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A podcast for fundraisers who want ideas, examples and inspiration to help you raise more money for your charity or non-profit.
Rob is an author and award-winning fundraising trainer. Each week he and his guests share examples of successful fundraising, as well as lots of practical tips to help you apply these techniques in your own job.
Hi. This is Rob. Welcome back to the Fundraising Bright Spots podcast. If you're listening to this podcast, then you're probably someone who likes to keep learning. This episode is all about ways to do that effectively even if your charity has little or no budget for training.
Speaker 1:It's with a brilliant fundraiser named Robin Peake, who is deputy chief executive of Wycliffe Bible Translators. Robin shares lots of practical tips to help you enjoy getting ever better at your job. Enjoy.
Speaker 2:For Fundraisers, our instrument, our tool of choice, it's our brain. And if we're constantly using it in our day job and not refreshing it and not expanding it, not growing our our capacity and our learning, then essentially over time, what we end up doing is we're working with a blunt tool. And I realized here's someone who's much further ahead in their career than me. And so I said, hey. You know, could could I buy you lunch?
Speaker 2:And so I bought him lunch, I brought my problems. And, he was able to offer some insight in that. And now about three times a year, we'll meet up for coffee or for a beer or, for me to buy him luncheon. And the deal is I always pay. So I find it really helpful to...
Speaker 2:When I hear something, when I read an interesting blog or, hear a podcast or read a book, actually sharing that with others around me. Because the more that I do that, then the more that other people come across different things and then share stuff back with me.
Speaker 1:Hey, Robin. Welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 2:Thanks for having me on, Rob. Looking forward to this.
Speaker 1:Yes. So am I. So this is very exciting. You've written a book. I long knew you were an excellent fundraiser and fundraising leader, but it was so exciting when some months ago, you got in touch to say that you've written the latest version of the complete fundraising handbook published by the DSC.
Speaker 1:And, you sent me a a copy earlier, which is very kind of you. And I have to say, I absolutely loved it. I also have to say, I mean, there are some really good fundraising books out there, but quite a lot of them. For my pragmatist learning brain, I find them quite dry, and I love how you've managed to cover all these important topics that genuinely are a good handbook for a fundraiser, but you've made it engaging and practical for my kind of brain. So this is very exciting, and as soon as I read it, I thought it would be wonderful for our listeners to hear your take on certain things.
Speaker 1:I know you've had an interesting and long career in charities large and small. What's your current workplace?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I'm currently deputy CEO at Wycliffe Bible Translators where I oversee our fundraising, our marketing, and our comms.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And you've worked in several different kinds of charity and size of charity, importantly, for our listeners. You were in a very small charity, and you also, I think, set up your own charity at one point, and this is a larger organization, and the income for this one is about 10...
Speaker 2:Yeah. We're about a 10,000,000 charity, about 5,000,000 that is fundraising. But I started out as a loan fundraiser, so doing the grant applications, the social media, the Mailchips, and managing the IT suppliers and hoovering the office on a Wednesday. So that was that was my background as a loan fundraiser and then grew to to managing teams and being in in slightly bigger places.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I've enjoyed some good chats over the years. Like I say in the the little quote I I gave for your blurb, I've I've always admired your curiosity and your growth mindset. I first met you, I think, when you applied for a bursary when you were in that tiny charity, a bursary to come on, I think, was it our Major Gifts Mastery program. And through that program, I I got to know you.
Speaker 1:And and again, every single day of the training, you would have another question and another question. And in fairness, you'd also always be generous in helping other people out and sharing things you'd discovered. So, it was that, approach. Growth mindset, but also a generosity of sharing that's really set you apart, and I've enjoyed 22 ever since. How many years ago was that with...
Speaker 2:I I think that must be about twelve years ago. And it and it was exactly that because I was doing fundraising on my own in a charity that wasn't very good at it. And I think that just helped me realize, I I need to learn. I need to learn from others who are further ahead of me than this, who are in similar situations to me than this. And so I think actually being in a tiny charity helped me learn and grow because I knew that I I didn't have, you know, three levels of managers who'd done my job before me and were able to to teach it me, so I had to look outside the charity.
