queer ideas

Face to face fundraising from 1910

Many people seem to think that large-scale face to face fundraising was first developed by Greenpeace in the 1990s, but it's been around far longer than that.

ActionAid were recruiting child sponsors in the 1970s by going from door to door. And Oxfam were using press ads to recruit people to collect regular pledges from their friends and neighbours in the 1960s.

But that's nothing to what the YMCA was doing back at the beginning of the twentieth century.

Around the world, new YMCAs were built with money raised through what became known as the Lightning Canvass.

The idea was simple. Get a group of young men, divide them into teams and send them out on the streets for two weeks to recruit donors who would give on the 'Instalment System'.

It was the brainchild of Charles Sumner Ward, who could well be described as the godfather of modern fundraising.

Charles was General Secretary of Grand Rapids YMCA in Michigan. And he had a problem that many CEOs of today's small charities might recognise. He had to spend most of his time fundraising rather than doing 'real' work.

As a result he came up with a plan. In January of 1892, he asked his directors to close down their desks for part of each day so they could give "wholehearted support to an intensive, organised effort to raise the Y's budget at the beginning of the year". At the heart of the idea was a dislike of fundraising that resulted in a desire "to get the agony over with quickly."

The plan worked brilliantly. Together with a group of volunteers, they raised the year's budget within a few days. For the next five years, Ward repeated the exercise with similar results.

Soon other YMCAs were asking for his advice. He introduced them to his approach and success followed success. He raised £103,000 for Boston YMCA, £64,000 for Montreal YMCA, over £160,000 for Toronto YMCA and a massive £200,000 for Philadelphia YMCA (which would be worth over £16,000,000 today)

In 1912 he brought the technique to the UK and helped set up campaigns for a number of new British YMCAs, including one for Manchester YMCA. Having searched the archives of The Manchester Guardian I've found out what happened.

350 different volunteer fundraisers working in teams known by such donor friendly names as The Hustlers, The Tender Heart Ticklers and The Gold Chasers raised £14,000 in twelve days. They did this, in their own words, by...

"scouring Manchester during the campaign...merry bands of well-intentioned highwaymen on the prowl, ready to pounce upon every good-natured-looking individual with their cry, 'your money or your promise.' "

To build excitement they erected a huge fundraising clock in Manchester city centre that allowed everyone to see the money rolling in. It was so important to the campaign that it took pride of place in the campaign brochure...

Sadly, they fell short of their target by £6,000, but the regular payments on the 'Instalment System' made up the difference.

They generated these by encouraging donors to complete a forerunner of the direct debit form. It was designed to neatly dovetail with the the clock...

The success of these campaigns wasn't down to luck. Ward had tested and proved his strategy many times. And luckily, the Manchester Guardian on the 7th of October, 1912, detailed just a few elements of the approach...

"In money-raising, the quick campaign method had proved itself to be the very best method up to the present. The best time for holding the campaign was towards the end of January, because by then dividends and rents had recently been paid, and it was the time when many people and firms set aside amounts for the year's gifts...they should not overlook the importance of having a luncheon or dinner on the eve of the campaign to which they should invite a large number of possible subscribers."

But even in 1912, there were dissenting voices that weren't convinced that face to face fundraising was the way forward. The Manchester Guardian reported the concerns of the Rev. Stanley J. Hersee who thought the effect of a lightning campaign would be disastrous...

"It was really a spasmodic effort concentrated into five or ten days; they had a tremendous reaction, and the backwash was a bad thing. Many people were growing tired of the sort of 'revolver, your money, or your life' campaign."

It just shows that even when it comes to the attitudes of donors there's nothing new in the world of fundraising. Apart from the fact that today's face to face fundraisers look a little different from their Edwardian counterparts...

With thanks to Gary Shearin for providing the images.

The anatomy of a failed campaign

A few weeks ago, I questioned the decision of the D&AD to award a coveted Yellow Pencil to a student team for an idea that they developed for Oxfam.

