I spoke, I listened and I learned
Animate partner Richard Hamer was invited to perform the plenary speech at the Institute of Fundraising (IoF) Scotland’s Scottish Conference 2015 on 6th October. Here he reflects on the day.
Standing up in front of 300 people to speak for 45 minutes is always a vaguely terrifying idea. But when you’re speaking on a subject you lived and breathed for a month, and that you feel pretty passionate about, it’s easier. When you’ve got an audience who are equally passionate, well that’s when you can enjoy yourself.
Which is what I did at the IoF Scotland’s Scottish Conference today. Having had the privilege of researching and writing the Scottish review of fundraising regulation on SCVO’s behalf, I was longing to encourage further debate about our findings as well those contained in Sir Stuart Etherington’s companion review.
What I also got was a chance to hear some really smart thinking on the issues from an incredibly wide range of people. We didn’t need to agree with each other’s opinions; having the chance to debate them developed my thinking on the way forward for charities and fundraisers, and hopefully did the same for others.
So what did I learn?
That Scottish charities can’t afford to sleepwalk into a future fundraising regulatory system. And that a hybrid option, that fuses the best of the proposed UK regulatory system and the needs of the Scottish third sector may not be a compromise option, or the ‘devo-mess’ option I labelled it. Let’s hope the fundraising summit Martin Sime from SCVO announced, which is planned for late November, benefits from the same positive energy I felt at the fundraising conference.
That those outside of the third sector have important contributions to make. It was great to hear David Robb and Jude Turbyne of OSCR both supportive and challenging of the sector, and its need to reinvigorate its regulation. What was less expected was the insight gained from suppliers to the fundraising sector exhibiting at the conference. Paula Lucey from Rapidata and Dominic Ellis of Harlequin Software were both remarkably knowledgeable and keen to debate the issue. There may yet be a Fifa for fundraising Dominic….
And finally, that change is paralysing charities in two ways: firstly by draining people’s energy and enthusiasm, and secondly, by obstructing their work as processes and systems change around them. So fundraisers, who can rightly feel somewhat persecuted at present, find themselves, as one described it, ‘trying to fundraise with their hands tied’ as their charities race to change systems and processes to avoid risk. But without a clarity of what changes are really needed.
What struck me was the sense of purpose, and determination, fundraisers had despite – or maybe because of – the quite extraordinary events of the past 5 months. All the data shows that donors still want to give. Fundraisers, and the charities that benefit from their skills and drive, therefore need to give them some meaningful reassurance and reward their confidence in what is, by no means, a fundamentally broken system. In my humble opinion, obviously.