Gingerbread and swimwear
Building awesome internal relationships
Gingerbread and swimwear
by Caroline Danks
Picture description: an assortment of gingerbread shapes decorated with white icing.
I’ve always been surprised at how hard it can be as a fundraiser to navigate internal relationships with colleagues.
We tend to centre our effort on our donor relationships. Huge amounts of time (quite rightly) go towards figuring out how we can build meaningful connections with people who might support our cause.
Internal relationships can therefore wind up as an afterthought.
For some reason, I’ve often found it harder than I think it’s going to be (maybe because it’s an afterthought?).
The disconnect between fundraisers and other members of staff is long spoken of. I don’t think I’m alone in feeling it. People are suspicious of fundraising, so there’s education to do.
And they’re busy. Really busy.
It’s also hard to manage internal relationships where there’s a power dynamic. Hard as this can be to navigate*, these are especially important where you (the fundraiser) are working with major donors and you need to be able to identify and facilitate peer to peer relationships between donors and senior leaders.
*Especially if you are a woman, if you are young, if you are a person of colour or belong to any other kind of minority group. Power and control abound and we need to recognise that charities, like everywhere else often still fail when it comes to making everyone feel equally safe and valued.
My nemesis
The hardest relationship I had to manage of this kind was with a Director who had not only made some assumptions about fundraising which were untrue but also lacked interest in learning the realities (he thought I just went out to lunch a lot and made really unfunny jokes about me poisoning people who had left gifts in wills), .
Relationships with our colleagues are so important, because no fundraiser ever did well working in isolation.
Fundraisers need access to data, stories, case studies and evidence so that they can provide high quality information to donors. Delivery teams need money. And so fundraising is very much a team sport.
Here are my ideas for what to do when you’re working with a senior leader and where the relationship feels difficult. I hope there’s something in here which helps (or at the lest, makes you feel a little bit less alone):
Small talk
No matter how scary someone appears or how inappropriate their jokes are (though having typed this, it’s definitely debatable), we are all people underneath and everyone appreciates it when someone shows interest in them.
Make an effort to chat over the coffee machine.
Ask someone about their weekend, the sports they play, what they’re eating for lunch. It all helps to build their trust in you and your confidence in asking them questions.
The more I did this with the person I described above, the more I came to realise that their challenges weren’t personal and that he had nothing against me or fundraising (frustrating as his views were on occasion).
But how to do this online when we’re spending less time in the office?
It’s harder now than it used to be as we’re working from home a lot more than we used to but by no means impossible. Choose video calls and phone calls over emails wherever practical and make sure any time spent in the office is focused on building those all important relationships with colleagues.
Of course if they’re massively problematic, steer clear and report them.
Build community
In 2008, I moved from my role at a homelessness charity in London to the National Trust in Cornwall. I went from working in a large, open plan office next to Borough Market and above a noisy pub, to a converted stable block on a country estate where everyone had their own office and charmingly – their own secretary!!!
Most people worked with the doors closed so my extroverted self (who spent most of the week home alone and who missed her friends) was more than a bit out of sorts.
After buying a cheap radio and getting into Radio 4 (I needed the company), my next move was to bake a ton of Nigella’s Sticky Gingerbread (from her Christmas book - sooooo tasty) and to take the tin around each office.
Obviously, everyone was grateful and it was a nice opportunity to chat.
Home baking is a popular office ice breaker and in general, makes the day a little sweeter. During my time there, I organised monthly bake sales for other charities (including an organisation working with Syrian refugees and our local branch of the Samaritans for whom our marketing person was a volunteer).
I also decided to join the Rural Surveyors’ annual Marie Curie Swimathon (unfortunately not as homoerotic as it sounds), not only getting my lengths in on the day, but also transitioning their sponsor forms from paper to online, organising training sessions and leading by example in getting friends and family to support us all.
Now you don’t have to resort to baking and swimming costumes to get to know your colleagues, but some thoughtful and targeted activities (ideally modelling great fundraising) will help. Especially when those inevitably difficult conversations roll around and you feel defensive / like you’re having to explain your job yet again to someone who seemingly isn’t listening (they are – it’s just hard sometimes when you’re juggling a million other things).
Also, share your fundraising successes regularly and let colleagues know that their contribution made a difference (remember, it’s a team sport).
Invite them to participate and be specific
One easy strategy for managing internal relationships with non-fundraisers is to invite them to participate.
