ask direct

We’re hiring: Account Manager and Account Executive

damian — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 14:56:17 +0000

We’re looking for two brilliant fundraisers.

The first is an an experienced direct marketer / fundraiser to cover the maternity leave of one of our Account Managers. If you have 3 years experience and a proven expertise in direct marketing we’d love to hear from you.

The second person we’re looking for is an Account Executive. If you have at least one year’s experience in a fundraising, marketing or print production role and are keen to build a career in direct marketing fundraising, this is the job for you!

For job descriptions, person specifications and details on how to apply, click here.

Closing dates for applications are 5 April (Account Executive) and 12 April (Account Manager).

Putting your donor in the picture

damian — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 17:04:29 +0000

One of the most important lessons in fundraising is to recognise that your communications should be primarily about the donor, not about the organisation. Good fundraisers have know this for years. The essence of effective fundraising is about showing the donor (or prospective donor) how they can change the world, and how your organisation can facilitate them to do this. And the more inspiring and emotional you can be in doing this, the better.

In traditional media, the only way to achieve this was to talk to the donor. Address them directly and build the proposition around what they could do, rather than about what the charity could do.

With database driven direct mail, you can do all of this, and weave in historical, transactional and other data that you’ve built up about the donor.

This direct mail piece for Cork Simon Community, for instance, references and thanks donors for their previous giving, positions the donor as the solution to the problem AND uses the words ‘you’ or ‘your’ 14 times on the first page.

What has been simply considered good fundraising for the last god knows how many years also happens to coincide with what neuromarketing is suggesting about how our brains work and how we respond to messages. ‘Self-centred‘ is one of the six stimuli that appeal to the ‘Old Brain’ (for more on this, have a look at this post on SOFII or this presentation on slideshare).

And now, new technologies and new media are allowing us to personalise like never before. These two posts on the neuromarketing blog give you some idea of the ways marketers are really ramping up personalised advertising.

Putting your customer in the ad
Putting your customer on the product

Which in a roundabout way, brings me to our latest campaign for Belong To, a really cool organisation that supports lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender young people. One of their big campaigns is Stand Up! which tackles homophobic bullying. When they asked us to produce an online video fundraising campaign, we felt that the best way to really engage the viewer was by, literally, putting them in the video. The video is shot form the viewers POV and uses facebook connect to personalise it from the off, pulling in the viewers, name, photo, friends and even the name of their school.

It also does some clever things with text messages (which you’ll only be able to experience if you’ve an Irish mobile number). I won’t spoil the surprise, but if you can, do try it out.

Click here, or on the image above to see the campaign.

I hope you like it.

Fundraising Ireland Conference: DM Masterclass, In Mem Workshop, and Bursaries.

damian — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 14:38:38 +0000

A couple of things to mention about the upcoming Fundraising Ireland National Conference in the Convention Centre on 20/21 March.

Direct Mail Laboratory
I’m giving a Direct Mail Laboratory Masterclass along with Aline Reed, Head of Creative at Bluefrog, on 20 March. This isn’t a sit-around-and-listen-to-speakers-waffle-on-for-hours kind of masterclass. It’ll be hard work, it’ll be interactive and you’ll end up constructing your own direct mail appeal by the end of it. Advance booking is essential and places are filling up fast – so book early if you want to come along.

Who’s Afraid of In Memory Donors
I’m also doing a workshop on In Memory giving on 21 March. I don’t think you need to book in advance for that.

Attend the Conference for Free
Ask Direct are sponsoring 5 bursaries for organisations with incomes of less than €100,000. To apply (deadline 9 March) click here.

Hope to see you at the conference.

Seeing what the donor sees. (It’s not always pretty)

damian — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 11:03:40 +0000

I actually get a thrill when I see good fundraising in action.

A handwritten note on a thank you letter to a donor who’s just made a gift in memory of a loved one. A clever and compelling appeal that just stands out from the crowd. Or simply a perfectly crafted, beautifully written thank you letter.

Such are the joys when you mystery-shop charities. You get to see what the donor sees. Experience something of what the donor feels. And sometimes your heart does lift.

But sadly, to find these gems, you have to plough through acres of unremarkable stuff.

And that’s what I’ve spent the last few days doing.

All year, in tandem with Bluefrog, Ask Direct has been mystery shopping the top charities in Ireland, the UK, Canada, the US, Australia and New Zealand. Our moles have been quietly making gifts and watching what comes back.

Some of it ain’t pretty.

It’s not that all of what we’ve seen is really awful (although some of it certainly is). It’s just that so much comes across as deeply impersonal, offhand and uninterested in the donor.

And if we’re going to build better, longer-lasting relationships with expensively acquired donors we need to do better than that.

Let me give you a couple of snippets.

You’d agree, I hope, that if someone made a gift in lieu of flowers that that the charity should offer condolences when they reply? Don’t hold your breath. There’s a very good chance that won’t happen.

I’ve banged on before about how rude it is when charities fail to thank donors for gifts. And still, some of our largest and best resourced charities can’t get this right. It’s bad enough when you don’t get thanked for an ‘ordinary’ donation, but when you don’t get a thank you for a gift in lieu of flowers, that’s really bad.

Enough of the horror stories.

What I’ve found most interesting about mystery shopping is that you really do get to see organisations from the outside in. And when you work for a charity (or agency) I think it’s very easy to neglect to look at your fundraising from that perspective.

But when you do, suddenly you see all the flaws. The long waits for thank you letters. The even longer waits before the charity you’ve just donated to contacts you again. The inappropriate personalisations. The even more inappropriate generalisations.

And the moments of brilliance that make you go wow.

Like this. This is how to start a thank you letter (from Starship Foundation in New Zealand)

When people ask me what difference a donation can make, I reply that donations to Starship transform lives. Parents have told me with tears in their eyes what it means to know their child is receiving the best possible care at Starship.

And behind every one of these children there are compassionate people like you dedicated to helping. Thank you.

That’s how you do it.

I’ll be presenting some of the findings from our mystery shopping research with Mark Phillips from Bluefrog at the IoF London Conference on 23 November. And there’ll be a Dublin presentation on the mystery shopping in early 2012.