Speaker 2:And because we were a small charity, there wasn't budget to go on things, like your mastery program. So when you offered the bursary, I I... You know, it was the best grant application I ever did, because it it invested in me, invested in the charity, and has really helped me in my career. So, yeah, I think it's just a good example of how budget doesn't need to be the obstacle to learning.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Which is a really important mindset and belief to have, especially in this day and age, I think, where there are so many genuinely good free resources. I mean, there's excellent paid for resources as well, but I... Compared to when I was a Fundraiser twenty six years ago starting my career, there's so much good stuff out that you don't have to pay for necessarily. I wanted rather than to go skim in a shallow way across lots of topics that you cover so well in the book, I wanted to dive deeper into one particular topic, which is this notion of ongoing learning and things that a fundraiser can do to just keep getting inspired, keep getting the technical skills, keep getting the support that helps your morale.
Speaker 1:And I think... I just really liked the little story you put at the start of that chapter, and I think you're retelling it from a Stephen Covey book.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So Stephen Covey, who wrote the book, Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, he tells this story of, a man who's walking in the woods, and he comes across someone who's cutting down a tree, with a saw. And he says, that looks like hard work. And the fella cutting down the tree says, yeah. I've been at this for for five hours.
Speaker 2:It's really, really hard work. And the guy who's walking says, well, why don't you stop for a minute and and sharpen your saw? And the the guy cutting down the tree says, don't be silly. I don't have time for that. And and and he makes this point that, you know, sometimes we need to step back from the work, from the busyness, and just sharpen the saw.
Speaker 2:Fundraisers are our instrument, our tool of choice, it's our brain. If we're constantly using it in our day job and refreshing it and not expanding it, not growing our our capacity and our learning, then then essentially over time, what we end up doing is we're working with a blunt tool. And so I've become a really big believer in taking the time, making the time, even when things are really, really busy, Rob, because it's always really, really busy. There's never gonna be that quiet time. There's never gonna be that time when, deadlines don't exist or or pressure doesn't exist or income targets have disappeared.
Speaker 2:But actually taking the time to, read a book, to listen to a podcast, to go on a training, to to strengthen my my own capacity as a fundraiser, I find really, really helpful, and I've never regretted taking the time to do that.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I'd love in our chat to just cover not all of them we won't have time, but there just are some things. Well, some people will have heard of them and been meaning to get around to trying this tactic or that tactic, but I'd love to cover some of them because there was just ways you explained them in the book that I really liked. One of them, it may be not obvious to everyone, but in terms of peer learning, you talk about a time early in your career where you proactively set up a group with two or three other fundraisers to talk about. Was it trust applications?
Speaker 2:Yes. I mean, this is really early on in my career. So it's maybe a couple of years in, and as a loan fundraiser, a big part of my job was writing grant applications. And I was at a conference, and I think I think I just stood up and said, does anyone else write grant applications who'd be interested in swapping notes? Because I realized that the only grant applications that I saw were the ones that I was writing, and so all I could do was evaluate my grant application to this trust against my grant application to this other trust.
Speaker 2:And what I wanted was to see how other people did things, and I also wanted other people to look at what I was saying and be able to say, no. That's absolute jargon because, you know, as you well know, we we have this curse of knowledge and the fresh eyes that we come into an organization with. Well, actually, after about three months, we're using all the same acronyms that really confused us in our induction. So there was three of us who, every month, we would send in a kind of round robin a grant application. And so we would send it to someone, and I would receive one, and then I would give feedback, and I would get feedback of mine.
Speaker 2:And it was just that way because I didn't have colleagues to bounce ideas off. And and, actually, even if I did, they had that same curse of knowledge, so they weren't even the best people to do that. But just having another fundraiser who was, you know, at a similar stage of career to me, able to offer fresh eyes was really, really helpful. And, yeah, we... I'm I'm sure we did that for about a year and a half.
