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…

Expecting 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.

If 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.

A 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.

​I 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.

If 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.

​No 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.

March 2022 marked the end of an era, as the Small Charities Coalition (SCC) closed its doors for good. Hundreds of people listened to the voices and experiences of small charities by joining their final celebration event ‘The Power of Small’ or reading their ‘Small and Mighty’ follow-up report.

If you haven’t seen the report yet, it’s well worth a read. There are lots of interesting reflections on the value and future of small charity infrastructure support, as well as an announcement to bring relief to many: SCC’s free HelpDesk and Charity Set Up Tool will continue under the new joint stewardship of the NCVO and FSI.

The question of how the sector secures long-term funding for this type of vital infrastructure support, and how we can get people to value it, still looms large. I was really hoping the report would tackle this head-on, but it doesn’t really say anything new - that’s a disappointment, but a topic for another day.

The report outlines four Small Principles for those working with, funding and supporting small organisations. The first of these is ‘If you support or fund small charities, say so upfront.’ The context is that the small charities surveyed for the final report overwhelmingly said they trusted SCC because it was explicitly set up to support small charities, as well as being a small charity itself. While many organisations offer support and services to small charities as part of a much broader programme, this rarely inspires the same confidence.

This is a really important point, and on reflection something we at Lime Green need to say more clearly on our website and elsewhere. While we don’t work solely with small charities, they were the original reason why we started, and remain the main audience for our consultancy, training and resources.

So in response to Small Principle #1, this blog is about one thing: showing that we're here for small charities.

We could never, and don’t want to, replicate the broad suite of support and services offered by an organisation like SCC. There’s loads we don’t do, in which case we'll always signpost to others. But if you need something that we do provide, I hope you’ll feel able to come to us with confidence. Here’s why:

Our experience is small charity to the core. My entire time as a charity employee and trustee was with charities with a turnover below £1million. As a guide, in the past three years nearly three-quarters of our consultancy clients have been either registered charities or social enterprises below this turnover threshold, often significantly below it.

This small charity experience shapes how we work. I’ve personally felt that frustration when support is unintentionally alienating or irrelevant for small charities. You know, assumptions that you have a marketing budget, a ‘team’ of fundraisers, available reserves. Training that leaves you with plenty of ideas but no clue where or how to start implementing them. This frustration drives our approach - we always strive to be relevant and proportionate for small charities. It's great to get positive feedback about the quality of our work, but I’m equally proud that we’re seen as being friendly, flexible and kind - easy values and cliches to put on paper, but only meaningful when backed up by feedback.

We use expertise as a force for good. The knowledge and skills gained from working with a wide range of organisations can be a double-edged sword. Specialist expertise can solve problems, empower organisations and build confidence - but used incorrectly, it can overcomplicate things, demoralise people, and only serve to make the consultant look clever. We aim to do all of the former and none of the latter - in my experience, that's not as common in our sector as you'd think. While we do sometimes use specialist tools and frameworks (some designed ourselves, some borrowed from the business world), we’ll only do so if they genuinely solve a problem, and if we can explain to an organisation how to keep using them in-house. We strive to create practical content that make sense, and we’re vehemently anti-jargon - if you see us breaking these rules, please call us out!

We create free resources specifically for small charities. Too often, I feel like fundraisers and consultants operate in an echo chamber, endlessly recycling and debating issues that may be interesting but are ultimately irrelevant for small charities, who form the majority of the sector. While we do of course write and talk about topical issues, we do so with the explicit aim of demystifying them and being practically-minded:

• Our monthly blog is a conscious mix of practical how-to guides and passionate opinion pieces, for example on the importance of infrastructure support and kinder funder processes for small charities.
• Our podcast explores innovate ideas with the aim of making them actionable for small organisations with very limited time and budget.
• We've published a set of free fundraising helpsheets.