A quick (and overdue) roundup

damian — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 11:52:08 +0000

I’ve had a few articles and presentations in various places over the last couple of months that I thought would be useful to round-up into the one place.

I’ll start with a couple of blog posts which I wrote for SOFII

First of all there’s my Checklist for Supercharging Your Fundraising.

Here’s a taster:

Checklists are great. They can make onerous tasks more manageable. And in a busy agency or fundraising department they can be a lifeline to ensure that work is done properly and to the highest standard.

So today I thought I’d share with you two of the checklists we use at Ask Direct to ensure that the campaigns we produce are as effective and compelling as possible.

And then, there’s this one from last May, How to Be a Fundraising Hedgehog. I think I’ll just let you go and read that one yourself…

I’ve also been busy with presentations, here in Ireland, and also in Scotland and Norway.

Here’s two that you might find useful. Donor Care and Thank You Magic, from the Norwegian Fundraising Conference in September:

Donor Care & Thank You Magic

View more presentations from Damian O’Broin

And the slides from my recent Direct Marketing Masterclass (I’ve delivered this in Edinburgh and Dublin. These are the slides from Dublin. If you’re interested in the Scottish one, you’ll find them on my slideshare account.

Direct Marketing Masterclass – Dublin

View more presentations from Damian O’Broin

Direct Marketing Masterclass

john — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 10:12:35 +0000

Are you a fundraiser who wants to create powerful campaigns that really deliver?

If so, you might be interested in a full-day direct marketing masterclass we’re running on 30 September. The hands-on masterclass will draw on examples of best practice, along with learning from psychology and neuroscience, to show you how to craft persuasive messages and compelling direct response copy. It will also explore the importance of donor care and how putting donors at the heart of the process can save you a fortune.

The course is intended for direct marketing managers, fundraising managers and directors who want to sharpen their skills and raise more money by using the latest thinking and practices in direct marketing fundraising.

The course will be delivered by Ask Direct’s Damian O’Broin on Friday 30 September from 9.15am – 5pm in The Morgan Hotel in Dublin’s Temple Bar.

Book online before 17 September and receive a €20 early booking discount – only €145 (normal price €165) including lunch and refreshments.

You can book your place now and pay securely online here.

Places are strictly limited and can only be secured once payment is made in full. We cannot refund cancellations, however you can transfer a booking to a colleague at no extra cost.

Trainer
Damian O’Broin, Ask Direct

The course will be lead by Ask Direct’s Damian O’Broin. Internationally recognised as a leading expert on non-profit communications and fundraising, Damian is the director of Ask Direct, Ireland’s leading individual giving specialists.

He believes that convincing lots of ordinary people to support your cause is vital if you want to achieve your goals and build a sustainable organisation in the process.

Damian is a member of the Institute of Direct Marketing, and the Institute of Fundraising, and currently sits on the board of Friends of the Earth Ireland. He’s a regular speaker at conferences, both in Ireland and overseas, tweets extensively and contributes to the SOFII blog as well as writing his own blog at askdirect.ie

What previous attendees said about the Direct Marketing Masterclass

Damian O’Broin’s Masterclass was a light-bulb moment for me. Damian possesses an encyclopedic knowledge, engaging personality and a no nonsense approach to producing compelling copy. My fundraising literature has improved no end thanks to Damian.”

Stuart Glen, Fundraising Manager, Kilbryde Hospice

What people said about our last event – Kickstart 2011

“Excellent overall and very inspiring. Would certainly attend the next session”

“Great kickstart to the new year! Nice space for ideas generation and motivation”

“Brilliant afternoon. I have learned so much… more, more, more”

Free event: Irish Fundraisers Tweetup

john — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 14:13:22 +0000

The second Irish Fundraisers Tweetup will take place on Thursday 25 August in the Morrison Hotel, Dublin.

Sponsored by Spark Marketing and Ask Direct, this is an opportunity for fundraisers, campaigners and others in the charity and not for profit sector to come together and share ideas about the role social media – such as twitter and facebook – can play in our work.

Attendees are encouraged to share their experiences in using social media on recent nonprofit fundraising or campaigning projects.

The Tweetup will also focus on how organisations are using mobile technologies for supporter engagement, campaigning and fundraising.

The event is free, but places are limited and registration is required. You can book your place here.

Ask Direct campaigns for Women’s Aid and Cork Simon win at An Post DM Awards

damian — Mon, 09 May 2011 13:12:33 +0000

Ask Direct picked up four awards at the 2011 An Post DM Awards last Thursday.

Our ‘Joanna’ door drop campaign for Women’s Aid won two Golds – for Best Acquisition and Best Copywriting. While our ‘Soup Run’ appeal for Cork Simon won a Bronze for Best Charity Campaign and a Silver for Best Direct Mail (High Volume).

Congratulations to everyone at Cork Simon and Women’s Aid on their success.

Sometimes my biggest fundraising influences aren’t even fundraisers.

damian — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 21:47:48 +0000

There’s been a bit of a buzz on the blogs and twitter over the last few weeks about Fundraising magazine’s annual Most Influential in Fundraising poll. While it is often derided as an exercise in ego, it does – or at least, could – serve as a useful collection of people to follow, read and learn from.

It’s worth reading the posts Mark Phillips, Kevin Baughen and Marc Pitman have written on the subject. They’ve engaged seriously with the subject and have each included lists of the people who have influenced them, and why. It’s a great collection of sources of information and inspiration on fundraising.

(Full disclosure: Mark Phillips very kindly mentioned me in his list, and I’ll be mentioning him below. But this isn’t an exercise in mutual back-slapping. Mark is genuinely one of the most important thinkers and practitioners in fundraising at the moment.)

There’s plenty of fundraisers who’ve influenced, and continue to influence my work. People like Mark Phillips, Aline Reed, Amanda Santer, Jonathon Grapsas, Kevin Kibble, Jeff Brooks, Sean Triner, Ken Burnett and Bernard Ross are constant reference points for my work and great sources of ideas and inspiration.