Speaker 2:And then, you know, like a lot of these things, they they fizzle out, but I find that really, really helpful early on in my career.
Speaker 1:What a great example. And there was a point in my career, actually, when I had just recently become a trainer, rather than the fundraising bit of my career, when I broadly did the same thing. I didn't have the budget to to go on lots of courses initially, but I've just realized I had two or three people I knew who had... They were in learning development as well and and setting up their own businesses in various stages. And I usually don't think of myself as a relatively proactive person in that kind of way, but I was quite proud of myself that it was me that suggested we create this group.
Speaker 1:And my goodness, it paid us back over the two or three years we would regularly meet, you know, once a quarter and just share what we've been up to and share challenges and discover that almost always, one of the other four was better at one of these things than we were, and that it is really so interesting. Everyone's got different strengths and weaknesses individually and also as organizations. It's so unlikely that those kind of, quote, mastermind groups will not pay you back manyfold for the effort.
Speaker 2:Yeah. No. Absolutely. And I just think it... We we often see other people where they are, and and and we don't think about their own weaknesses or their own insecurities.
Speaker 2:And actually just just being bold and and putting your hand up or putting a message on a Fundraising LinkedIn group or a Fundraising Facebook group and just saying, does anybody else want in on this, to to help, yeah, just really pays dividends.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Wonderful. Another tactic you mentioned in the book is the idea of a personal board. What do you mean by that, and and how do you use that?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So all of us work for charities. Our charity has a board of trustees, and they are people from lots of different walks of life and different levels of skill and experience to speak into the charity to improve it. And and I came across this idea maybe about ten years ago, which was the idea of building a a personal board of trustees. And so I have maybe five people on my board.
Speaker 2:Now what that means is they actually don't know they're on my board. It's not an official thing. They don't get together every quarter, and I submit papers or anything stupid like that. But I've got a lady called Rachel, who is my coach. I've been using Rachel for ten years, and she's the person I go to for leadership and management, and people issues in my team, and I can really work through those issues with her.
Speaker 2:Got a chap called Matthew who's really good strategically, and really has helped me over the years to think about fundraising and communications strategy. I've got a fellow called Stuart who's... Kinda his career has mapped mine, but he's about ten years ahead of me. So it's been really helpful to just kinda sit in his shadow and learn from him as he's gone from also being a fundraiser to to being a deputy CEO. And and then I've actually got other people outside of fundraising, so I've got a couple of friends who I meet with, and we talk about being a dad and things like that.
Speaker 2:So it's really just having people who bring different experiences. And and for me, kind of imagining them as my personal board of trustees has helped me to say, okay, you know, this is where I wanna grow, this is where I'm weak at, and do I have someone who sits in that seat to offer that experience?
Speaker 1:Yeah. It's brilliant. A a thing I like about that is... There's something about that as the metaphor or the thinking tool. I think it causes me to be a bit more proactive proactive at working out, you know, what areas I have or have not got covered where actually I really need support, and then maybe being a...
Speaker 1:Because I think of it that way, being more proactive in reaching out to them or remembering to seek a catch up or indeed make sure that I'm a I'm a good friend to them as well, so I'm... It's... So it's two way and so on. The thinking tool and the metaphor, I think, makes me more likely to to do those things that serve my bigger picture of my development.
Speaker 2:I think I've just learned from other people. I remember... I mean, this is years ago being at a conference, and there was another fundraiser from Oxford, which is where I lived at the time. And I said, oh, you're traveling back to Oxford so I can, you know, sit and pepper you with questions? And he said, no.
Speaker 2:This this was in London. He said, I'm actually going to meet a major donor. So I said, oh, can I come? And and he sort of thought about it. And then he said, yeah.
Speaker 2:Okay then. So so so I just joined him in this meeting with this prospective major donor, and and I think when we got there, he thought, what on earth am I doing? And he kind of introduced me as someone from another charity, you know, and and I knew my brief. It was there to to sit and observe and not really partake in the conversation, but this was very new on in my fundraising journey, you know, and and the idea of having meetings with major donors was just so scary to me. And, actually, he just let me kinda sit there and and and watch.
