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Huge thanks to Ally Rea for writing this blog. Ally is one of our fundraising consultants and has drawn on her extensive experience of supporting charities and social enterprises with trusts fundraising to tackle the tricky topic of impact measurement. Demonstrating the difference you make in the wider community, with vulnerable people, or with people facing language or communication barriers, can feel like a huge ask for any organisation, particularly in smaller organisations without dedicated roles covering impact reporting. As fundraisers, we can feel caught between funders’ expectations and our delivery teams’ realities, all while our service users are suffering from survey fatigue. It’s the classic fundraising Catch-22: without impact data, funders are less likely to trust their investment will change lives, but without funding, how will you make a difference, let alone demonstrate it? And how on earth will you get your busy frontline colleagues to help you gather the data? Don’t panic! If you’ve ever found yourself staring at a funder’s well-intentioned “tell us about the impact of your work” and drawn a blank on all the impact you think you could or should be showing because all your organisation has been tracking to date is the activity outputs, you’re not alone. Luckily, you do not need to employ a whole new impact person, or incur the wrath of your Service Delivery Manager. Nor do you need to panic-create a Google Form and email it to your entire database (there is a time and a place for a form, just not a panicky one, and not to your whole list). And you definitely shouldn’t halt all fundraising pending academic research analysis. While I'm not an impact measurement expert, I am a thoughtful fundraiser and I like to creatively problem-solve while hopefully allowing everyone to get home on time. Here are a few tips and techniques I’ve seen work well for charities looking to demonstrate impact in very particular, or very general, populations... 1. Take stock of what you're already doing - it's probably more than you thinkYou may already have the start of a good impact measure somewhere already. When did you last bring coffee and biscuits to your service delivery team and have a proper chat through what records they already keep, and see what you could be working with? A charity I know, working intensively with extremely vulnerable people, thought they had no ‘change over time’ measures of wellbeing, until we looked at their Client Support Plan and its table of five wellbeing measures that they had been completing with each new client for 18 months. They hadn’t considered that this could be useful to fundraising, so hadn’t mentioned it. One or two follow-up calls each week as each client got to their one-year anniversary is now producing the necessary data on impact. 2. Some is better than noneIf you really are starting from scratch, that’s OK. You don’t have to have all the measures - even a snapshot is helpful. Be thoughtful about the difference your work can directly make. What would your delivery team say would be "a success" for the work they are doing? One charity we work with recently tweaked how their team ended their calls, asking “do you know what you need to do next?”. This is not only a simple metric of empowerment, but also a chance to check understanding on behalf of vulnerable service users. Another charity, which intentionally keeps its helpline completely anonymous, asks one targeted question per quarter, thus building a databank of useful data on a range of issues without adding to the length of the call or risking identifying a caller. 3. Keep it simple to make it accessibleThe simpler the impact measurement, the more accessible it is. Focus on what you actually need to demonstrate. Trying to ask everyone every question, every time, can create barriers to people engaging with your impact reporting. Perhaps asking less, but tactically, can help you find out more. I know a performance and live arts company working with adults with a learning disability that places a postcard with large, clear print on each seat in the house. You tear the card at a smiling, neutral or frowning face to indicate whether you’ve enjoyed the show. They’ve removed so many barriers to giving feedback - you don’t need to read English or even have a pen (although there’s space to write if you want). Focus on what you need to demonstrate. Counting the smiles makes the Marketing Manager’s job much nicer, too.  Gathering non-verbal feedback, for example by using smiley faces, can be a more inclusive way of gathering impact data (AI-generated image) 4. Don't create new work for people“Great! Another form to fill in,” said no service delivery team ever, except with a side order of heavy sarcasm. So, what are you already doing that you can adjust? We worked with a team that added two quick questions to a form they already required all their sessional delivery staff to complete. Within a few months they had a decent, and growing, databank and a series of participant quotes. Making the new task part of an existing process or habit makes it far more likely to stick, and far less likely to cause friction. 