The D&AD asked me to write a follow up piece that you can read here. Or for those who are a little short on time, you might prefer the Reader's Digest version...

The creative process that ignores the needs of donors is a waste of time and money.

It's why I always find the news that yet another charity has appointed yet another above the line agency to develop a mould breaking campaign so depressing.

The fact is, good fundraising isn't actually broken. Even in these tough economic times it still works very well. So rather than rejecting it for the best guesses of people who have never raised money in their lives, I'd suggest that any charity concerned about income should embrace traditional fundraising techniques tighter than ever.

And to help illustrate what might happen if you decide to do otherwise, I'd like to point you in the direction of a rather remarkable but cautionary tale on SOFII.

It's written by Lucy Gower and features an account of ActionAid's failed 'What a Feeling' campaign given by their ex director of fundraising, Richard Turner.

It's remarkable because for the first time (that I'm aware of), somebody has been brave enough to give an honest account of what can actually happen when a revolutionary new fundraising strategy is implemented.

Lucy explains...

"The idea came from meeting supporters. The team deliberately got a diverse group together to hear them talk about ActionAid. What stood out was the way they spoke about what they gained. This tallied with the anecdotal comments from supporters when meeting fundraisers; as a result of donating, fundraising, or campaigning for ActionAid, supporters would frequently describe their feelings. Therefore it was decided that this would be the basis of the campaign - real supporters sharing their real feelings to encourage other people like them to sign up to help ActionAid..."

It was a complex strategy that used a wide range of traditional and new media. This video helps give a flavour of the approach and the thinking behind it.

And the results?

..."Despite the conviction of Richard and the fundraising team that they were onto something great, the campaign failed. ActionAid didn’t reach the targets for sign ups to new direct debits. They missed them by a mile."

You should read the whole article as Richard has obviously thought long and hard about the reasons for the failure, but I'd particularly like to highlight three key points that we should all remember...

1. Spend your time understanding the problems you actually need to tackle (such as high attrition or poor recruitment) before embarking on broad engagement / awareness campaigns.
2. Don't lose focus on the work that donors want to fund.
3. Test your ideas and only roll out once they have been proven to work.

As Lucy points out, ActionAid were actually on to something with 'What a Feeling'. I strongly believe that the emotional rewards we receive in return for helping others is our sector's 'product'.

But my sneaking suspicion is that donors don't really want to think they are giving for 'selfish' reasons. To my mind, this very thought is likely to reduce the power of the feelings that, as fundraisers, we are trying to generate in the first place.

I also think it is worth including the short-lived TV ad produced by OgilvyOne London that followed the campaign's launch. You can find out what happened after this was run here.

A massive, massive thanks to Richard for being so open about the campaign. As Lucy says...

"I hope that sharing his experience will help us all learn, as well as encourage us to be more open about failure in order that we can ultimately all fundraise more effectively for the causes that we are passionate about."

Update: Richard has posted more thoughts on this campaign on his blog. You can read them here.

An award tells you more about the judges than the contestants

D&AD have just had their annual awards bash where they hand out their coveted yellow pencils in recognition of outstanding creative work.

It's not just the big agencies who get their chance to shine, students have their opportunity too. And this year, one of the categories included an open brief for Oxfam.

Teams were asked to "present an idea that engages support for Oxfam by triggering shared values and concerns in a wide range of people."

The winner was from the Miami Ad School (in Madrid) with their entry, It's a better life without Oxfam.

As you'll see, their approach was an online platform where users can find details of Oxfam staff and where they work.

Each staff member shares their dream of what they would like to do if they didn't work for Oxfam and...well, watch the video and you'll find out.

I don't want to criticise the students as they are probably a really nice bunch of people who know more about what is likely to win a yellow pencil than I do.

And that's my point.

As a charity concept it fails at pretty much every level. There is a sniff of an idea in there, but it is smothered by a complete disregard and rejection of why people actually choose to support good causes.

But it won the award.

And on that basis, the team behind it has been successful. They understood what their audience – D&AD judges – wanted and they delivered. Congratulations to them.