We train hundreds of grassroots organisations each year. We work with partners that focus on serving small organisations, including the School for Social Entrepreneurs and various CVSs (Councils for Voluntary Services). We were also an approved trainer for SCC up until their closure. Again, you’ll see that our training feedback reflects our small charity focus - I love that we’re seen as being warm, friendly and approachable, as making groups feel comfortable, structuring content clearly, and giving encouragement to people who are already doing things well.

Working with us costs less if you're a small charity. We offer a guaranteed discount of 10-20% (depending on the service) on our consultancy fees for small registered charities. The work we do with larger organisations helps to subsidise this, as well as generating new learning and resources that we can then use and share more widely.

Thanks to the Small and Mighty report for outlining their four Small Principles for future small charity support. I hope we can rise to the challenge and do our 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…

​Your 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.
​

​Should 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.
​

For 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.

While 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?

Beyond 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.

Nearly 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.

Have you ever found a funder that seems like the perfect fit, only to learn they don’t accept unsolicited applications?
 
If your work is niche or you’ve approached all the ‘obvious’ trusts and foundations already, then engaging a couple of these invitation-only funders can feel key to broadening your funding base. But there's an age-old question - how can we get on their radar, especially if they don’t even welcome initial enquiries?
 
Over time I’ve seen various organisations succeed in building thriving relationships with private, strategic funders. It isn’t quick or easy, but there are a few steps you can take.

Rightly or wrongly, there can be many reasons:

• They may feel it’s a better use of their limited resources to focus on supporting a select few grantees, rather than assessing applications from, and corresponding with, many prospective applicants.
• They may want to avoid being inundated by applications, particularly if they previously had a more open approach and received lots of poor quality or irrelevant applications.
• If they’re operating in a niche sector, they may feel they already have all the expertise and connections they need to proactively identify organisations themselves.
• They may want to be very discreet or private about their grantgiving, for example if the funds are coming from a high-profile individual or sensitive source. 
• They may be extremely restricted in what they can actually fund, for example if they’re following a very specific set of wishes or instructions from their settlor.
• They may want to help charities avoid wasting time and money, knowing this can often happen as a result of vague or poorly-designed application processes (well, I can hope!)

​If a funder relies on their expertise or networks to identify potential grantees, then a recommendation from the right person could make all the difference. For example, your existing funders or project partners will already be engaged and invested in your work – perhaps they know someone working for an invitation-only funder and would be willing to introduce you?
 
Do your research and don’t be afraid to ask nicely for an introduction, explaining why it’s strategically important to you – you might by how willing people are to help.

We’ve run countless network mapping exercises with Boards. The conversation often starts the same way: “None of our trustees know anyone / are willing to help.” But it’s amazing how quickly things can change if you explain that (1) you’re not looking for introductions for rich and famous people, just prominent people in your sector; and (2) you don’t expect Board members to open their address books willy-nilly and start asking for money, but simply make a couple of strategic introductions.
 
Trustees will know more people than you (and they) think. I’ve seen organisations build on such tenuous links as “I worked with them 10 years ago”, “I play badminton with them on Tuesday night” and “Our kids go to the same school”.
 
Try running a network mapping exercise with your trustees, or circulating a list of staff working at a target invitation-only funder to check for connections. And if your trustees really aren’t well-connected, this doesn’t have to always be the case. Explore why – does your organisation focus on recruiting trustees with particular skills and backgrounds in a way that prevents people with better connections from applying? Could you persuade your Board to set a strategic objective to recruit new trustees with funder connections over the next 1-2 years?

Tired old introductory letters and emails are far from the only ways of making first contact. Trusts and foundations can and do interact openly on social media, attend funder fairs, speak at events or collaborate on things like research, policy or advocacy work.
 
Jumping straight into a direct approach about money often goes nowhere. Instead, do your research into where/how funders are actively engaging (e.g. social media platforms or events), find a topic that could be mutually beneficial to you both, then start a conversation accordingly.