5. Make it appeallingYou want to find out some things from the wider community at an event, but you also want them to like you when they go home. So don’t hand them a flappy printout or a QR code hiding a lengthy form! I saw a brilliantly inviting feedback survey at a public event in London. Participants were placing sticky dots along five colourful bars set out like an asterisk, to rate the event on 5 measures. The interactivity was part of the appeal: who doesn’t enjoy playing a game? The next time you need to get a general sense from a large group of people, try going a bit Blue Peter, and ask people to show, not tell, you what they thought.  A poster used to gather feedback from attendees at the Exhibition Road Festival, led by Imperial College London 6. Monitor impact by celebrating successIf there is confusion about activity outputs (the numbers of people reached or things you did), outcomes (the differences those activities made) and impact (what changed longer-term for people as a result), some gentle coaching may be in order. Do you have a team meeting or a place where you can share successes? Stories can quickly move us from a "sessions offered" to "lives changed" headspace. For example, asking everyone in a team meeting “Tell us about a win from this week” provides a regular reminder that small moments are big changes. Every participant quote, feedback from a partner organisation, or observation from an activity is an opportunity to boost morale - and gives your fundraiser(s) a steady stream of new information to work with. Hopefully I've brought together some helpful ideas from some brilliant small charities, and replicable ideas from a couple of big ones. If you’ve seen something else work well without adding lots of work, we’re always keen to hear fresh ideas. Let us know in the comments! ⬇️
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GEARING UP FOR A GENERAL ELECTION - HOW CAN CHARITIES MOBILISE TO CREATE THE CHANGE WE NEED TO SEE?11/1/2024 If you could have one thing in 2024, what would it be? Very high on my list is a General Election and a change of Government, as soon as possible. With an Autumn Election currently looking most likely (assuming we believe that Rishi Sunak is telling the truth *cough cough*), it’s time for the charity sector to start mobilising and planning what we can do to bring about the change we need. Having worked in the charity sector throughout 13 years of austerity, I’m unlikely to be a fan of any Tory Government. Even so, this is a Government like no other - looking beyond ideology and policy, we're being governed by a bunch of nasty, self-serving, talentless political vandals who have heaped never-ending misery on the most vulnerable people in society, as part of their increasing desperate bid to stay in power. This summary barely scratches the surface, but we have seen them:
Sometimes you have to pause the remember the sheer scale of the damage that's been done, because it's been going on for so long that there's a risk of becoming desensitised. And now we have a rare chance to reject the cruelty and political vandalism. As charities and charity sector professionals, we often feel hopeless and helpless about the state of the world and the plight of the people we care about. But 2024 will bring a precious opportunity to make a difference. It’s the first time in my adult life where it feels like there’s a genuine prospect of a swing away from a Tory Government. And frankly, if we're not making that a priority, what else are we doing with our time that's going to have a bigger long-term impact? So this blog is a rallying call to everyone in the sector that I’ve ever worked with - let’s build our belief that we can bring about change, and start sharing ideas about how.  Firstly, two important caveats...One: I’m under no illusions that a different Government will fix everything. While conventional wisdom says Labour are the only electable alternative, I dislike a lot of what Keir Starmer says - in many policy areas, Labour are uncomfortably similar to the Tories. But while a Labour Government won’t change nearly enough - at least in the short term - it should immediately mean less incompetence, corruption and dog-whistling cruelty. If achieving real social change is like running a marathon, then a Labour Government equates at the very least to buying a pair of reasonably-fitting running trainers – a small, but vital, first step. Two: I know that many charities are understandably nervous about any form of campaigning or perceived political activity. It's worth noting that new Charity Commission guidance says that “Charities can take part in political activity provided it supports their purpose and is in their best interests” - but political activity can’t become the reason for your existence, and you mustn’t give your support to a political party. Electoral law also requires charities to monitor and in some cases register how much they spend on specific regulated campaign activities. There are other requirements too. If you're a registered charity, you should absolutely familiarise yourself with this guidance, but it shouldn't deter you from being active and vocal. There’s loads that we all can and should do this year - and it's primarily about promoting healthy democracy, and empowering people who rarely have a voice, not supporting any particular political party. It just so happens that it's also likely to help bring about the change that we so desperately need. Gearing up for a General Election - five things we can be doing as charities and social enterprises1. Encourage people to go out and voteA new report from the charity and progressive think tank IPPR highlights the alarming gap in political engagement between different socioeconomic groups. Wealthy people, homeowners and graduates are far more likely to vote and engage in politics - this has huge implications for democracy and tackling inequality. So encouraging and empowering your service users to simply go out and vote - even if you say or do nothing else - will change Election results and challenge the status quo. Your organisation is ideally placed to do this - the people you support already know you and trust your frontline staff. So you could:
Lloyds Bank Foundation published this guide for small charities ahead of last year’s local elections, including some very helpful tips on how to support people to vote.  Screenshot from a video created by IPPR to highlight the differences in political engagement between different socioeconomic groups (click the image to watch the video) 2. Engage your service users and supporters around key policy issuesBrexit showed us that there can be a huge and problematic gulf between the views of a charity's leadership and its service users. While organisations planned for and talked with confidence about a Remain outcome, many of the vulnerable and politically disengaged people they supported were being seduced by Leave campaign promises. My impression is that most charities spent little time bringing people together to discuss and learn from each other's views. In hindsight, this was a mistake and a missed opportunity. Ahead of a General Election, we need to learn from this and get a lot more vocal about engaging our own audiences. Your service users will very likely be impacted by the Election outcome and the headline policies that will form part of the political parties’ campaigns. You should look for opportunities to link key policy debates with the real-life issues that your service users are facing, and the causes that inspire your supporters. This isn’t about telling people how to vote, but making their vote feel more relevant, important and impactful. For example, you could do this by writing blogs, sharing relevant petitions, or linking to articles and reports on social media. Even the smallest charity has the power to reach and engage someone new - and for every organisation that stays silent, an opportunity is missed. 3. Combat disinformationThere’s going to be a LOT of disinformation circulating ahead of this Election. Meat taxes and “illustrative” northern infrastructure projects, anyone? Beyond the usual bare-faced lying, expect deepfake technology to be a new battleground: videos appearing of people saying things they never actually said, and even people casting doubt that things they did actually say were deepfaked. Sound confusing? It will be, and there are growing fears that we’re not ready for it. Every charity can play a simple role in combatting disinformation and amplifying truth. This might involve linking to relevant fact-checking sites, drawing on your own expertise to show why policy promises won’t work, and sharing warnings about deepfakes. As another helpful tool, Twitter (still not calling it X) now has a “community notes” function to provide context on misleading tweets, for example:  Screenshot of a recent tweet by Rishi Sunak, with a community note added. Source: Nation Cymru article (click to read) 4. Add your voice to those championing the sectorCharities should have a vital role to play in shaping policy - they work closely with society’s most vulnerable people, their frontline work means they understand community and healthcare settings better than most, and they’re usually the first ones on the scene when society’s safety net fails those in need. Yet charities - and by extension lived experience - have been repeatedly ignored and marginalised by this Government. And when it occasionally remembers they're here, it’s usually to criticise or disempower them - for example threatening to fine them for helping homeless people, or cooking up fake controversies about donation acceptance policies. A General Election brings the possibility of a new Government that might work more constructively with the sector. More immediately, there's an opportunity to encourage all political parties to listen to charities and factor in their needs and views as they shape their election promises. This helps to gradually shift the Overton Window and change what matters to people and what gets talked about. Achieving this takes a coordinated effort - we all need to take opportunities to contribute our ideas and voice. For example, NCVO has published a draft Charity Sector Election Manifesto with five key themes, and you can share your feedback and ideas until mid-February. Local sector infrastructure organisations will be doing their own consultation. Your contribution will help to ensure that our sector is more representative of everybody, and enjoys a higher profile ahead of the Election. 5. Factor a change of Government into your strategic planningFinally, if you’re planning a new strategy this year, be sure to think ahead to what a change of Government (or simply a change of local MP) might mean for your organisation.