But it also explains something else. It shows us why ad agencies are so terrible at producing advertisements for charities. They simply don't get it.

Our story-telling techniques, the way we demonstrate need, the way we use music, endorsements and financial justifications seem to "bore the shit" out of them. So much so, that they reward an entry that directly criticises what we know actually works.

I can understand why. They must be very frustrated.

Agency after agency has tried to break the 'charity ad' mould only to see their ideas fail. All the while, low budget productions are continuing to attract new donors and actually raise the money that charities use to carry out their life-saving and life-changing work.

So, if you want to win an award, any of the agencies where the D&AD judges work might be a great place to start.

But if you were looking for a fresh face in advertising who might actually help you recruit and engage donors, can I suggest you go to the bottom of the D&AD list and take a look at what Amy Weston from Sheffield College has produced. She created a rather neat little idea called Give. Grow. Gain. that really does demonstrate an understanding of why people give.

If you read this Amy, get in touch and come and have a chat. You look like you know what you're doing.

Thanks to @skipinder and @pollysymondson for the heads up.

Oxfam Vs Nothing But Nets

The Science of Giving is a fantastic publication that should be on the shelf of every fundraiser. It summarises some of the most important social experiments that have helped to highlight the reasons behind low response rates and high levels of attrition.

The chapter by Cynthia Cryder and George Loewenstein is a particular favourite. A couple of the experiments they recount neatly demonstrate the connection between tangibility and generosity.

In the first example, two groups were presented with information about Oxfam and asked to decide how much, if anything, they wished to donate.

The first group had Oxfam described to them in a tangible way, and were told that one way donations are used is to provide clean water to villagers in West Africa.

The second group received an intangible description explaining that donations would go to a broad range of projects throughout the world.

Not surprisingly, the participants who read about Oxfam in a tangible way donated almost twice as much as those who received the general information.

The second experiment took a similar approach, with one group presented with information about Oxfam whereas the second group heard about a relatively small niche charity, Nothing But Nets, an organisation that provides mosquito nets to poor families in Africa.

Consistent with the results from the previous study, participants who read about Nothing But Nets donated almost three times as much as the participants who read about Oxfam.

When questioned about this difference, the donors who had given to the more tangible examples explained their higher levels of generosity quite simply – they felt their gift would have more of an impact. Something that has three important implications:

• It helps increase levels of trust.
• It provides the donor with the feeling that they are making a measurable difference rather than just adding a small drop of help to a massive ocean of need.
• It encourages an emotional connection, leaving a donor with a far more powerful memory of the experience than if they just handed over money to a relatively impersonal brand.

Which helps demonstrate the reason why it's always worth getting on the phone, bike, bus, train or even plane to gather the first hand examples to show a donor just how they are going to make a difference.

What's the point of branding?

So you've got a brand. You've brainstormed with stakeholders, you've paid many thousands of pounds for a sparkling new logo, a corporate identity and a list of adjectives that are going to help you change the world.

And what's the result?

Has it increased response rates to your mailing packs? Has it helped reduce attrition? Has it increased donor loyalty?

If it hasn't, maybe something is going wrong.

In the commercial world, a brand adds value to a product or service. In short, it increases income.

For charities, things aren't so clear cut. I've seen 'brand expenditure' justified in terms of increasing awareness or extending knowledge of organisational goals.

All well and good. But if that doesn't translate to more supporters giving and doing more, I'm not sure that a new brand can be classified as a success.

That's why I was rather concerned to see the some of the findings from the 2010 Charity Brand Index survey (you can see my thoughts on the 2009 survey here).

A total of 3,203 adults took part in the survey, answering questions regarding recognition, individual giving, publicity work, trust and support.

When the answers had been cross-tabulated and added up, each charity was left with a score and this year, Cancer Research UK came out on top, followed by BBC Children in Need, RSPCA, Macmillan Cancer Support and Great Ormond Street Hospital Children's Charity. SSAFA Forces Help saw the biggest rise and NDCS had the biggest fall.

