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... the passion which gives the energy to the whole organisation, to do
or to do it better. To do it in a more engaging manner. If you do those two, you then get a pride in the organisation which is another way
of saying self confidence to be bold.
You then put the squeeze on performance because you've given them
everything they need. All the organisation, your fundraisers, your finance people, projects people, your trustees.
You've been demanding
on huge levels of performance.
And if you do all four of these, you can sit back and watch that roll in. And here's the secret: do it in that order.
I've worked with over 250 charities and every one of them has said we just need more money this year, just bring in the money, it's
just about the profit. Failed.
Everyone that said I just want people to work harder - dammit, do more, do more, so focused on performance first, left the organisation.
But everybody who started by turning up the purpose succeeded.
There's a critical word there, or two words, which is 'whole organisation'.
Our mission, which is to allow our clients and
you all
to apply the maximum financial resource possible for achieving our mission started
four years ago, and I'll tell you that story in a moment, but I don't want to preach to the choir, ladies and gentlemen, I want to preach to the heathens. I want to
preach to the trustees that say, "I'm not a fundraiser". I want to preach to the director of finance that knows more about fundraising than the director
of fundraising does. I want to preach to the
idiot communications director who said you have to raise more money but you're not allowed to use emotional words or photographs.
I want to preach to the idiot brand police who once turned down my brilliant concept
because the Pantone colour wasn't quite right.
And because for us this is a mission, we're going to put our money where our mouth is.
If any one of you that is in this room now
book for the 4th of December next year
you can bring another fundraising person from your organisation with you - free.
If you're a fundraiser, bring your communications director or your finance director. I'm glad to see there are several
chief executives in the room. Well done! Maybe if your chief executive isn't here
you can bring your chief executive. But if you want the biggest bonfire of them all
you bring your chair of trustees!
If I extend that offer too long then maybe we will be bankrupt by the end of next week.
So there is a catch. You have to book by 5pm tomorrow because
I don't want this offer to be made available to people who were not brave enough to come to the first one of these events. I think you've earned your spurs and I thank you for your support for our venture.
I have got three very unusual people to thank before I hand you back to Andy, and before I tell you the absolute most important thing that
I learned this year and I will pass this one simple bit of advice on to all of you. Sixteen-years-ago I
had my first managerial job in a charity. My job was to manage 500 local branches across the country.
In 12 months, myself and my wonderful army of volunteers doubled their income from the previous year and we did that with two extremely difficult strategies. One was sending very nice letters to each other
and the other was me driving around the country speaking to everybody. I got my annual appraisal after a year, and as a young man in fundraising, I was expecting a pat on the back, and a well done.
Public income was several million pounds. And I was expecting a pay rise, to be blunt. And my director sat me down and said: "Alan, I need to speak to you. You're not
a team player. I very rarely see you at your desk
so you now need to telephone me every day and tell me where you are so that I know you're working."
Count the money muppet!