What potential policy changes do you want to be ready to capitalise on or challenge? Which aspects of your work might become harder or easier? Who do you need to be building relationships now as their influence grows - and similarly, what connections do you stand to lose and how might you compensate for that? This final point isn't related to the Election itself, but will ensure you’re ready to take advantage when change does come. Because finally - and with your help - hopefully we can look forward to more than just the status quo in 2024. This is a guest blog by Yasmin Glover, who runs The Olive Training and Consultancy and is a fellow member of the Small Charity Friendly Collective. Yasmin supports small charities and social enterprises to become more efficient, purpose-driven, and impactful. "Internal comms" can often be brushed aside as something only relevant to bigger organisations - or at least, those with enough capacity to dedicate to it. But with increasing demands on our small teams, we can’t afford not to keep them engaged, supported, and working as efficiently as possible. Remote and hybrid working models have become the norm for many organisations, and whilst they can offer so many positives - among them, more work-life balance for some, greater inclusion, and more flexibility - they often present additional challenges for team dynamics. However, if we are able to address the teething issues experienced during this transition, we can integrate greater choice and options for our people, and remain competitive as these considerations are increasingly front-of-mind for existing and prospective team members. In this blog, we’ll explore some of the difficulties in creating and maintaining internal cohesion alongside remote working, why it’s important that we persevere, and some practical, tangible tips for how to go about this vital task. "My organisation feels increasingly fragmented. Why is it so hard for us to feel like one team?"Spontaneous and chance opportunities for connection and sharing no longer pepper the everyday, and some of us may never even have met our colleagues in person. In a sector which champions community, this distance and lack of personal interaction can feel very jarring. Measures to support staff through the cost of living crisis (such as increased working from home, and flexible hours to enable travel and childcare savings) may exacerbate this phenomenon (but could also present opportunities to overcome - more on that later!). Increased demand on our services due to national and international pressures can lead to feelings of guilt or conflict when even considering dedicating resource to anything other than direct beneficiary work. This can lead to the training, development, and cohesion of our staff teams being neglected, at the very time they are needed most. This exceptional demand also results in teams becoming more and more stretched, diminishing the time we are willing to allocate to team building. Such pressures on time and capacity, as well as the dramatic shifts in ways of working, make it really hard to prioritise internal dynamics.  In a landscape where we're all experiencing time pressure, it can be very hard to prioritise effective teamworking Why prioritising your team is necessary to delivering for your beneficiariesIn a recent survey by Agenda Consulting and Charities HR Network Group, a third of respondents reported a challenge with maintaining levels of collaboration in their current balance of office and home working, with difficulties connecting within and across teams and increasing silo working. In a sector which has often struggled with the effects of silo working, if left unattended, remote working threatens to further entrench unhelpful practices. Teams that are at risk of burnout, and unable to work together to find the most effective and sustainable ways to support beneficiaries, are not going to be delivering the highest quality services possible. United, supported teams are. Prioritising internal development will, therefore:
 Prioritising working together well while hybrid working will create more opportunities for collaboration, increase efficiency and improve staff wellbeing "We don’t have a lot of resource or time to invest in this. Where can we start?"1. Acknowledge the problem, and ask for inputNobody is expecting you to have all the answers, or for the transition to be without hiccups. Many organisations introduced remote and hybrid working as a necessity, and adapted based on immediate circumstances. Making a choice to continue with this approach long-term has more consequences for working practices and organisational culture, and there are lots of different aspects to consider in making it work for the whole team. As a leader, acknowledging this difficulty with your team and inviting their input may help to ease the tension - they’ll already know what’s not working, and working towards solutions together will help to show they are trusted, and will already start to bring you together. As a team member, being able to share your own needs in a constructive way with ideas or suggestions will help to fill in the gaps around what is missing in the new model, and get the ball rolling on ways to address these gaps. You could vote on ideas for connection, and trial the top three as suggested by your team. Ideas for social connection include:
Ideas for collaboration include:
 Replacing some video calls with walking phone calls can increase creativity and bring fresh energy into conversations 2. Prioritise and model relationship building practicesSeeing these behaviours modelled at all levels of the organisation signals the acceptability of making time for each other as individuals, and helps to embed them into the organisational culture. Building relationships with each other so that we connect as people, not just as our roles, can help us to understand each other and work more collaboratively - utilising people’s expertise and tailoring our approaches to them. We mentioned earlier that some measures to support staff through the cost of living crisis may exacerbate the challenges, however others, such as car sharing, or bring-and-share lunches, may actually help. Other ideas include:
3. Agree clear protocols and expectationsWith any change, sharing information and reasoning as much and as early as possible is key, as well as establishing clear processes to support the changes, and clear lines of communication for anyone who is struggling with any aspect. Sharing your hopes and expectations around hybrid working, as well as the challenges you expect to face and reassurances for dealing with them, is a good first step in supporting your team. On a more day-to-day level, consider everyone’s different communication preferences and assumptions, and different demands on their roles. Some people just want to email, while others are delivering in community settings with rare opportunities to check their emails. Agree and commit to ways of communicating in different situations to reduce this tension. For example: "If we need an answer same-day, we will call, leaving a message if they don’t answer, and we will respond to/return phone calls on the same day. If it’s less urgent, we will email with a clear action and deadline, and we agree to check our inboxes at least once a day so we don’t miss things’" In conclusion...With so many demands on small charities at the moment, it’s easy to understand the overwhelm and ‘firefighting mode’ that many organisations are dealing with. We want to do the best and the most we can for beneficiaries, while juggling our own pressured lives. Stepping out of the urgency to put in place systems and practices across our team(s) can feel like an indulgence or an impossibility, but is necessary to building effective, sustainable organisations. When we remember and make time to see each other as people, not just ‘enablers’ to our current task or answers to our problems, we open ourselves up to greater opportunities and ways of working - improving the lives of our own team members, and strengthening our offer to beneficiaries. You can find out more about Yasmin and her work supporting small charities and social enterprises at www.the-olive.co.uk. If you’d like to explore how Yasmin could support you with any of the above, or with another area of work, email [email protected].
According to Wiktionary, the above proverb is used to describe "a disappointing or mundane event occurring straight after an exciting, magnificent, or triumphal event." Now it's a stretch to call any strategy process magnificent or triumphal - I love strategic planning and even I wouldn’t go that far. But you can probably remember a time when you saw a new strategy launched with much fanfare, the product of many exciting conversations about the future, and then…nothing. The strategy goes to its final resting place in a dusty drawer or the dark recesses of your shared drive, and everybody goes back to their daily business as if nothing has changed. This is a huge waste of time. Everybody knows it, but it still happens more often than most people care to admit. At Lime Green, we try to make any strategy process as collaborative and inclusive as possible - I'm a firm believer that the conversations are as important as the final document. You need to involve people from all levels of your organisation, rather than entrusting a senior leader or consultant to sit in their ivory tower and write your strategy alone. But this alone isn't enough to avoid the pull of the strategy graveyard. There are loads of resources out there about how to create a strategy, but very little on the all-important topic of what to do after you've finished it. So here are some tips for making sure your published business plan or fundraising strategy remains a useful and relevant guiding document…  New strategies are typically launched with much fanfare - but the positive vibes often don't last long Organise launch sessions for all staffExpecting everyone to independently read and engage with a new strategy is a tough ask. Even if they want to, the realities of their job may get in the way, and words on a page are rarely that exciting or inspiring. This is where a strategy launch session - for the whole organisation or your particular team - can work really well. Ask people to read the strategy in advance, but be prepared to summarise key points at the start. Encourage staff to ask questions, voice concerns, and think creatively about what they need to start doing differently to turn the strategy into reality. While this absolutely isn’t a substitute for involving people in the planning process, it's a great additional step. Providing a space to discuss concerns is important, because a new strategy can inadvertently make people worry about things like job security or underinvestment in their area of work. Dealing with these worries head-on will reassure people and make them engage more positively with what you want to achieve. Update your budget, plan and other resources