Speaker 2:And it would have been fine, actually, if he just, you know, said to me to sit on another table and watch, but it just demystified this whole thing. And I just find that actually being a bit cheeky, being a bit Irish, you know, just just asking the question and, you know, and and giving people permission to say no just opened up doors and and opportunities, you know, learning from people, shadowing people. Very early on in my career, I wrote to a couple of charities. My my kind of background has been in in in the fifth sector, and I wrote to a couple of larger charities. So Tear Fund, you know, huge, 80,000,000 point charity, Christians Against Poverty at that time, probably, £10,000,000 charity.
Speaker 2:And they just said, hey. I'm starting out in fundraising. I don't really know what I'm doing. Can I can I come to your offices and maybe meet some people? And both charities were so generous.
Speaker 2:They they literally prepared for me itineraries and schedules. And so, you 9AM, meet with the trust fund raiser. 10AM, the major donor team. 11AM, go and meet support of services. And it was just so helpful for me.
Speaker 2:And I've just found the fundraising profession to be really, really generous because none of us went to fundraising school. All of us have had to learn either in our own charities or from other people. And so I find that people are really open with their learning, with their mistakes, and actually just being the person who asks rather you know, being the person who's waiting to receive knowledge, but actually going on your way to to see. And people can always say no, you know, as as we well know as fundraisers. Right?
Speaker 1:Yeah. One of the ones I wanted to ask you about was mentoring or rather seeking a mentor. Now this is an idea many people are aware of. It would be good if I could could have a a non paid person, so not not a what I would call a coach, but a mentor. And the tip I really liked in your book, that you've discovered that increases the chances that that might work.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I find that if you want someone to be your mentor, don't ask them to be your mentor. I I learned this early on. I asked them to be my mentor, and they they really didn't think they were knowledgeable enough for it, so they deliberated over it. They thought it was this very serious thing.
Speaker 2:And they took, like, three months, Rob, to get back to me just to say, no. I don't think I have the time. I don't think I have the experience that you need. And, my mentor is a guy called Matthew. He doesn't know he's my mentor.
Speaker 2:He he... You know, we've never... I've never given him that title, but, I met him at a conference, and I realized here's someone who's much further ahead in their career than me. And so I said, hey. You know, could could I buy you lunch?
Speaker 2:And so I bought him lunch, and I brought my problems, and he was able to offer some insight in that. And and now about three times a year, we'll meet up for coffee or for a beer or, for me to buy him lunch. And and the deal is I always pay because, you know, it's it's always one way. I'm always getting a lot more out of the conversation than he is, and it's just really helpful to bring my live problems into that situation. And, again, you know, I don't need to ask...
Speaker 2:I've never needed to ask permission from my bosses. You know, can I go and meet with Matthew? Because I'm taking some time out of my day, and I'm buying him lunch. It's not, you know, I need a formal training proposal in order to to pay for this, or or there's some kind of plan that needs baked in. None of that stuff.
Speaker 2:And and I've just find that really, really helpful. So if you wanna find a mentor, don't ask them to be your mentor. Just bring bring the problem that you're struggling with today, and people are so keen to to help you in your career that that they wanna help solve that. And if they're good at that, then in three months' time, bring them bring them a new problem.
Speaker 1:Another one I really liked is the idea of becoming a trustee for another organization.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I think there's there's two different types of trusteeships as fundraisers. There's the trusteeship at a small charity who don't have any fundraising staff, and and and you're not really there for professional development. You're there to do the work for them. But from a professional development, opportunity, I think, can you see opportunities to become a trustee at a charity that is bigger than yours, that is more complex than yours?
Speaker 2:And so I did that. I actually did that at Wycliffe Bible Translators where I work nice. So I'm a trustee here for three or four years. When I joined, I was in my late twenties, and I was the stupidest person in the room, which is brilliant for learning and development when you realize everyone around the table is much, much cleverer than you. And so I found it so helpful because now instead of just thinking about my own fundraising and my charity, I was having to think about the wider implications of things.