You can see the full index here.

But what's most interesting are the findings about general attitudes to charities. And for me, one result stands out above all the rest – they found that less than 30% of people thought that charities were using money well, down from 32.5% in 2009.

It's left me scratching my head. Donors are continuing to lose touch with the charities they support. Trust might be up, but what about engagement? it seems to be in decline.

We know that one of the most powerful ways to engage a donor is to show them how you have used a gift. It's something donors welcome. When you ask them what they want from a charity, it's pretty much top of the list.

And if we are trying to add value to a charity brand that will translate into more funds, surely this research is showing us that we are doing something wrong. Any study of attrition rates would tend to confirm this view.

Donors have ultimate power. If they don't like the way they are treated after giving once, it is highly likley that their next gift will go elsewhere.

Perhaps they might think that by ignoring their role, we are being a little ungrateful and maybe even a little arrogant. It's happened to organisations like GAP, Coca Cola and Tropicana. There's no reason why it couldn't happen to us to.

So rather than producing advertising that says how great our charity is, perhaps we could learn from what fundraisers were doing before many of us were actually born and produce ads like this from January 1964 that thank donors for their role in raising £1,000,000.

It shows donors just how important they are - in no uncertain terms...

"So people live who would have died. And children have a chance... because you sent a cheque".

If I'd given to the appeal, that ad would have certainly made me feel good. Maybe I'd have given again. And perhaps that's what charity branding should actually be about.

You really should write to your grandmother more often

One of the first tasks that I give to trainee copywriters is to write an appeal letter to their grandmother.

Not people like their grandmother. They write the letter to their grandmother – by name.

It doesn't matter if the appeal is for overseas aid, medical research, animal protection or anything else. What the writer needs to do is build an emotional connection with the reader.

And to really understand what that means, you have to write real letters to real people.

To my my mind, too many appeals allow brand guidelines, broad demographic target audiences and lists of statistics get in the way of the emotional link necessary for great fundraising.  As a result, we end up with communications that are little more than fact based justifications of a charity's existence.

When people talk from the heart, these elements are jettisoned. That's why I prefer, when writing an appeal, to speak to people with real experience of the issue in question. What can be gleaned from these interviews is far more important than anything I find in reams of project reports.

An example of this type of apeal comes from one of my favourite books on fundraising. Asking Properly, written by George Smith, is required reading for anyone who works or wants to work in our industry - you can get a copy from Amazon or, even better, straight from the publishers, The White Lion Press.

On page 92, George includes a brief excerpt from an appeal written in 1987 for Oxfam. To me, this short piece gets over values such as honesty, care, the need for justice and importance of child rights far better than any brand guidelines.

Dear <supporter>

Doesn't it upset you to walk among people who have lost everything? Doesn't it distress you to see small children dying in their mothers' arms?

I am often asked these questions when I return from a disaster zone. Quite frankly, it does and it doesn't...

It doesn't because I'm busy when I'm visiting the scene of a disaster. I don't feel the helplessness you feel in front of your TV. Just the opposite, I have the privilege of being able to do something to ease the suffering.

But of course it hurts when someone you've got to know dies.

In the civil war in Uganda I was visiting camps for people fleeing the fighting. We picked up a very sick mother and her starving children to take them to hospital in Kampala. In the crowded jeep a little boy of five or six sat on my lap. We smiled at each other as the jeep bounced along the rough dirt roads. He died before we reached hospital.

That evening I just dissolved into tears. I have a child about the same age.

That's the sort of organisation and, perhaps more importantly, person I'd trust with a donation.

Show donors what they can do. Not what they can't

When it comes to creating appeals, there is a natural assumption that high numbers generate high levels of income.

If many thousands of people are at risk or in danger, logic would dictate that donors will give more money than if just one person is affected.

And this seems to be the practice that many charities follow. Take a look at any emergency ad and you'll probably see the size of the task featured in the first paragraph – 280,000 people forced from their homes, thousands buried alive and 23 million facing life threatening shortages of food.