However, when I got to thinking about it, I noticed that a lot of the influences on my work don’t come from the fundraising world at all. And they’re the ones I thought it would be useful to talk about today. So here’s my list of the top 10 non-fundraising influencers on my fundraising work…

1. Chip and Dan Heath
With their column for Fast Company and their brilliant books, Made to Stick and Switch, the Heath Brothers show how to create messages that convince, persuade and change minds and behaviour. There work is full on non-profit examples as well. They are a phenomenal resource for anyone trying to create change and motivate action. Check them out here.

2. Jim Collins
I’m re-reading Collins’ book Good to Great. It is probably the single best business book I’ve read. And it’s message of how to create sustained brilliance in an organisation should be required reading for anyone trying to build a great fundraising organisation. Jim can be found here.

3. Colin Wheildon
Colin’s book Type and Layout should be on every fundraiser’s, copywriter’s and designer’s desk. It is a manifesto for typography and design that can be read and understood. And it’s backed up with research. Read it and you’ll never set type in a sans face over a tinted photograph again.

4. Roger Dooley
Roger writes the Neuromarketing blog, a fantastic resource about developments in brain science and it’s application to marketing. Really useful stuff for fundraisers.

5. Gary Vaynerchuk
Gary is a wine retailer and entrepreneur. And author of The Thank You Economy, a brilliant little book about putting customer care at the heart of what we do, and how social media has transformed how this can be done. Tons of applications for anyone interested in donor care. He tweets here.

6. Larry Hochman
The writer of another book in the broad area of customer care, Hochman’s The Relationship Revolution argues that the one thing that can’t be replicated or improved on by your competitors, is the relationships you have with your customers. Again, hugely transferable to the nonprofit sector and the field of donor care and retention.

7. Jeremy Dean
Another great blog, Jeremy Dean’s PsyBlog is a fantastic resource for research on psychology, written in layperson’s language. It regularly features incredibly useful articles on the role of psychology in marketing and communications.

8. Drew Westen
Sticking with the psychology theme, Drew Westen’s phenomenal book, The Political Brain is required reading for anyone who needs to persuade, change minds or win support. Although it’s written about political campaigning, and US political campaigning in particular, it has lots to teach fundraisers and campaigners.

9. Peter Singer
Singer is an ethicist. His book The Life You Can Save is a stirring call to action to save the lives of the poorest of the poor. He starts by asking, if you passed a pond and saw a young girl struggling to stay afloat, would you wade in the save her, even if it meant ruining your expensive shoes? Of course you would. Well, he goes on, what about a young girl in Africa, dying from poverty? What would you do to save her? This should be compulsory reading for everybody. Click here to calculate how much you should be giving to end poverty.
(Thanks to Sean Triner for alerting me to Peter Singer)

10. Nancy Duarte
I came across Nancy after a post that Mark Phillips wrote last year. If you want to learn how to tell great stories, and deliver great presentations, then you need to check Nancy Duarte out.

Those are my thoughts. You can vote for the people who’ve influenced you here.

Irish charities by voluntary income

damian — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 09:44:26 +0000

There’s a huge lack of information available about the Irish nonprofit sector, so when I wanted to get a list of top Irish charities by voluntary income, I reckoned I’d have to do it myself. I spent and hour or two yesterday searching websites and annual reports for figures and here’s what I came up with. I’m sure I’ve missed some obvious ones, and some charities have no financial information available on their websites, make it impossible to find or don’t break out their income streams properly in their annual reports (you know who you are!).

As well as that, the most recent information varies dramatically. Some charities have 2010 reports published already. Others are still reporting 2009, 2008 or even 2007.

As a result, this is very rough. But that’s fine. It’s just meant to be a reckoner.

But I’d like your help in trying to refine the list. If you can spit any errors, or if you have more recent data, please post it in the comments below. In some cases I may not have calculated voluntary income correctly (I blame the reporting in the financial statements!). And of course, If you can add data for any other Irish charity, with voluntary income in excess of €2,000,000 please do so.

For the purposes of the comparison, I’m defining voluntary income as all income excluding Statutory income or EU grants. I’ve included retail income, mainly because it’s difficult to separate out.

Thanks for your help.

1. Concern………………………………€44,000,000
2. St Vincent de Paul…………………€40,000,000
3. Trócaire………………………………€28,500,000
4. Irish Cancer Society……………….€11,800,000
5. Enable Ireland………………………..€9,100,000
6. Barnardos……………………………..€8,500,000
7. Bothar………………………………….€8,400,000
8. Goal…………………………………….€6,700,000
9. Oxfam Ireland……………………….€5,900,000
10. NCBI…………………………………..€5,600,000
11. World Vision Ireland………………€5,500,000
12. Irish Heart Foundation…………..€5,400,000
13. Focus Ireland……………………….€5,300,000
14. Unicef…………………………………€5,100,000
15. Out Lady’s Hopsice……………….€4,900,000
16. Sightsavers………………………….€4,800,000
17. Barretstown…………………………€4,500,000
18. ISPCC………………………………….€4,500,000
19. Special Olympics Ireland………..€3,900,000
20. Irish Guide Dogs for the Blind..€3,400,000
21. Irish Red Cross…………………….€3,300,000
22. Irish Hospice Foundation……….€3,300,000
23. Alzheimer Society…………………€3,100,000
24. Simon Communities of Ireland..€2,700,000
25. Plan Ireland…………………………€2,700,000
26. Action Aid…………………………..€2,500,000
27. Fighting Blindness………………..€2,500,000

Are you a brilliant fundraiser? Would you like to work with us?

damian — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 16:02:25 +0000

We’re hiring again.

We’re delighted to have won a number of significant new client accounts recently and we need some brilliant fundraisers to join our client management team. We’re looking for applications for…

Account Director
Minimum 5 years fundraising experience and proven expertise in direct marketing. Experience in an agency/consultancy environment highly desirable.

Account Manager
Minimum 3 years fundraising, marketing or communications experience, with a clear understanding of direct marketing. Charity/fundraising experience a distinct advantage.

Account/Production Executive
Minimum 1 years experience in a production, client-facing or agency role with a clear understanding of direct marketing.