I once met an organisation that was told by a funder that “everyone we speak to mentions you, so we thought we should find out what you’re about.” In their own words, they created so much “white noise” around a funder that they eventually couldn’t resist getting in touch.

Organisations that successfully build relationships with invitation-only funders often have one thing in common – they’re thought leaders. They might be known for their high-profile CEO, engaging blog, or policy work.

The term “thought leadership” sounds daunting, but you absolutely don’t need to be a large organisation with a big comms budget. If you work in a niche area, you’ll already be an expert in your field, with people coming to for advice. Sharpening your public expert voice takes time, but is a great way to get on a funder’s radar, and will bring many benefits beyond fundraising.

While some invitation-only funders simply continue to fund the same organisations every year, many do proactively research new grantees. So if a funder did a niche online search for your specialist area today, would they find you? And if they landed on your website right now, what would they think?

There are a few fundamental things you need to be visible and appealing to potential funders:

• A clear and accessible website that articulates what you do and why, backed up by things like testimonials and case studies
• An easy option for people to contact you and/or find out more
• Some work on search engine optimisation, to ensure that key search terms related to your cause lead potential funders to your website, not those of others doing similar work.

These final tips might seem the least relevant to trusts fundraising, but they definitely an indirect role in getting you in front of invitation-only funders over time.

Amid the many challenges we’re facing as a sector, one difficulty that predates the pandemic is recruiting the right fundraiser.
 
Put simply, there are a lot of organisations out there looking for talented fundraisers, and not enough of them to go around. We've worked with countless small to medium charities who have had to go through multiple recruitment rounds, each time tweaking the job description and bumping up the salary in the hope that it'll make the difference.
 
While they may get there in the end, they often don’t find the perfect candidate and/or they end up overpaying, and there’s certainly an opportunity cost associated with the months lost to a drawn-out process.
 
There’s been plenty of reflection around this fundraising recruitment crisis, with fingers pointed at vague job descriptions, unimaginative person specifications and unrealistic expectations - and the broader, existential issue of whether enough people value and understand the charity sector and fundraising profession.
 
I’m not a recruiter, but I’ve been around enough charities in this position to understand many of the common problems, and know a few things you can do if you’re struggling to find the right fundraiser:

A common assumption with fundraising recruitment, especially if you're new to it, is that you're the one running the audition. You might expect to welcome a conga line of candidates through your door, and give each one a thorough grilling to decide if they’re right for you.
 
But in a market of few great fundraisers, it's very much a two-way process. Talented candidates know they have plenty of opportunities to choose from, and won’t necessarily rush to jump into a new role. They’ll want to put you under the microscope too, to understand the requirements and expectations of the job, and evaluate whether you can offer them the right environment to succeed.
 
Rewiring your brain to this reality will help you recruit more successfully. In your advert, candidate pack and interview process, you need to give a flavour of your organisation’s approach to fundraising. For example, how does your organisation work with and support a fundraiser to make sure they have all the information and tools they need? Is your Board engaged in fundraising, and what does their involvement look like? How have you arrived at any targets you've mentioned?
 
Allow plenty of scope for the fundraiser to ask you detailed questions. It’s absolutely their right to challenge you too, and it’s a positive sign if they are clear and even a bit demanding about what they need and expect in order to succeed.

​Organisations looking to make their first significant investment in fundraising naturally target the perfect all-rounder - someone who can both create and execute a knock-out fundraising strategy. But there are numerous problems with this approach.
 
Firstly, you’re looking for very different skillsets – there are experts in strategic planning and analysis, and experts at doing hands-on fundraising, but far fewer that excel at both. By trying to cover all bases, you risk narrowing the field and compromising in a key area.
 
Secondly, if you haven’t analysed your organisation’s current position and best income opportunities, how do you know what type of person you’re looking for? Do you need an events expert with a bit of individual giving experience? Or is it more important to find someone who feels comfortable asking for major gifts face-to-face from wealthy individuals and in corporate pitches?