Speaker 2:And you were looking at finances, you were looking at HR, you were looking at impacts on your programmes and the work you were doing. And that helped me to communicate as a fundraiser with those wider organisational things at play. I learned how to write really good board papers because they need to be really clear, short, that wider context. And so that really helped me. And actually, it probably helped me get this job because I I had a a kind of sufficient end to the understanding of the charity.
Speaker 2:My my CEO then, you know, began to know me as a person. So, you know, I didn't go into it for a kind of future job in that charity opportunity, but I find that it it helped me in my career in that way.
Speaker 1:That makes sense, Robin. Because there's all kinds of different tactics we could do, but, what is another tip you would have for someone who does want to ongoingly grow in their work?
Speaker 2:Yeah. I think we we all learn better in organizations that value learning. And so I think be the person who helps build that culture. Right? So I find it really helpful to, when I hear something, when I read an interesting blog or hear a podcast or read a book, actually sharing that with others around me.
Speaker 2:Because the more that I do that, then the more that other people come across different things and then share stuff back with me. So often, if I'm on LinkedIn and I see something interesting, I'll forward that onto a colleague. Or I was driving yesterday, and I was listening to two of your podcasts, Rob, and one with Chris recently, and I thought there's some really good stuff in that on how to build program knowledge that I've shared with our director for key relationships on major gifts side, and then there was one with Carla on how to communicate numbers. And I thought, oh, our comms team would really benefit from this. And it's because I know that if if I hear it and I find it insightful, that that's kind of a prize.
Speaker 2:Someone said to me once, insight is the booby prize of learning. Like, insight is, oh, I've learned something. Well, actually, so so what? What what I want to do is see things change. And it's so much easier to see things change if I pass it on to my team, and then we have a conversation around that rather than me just hoping that, you know, they would do the thing that I heard in the podcast.
Speaker 2:And so I find that really helpful. And then when other people on my team... So we use Google Chat. When they share something that they've learned, then I really wanna celebrate that because we just wanna build that, I guess, that snowball of momentum that normalizes. We're a team who listen to podcasts.
Speaker 2:We're a team who read books. We're a team who read things and then share them on. We've just, as a team, finished the book, Great Fundraising Organization, so we read it separately and then came together to discuss it. And I've just find those things to be really, really helpful so that it's not just individual learning, but actually thinking and doing the hard work of how does this apply around here.
Speaker 1:Yes, Robin. And in terms of helping the whole team and whole organization keep learning and and have that growth mindset, Clearly, you're doing something well, because I think I read that, Wycliffe Bible Translators was named in the Sunday Times best places to work list 2025, and there's many things you need to be doing well at for that. But clearly, one of them is a spirit of learning in the workplace. Sometimes these things are called a lunch and learn or a learning hour.
Speaker 2:So one of the things that we did in our fundraising team is we have a staff meeting every Wednesday between eleven and twelve, and then we put a meeting in everybody's calendar between twelve and one, and we called it Learning R. And what it does is it just gives people permission permission to use that time to go on a walk and listen to a podcast or to go to an online webinar or maybe they've got a recording of one that's already happened. And then what we tried to do is kinda build that culture so people would say how they spent the time because the temptation is in a day that is full of meetings, Oh, finally, here's here's one hour where I know someone won't put a meeting in because there's already something on my calendar, I can get on with that thing that I really need to get on with. And maybe there's days that that that's needed, but what we really wanted to say was this is our permission, you know, as managers to you to use this time to learn. It's actually our expectation, and you can use that individually.
Speaker 2:Or sometimes someone's been at a conference, and so that learning hour, we actually gather together, and and we hear what they've learned.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I guess the other thing, Robin, all of these are helpful techniques, and I love your insights on making these techniques work better. But I also know they're much more likely to happen if we've, at some level, got a goal or a pull for why we want to to get better at certain things, and indeed, working out which things are nice to have and which are essential for how we want our career to go. What have you learned about that kind of planning or decision making element?
