We’re only Human

David Armes | 20th September 2017

What does global research, digital marketing, financial services and a charity have in common? They are full of humans trying to connect with other humans, for commercial success.

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This really struck me recently when I had the genuine privilege to support a local charity. The charity, called Diverse Abilities, do amazing work helping children and adults with disabilities in the local community to have a wonderful and fulfilled whole life.

I was working with the fundraising team who are responsible for raising money through community, events, trusts and sponsorship.

The brief was simple, to get the team to get out of their comfort zone, try some new approaches, and to focus on fewer activities with a bigger impact. Sound familiar? 

Now like a lot of industries the charity sector is going through many changes which affect how they can go about raising money. This means that the team need to take a fresh approach on how they engage with donors. This is not uncommon across all our client base, the need to change the way you engage, collaborate, and partner in order to grow.

So I walked into a room full of young, committed, passionate people all excited to learn, and determined they were not sales people, in equal measures. 

Very quickly, after working through the challenges they face, what they need to change, and where they saw the barriers, it struck me that I could be working with any of my clients from any sector. The themes were amazingly similar. 

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• their market is changing

• their existing approaches aren't working as effectively

• hey know they need to change but are worried that it will mean being more/too salesy 

Ashley, The Head of Fundraising, summed it up perfectly:

“Through the sessions we had together the team began to see what they did as not selling more, but communicating to, discovering, and building relationships with new donors, that have the same cause as them. And even more valuable was they developed techniques of doing it in a way that is human, which means full of care, empathy, connection, and trust.”
 

What's the lesson, the more we are human and focus on building amazing relationships, the more we will find people who want to work with us.