You can download the job descriptions, person specifications and instructions on how to apply here.

Hurry, closing date for receipt of completed applications is 5pm on Friday 11 March.

Free event: Irish Fundraisers’ Tweetup

john — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 12:07:30 +0000

The first ever Irish Fundraisers’ Tweetup will take place from 5-7pm on 24 February in the Clarence Hotel, Dublin. Sponsored by Spark Marketing and Ask Direct, this is an opportunity for fundraisers, campaigners and others in the charity and not for profit sector to come together in a relaxed and comfortable setting to share ideas about the role social media – such as Twitter and Facebook – can play in our work.

There will be two short presentations but the main purpose of the event is to provide the opportunity to share thoughts and views on social media.

Conor Byrne of Brando Digital will give an introduction to social media and Rachel Beer of Beautiful World will talk about the experience of running NFPtweetup in the UK and the use of social media for social good.

The event is free, but places are limited and registration is required. You can book your place here

Inside donors’ brains

damian — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 14:38:28 +0000

I’ve been reading a lot of neuromarketing stuff recently (yes, yes, I’m a geek. I admit it) and lots of it is very relevant to fundraising.

Neuromarketing is where neuroscience and marketing meet. Big corporations are now using technologies such as EEG and MRI to actually study how customers’ brains react to different messages. This means that rather than relying on thoroughly unreliable focus groups to try to ascertain what people think, it’s possible to actually see how their brains react in real time.

I’m not suggesting you need to go an spend a fortune on EEG machines and expensive neuromarketing agencies. There’s now a growing literature on the subject which details the key principles and ideas. Much of it centres on the role the ‘Old Brain’, the emotional brain or the subconscious, plays in driving action.

And, interestingly, good neuromarketing looks suspiciously like what good fundraisers have been doing for years.

As a taster, here’s some quotes from The Buying Brain by Dr A.K. Pradeep.

To start, here’s the relative capacities of our conscious and subconscious brains:

Our senses are taking in about 11 million bits of information every second. Most of that comes through our eyes, but all the other senses are contributing as well – hearing, touch, smell, taste, and spatial sensations. Our conscious brains – that part of thinking in which we are aware of thinking – can only process, at best, 40 bits of information per second. All the rest is processed subconsciously. That’s a ratio, if I’m doing my math correctly, of 99.999% subconscious to conscious processing. No wonder our brains often appear to be a mystery to us.

On the limitations of focus groups:

When asked to recount how it reacted to something, in the course of responding, the brain actually alters the original data it recorded.

This is the basic problem with surveys and focus groups – so-called ‘articulated’ or ‘self-reported’ repsonses. These research methods can work reasonably well when used to capture facts recountned by participants. But not so much when it comes to probing how consumers truly felt about or remembered something. It is extraordinarily difficult for people to describe in precise words the emotions that they experienced when exposed to a stimulus.

And here’s the emotional brain.

The human brain is emotional at its very core. While women process messaging with more emotion than men, both genders must be engaged emotionally for a message to be remembered and acted upon. Advertisers must uncover the key emotional triggers their product inspires and pinpoint them in their messaging. Package designers must carefully imbue their designs with palatable, even visceral, emotive imagery and shapes. Merchandisers must make the experience of shopping an emotionally engaging, self-satisfying one if they seek repeat visits.

Substitute mission, direct mail and donating for product, package and shopping in the passage above and you immediately see the relevance for fundraising.

On marketing to older people:

The idea is that, when we market to the Boomer brains, it’s not only appropriate but also effective to “accentuate the positive”. Gloom and doom are not the way to reach an older audience, nor are portraits of a short, somewhat bleak future. rather, focus messaging on the wit and wisdom of older consumers. Look, with them, on the bright side.

…and (this one will make sense to direct marketers) on their broader attention spans…

The broader attention span of older adults should be a key consideration in constructing messaging or campaigns to reach them. Unlike their younger peers, older adults do not require quick flash snippets of material. They are in fact more comfortable with knowing more than the headline, and will recall and put into context messaging that honors their cognitive abilities and their hard-won experience

Oxfam Trailtrekker

damian — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 09:55:38 +0000

It’s nice to start the year with our work up on billboards and bus shelters across the country.

This is the campaign we’ve just produced for Oxfam Ireland’s Trailtrekker – a 100km, non-stop, 36 hour trek across the Mourne and Cooley mountains next September. If you think you’re tough enough to take part, you can get in touch here.

Happy New Year everyone

KickStart 2011 with Ken Burnett, Friday 14 January, Dublin.

damian — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 14:05:57 +0000

With the snow refusing to melt, and the budget from hell upon us, we’ve come up with a way to blow away the doom of the bailout and the gloom of the winter and KickStart your fundraising for 2011.

We’re delighted to announce that the brilliant Ken Burnett, fundraiser extraordinaire and author of Relationship Fundraising and The Zen of Fundraising will be headlining our KickStart 2011 seminar in Dublin on 14 January.

A hugely popular speaker at fundraising conferences across the globe, Ken will deliver and uplifting and inspiring session that will well and truly KickStart your fundraising for 2011.

As well as Ken, I’ll also be showing you how you can learn from the most successful campaigns of the past 12 months to beat the bailout and KickStart your fundraising for 2011. And we might have a few special guests on the day too.

KickStart 2011 takes places in the Morrison Hotel, Dublin on Friday 14 January from 1.30pm.

And the best news is that you can avail of a recession-busting discount price of €75 if you book and pay securely online here.

Alternatively, standard price tickets, costing €85 can be booked by calling Annetta on 01 5242440 or be emailing learning at askdirect dot ie.

Places are strictly limited and can only be secured once payment is made in full. We cannot refund cancellations, however you can transfer a booking to a colleague at no extra cost.

Looking forward to seeing you there.

Anger and Gratitude

damian — Thu, 25 Nov 2010 15:52:02 +0000

On Tuesday, I was exchanging emails with a friend in London about the bailout and it’s implications for the Irish political system. After the usual back and forth political banter, he asked ‘but otherwise, how are you?”