to reflect your strategyIf a strategy is meaningful and well thought out, it should ultimately result in you changing the way you work - but it's not the strategy itself that does the heavy lifting. It’s highly likely you’ll need to update your budget and re-write your operational plan. Job descriptions and even job titles may need to be changed. Regular meeting agendas will need updating, so you can monitor and discuss the things that you’ve decided are most important. Forget to do this and your strategy quickly becomes irrelevant, because people won’t have the resources or permission to start doing things differently. Shout about your strategy to service users, partners and fundersA good strategy, with a bold vision and clear direction, should build confidence and trust in your organisation and improve how you work with others. If that’s the case, you want it out in the open. So make sure that everyone you work with knows about your strategy, understands how it changes things, and holds you to account for turning it into reality. But you can’t expect your strategy to be important enough to external people that they’ll sit down and read it in full. There may also be parts of it that are for internal eyes only. This is where a well-written executive summary or eye-catching infographic, which summarises key information in a concise and engaging way, can be hugely helpful. Make your strategy visibleI don’t just mean saving it somewhere easy to find, although that helps. If you've created a clear list of strategic priorities, milestones or values, make these impossible to miss. Print them and stick them up in your office and meeting room. Add them to login screens, backgrounds and screensavers. This makes your key messages impossible to forget and ignore, but it also shows pride in your strategy and promotes accountability - because someone, somewhere is going to look a bit silly if the whole team gets a daily reminder of all the things that the organisation changed its mind about doing.  Charity: Water makes sure that the purpose of the organisation's work is visible to all staff. Photo credit: Daniel Goodman, Business Insider: https://www.businessinsider.com/photos-charity-water-office-tour-2012-7 Show how your strategy is helping to achieve successIf colleagues are wrestling with a tricky decision, remind them to refer back to the strategy and consider how it could guide them. If following your new strategy has enabled some kind of success - securing a new grant, forming a new partnership or receiving positive feedback - shout about it from the rooftops. In my experience, there are enough badly-planned and painful strategy processes out there that a lot of people approach this type of work with a big dollop of suspicion and scepticism. Showing the value of a good strategy, and vindicating the time spent on it, can help to change attitudes. You'll be grateful the next time you need their time and input. Commit to a strategy reviewNo strategy gets everything right or accurately predicts the future. But that’s never a reason to hope everybody quietly forgets it ever existed.
To get real value out of a strategy, you'll need to review it part way through the strategic period, say after 12 or 18 months. Committing to this in the strategy itself, and scheduling a review process well in advance, makes it far more likely it'll actually happen. Just before you publish a strategy is a great time to identify anything that will particularly merit a review. If you've faced a particularly tough decision, or committed to a direction that some staff are worried about, then promise to revisit this. Thinking like this may give you a list of natural questions to work through later. This again builds confidence and accountability, and might persuade doubters to give something a try for a bit. There’s rarely a convenient time to be able to take a step back and commit to working on a new strategy, but recently it's felt harder than ever. We’re nearly two years into a pandemic that has kept everyone guessing and in firefighting mode - and with a new variant raising the stakes again, sadly there’s no let-up in sight. But with so many things having changed since the start of 2020, if you haven’t done a strategic refresh yet, now might be the time to take the plunge. Creating a new strategy is a unique process for every organisation - you’ll be facing your own cocktail of opportunities, barriers, community needs and tricky decisions. However inconvenient, there’s no definitive list of topics and issues that everyone should work through. That said, we're seeing a number of themes that keep coming up in our conversations with charities and social enterprises. So here are some key topics to have on your radar - you'll be able to decide how much each one applies to you…  1. Staff burnoutYour team may now have spent nearly two years battling through rising community need, pressure to stay financially afloat, and uncertainty around where and how they do their jobs, combined with personal concerns about health, job security and the impact of multiple lockdowns on mental health. Few people are feeling energetic or clear-headed, and the festive break (if we get a proper one) won’t be a complete reset. Any strategy that doesn’t acknowledge or address this risks falling flat, no matter how good the rest of your decisions. Talk to your team about how they're genuinely feeling, and what they need to have in place to do their jobs to the best of their ability in 2022 - which could