind.

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Sunday, January 09, 2011

Rolls-Royce concept

 
This unofficial concept by a random design student is possibly best summed up as... random,

It is weird, kinda pretty, some nice features and touches, but mostly weird.

 

http://www.topgear.com/uk/photos/rolls-royce-apparition-concept-spirit-of-ecstasy-100-2011-01-07

 

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