“Angry”, I replied.

I risk stating the bloody obvious by saying that there is an all-consuming, seething, simmering rage, barely contained below the surface in this country at the moment. There is a huge amount of anger at the government, at bankers, and their other cronies for the vandalism that they have done to the economy and to Irish society over the last few years, culminating in the arrival of the IMF in town last week.

Again, it’s not news to say that this useless government will be cast unceremoniously from office in the very near future, perhaps not to return for a generation.

See what I mean? I’m angry.

And if I’m angry, I reckon your donors are probably angry too.

Anger is a powerful emotion in fundraising, and one too little used. The desire to change something, to overcome injustice, is a strong one. We are all familiar with the way campaigning groups, such as Friends of the Earth, Amnesty International and Greenpeace, employ anger to motivate donors.

But anger can be an important motivator in other sectors too. I support the Irish Hospice Foundation’s Hospice Friendly Hospitals programme in part because of my anger at the way my mother was treated during her last days in hospital. (I should say that her experience was by no means the worst I have heard of, but when you’re dealing with the loss of a loved one, any failings can seem great, and leave a legacy of hurt).

Perhaps now is the time to think how you could channel the general sense of anger in the country towards the injustices that you’re trying to overcome.

But anger can be exhausting. And contagious. At the moment, I find myself getting excessively angry at needless things – minor cock-ups at work, delays, sloppiness. I think I need cheering up.

Which brings me to gratitude.

Because one way you can apply some salve to the angry hearts of your supporters, is by taking a moment – now – to say thank you.

We know that saying thank you will…
… make you feel happier
… help you raise more money
… make it more likely that your supporters will continue to give
… make your supporters more generous, not just to your organisation, but to other organisations.

This is not theory, this is all evidence based. Not convinced? Then have a read of Mark Phillips talking about how thanking makes people more generous, or this piece where Ken Burnett explains how donors who receive a personal thank you within 48 hours are four times more likely to give again.

And yesterday, in the midst of all my anger, I had my heart warmed by this fantastic email from Defenders of Wildlife, which not only thanked me for my support, but also made me feel a bit special by crediting me – as one of their supporters – with all of their successes. (click to enlarge)

And if that wasn’t good enough, the PS (which didn’t fit in the above clip) invited me to…

Please download our free “I’m a Defender” wallpaper as a reminder of your dedicated support for our wildlife and the places it lives.

And look at these lovely wallpapers!

And of course, today is Ireland’s first Thank You Day (and Thanksgiving in the US) and I have to say I’m incredibly impressed with the Irish Hospice Foundation’s Thank You Day Project, so much so that I spent the morning writing thank you cards and sending Thank You Books to some of the people who mean a lot to us here at Ask Direct (full disclosure – the Irish Hospice Foundation are a client, but we had nothing to do with the Thank You Day Project)

Today would be a great day for you to take an hour from the usual routine and just phone some of your supporters – big, small, old and new – and tell them how grateful your are that they’ve chosen to support you and how, through that very support, they have made things better in this world.

They’ll thank you for it.

PS – I can’t close without mentioning anger again. If you want to direct your anger, join the ICTU demonstration on Saturday, starting at Wood Quay at 12 noon.

And here’s some Billy Bragg as a bonus…

SOFII Blog: Why are we afraid of success?

damian — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 21:41:03 +0000

I’ll be contributing to the SOFII blog every couple of months (along with 6 other great bloggers from across the world) and my first post is on success…

Social proof is a very powerful lever of influence and clearly it’s in our interests as fundraisers to have it working for us rather than against us. If we constantly talk about need, without sharing our successes, we are implicitly suggesting to a donor that other people don’t support us.

You can continue reading here

New Training Course – Strategic Planning Tools for Fundraising

john — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 14:14:41 +0000

In these challenging times, having a clear strategy is crucial for any successful organisation. The process of strategic planning is often seen as dull and difficult, but with the right planning tools you can develop and execute fundraising plans that really deliver.

If you would like to improve your fundraising and planning skills, then you should attend our Strategic Planning Tools for Fundraising course, which is run in partnership with the Management Centre (=mc). This intensive programme will enable you to use a range of strategic tools to create your fundraising plans with confidence.

On this challenging and interactive day, you’ll learn to:

understand all the key strategic tools available for developing or improving income, and how to use them appropriately and effectively in fundraising

explore a range of strategic models and how they can be used to tackle different fundraising challenges

learn how to reframe and stretch your existing fundraising strategy using the latest tools and approaches

Who’s it for?

This programme is designed for development directors and senior fundraisers who need strategic tools and techniques to reframe a new or existing fundraising strategy. It is also ideal for any fundraiser who needs strategic tools to solve their fundraising challenges.

This programme is drawn from The Management Centre’s practical consulting work with some of the UK’s largest and most successful charities such as CRUK, Oxfam, NSPCC, NCH, and UNICEF.

Event Details

The course will take place on Thursday 30 September, in the Morrison Hotel in Dublin. It’s delivered by Eibhlín Morley, a Fundraising and Management Consultant with The Management Centre. To read Eibhlín’s biography just click here.

The cost for this one-day intensive programme is €285 per person. Lunch and refreshments are also included. To book your place please email us, or phone us on 01 524 2440.

We’re hiring! Office Manager / Book-keeper

damian — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 11:31:28 +0000

Are you looking for a job?

We’re looking for a part-time Office Manager / Book-keeper to join our growing team here at Ask Direct.

You should have at least 5 years experience in a book-keeping or accounts role, excellent interpersonal skills, problem-solving skills and attention to detail.

If that sounds like you, and if there’s some part of the world that you want to change for the better, then download the job description here.

You’ll need to submit a CV, together with a letter of application outlining why you’d like to work for Ask Direct and how you’d contribute to the company before 5pm on Friday 24 September.

Thanks.

PS – please pass this on to anyone you might know who’d be interested.

Communicating Environmental Issues Online

damian — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 15:50:58 +0000

On Saturday, I spoke at Communicating Environmental Issues Online organised by the European Commission. My presentation was a guided tour of some of the best international examples of online campaigning and fundraising, with a heavy emphasis on the role of social media.