mean more support, flexibility or encouragement than they previously needed. That might have an unexpected budget implication, but leaving people to just muddle on through could cost you more in the long run. 2. Hybrid delivery and digital exclusionShould we go back to running meetings and services in person, or keep them online? This was already a dilemma, even before the Omicron curveball. During the initial lockdowns, many organisations realised they could reach new people and deliver services more cheaply online. On paper, this seemed like a surprising positive from the pandemic, but there’s been rising concern about digital exclusion - who are we inadvertently leaving behind, and does digital delivery exacerbate inequalities? And there’s the added complication of how - and whether - to cater for everyone when some people want to be in a room with you and others want to participate remotely. These are key strategic challenges to wrestle with. Check out our original blog on digital exclusion from early 2021, our guide to running engaging and accessible strategy workshops online, and Zoe Amar’s excellent tips on making the right decisions about hybrid working.  What will your meetings and workshops look like in future? How can you get everyone together if they're not in the same place? 3. Building long-term relationships with fundersFor me, one highlight of the past two years has been seeing funders engage more meaningfully and collaboratively with charities. This started with the collective commitment to flexible funding and reporting early in the pandemic, but has continued as many funders have acknowledged that grassroots community organisations are best placed to be their eyes and ears on the ground in a rapidly-changing landscape. But too many organisations are missing opportunities to build meaningful, mutually beneficial relationships with funders. Amid the pressure to bring in new grants and submit more applications, it’s too easy to neglect the positive impact of things like a well-written and honestly reflective grant report to an existing funder. And if we only value conversations with funders that are about immediate financial impact rather than learning and collaboration, we risk prioritising short-term target-hitting over long-term growth. While I get that organisations living hand-to-mouth will struggle to prioritise long-term relationship-building, if you have the breathing space to build this into your strategy, you'll soon see the benefits. Our recent blog on building relationships with invitation-only funders is a starter for ten here - we’ve had feedback from several funders that these are exactly the things they’re looking for. 4. Capitalising on that surge in public fundraising, donations and volunteeringWhile this felt particularly pressing back in spring/summer 2020, it’s not too late to bear in mind. The amazing community response to Covid-19 saw many people get a new taste for donating, fundraising or volunteering. Crucially, many actions were all about grassroots humanity - helping your neighbour with their shopping, or donating to the local foodbank. While big charities have household name brands, finely-tuned structures and economies of scale, grassroots organisations could promise immediate impact and a direct connection to those in need. Some charities have done an exceptional job of nurturing this - continuing to inspire, engage and connect new donors and volunteers through stories, events and further opportunities to make a difference. Treated right, these people have the potential to be their loyal regular givers, major donors and community fundraisers of the future. Have you benefitted from a surge of grassroots support during the pandemic? What have you done to keep that passion and humanity burning? And what can you still do to nurture and replicate it in future? 5. The way that people come together (or don't) is changingBeyond the physical lockdowns, the pandemic is having a long-term impact on how people behave, consume, congregate and interact. Offices have remained half-empty and high streets still feel eerily quiet. I was in central Bristol last Friday to buy my daughter’s first pair of shoes and most shops were deserted, two weeks before Christmas. This has massive implications, particularly for fundraising. ‘Old ways’ of doing things no longer feel fit for purpose, maybe permanently. What does it mean for corporate fundraising if most employees are never in an office together? How will your previous major donor tactics work if you rarely get to ‘work the room’? When we finally catch a longer break between variants, maybe some aspects of our pre-2020 life will gradually return. In the meantime, activity plans and budgets need to look very different. If you’re still spending more time designing printed materials than landing pages, or more money on branded stationery than search engine optimisation and social media advertising, you need to have a very good reason. Few of us can afford to wait until we can get people in a room together again before resuming our public fundraising.  How can you still fundraise effectively if boardrooms, high streets and event spaces are empty? 6. The source of your donations is more important than everNearly 18 months on from the toppling of the statue of Edward Colston - just two miles from my house - philanthropy and ethical fundraising remain hot topics. In the past few weeks, we’ve received more enquiries about ethical fundraising reviews than pretty much anything else.
