Tuesday 21 May 2013

10 Things I Hate About Fundraising



It's Monday, the weather is rubbish, I missed my train and forgot my swimming stuff for my lunch time swim. Oh and I am back from annual leave.

I am, therefore, in a very grumpy mood and thought instead of writing deep and meaningful blogs about fundraising we could do a light hearted look at all that is wrong with it.

1. It is a job you are always failing at. Most people don’t want to give you money, run a marathon for you or hand their bank details over to your 'chugger' on the street.

2. The people that do want to give you money can be really easy to upset. You don’t thank the ones that want the thank you, you get told off for thanking the ones that didn’t (despite putting a tick box on the donation form). You don’t keep your regular givers up to date enough. You waste too much money keeping your regular givers up to date. Basically they want you to read their mind and we can’t!

3. The organisation you work for probably dislikes you. Your supporter care team think you are harassing people. Your programmes team think you are putting down your beneficiaries. Your finance team think you are not raising enough. Your HR team.....actually they probably don’t mind you and are possibly the only team that is stopping you from being the least popular people in the organisation.

4. Everyone can do your job better than you – EVERYONEThe rest of the organisation, your donors, your flatmates, your parents . For some reason it is a job everyone feels entitled to have an opinion on and the fact that you may have been working for years in fundraising counts for nothing 'cause your mum "was chatting to the Big Issue seller and he says chugging makes no money."

5. The money is rubbish. Say no more.

Now I think about it, I actually can’t think of 10 things I hate about fundraising – I am stuck on five!  

And number five I didn’t really mean. I just said it because a list of four doesn’t look right on my page layout

And number one is kind of why we love the job. Because when you do succeed it feels like such an achievement. 

And number two is unfair because for all the complaints and moaning and groaning, donors are lovely, kind and caring people. And they usually only complain because they care so much. 

Number three is petty. Whilst there are tensions and strains in all organisations we need them to do their job just as much as they need us to do ours. 

I stand by number four though. Number four is annoying.

So, to summarise I have a job that I can only think of one bad point for and that allows me to go swimming in my lunch break when I remember my stuff. 

Life is not too bad really, is it?

Kathryn Brooke