Here’s a recording of my presentation:

And here’s the slideshow:

Environment & Social Media #euenv

View more presentations from Damian O’Broin.

You can find links to the videos and other supporting material here on my delicious page

Do you really know your donors? The power of surveys and data analysis.

damian — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 13:37:58 +0000

I’m sure you know a bit about them. Like how they don’t like to be mailed too often. And how they’d never read a letter longer than a page and half of A4. And how it would annoy them if you telephoned them, especially if it’s to ask for money.

But what are you basing this on? Anecdote? The handful of complaints you get after a mailing? Gut instinct?

We all tend to make assumptions like this, and often we have little or no hard data to base it on. Worse, we tend to be (a) not very much like our donors, who are usually much older than the people who work in fundraising departments and (b) not very good at putting ourselves in donor shoes.

And if we take it a step further, and look at donor databases in their entirety, our knowledge tends to be even more sparse. I’m sure you know the results of your last direct mail, telephone or email campaign. But do you know the average number of gifts your donor makes before lapsing? Do you know the lifetime value of your cash donors? And how does this differ from direct debit donors, or face-to-face donors? These are all vital pieces of information that are needed to make informed decisions about fundraising strategy, yet many nonprofits simply don’t know the answer.

There’s two key tools that we use to learn more about donors.

The first, the donor survey, is great at gaining a greater insight into what makes individual donors, and groups of donors, tick. It’s a brilliant way to learn about everything from what motivates donors and what interests them about your work to how they’re happy to be communicated with and even how they’d like to be addressed.

Donor surveys are also a crucial tool in legacy programmes, as they allow you to talk directly to donors about legacies in a safe and non-intrusive way.

And they’re fantastic at making donors feel more involved and engaged.

The second tool is the one the geeks love – data mining. This is where you analyse in depth the information stored in your database – giving history, patterns of donations, lifetime value, lapsing trends, frequency and value of gifts. And you can slice this up in countless ways – comparing it by source of donor, by type of donor, by age of donor. And it gets really cool when you overlay the survey information over the data mining. This is where you start seeing things you’ve never thought of – for instance, whether primary donor motivation has an effect on lifetime value. Or from which recruitment sources most of your legacy prospects come from.

Both tools require investment. But both will repay you handsomely. And surveys can actually be done at no net cost – the donations that accompany the completed survey will usually cover the costs.

If you’d like to learn more about surveys and data mining, get in touch.

Emotion in action. Some examples.

damian — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 15:18:55 +0000

I realised after posting the piece below, which I rattled off in a bit of a hurry, that I had intended to, but forgot to, include some examples of brilliant emotional communications. So, here they are.

Here’s an ad that Dan Pallotta showed during his fantastic plenary at the Institute of Fundraising’s National Convention back in July. I doubt there was a dry eye in the house afterwards. I know it brought a tear to my eye. It’s also one of the best nonprofit television ads I’ve seen. Highly emotional. Brilliantly paced, scripted and produced. And if my reaction is anything to go by, I’d say highly successful. It’s goal was to recruit participants in a 60 mile, 3 day sponsored walk for breast cancer.

Following on from the recent Live Aid post, here’s a very emotional Bob Geldof telling the people of TV land to “give us the money NOW!”

But this isn’t just about communicating with donors. Emotion is at the heart of all effective communications that are designed to motivate people to take action. Take the great political speech-makers. Obama, Clinton, Martin Luther King. Their words and speeches aren’t dry and dense. They’re passionate, colourful and heart-felt. And such emotionally intelligent communicating is one the reasons Clinton and Obama were/are successful political campaigners. And why John Kerry, for instance, wasn’t.

Bill Clinton’s speech at the 2008 Democratic National Convention, in support of Barack Obama is a great example:

And here’s Martin Luther King’s ‘I have a dream’ speech. This should be studied by everyone involved in nonprofit communications – fundraisiers, copywriters, campaigners.

(This is the full speech. The really good stuff starts around six and a half minutes in)

For more on emotion and politics. And, indeed, in communications generally, you should read Drew Westen’s excellent book, The Political Brain

I talked in the last post about the importance of making donors cry, a somewhat facetious shorthand for the need to forge an emotional connection with donors. You don’t necessarily have to draw tears, but you do need to move them. For me, the moment to strive for is when you – literally – feel it in your heart. The same feeling I get when I listen to Bob Dylan ripping into Like a Rolling Stone, live at the Manchester Free Trade Hall, amidst the boos and catcalls, or when I hear Luke Kelly singing Raglan Road. That’s how powerful I want our direct mail to be.

I like to think that sometimes we come close.

Here’s Luke Kelly:

And just to wrap it all up, here’s Bruce Springsteen. Emotion, storytelling, passion. Donors deserve more of all of that.

Who’s tone-checking your donor communications?

damian — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 22:49:25 +0000

I came across Tonecheck the other day (via Mark Little on twitter). It’s a tool you can download that will check your emails for excessive emotions or inappropriate tone of voice. It seems to be geared at helping companies to avoid sending angry or narky emails that could be misinterpreted by customers. Clearly, it could be a very handy tool for many people.

It got me thinking that it would be great to have a tool like Tonecheck for donor communications. Only to do the opposite – to inject emotion.

Because, sadly, excessive emotion is rarely a problem with donor communications.

Most direct mail pieces, newsletters, emails and phone calls could do with an extra large dollop of emotion. And, while we’re waiting on someone to develop a nice app to do it for us, you need to ensure someone is checking that everything you send to your donors has enough emotion in it. Your organisation needs a Tonechecker

A good rule of thumb is, whatever you’ve written, however good it is, it probably needs more heart. Try doubling the emotion for starters.

At Ask Direct, we’re quite emotional.

For instance, if our copy doesn’t bring a tear to the eye, we worry. For us, making the client cry during a presentation is a sign of success. We reckon if we can melt the heart of a battle hardened professional fundraiser, we’ve a fair shot at moving the heart of a donor.

But it’s not just tears you should be looking for. Joy, excitement, pride, outrage, anger, empathy, relief, surprise, hope and anticipation all have a role to play. But perhaps, not all at once.