These ads, from three great organisations probably raised significant sums. But there is a growing body of research that shows featuring such large numbers serves to suppress response rates, perhaps reducing the effectiveness of these essential fundraising tools.

By presenting unimaginable levels of need we make people feel helpless. Such large numbers don't convey need or increase urgency. They simply serve to remind donors of the people that they can't help.

Combating helplessness is one of the key need states that donors experience. And by helping them tackle it, we can dramatically increase the amount of money we raise.

I learned this lesson back when I worked at ActionAid. We were running a new set of ads to recruit child sponsors. One execution that had performed well in research wasn't working on the page. It featured a photograph of a young Nepalese girl, Kumari, holding her baby sister.

We swapped the photograph to another of Kumari and ran the ad again. This time she was on her own. The response rate immediately hit the expected target.

Same design, same copy, same child.

I wasn't 100% sure if it was featuring just Kumari that had improved the response rate – facial expression had a role to play too. But subsequent tests and research demonstrated the effectiveness of focusing on one person in appeal communications.

Dr. Paul Slovic offers some examples of these studies in a fascinating webinar from The Communications Network.

In it he presents the "Collapse of Compassion" model to describe the reduction in response rates when the number of people in need of help is increased.

One study that he refers to sums this up rather well. Three groups of people were each presented with a different communications asking them to help Save The Children.

• A factual letter full of statistics...

Food shortages in Malawi are effecting more than 3 million children.

• A letter about one girl, Rokia and the impact of the food shortages on her.

• A combined approach featuring both the statistics and Rokia's story.

The factual letter generated an average gift of $1.14, Rokia's letter generated an average gift of $2.38 and the combined approach generated $1.43.

He also describes a Swedish study that found the difference between featuring two children instead of one amounted to a reduction in income of approximately 15%.

There is plenty more to learn by listening to the complete webinar. Not least, you'll hear Paul's advice on what charities can do to improve their appeal results.

And that can be summed up very simply – show donors what they can do – not what they can't.

By focusing on the magnitude of problems we push donors away. By helping them combat their feelings of helplessness we will engage and involve them.

Click here to read more about the complete set of donor need states.

Oxfam getting back to basics on TV

I wasn't that impressed with the old lady using her special vomiting power to fight the giant spider of injustice that featured in Oxfam's Be Humankind campaign last year. The huge distance from their cartoon to the real world was a big jump that I didn't think many people would take.

It was re-cut with bright red no's coming from the old lady's mouth a few months later, but even in this new guise I don't think it raised much money. And I'm not surprised we haven't seen it (or anything like it) since.

But Oxfam have recently come back to TV with an approach that gets back to basics and should help actually engage supporters.

it looks cheap (in a good way). Use of stock footage of floods in Bangladesh interspersed with their own film of Sufia, a young woman who saw her 5 year old son get washed away, presents a disaster in simple human terms that we can all relate to.

But what donors really want to see is how the constant threat of a flood in low lying regions is being tackled and Oxfam use the ad to actually show us what's happening. We see homes being built on land that has been raised above flood level. Sufia and her neighbours are doing the digging. All Oxfam ask for is £1 a week to get the work underway.

Climate change is a massive problem, but by taking time to show us an intelligent approach to reducing it's impact, Oxfam actually empower us as donors.

I think the ad resembles a traditional DM appeal with the problem shown alongside a priced solution. 

The only problem for me is the forced inclusion of the "brand" in the batman style flashes emphasising key points in the script. They seem only to have been inserted so the corporate ID can be featured again and again. The result is the script is over long and key points of emphasis are lost. I'd rather this was removed and the actual cost of a tool the people might use be featured instead.

We need to remember that people give THROUGH charities, not to them. And after a long run of rather abstract ads (which also includes the I'm In campaign), Oxfam are starting to get their TV work back on track by featuring the people I want to help in a way that I think is rather sensible. 

It makes me glad I never canceled my direct debit.