Without a strategy, you often end up writing a vague job description and unrealistic person specification that require a bit of everything. Even worse, there may be a vague fundraising target attached to it that you've never tested, to determine whether it's realistic.
 
You might think that “this sort of challenge will appeal to the right candidate” but in my experience it’s very off-putting. Successful fundraisers will smell the lack of clarity a mile off. Why would they pack in their current job and take a punt on a new role where, two months in, they might realise they’re not actually the right person for that organisation, or that the job isn't right for them?
 
If you’re struggling to recruit a fundraiser, or have a limited budget to play with, creating your fundraising strategy first is potentially the most cost-effective approach. Invest a bit of money now in strategic consultancy support or an interim Fundraising Lead, get all your ducks in a row, then recruit the permanent fundraiser. By taking time to clarify your requirements, you’ll not only increase your chances of finding the right person, you might avoid having to throw so much money at a candidate too.

​Most person specifications narrow the field far more than you realise, particularly after a pandemic that’s led many of us to reimagine how and where we want to work.
 
Before recruiting, ask yourself some questions. Do we really need to insist on (or even say that we prefer) candidates having a university degree? Is five years’ experience in a particular fundraising area really necessary? Are there transferrable skills from other sectors that we could look for instead? And while you're there, think twice about whether you really need somebody to be office-based and work five days per week.
 
#nongraduateswelcome have done phenomenal work to highlight recruitment requirements that are not only unhelpful but, worse, discriminatory and against the values that the organisation supposedly stands for.
 
Often, charities are seemingly on autopilot, including these requirements simply because everyone else is. Building your person specification from the bottom up – based on what you actually need, rather than what you think ought to be there – is not only the right thing to do, but makes it more likely you’ll find the right fundraiser for you.

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?

This 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.

It’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.

Of 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.

A 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.

One 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.

When you think about it, using Zoom isn’t really like meeting people face-to-face at all. It’s unnatural and intense to have everybody staring at you the whole time, all while looking at a mirror image of your own face.
 
Fortunately, platforms like Zoom give you plenty of options to dial down the intensity, for example hiding your own video, only viewing the person who is actually speaking, or turning your camera off for a break. Resizing the screen so people's heads are closer to the size they'd appear across a table, rather than taking up most of your vision, also really helps. Simply showing people how to use these options – and encouraging them to use them if they need a break - instantly makes it easier and more comfortable to participate online.

Shameless plug here, but I love seeing how much more people get out of sessions when they don’t have to worry about taking notes themselves, keeping to time or reminding people when to shut up.

Often, before we run a workshop with an organisation, they’re concerned about how much they’ll get out of it, or whether one person will dominate. But with the right planning and a few ground rules, it's almost always much more enjoyable and productive than they expected.
 
If you’re struggling to get people to engage positively or keep to time - or even if you just want to be able to dive in fully as a participant yourself - an independent facilitator is usually well worth it, whether you’re meeting online or face-to-face.

​Back in June, in response to the toppling of the statue of Edward Colston in Bristol and the Black Lives Matter movement, I shared some reflections on the issues facing philanthropy.
 
My argument in a nutshell was this: philanthropy is inextricably tied with extreme wealth, and most of that wealth is derived from activities that increase inequality. Philanthropy gives a particular audience – wealthy, privileged, mostly white, usually male – disproportionate influence over the sector’s work and policies, and an opportunity to implement a vision of social change that is likely very different from your own. This process is inadvertently endorsed every day by fundraisers and charities – so while Edward Colston is an extreme and high-profile case, there are other examples everywhere.
 
I’m delighted that this blog sparked plenty of debate and discussion, but I’m conscious it offered little by way of solutions. The truth is, it’s very difficult for most fundraisers to take action, especially if their organisation isn’t geared up to question philanthropy.
 