This is important, because if you want to motivate supporters to take action, you need to start by making them feel something. If you don’t engage their emotional side, you’ve little hope of engaging their rational side. First, you have to make people feel like doing something, then make the argument for why they should.

And to do that, you donor communications should be dripping with emotion.

So appoint a Tonechecker in your organisation and get them to read everything that goes to donors. And if you don’t regularly see them dabbing a tear from their eye, then you’ve still got work to do.

Developing Personal Presence – Dublin, September 2

john — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 09:41:18 +0000

We’re pleased to announce the second programme in the training series we’re running in partnership with the Management Centre (=mc). Delivered by Bernard Ross (Director of =mc) this one-day intensive session will help you to develop the ability to make a powerful and memorable impact in small and large groups.

One of The Management Centre’s most popular programmes, Developing Personal Presence builds on the skills individuals already have, to develop a more sophisticated approach to impactful communications – from informal meetings to full-blown presentations.

The course will help you:

think on your feet and convey complex ideas quickly and effectively in impromptu or formal situations
convey an impression of authority, confidence and sincerity, especially when under pressure – or even under attack
convince or impress stakeholders
sell ideas to colleagues or those in more senior positions
communicate more effectively with important stakeholders

On the day you’ll cover…

The secrets of confidence and charisma: acquire the five key techniques to help you acquire ‘charisma’ and personal power – on demand

Developing a personal brand: understand how to create and assess yourself as a brand and position yourself appropriately

Communicating under pressure: discover how to organise and transmit your thoughts quickly and effectively

Presence principles: find out how experienced communicators convey presence through a mixture of eye contact, body language and voice

Structuring your ideas: learn how and when to use the seven ‘core’ structures to shape and present your ideas

Communicating to large audiences: acquire a new skill-set and approach for large audiences

Think-Feel-Do: discover how to structure your message so that it has the greatest impact

Changing minds: motivate people to change their view by understanding and using ‘hygiene’ factors and ‘motivators’

Be memorable: understand how people process information and make decisions – then make yourself and your ideas memorable

Learning Approaches

The programme uses extensive interactive approaches and activities. Be prepared to take part!

Who’s it for?

Developing Personal Presence will be of value to anyone in the nonprofit sector who wants to:

improve their ability to confidently and effectively present ideas
develop their negotiation skills and become more persuasive
communicate more effectively in small or large groups

Event Details

Date: Thurs 2nd September

Time: 9.15am – 5.15pm

Venue: Morrison Hotel, Lower Ormond Quay, Dublin 1

The are two courses remaining in our current training series:

2 September – Developing Personal Presence

30 September – Strategic Planning Tools for Fundraisers

The cost of each training programme, including full documentation, lunch and refreshments, is €285. There are discounts available for booking more than one course.

To book your place, please email us, or phone us on 01 524 2440.

Lessons from Live Aid (Has it really been 25 years?)

damian — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 22:51:03 +0000

By chance last night I discovered that yesterday was the 25th anniversary of Live Aid (explanatory link included for any readers under the age of 30).

25 years. A quarter of a century. Wow.

There was an interesting documentary on BBC4, Live Aid: Against All Odds about the genesis of the concert. Viewable here if you live in the UK.

I still remember the whole day clearly, sat on the sofa in the front room, having commandeered the telly from indifferent parents and a half interested sister. It was a momentous event for the music business, for the acts involved, for the world of media (they used eight satellites for the broadcast; the previous year’s Olympics had used just two), for the milllions upon millions of people watching, and for the charity world as well.

Watching the programme last night was interesting – not just for the nostalgia – as I think it contained several important lessons for fundraisers today.

Now back in 1985 I wasn’t a fundraiser, just a pimply U2 fan with a bad haircut and a questionable taste in clothes, so I have no first hand knowledge of the sector as it was then, and the impact Live Aid had on the charity world. To get a flavour of the time, I asked Ken Burnett for his recollections. And he responded with such grace and eloquence that I felt I should quote him at length. Here’s some of what he remembers…

Seems like the day before yesterday, to be honest. In 1984 I was still fairly fresh out of ActionAid, where I had done a lot on disaster advertising and considered myself a bit of a quick mover, able to get the right ads and sizes into the right media at the right price at the first sign of trouble, or really soon after. I was working with several major charity clients and with Smith Bundy and Partners, George Smith’s agency, while I set about building my own agency, Burnett Associates. We were still based in the front room of my house in Finsbury Park when the Band Aid story broke. As I recall it, Band Aid came first, Live Aid was later. The exact chronology of the Christmas hits eludes me, but then I never really liked them.

What I remember most from back then was the excruciatingly graphic TV reports from Michael Buerk filmed by Mohammed Amin, which sparked Band Aid. The long lines of gaunt and starving faces, Michael Buerk’s measured, reasoned tones as he walked through the chaos, the pathetic mothers and their bewildered babies, dying as we watched. The thing was that back then disasters were always supposed to appear on our TV screens over a few days, then to be quickly supplanted by other, more immediate news once the initial sympathy had faded. But Ethiopia was a different order of magnitude and it persisted, night after night after night. There was a palpable feeling in the air that something must be done, and Bob Geldof just grabbed it. At the time every line of accepted thinking was against such an event, but he just said, ‘Why the fuck not?’

I loved that attitude. It inspired everything we did. It still does.

That passion and determination was tangible in the documentary. Geldof was a washed-up, big-mouthed rock star who just decided to do something, whatever he could, to respond to the horror unfolding before him in Ethiopia. And we should remember that impluse, that passion, because surely it gives us an insight into the motivation to give.

And if you think that it’s a bit of a stretch to compare a humble €50 gift in a pre-paid envelope to the organisation of an era-defining international event, well, it shouldn’t be. And perhaps that’s the problem with too much of our fundraising today. It’s mechanised, formulaic, routine. It shouldn’t be. It should be passionate, urgent and thrilling.