The misdirected power of the brand

Some people think I don't like branding. They are wrong. I love great brands. The trouble is that I don't think many charity brands are very well managed and there are a growing number of pieces of research that serve to confirm my beliefs.

I thought I'd share a few of them after reading the recently published Charity Brand Index which features the UK's top 100 charity brands.

It was compiled using survey data from 3,032 people, who were asked about their awareness of charities and the impression they had of them.

"Respondents were asked about their awareness of 30 charities randomly selected from the list of 150. After highlighting those they were aware of, they were then assigned a maximum of five charities to focus on in the main survey. Respondents were then asked their views on these 150 charities, the metrics subsequently making up the top 100 ranking being: relevance, distinctiveness, familiarity, trust and impression.

‘Consideration to donate’ acted as a proxy for all these measures, which were then all multiplied by prompted awareness to ensure that charities which were loved by a few, but had low awareness, did not achieve a disproportionate rank."

The top ten were:

Macmillan Cancer Support
Cancer Research UK
NSPCC
RSPCA
BBC Children in Need
British Heart Foundation
Comic Relief
Marie Curie Cancer Care
RNLI
British Red Cross

Macmillan, with voluntary income of less than a third of Cancer Research UK, were surprise winners. Their high familiarity score and an extremely positive impression of the brand lifted them clear of the competition.

But what does all this actually mean? What is a brand actually worth?

A study published earlier in the year attempted to estimate the value of American charities. They gave top spot to the YMCA (a charity that doesn't even feature in the UK list) with a worth of almost $6.4 billion. The charity with the best brand image was the American Cancer Society.

A different set of criteria was used to build the US list. They included such factors as size of budget, potential for future growth, volunteer numbers and news coverage in their analysis.

These differences in approaches seem to back up John Murphy's thoughts on brand valuation. John founded global branding consultancy, Interbrand, and has a refreshingly honest opinion on the subject...

"Brand valuation is a 'social science' not a 'physical science'. Valuation opinions will always be just that – opinions."

For me, any assessment of charity brand value has to be based on the additional income it will help generate. The fact that someone knows that a charity exists or answers a specific need is worthless if it doesn't translate to the bottom line. And 'propensity to donate' doesn't quite cut the mustard for me.

It's why reports and studies that inflate the value of brand building activities are so dangerous. Branding is seen by a growing number of people as a universal panacea to a charity's ills and there is precious little evidence to back up their belief.

Branding just doesn't seem to be solving the deep-seated problems the sector faces.

Joshua G2 undertake research into which brands are most loved and hated by the British public and have included charities in their studies. Last year they found that Cancer Research was most loved (followed by Macmillan, RSPCA, NSPCC and PDSA) and Christian Aid was most hated (followed by War on Want,  Oxfam, The Salvation Army and RSPCA). Results for 2007 are here.

But what's interesting is to try and uncover why charities engender these emotions.

Luckily GMI / Mintel did their own study to try and uncover the attitudes underling these emotional reactions (also published in 2008). They assessed charities on a variety of characteristics. These included, trust, social responsibility, pride, innovation, great service, good value, good reputation, distinctive image, consistent high quality and caring for the environment. These were mapped out on radar charts. I've reproduced those for Cancer Research UK and Christian Aid. The darker shape represents the scoring for the charity, the lighter shape is the average for all charities they analysed.

You can see that Cancer Research UK scores very highly on trust and on good reputation. Christian Aid in comparison does very badly on both indices. But what is jaw-droppingly surprising is just how low both charities score on great customer service. But they are not alone – the fact is that every other charity they looked at also scores poorly in this area. Seven other radar charts are posted here (including Friends of The Earth, NSPCC, RSPCA, The Royal British Legion, The British Heart Foundation, Save the Children and Oxfam).

When asked about how engaging these brands were, the results were as shocking. Cancer Research UK was best with 12% of those surveyed describing the brand as engaging. The majority scored in single figures.