Many organisations have woken up to the importance of understanding the source of their donations and grants. What created that wealth in the first place? Are people and companies using philanthropy to ‘buy a seat at the table’ and gain influence over things like equality, social mobility and climate change? If your organisation is complicit in that, is this an unfortunate necessity in a tough financial climate, or an unforgivable oversight? These are difficult questions with no easy or short-term answers, but if you’re working on a new strategy then it might be time to put them on the table. We’ve shared a few ideas and potential solutions in various talks and blogs recently – this slightly provocative piece is probably the best starting point. RUNNING A WORKSHOP ONLINE? HERE ARE SEVEN WAYS TO MAKE IT MORE ENGAGING AND ENJOYABLE FOR EVERYONE11/5/2021 The past 12 months have been quite the journey at Lime Green HQ. No surprises there. Like many others, we went into Spring 2020 believing that some things shouldn't be done online unless absolutely necessary. There was simply no way that an online workshop could replicate the experience of a having a bunch of energised people in the same room, armed with a whiteboard, colourful post-its and a plate of biscuits. Fast forward a year and we’ve run approaching 75 online training courses or strategic planning workshops during lockdown, totalling over 200 hours of screen time. We’ve found ways of replicating most of the best aspects of face-to-face workshops, though admittedly we’re yet to crack downloadable biscuits… Some people will inevitably have issues and preconceptions about online workshops. Digital exclusion is a key issue to keep in mind, and “Zoom fatigue” is now not only a common phrase but an academically-researched, peer-reviewed phenomenon. And too many people have lost too many hours to unproductive and chaotic strategic planning sessions for there ever to be universal enthusiasm. However, call us new-fashioned, but I don’t think we’ll ever go back to the previous approach of “face-to-face unless absolutely impossible”. We’ve had too much positive feedback about online workshops – for many people they’re simply more accessible, not to mention being cheaper and eliminating travel time. So, as we all stand on the cusp of returning to our offices and meeting rooms, what have we learned from a year of delivering strategy workshops online? And what should you be thinking about if you want to make an online session as productive and engaging as possible?  Plan shorter sessions with regular breaksThis may sound obvious by this point, but you can’t simply move a session online and hope for the best. We often used to run full-day face-to-face workshops, particularly when people had to travel to be there, but that’s more than anyone can handle online. Our online workshops almost always last no longer than three hours, with a decent break in the middle, plus shorter breaks throughout to avoid people staring at a screen for more than an hour. This still sounds like a lot of screen time, but we find that provided activities are carefully planned and varied (see below), people can and do want to engage for this long. Keep things moving and mix up the formatIt’s easy for sessions to descend into drawn-out, unstructured conversations – these are hard enough to stay engaged with in a room, let alone on Zoom or Google Meet. You can avoid this by regularly switching between activities and always focusing people on a specific task - this might be as simple as answering a focused question, filling in a table or coming up with three points on a particular topic. But always keep a good tempo, and avoid lingering for too long. Mixing up the format also helps to keep people focused – for example switching between breakout room tasks, polls and feedback sessions with a bigger group. We’ve recently seen great results from ‘paired walking tasks’ – where we encourage people to step away from their screen, go for a walk and phone a colleague to discuss a particular question. Invite people to 'park' ideasOf course, it can be hard to strike a balance between keeping people focused and avoiding cutting them off. People in our sector are passionate about the way things should be done, and often see these a strategy workshop as a rare opportunity to get their point across. In our face-to-face workshops, we often set up a ‘parking bay’: a piece of flipchart paper to note down any discussions we have to cut short, or issues that haven't been resolved. We invite everyone to come up and write down anything that matters to them, at any point – and we always capture any ‘parked ideas’ in our notes after. This makes it so much easier to move on and keep to time. In many ways, this is even easier online. You can ask people to use the chat box on Zoom or Google Meet to note anything they want to come back to later – which they can either do anonymously by sending a private message, or publicly for everyone’s benefit.  Having a space to 'park' ideas until later makes it easier to keep to time during a workshop Use tools like Miro to make things more playful and creativeA workshop isn’t a workshop without a whiteboard, coloured pens and your own weight in post-its. Capturing information visually is important for keeping people engaged - but typing notes in a document on a shared screen REALLY doesn’t cut it. We’re huge fans of Miro – a free virtual whiteboard tool that's the next best thing to a big wall and half a stationery shop. Miro allows you to capture the output from a session way more creatively and collaboratively - you can easily move post-its around, group ideas together, or invite everybody to add their own annotations. Set clear expectations about what will come out of the processOne thing I've found with shorter online workshops is that you inevitably make slower progress and need more patience. An initial session with a group of passionate people will literally fly by - fine if it's the first session on a busy agenda, but it can be more unsettling if that's all you've got time for that day or week. If you’re planning an online workshop or a series of sessions, always share a clear agenda (that you stick to) and a quick list of planned outcomes in advance. I often start a session by saying something like “This week is all about getting all your concerns and questions out in the open – then next week we’ll start working on answers”, which is a great way to build trust and understanding with people from the outset, and avoid unrealistic expectations.  Using an online whiteboard tool like Miro makes sessions way more creative and collaborative Remind people about settings that will make them more comfortable |