Several people rightly asked for some thoughts on what organisations can actually do differently, rather than just why it’s important. This is where things get trickier, and more controversial, but here are my views…

​Let’s deal with the elephant in the room. It’s all very well not wanting to accept certain donations - but in the current climate, for many, it’s not unreasonable to think that turning away a big gift could lead to service closures or staff redundancies.
 
I can’t pretend there’s a quick or easy answer to this. But we’ve previously shared various thoughts about diversifying your income, which will inevitably reduce your reliance on a single funder, donor or income stream, and make it easier to stick to your principles.
 
This 2018 blog explores how to build a business case to persuade your organisation to invest in developing a more diverse fundraising portfolio. And in this podcast, I interview Fran Ferris-Ockwell, former CEO of a Sheffield housing charity, on how she guided them through a process to reduce their reliance on contract income, with huge improvements to their independence and organisational culture.
 
Most organisations won’t be able to reduce their dependence on funders and major donors overnight, but these steps are a key starting point – particularly if you're brave enough to set an explicit long-term strategic objective to become less dependent on grants and major gifts over several years.

​We previously shared six guiding principles about creating an ethical policy. While it might be tempting to find a policy template online and quickly adapt it, the most important part of this exercise is having an honest and meaningful conversation with your management team and trustees. You should develop guidelines that feel appropriate for your organisation, mission and service users. Don’t expect this to be an easy exercise, or for everyone to immediately agree, as you’re dealing with a complex issue.

Be aware that enforcing your policy to the letter might lead to both accepting or rejecting donations in controversial circumstances later. This could conceivably lead to negative press coverage, complaints from supporters, disagreements with staff and trustees, or having to close a service. You need to fully anticipate and ‘test’ the potential consequences of your policy, so you can confidently justify decisions later.

​After publishing our original blog in June, I was contacted by several fundraisers sharing experiences where they felt uncomfortable about the ethical implications of a donation or a donor’s behaviour, but felt unable to act. For example:

​Your ‘front line’ fundraisers are likely to be younger, less experienced and less influential than your donor prospects, management and trustees. They may well be working under pressure, knowing that failing to hit financial targets could well harm the organisation’s financial health, staff livelihoods and service users. So even if a fundraiser feels uncomfortable about something, voicing this might feel daunting and detrimental to their career.
 
Solving this actually goes beyond having an ethical fundraising policy, particularly one that sits in a drawer gathering dust. Your senior management and trustees need to lead by example by openly talking about the ethical issues with philanthropy, and creating opportunities for fundraisers to raise concerns and ask questions without fearing a backlash.
 
Something else to consider: is your approach to setting fundraising targets and KPIs creating an environment where fundraisers feel pressured to stay silent and bring in donations at all costs? Unrealistic targets - particularly those based purely on the cost of your projects rather than sector benchmark data, are another potential barrier to thoughtful and ethical fundraising.

This feels controversial - when I suggested this on Twitter, I was met with some incredulous responses.
 
#donorlove is a popular term to describe a donor-centric approach to fundraising that focuses on making donors feel loved, valued and appreciated, to encourage and retain their support. This isn’t totally without merit - many organisations don’t do this, and miss out on donations as a result. I’ve previously shared my own experiences as a donor and why charities should get better at saying thank you.
 
But too often, #donorlove crosses into advocating putting the donor’s wishes and the importance of building a relationship with them above other concerns. I’ve seen high-profile consultants advise charities to structure annual reports entirely around recognising the contributions and achievements of the donor, even if their service users fade into the background as a result.

I think you can make a case for ​#donorlove being incompatible with the need to re-examine philanthropy in response to recent events - and an inadvertent endorsement of hypocritical philanthropy, the problematic influence of wealthy donors and the white saviour complex. When fundraisers are faced with the pressure of a financial crisis, silence from their senior leadership, and influential fundraisers’ unswerving commitment to #donorlove, is it really any surprise that they feel unable to do things differently?
 
