I will admit I am personally a big fan of a what’s app message. It’s quick and easy, I can look at it when I’m ready, answer in my own time and think about my replies before I send them. If I want to book something, I am much more likely to email or complete an online booking than I am to pick up the phone, because I feel more in control, can look at my diary in my own time rather than responding to someone else’s timetable.

However, when it comes to fundraising, I am absolutely passionate about the power of the picking up the telephone and speaking to supporters. Relationships are so key to fundraising and you just can’t build the same kind of relationship with a donor by emailing them.

A perfect example of this comes from early on in my career, I was in a 1:1 with the boss and she asked how many of my schools had banked their money from the recent fundraiser we had run. I was a little bit intimidated and not wanting to admit I had not bought the right info to the meeting I just blagged it and said, ‘oh about half’. Well, it became really obvious really quickly that this was not the right figure to guess at, I had clearly overestimated big time as she turned to me looking amazed and said, ‘wow that is brilliant, how did you achieve this? We must get everyone to do the same!’ The panic was now starting to set in, I wasn’t sure if this was the time to confess or if I should just carry on, so in for a penny in for a pound, I breezily replied, ‘I just called them all and asked them to bank their money and they did’ and figured I would deal with it afterwards.

Walking out of that meeting I realised I needed to make a plan and quick as I needed that 50% banking rate before our next meeting as she was bound to check. There was only one thing for it and that was to hit the phones.

So I did, I called every single school on my list, spoke to everyone about how it had gone and asked them to bank their money, running through their options with how to do it and had a general chat. Thankfully by my next catch up I had gone well over the 50% bank rate – phew!

The two big lessons I learnt that fortnight were: 1. Call your donors if you want to develop your relationship and get a positive response and 2. Don’t blag in your meetings as you could be setting yourself up for a pretty stressful time!
To this day whenever I am training or advising fundraisers I always push them to ditch the emails and actually speak to their donors and supporters. I know many people don’t love to do this and get really worried and nervous, I admit I don’t exactly leap for joy when faced with a long list of phone calls to make myself, but it really does work and it will transform your fundraising.

This means so much to me I have partnered with Sanita Guddu at Persuasion to run ‘How to Use the Telephone to Transform your Fundraising’. A 2 hour online course where we discuss how the telephone can be your friend, creative ways to use it and tackle the fears that are stopping you from picking up the phone. Find out more and sign up here: https://persuasion.org.uk/events/

I have always believed that to be a great fundraiser that you need to be passionate about the cause and I have made my job choices based on this in the past, but is it essential to love your charity in order to do a good job? And if you don't start with a great passion, can this be developed?

Now I'm sure most people would believe that they are good at their job because they work hard and have developed a skill, perhaps you have a qualification or been on a training course, perhaps you have a lifetime of experience and can turn your hand to any cause. There are of course many fundraisers who work for multiple organisations, street fundraiser and agency call staff for example.  They surely can't love every cause and yet I'm sure those fundraisers are professional and effective and still work to the best of their abilities.  As a freelancer/consultant I now work for different organisations all the time.  I have been lucky that I have not been put in the position of whether to take a job or not based on how passionate I feel about their cause, but I think I would do a good job either way.

Yet despite knowing this, I still can't shake the feeling that passion is behind every good ask.  If it were not, why do we involve service users and personal case studies in applications for funding? Why do charities spend time creating in depth briefs for the agency staff they use and why does a charity with centres across the UK send their new staff for a week immersing themselves in the experience their patients receive?

So, I'm going to assume at this point that we have all reached the conclusion together that yes, passion for your cause is important, but how can we fill our staff with it to get the very best out of them?
Here are my top tips for stirring passion in your staff:

1. Start before you employ someone - depending on your cause and how easy/difficult it is to feel passionate about, you may want to start thinking about this before you advertise for a role. Ensure your recruitment consultant knows all about your charity and what is great about it.  If you are advertising on a website , ensure you include information about your charity and why people would want to support it, perhaps include a link to an inspiring video if you have one.

2. During induction - instead of sitting them in front of the charity manual/intranet for an entire day (yes, this happened to me!) fill their time with going to meet people who have been affected by your cause, or your front line staff, or the place where all the action happens. Whilst it is logistically impossible and expensive to send all staff to a project half way across the world, could you be creative and do this in another way? Can you make a video? Can they Skype a member of your project team in the field? I understand this is not the top priority of people working in extreme circumstances but coming up with some way of doing this could pay dividends in the long term.

3. Don't forget - everyone goes through bad days or patches at work, but by intermittently providing an opportunity to remind people why they are here and how important it is, you may just be able to lift people out of their funk and help them get their groove back! Remember it is much more expensive to replace staff than it is to re-inspire them.

4. Share stories - encourage staff, no matter who they are or what job title they hold to share stories they have heard about your charity that inspires them. Create an appropriate forum and start sharing.

Whilst it is possible to do a good job even if you don't love a charity, by following these steps then hopefully your staff will feel passionate and dedicated to go the extra mile and make more money for your organisation.

If you would like to discuss any aspect of managing your fundraising team then please feel free to get in touch and have a chat.