Speaker 2:Yeah. I guess the big thing is is to be intentional. My learning, my development is is my responsibility. No one's ever gonna care as much about my growth as as I do, and so expecting my boss to spoon feed me doesn't work. And so I find setting a plan and being really intentional about that to be very helpful.
Speaker 2:I guess at different times, I've audited, if you like, where I am, what are my strengths, what are my weaknesses, and what are the weaknesses I I really need to to change in order to maybe get the job that I want? So at different times, I've looked at job descriptions of jobs that I'm not qualified for in order to understand what are the gaps, how do I get there. Recently, in the last year, I got my coach to interview my team, to do three sixty feedback. Because three sixty feedback, the way we do it, it comes to me anonymized and sanitized. And actually having my coach sit down with the people who I work with closely and ask them questions just give me a much more honest reflection of my character flaws, my leadership flaws, and where I can be better, and I find that really helpful.
Speaker 2:And then that helps me set a plan for the year. And I I guess the other thing that I've done, Rob, is I always make sure in my annual goals, there's a a learning and development goal there because then that means every time I have a a quarterly review or an annual review with my boss and we're reviewing my goals, that's one of the goals that I'm gonna be checked up on. And so they're not necessarily invested in me having a development goal there. But if I put a development goal in, no one's gonna take it out. Right?
Speaker 2:Because no one's that that mean. So it means that when we're having the conversation around, you know, have you had the number of meetings you said you were gonna have? Have you hit the income targets you said you were gonna hit? Have you, you know, grown in this area that you said you were gonna grow in? It just becomes...
Speaker 2:It it creates that accountability, and my boss wants me to hit my goals, and I want me to hit my goals. So I I find that just to be a really helpful hack, I guess, in terms of making sure that this stays front and center.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And I really liked Liz Tate's advice on this, really similar to what you said about rather than, oh, I need need a new job, looking at the job ads, job descriptions, seeing that you're not qualified to do those things and then then therefore feel... Feeling stuck. Her mentor, as was, asked her to find three or four jobs she really wanted, whether or not you're able to do them yet, and there was a pattern in those three or four she found, and then then tracking back to see what are the gaps. Oh, actually, are two or three gaps for if I ever wanted to be able to do that job.
Speaker 1:And in that way, getting clarity, if in two or three years' time, I want to be a director of fundraising or whatever it might be, it's okay that I'm not there yet. But now I've got a target that pulls me, and I've got a really good reason to start getting creative and also disciplined in doing any of the tactics we've said today or even a course or whatever. I mean, there's so many different angles to this whole topic, to include in one episode, but another important one, I guess, is that some learning will be best if you go and actually do a course, for instance, or indeed maybe just get get investment for some some element of your learning, what have you learned about having a conversation with one's manager and them ending up saying yes in the context of a charity where inevitably money is probably tight?
Speaker 2:Yeah. I think when I've gone to different managers over time and and asked for a budget that we didn't have to invest in my own development, I think one of the things that has worked in my favor is that I've shown that when things are free, I've done them and I've implemented them. And so so it's... I'm not someone who isn't learning at all and then suddenly wants, you know, £3,000 to to do a course. And I I don't look like a good investment then because I haven't used all the free stuff that's that's available to me.
Speaker 2:So I've probably done two significant things. I did a diploma in fundraising that cost a few thousand pounds, and I'm starting a master's. And in both cases, my employer has paid for both of those. And in both cases, we built it in. So I was able to make an approach to them that said, if you can pay for this, but if if I leave in the next two years or three years, then then I will pay you that that money back pro rata.
Speaker 2:And so the investment is suddenly derisked for them because if they invest in me and I leave, well, they get their money back. If they invest in me and I stay, then hopefully, I've I've proved that worth and that value. And so I find that changing the frame of the choice helps. So when I became a trustee, I was able to say to my boss, listen. I'm willing to take annual leave for this, but, actually, would you would you allow me to take workdays in order to do this?