I doubt that #donorlove is going anywhere fast - too many high-profile fundraisers and consultants have structured their livelihoods around the concept - but perhaps we need to start taking the first steps.

​Philanthropy is commonly considered an unselfish, freely-taken individual act that increases equality and is open to everyone. Cast in this light, what right do we have to challenge where that money comes from, or how it is used?
 
Unfortunately, this view of philanthropy is false.
 
In his book “Just Giving: Why Philanthropy Is Failing Democracy and How It Can Do Better”, Rob Reich examines the philanthropic landscape in the US and reaches two uncomfortable conclusions. Firstly, less than a third of charitable giving actually benefits low-income people. Secondly, the US tax system is massively skewed towards rewarding and incentivising the wealthiest donors: if you earn under $153,100 per year then a $100 donation costs you $100, whereas it can cost a higher earner as little as $60.
 
Admittedly the UK landscape is somewhat different, not least because we have a Gift Aid scheme rather than just tax breaks for the donor. But essentially, the same problem exists globally: the tax system greatly subsidises charitable giving and enables richer people to donate money at less personal cost. This actually takes money out of the public purse and redirects it towards causes favoured by the rich and powerful, which rarely benefit low-income people. Philanthropy therefore can actually harm rather than help equality.

Reframing philanthropy in this way completely changes our right and obligation to challenge it. For example, how much influence and recognition should a wealthy donor enjoy for their supposedly ‘selfless’ gift? Should we permit a family trust to be opaque about where its money comes from, and how it decides which causes to support? Why can’t we create and enforce a new code of ethics and transparency, and remove the huge tax breaks for funders and donors who won’t play ball?
 
In barely 100 years, we’ve gone from elite-level philanthropy being met with suspicion and fierce criticism - Rob Reich documents the angry response to John Rockefeller’s early attempts to establish his charitable foundation in the US in the early 1900s - to today’s almost unquestioning endorsement of philanthropy and #donorlove.
 
In keeping with the positive response to the toppling of Edward Colston’s statue and the Black Lives Matter movement, I think we urgently need to start nudging back in the other direction.

​We work with many charities and social enterprises who are trying to get new fundraising income streams up and running and/or are tight on unrestricted funds. Perhaps it’s not a surprise that we sometimes get asked if we’d consider working on a commission or performance-related pay basis.

I can see why, at first glance, this might appeal to organisations that have limited cash available to resource fundraising, or feel nervous about committing to expenditure without a guaranteed return. Investing in fundraising often feels like a Catch-22 situation, particularly when you’re prompted to do it because other funding sources have dried up.

However, there are many reasons why payment by commission is actually harmful to you. The simplest answer is that the Institute of Fundraising discourages both fundraisers and charities from taking this approach, however this in itself doesn’t explain the challenges and issues that can arise as a result.

Here’s why we don’t undertake any fundraising work on a commission basis, and why you should think twice about doing so:

In fundraising you inevitably hear ‘no’ more often than ‘yes’, so a fundraiser working on a results basis would have to set a fairly high commission percentage to make it work. Imagine how a funder or donor would feel knowing that the first x% of their donation is going straight into somebody else’s pocket – particularly if they’re donating a large amount, and particularly at a time when there’s so much focus on how donations are used and what percentage is spent on overheads etc. Payment by commission can lead to you excessively rewarding a fundraiser, and is very likely to cost you donations.

Fundraising is already a delicate balancing act between the financial needs of the organisation, the wishes of the donor and any ethical considerations. Now factor in a fundraiser who feels desperate to secure that donation, otherwise they won’t get paid. Sometimes we all have to walk away from potential donations, for example if the donor seems vulnerable and unsure about giving, or if the organisation may be compromised in some way by accepting. Paying a fundraiser on a commission basis makes it less likely they’ll make that difficult decision to say no when you need them to.