The other thing about Geldof was, as Ken says, his ‘Why the fuck not’ attitude. That’s something worth remembering the next time somebody tells you ‘it can’t be done’. And that attitude of thinking big, of trying to do something that every sane person thought was impossible, because it had to be done, because the need was so great. That’s something we need to hold onto. You may not be dealing with with the scale of death and devastation that Michael Buerk showed us back in 1984, but I’m sure what you are dealing with is important, and may indeed be a matter of life or death.

Are you happy to just tip along, meet your targets and have a quiet life, or do you want to change the world? If it’s the latter, then you’re going to need that ‘why the fuck not’ attitude.

Geldof probably took it to the extreme. When he announced the lineup, he still didn’t have most acts confirmed, but he went ahead anyway and told the world that they’d be playing. Bryan Ferry phoned him up and said ‘I never said I’d play’ to which Geldof retorted ‘well, pull out then’. He didn’t.

Here’s some more from Ken…

Burnett Associates didn’t have its own design studio at the time and I was working with a freelance group called Bradbury & Williams who, apart from designing brochures, posters, ads and direct mail packs for me and my charities also designed and produced coffee table books, including the two Live Aid books and Bob Geldof’s autobiography, Is that it? So we felt quite close to the events – I never met Geldof at the studio but once sat in a chair he’d recently vacated. It was still warm. I treasure the sensation.

At this time I was heavily involved with the NSPCC, one of our major clients on many fronts. It was their Centenary year, of course. To be honest I wasn’t working directly at that time with anyone working in Ethiopia. One event from 1984 was the Bhopal disaster, which is reported on SOFII.

Bhopal was significant because we had to decide to run our emergency ads alongside all the competing noise from Band Aid. This was when I learned that one disaster could actually help to promote another.

Good advice. And still very much true.

Then, I did some round–up work with Oxfam, writing letters that reported to their donors on what their gifts for Ethiopia had achieved. I loved that brief. At the time I was heavily into monthly giving as a concept, though it was not widely understood in the UK then, except by the likes of ActionAid. I was sure that charities should be switching their donors to monthly giving, and how better to make the case than in the aftermath of a disaster? ‘We’ve mopped up’, we could say, ‘now help us rebuild’.

But not everyone was receptive to this message.

In 1985 George Smith and I jointly wrote a five-page feature for Direct Response magazine on the aftermath of the Ethiopian emergency, as development people liked to call it. In this polemic piece we were savagely critical of the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) and its member charities, who we had discovered were dumping donors addresses by the thousands because they couldn’t agree which member charity should ‘own’ them. So donors were not only not being properly thanked, they were being denied any reporting back and follow-up. The argument was completely lost on the powers that be at DEC, who couldn’t understand why you might want to thank or follow up a donor. ‘Waste of money, surely.’ They are, of course, little more than a big and expensive bucket for collecting cash. Little did I realise then that I would be castigating them for pretty much the same set of sins, 20 years later, in The Guardian

25 years ago, enlightened people like Ken and George were urging charities to provide real donor feedback – and charities like Oxfam were doing it. Clearly, lots of people didn’t get it then, and sadly lots of people still don’t seem to get it. Or they get it, but couldn’t be bothered to do it. Which, to be honest, is far, far worse.

Live Aid seems to have had it’s origins in the notion of donor feedback. After Band Aid, Geldof felt he’s done his bit. He was rejected proposals from the media to go the Ethiopia, but eventually relented when one of his trustees argued that he needed to go to demonstrate to donors that the aid was getting through, that their gifts would make a difference. Reluctantly, Bob went. The trip changed everything.

Geldof put Live Aid together in the space of 12 weeks. That’s often what we’ll spend producing a campaign for a client. Hmmm. He did it in the face of disbelief, disinterest and antagonism. It could have been a shambles. Luckily, and thankfully, it wasn’t.

Rather like marching against Blair and Bush’s war, the power of the masses wasn’t perhaps as enduring as it seemed it would be, at the time. But it wasn’t half thrilling. In truth though I was so wrapped up in building a struggling new agency that I didn’t do as much as I could have done for Ethiopia, nor for the fight against Apartheid. I regret both of these, now.

As a result of this preoccupation I don’t think I can comment too much on what the sector thought of Bob & Co at the time. I recall a lot of noses were turned up at the scruffy oiks who used all that bad language. But this soon gave way to respect and amazement at what these amateurs actually achieved.

For me I think this was the time when I conceived an unswerving belief in the power of the donor and the paramount need for good feedback, prompt acknowledgement and the rigorous offering of electronic banking facilities. Those were also new, back then.

Ah, those were the days! Maybe we should preserve our history…

It’s interesting to consider the role of ‘amateurs’ in situations like this. Impassioned amateurs like Geldof bring a drive, a freshness, and an attitude that’s often missing from established actors. Could Oxfam have produced Live Aid? Not a chance. Could Geldof have done what he did by working through Oxfam? Probably not.

Right through to today you see independent, entrepreneurial philanthropists and activists doing their own thing. But there are clearly times when this approach merely duplicates the effort of others. And other times when despite an initial fanfare, the new, entrepreneur-driven organisation isn’t capable of delivering and managing a sustainable programme of work. The challenge for established NGOs and charities is to find a way of cultivating that risk taking, entrepreneurial spirit within their ranks.

As I write, I’m watching the second part of the documentary, about the day itself, and Geldof is telling us ‘Don’t go to the pub tonight, give us your money. There are people DYING NOW.’ [stamps table]

He was enraged at what he saw as the old-school, cosy, charity feel of the day. He didn’t see it as charity, he saw it as ‘finely tuned politics’. And he believed the amount raised at that point was pathetic, and not enough calls to action were being broadcast. So he marched into the BBC, tore strips off them, and made his now infamous appeal to the world.

Watching I’m reminded of all the conversations I’ve had where apparently sensible people who work in charities argue that not asking for money is the best way to raise money. How we’re asking too often, too strongly, for too much, or too specifically. Well, as Bob Geldof will tell you, that just doesn’t work. If you want money, you have to say ‘Give us your money. There are people dying now.’ And you should really try to muster up even an ounce of Geldof’s rage and passion when you’re saying it.

Now for some music.