Speaker 2:And if you find that this isn't working, then in a year's time, we'll review, and I'll take annual leave. And actually just giving them the option, that we're gonna set this up for a trial period, and after the trial period is over, we can review this. I think for managers, that's that's reassuring because they they can say yes for a defined period of time, and they know that if that's not working for them, if that's not working for the charity, then there's no pressure to keep that that situation on a kind of never ending basis. And so the yes is much easier because it's it's almost... They're they're saying yes to a a shorter thing than a smaller thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And I guess there's another mindset thing, a belief thing, isn't there, that, I pick up from you and from your chapter here, which is that some people, some organizations can see someone asking to go on a course as a cost, and you're really clear it's an investment. Mean, I think that would be true of any organization, but it's especially obviously true in the context of fundraising. And as obvious as is it... Is for us to say that, for you seeking to learn and grow to know that and go with that frame and help them see it that way?
Speaker 2:It's absolutely an investment, Robin, and and that's the way to look at it. And so so I know selfishly, it's an investment in me and my future career. But I also know for the charity that I'm with, it's an investment because of the benefits that that is gonna add. And so I remember early in my career, I I was nervous to get on the phone to people, and I went and I did a day with a telephone salesman who was running a a course, and then I find phone calls much easier. And so that was, you know, quite low cost, but a full day.
Speaker 2:But, oh my goodness, if the phone is the most effective way to reach donors, then don't you want me to be trained in in how to use the phone? Isn't that a good use of, you know, my time and and your money as my manager? And and so framing it in that way just shifts the narrative on that. You know, if if if doing a a course on major donors or corporate partnerships cost a few thousand pounds, but your target for those things are hundreds of thousand pounds, then surely wouldn't one course help me better achieve that goal? And maybe next year, our goals are even higher because of the things that that we're learning on that.
Speaker 2:And so using... Framing those numbers in in such a way, I I think, is really helpful for managers to make decisions. There's also the reality that if you leave the organization, well, guess what? They're gonna have to spend probably a few thousand pounds to do recruitment, and they're gonna lose, you know, some of those major donor relationships. And so it is in their interests that you say that you're growing, that you're developing, that you're happy and flourishing in role.
Speaker 2:And that's not that you seek them out for leverage, but that's just the reality of that. And so it's in their best interest that the people they manage are doing a really good job and giving them training budget, to learn and develop and do it better is is I think a no brainer.
Speaker 1:Yeah. It is clear that in the commercial world, if some shareholders discovered that that organisation was not doing what you just said and intelligently investing in ongoingly in the skills of those salespeople or marketeers or whatever it might be, that would be absurd in the context commercially, and yet I've noticed that usually very effective charities have found a way to overcome the kind of the the glitch in thinking from maybe a very old fashioned traditional approach to to charities, or charities should be free or amateur, you know, that that idea that Dan Pallotta explains in his excellent TED talk, smart organizations have found a way to realize if we want amazing results, of course, it makes sense to invest. And I hope in this episode, we've shown that doesn't need to mean only a paid course. So much of it is a mindset of using the available resources, many of which are free. Robin, it's been a fabulous conversation.
Speaker 1:I've got so much from it, but I need to let you get away back to your day job. Just for our listeners, I I really do recommend you check out the complete fundraising handbook published by DSC. Do get yourself a copy. There's so much really, really practical ideas in there and inspiration. And you can tell from the way Robin talks that that is true.
Speaker 1:Robin, I need to let you get away. Thank you so much for our chat, sharing your your personal experiences and and your advice. I look forward to another illuminating chat very soon because I always come away with so much. But for now, Robin, thanks for coming on the show.
Speaker 2:Thanks so much, Rob.
Speaker 1:That's all folks. Thank you as always for listening and for supporting the Fundraising Bright Spots podcast. If you liked it, please don't keep it a secret. I'd be ever so grateful if you could take a moment to share it with your team and on LinkedIn so we can help as many good causes as possible. Best of luck with your ongoing self development this year.
Speaker 1:I look forward to sharing another Bright Spots story with you very soon.