Convention I. Pre-
Hello, from the 0800 from Southampton to Waterloo. Charity Chat #4.
Right now, I’m on my way to the Chartered Institute of Fundraising Convention at the Queen Elizabeth II Centre in London. It’s a big gathering of 800+ fundraisers and charity people and I’ll be there to host a panel discussion. If you’re also at Convention today, please say hello.
Future Funding
The panel is on Future Funding and features Jacqui Scott from Hampshire and Isle of Wight Community Foundation, Katherine Sellar from Postcode Lottery, and Robin Peake from Childs Charitable Trust. They’ll be there to offer a peak behind the curtain and help fundraisers understand the funding process - not in a specific application-by-application sense, but a general sense of what the difficulties are, the kind of things that can influence decisions, and what they think about the future of funding. I hosted a similar panel at the CIOF Central South conference last autumn and it was good fun. It’s always good to bring fundraisers and funders together in one room, as - despite the inherent power balance between those with the money and those who need it - we’re all trying to do good and make the world better.
First and last
I’ve been a professional fundraiser since 2012 and this is the first time I’ll be attending Convention. It will also be the last, because the CIOF have announced this is the final edition. I don’t think that’s a bad thing, provided it’s replaced with something better suited to fundraising as it exists now.
I really like the idea of getting representatives from across the sector into one space, where we call all meet and learn from each other. In an ideal world we would be able to continue doing this every year. But, as charity people know very well, this isn’t an ideal world and pragmatism is required. Convention is a big, expensive two-day event. The price varies, depending on where you or your organisation fit on the pricing structure, but it could easily cost £1,000. It probably made sense a decade or so ago when it seemed (anecdotally, looking in from Southampton) as though all the big national charities were based in Victoria and popping over to Westminster was easy to do. For smaller charities, outside of London, that’s a big investment of time and money to attend. And for freelancers, like me, where these costs would come out of my own pocket, it’s tricky to justify the expense.
Do I want to network? £1,000 would cover the cost of a lot of coffee chats with potential clients. Do I want to learn something? £1,000 could cover a specific training course, rather than the 45 minute overview of a topic that is presented in a conference setting.
As it is, I opted against buying a ticket to attend yesterday, and I’m very grateful that, as a speaker, I have a free ticket for today’s sessions. I’ve also made a decision to skip the first couple of hours of the event. There is a breakfast networking session that started at 8 (far too early for anyone outside London), and the keynote is at 9 (with apologies to the speakers, who no doubt have important insights to share, I’m bored of AI so decided against travelling an hour earlier).
The CIOF have announced they’re going to host smaller, one day events, with more targeted themes, and I think that’s sensible. I also hope this means more support of the regional groups (disclosure, I’m on the committee of the Central South regional group of the CIOF) and special interest groups. I would seriously consider spending £1,000 on travelling across the country to attend a smaller, specialist event that was focussed on an area of my interest, rather than a necessarily broad large-scale event.
I realise the above few paragraphs could seem like I’m being overly negative about the Convention, or ungrateful that I get to attend. That’s not my intention. As mentioned, I like the idea of a big national get-together, and I’m looking forward to meeting other fundraisers and learning from the other sessions taking place. But I can see why the CIOF have decided to focus their energies elsewhere, as it must be nigh on impossible to organise an event of this scale that balances the needs of all fundraisers. The new strategy, with an ongoing programme of smaller events and other opportunities for networking and training, makes total sense to me.
What’s new with me?
Since the last issue of Charity Chat, my engagement with Naomi House & Jacksplace came to an end. Actually, I should have written Naomi & Jack’s, as they’re now called. Have you seen the new brand identity? I think it’s great. It’s not just a well-overdue logo refresh, but a full consideration of how the branding can better help the charity achieve their aims. It’s been designed to help make it easier for families to access their services by overcoming the emotional block of seeing the word “hospice.” It also gives equal prominence to their work with young adults, that could sometimes get lost behind their support of babies and children.
Last month I started working for Mandala Theatre Company as their part-time fundraiser. Mandala are using theatre to address social and racial injustice. The big, exciting project is Heart Lab, which is a bold, innovative programme to support Global Majority young people and emerging, early career creatives, to become future leaders. It’s exciting!
I’ve also spent time working on a personal project to test an idea I’ve had about an alternative funding process (that might become part of a different idea I’ve had about a micro social enterprise). If that’s a vague, non-committal sentence that doesn’t really tell you anything, it’s because I don’t have anything more concrete to share at this stage. This idea grew out of a Linked In discussion on issues with arts funding in which I wondered if a randomised ballot could work. In the mid- to long-term, I want to work with an established funder to try this on a large scale, but first, I want to develop my theory through a small-scale experiment, to give more weight to the idea. When I have more to share, I’ll do so via Charity Chat.
That’s all from me, for now. If you’ve got anything you’d like me to share with the readers of Charity Chat, just let me know. Jobs, projects, news, opinions. Obviously I reserve the right to refuse to publish anything I don’t want to publish, but I am keen that this becomes about more than just me and my voice.
Happy fundraising!
What is Charity Chat?
If you’re reading this in your email inbox and thinking Who are you? Why have I got this email? let me explain. This is the fourth issue of Charity Chat, an email newsletter from me, Jonathan Bean. I’m a freelance fundraiser and at some point you subscribed, either through my website or Substack. I take a very relaxed approach to publishing this - only sending new issues when I have something to share. If you know someone in the charity, voluntary, policy, or social world who might be interested in this, please share…
Alternatively, you stumbled across this on Substack or followed a link from somewhere else. In which case, I invite you to subscribe…
If you’d like to contribute to the conversation (it’s a little one-sided if it’s just me sending emails), please feel free to comment either by replying to this email, or commenting in Substack (depending on how you’re reading this)…
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Missed issue three? Here it is…
No AI was used to write this. The header image is a digital scan of an analogue photo taken by me, on film, on a different trip to London a couple of years ago. Don’t steal my words or pictures. Thanks.
Great to read Jonathan. And thank you for the kind words about Naomi and Jack's!