And it doesn't take a genius to understand why. Brand guidelines are almost always about the charity. Phrases such as we are brave, we are outraged, we are effective, we are honest and we are just dominate these booklets. And far too often, brand policing is solely about ensuring these sentiments are included in copy. 

What this process does is suppress the focus on generating engagement with donors. A hand typed and signed letter on poor quality stock that talks about what the donor has achieved is rarely going to appear in a set of brand guidelines, but in comparison with a branded corporate style mailing, I know which pack is going to raise most money AND bring the donor closer to the charity. And it is only through reducing the distance between the charity and the donor that we are going to engender real understanding and solidarity.

The days of the self-congratulatory brand are over. We must acknowledge that our brands live solely in the minds of our supporters. Research shows that the majority of people still trust and regard most charities highly. The role of any brand strategy should be to tackle key weaknesses and that includes managing the brand experience as well as influencing brand understanding and values. By doing so, we will take a huge leap forward in managing the ongoing problem of dis-engagement and the accompanying attrition that afflicts so many charities.

My recommendation is we do this by answering the needs of donors. If you haven't seen my posts on donor needs, I'd recommend you look at this.

By engaging and serving those who support us, attrition is being tackled and significant additional funds are being generated – even in times of recession.

Finally, if this has got you thinking, I'd recommend that you read a recent post from Aline Reed on her blog, Bluefrog Creative  where she shares some of her thoughts on brands that generate feelings of love.

Guy Stringer 1920 – 2009

I heard today the very sad news that Guy Stringer had died at the beginning of the month.

Guy joined Oxfam in 1969 in the specially created post of commercial director where he was responsible for the development of Oxfam's shops and was involved in a number of important firsts, including helping to set up New Internationalist magazine,  the importing of handicrafts as a trading partnership and an early venture in large-scale recycling.

In 1983, Guy became the Director of Oxfam and held the post until 1985.

I first met Guy in 1988. I'd just started work at ActionAid as Marketing Officer and in my first week was luckily whisked off to Amsterdam to attend the International Fundraising Workshop. I knew very little and was going from introductory course to introductory course when Andy Holiday, ActionAid's community fundraising manager, recommended I attend Guy's presentation for senior charity directors.

I went along with the same feeling of apprehension I felt when trying to see Enter The Dragon at Lewisham Odeon when I was just 16. And was equally surprised when they let me in.

Guy then spoke about some of the issues he'd faced at Oxfam and how he'd overcome them. One story stayed with me and has helped me in a number of surprising ways over the years. As my own particular thank you to Guy, I thought it should be passed on for others to learn from.

It's called the Russian Sled Theory...

Picture the scene. A dog sled is racing across the frozen Russian Steppes. From out of the distance comes a howling pack of wolves who have caught the scent of the sled and are in hot pursuit. Within a few minutes they are snapping at it's rear. The driver urges his dogs to run faster but knows they can't keep up this pace for long.

From under a fur blanket he pulls out a great hunk of meat and throws it over his shoulder. The wolves stop in their tracks and fight over the piece of meat, ripping it apart until it has all been devoured. Then they look up and see that the sled has disappeared over the horizon – to safety.

For Guy, the shops were his hunk of meat.

If he had a particularly contentious issue to discuss with his trustees – such as needing the release of additional funds to tackle a problem in one of their country programmes – he would put this at the end of the meeting and just before would table an item on re-branding the shops or introducing a new line of goods.

The trustees all had an opinion on shops and a heated debate was guaranteed. Guy would let this continue as each person said their piece and put over their point of view. With time ticking by, Guy would ask for consensus and a decision would be made. He would then turn to the final item on the agenda and ask if anyone had any concerns as he thought it was a fairly simple decision to agree.

Satisfied by the fight over the shops, the trustees would quickly approve his recommendation before collecting their papers and getting ready to leave. Guy would then return to his office and implement the life-saving work that the trustees had just allowed to go ahead.

Thanks Guy. You'll be really missed.

Update: Some of Guy's other stories can be found on sofii.org. They are recommended reading.