Be explicit as to why you’re asking them:
“X has significantly increased their gift this year, I think a card from you in your capacity as a Director would be appropriate.”
Give them a proper briefing / script / suggested wording so they are really clear about what’s expected.
Follow up with them afterwards, for example:
“X really appreciated your card. Thank you for helping out, I know you’re busy but it’s really important that we make our donors feel special.”
Again, this will help to build mutual trust and their confidence (and enjoyment) in the fundraising process.
Be honest when things aren’t going well
If you are experiencing challenges in your fundraising (who isn’t atm?) which might impact your ability to meet your target, it can be tricky to negotiate these conversations, especially at budget setting or reforecasting time.
Staff turnover, performance issues, over-reliance on one or two sources of income and external factors outside of your control can all impact on your ability to meet your target.
It is important to manage internal relationships with non-fundraisers by having early conversations about how a potential situation might impact your fundraising.
No-one should blame you for something which sits outside of your control.
But they might blame you for knowing about it and not sharing the information.
For example:
“Our trust fundraiser has handed in their notice and there is likely to be a gap in capacity. This is how it could impact and this is what I suggest we do about it…”
“We are unlikely to hit our events target because of the bad summer weather which meant that two out of five were cancelled.”
“Trust fundraising is hard at the moment, here’s some evidence, here are some suggestions…”
Use external evidence, research and information from experts to support your point, especially when being challenged on what may or may not be possible income wise:
Take your time to read up on news in the sector.
Connect with colleagues doing similar work to you.
Ask to be signposted to resources which will help you.
Meet up with colleagues from other charities.
Don’t forget to draw upon evidence from within your own organisation (arguably the most important source of knowledge relating to fundraising activity) and use this to figure out what might be possible for your charity’s unique circumstances.
Taking the lead in sharing knowledge will build confidence in those who don’t understand fundraising (but who are responsible for it).
Present options and solutions
Viable alternatives will prevent non-fundraisers from heaping an unrealistic target or an ill-thought out strategic direction onto your shoulders (sometimes, maybe).
Examples of practical solutions relating to one of the problems described above include:
“Our trust fundraiser has left so we’d like to look at recruiting internally so we can begin training a new person straight away.”
“We’ve already created a recruitment pack and have made some changes so as to attract a wider and more diverse audience.”
“This could be an opportunity to restructure our team and invest in some new areas of fundraising.”
“To fill a gap in trust fundraising, we could use an external consultancy in the short term so we can fulfil the obligations and expectations of our funders.”
Try to be a radiator rather than a drain. No matter how bad things feel, there’s always stuff we can try and you should always think about what the potential solutions might be.
Who else can you bring on board?
For as many senior leaders in your charity who are not interested in fundraising, you will find others who are keen to be involved, willing to listen and eager to lend their support.
Find these people, build relationships and focus on how you can bring them into your work.
At the National Trust where I worked for many years, we had several Head Gardeners and Countryside Managers who were extremely involved in fundraising. Many donors loved spending time with these colleagues, as they helped them to further their own passions and interests.
Being able to bring these people together made the National Trust a fantastic place to fundraise.
For me, the art of fundraising is the ability to make connections between like-minded individuals and for these fledgling relationships to develop into something which is deeply satisfying over the long term for both parties.
On reflection…
Finally, it’s important to say the following:
When I think about it, my perceived poor relationship with the Director I described earlier wasn’t as much of a problem as I thought it was (although his jokes were). We eventually got to a good place thanks to the chats over coffee, the specificity in my requests and the swimathon.
I even gave him a hug on my last day!
When I look back, it was actually my boss who was concerned about the health of the relationship. In hindsight, I probably took on too much of her worry.
Work on your relationships by all means and remember not to be unduly influenced or burdened by the concerns of others.
Tell us your ideas for building internal relationships. We’d love to hear your ideas.
Post brownies. Really. It can be done! For a small, remote-working charity, it builds a sense of engagement and community for staff and contractors. For birthdays. For celebrations. For feeling down. For any reason!!
And ALWAYS baked goods at in-person meetings. (Which often gets us that extra 30 minutes in a meeting room without paying for it in workspaces when you have 'extras' for the desk staff....) And if we're meeting remotely, then you can bake a brownie in a tin and post it, large letter. Eat it with a spoon. And bask in the love and goodwill.