Quote "gourmet food and free-flowing champagne." Where? I was at the dinner, but didn't see any gourmet food or free-flowing champagne. I think you're whipping people up into a frenzy here. Typical journo's! I've told you a million times not to exaggerate! I don't need to defend what I do for a living, nor does anyone else who is a professional fundraiser. We are here to change the world and that's what we'll do, journos with dodgy websites and views will come and go, we'll still be here as determined as ever to make a difference to people's lives. Get yourself a decent job! As far as I'm concerned a grand on a table once a year at a dinner where people can celebrate hard work and/or success is cheap, even if the food's a bit crap! [dramatic turn, nose in air, exit stage right]

Congratulations Sarah, both for the award and your eloquent post.

You say that the dinner is a "useful way raise YouthNet's profile within fundraising circles – especially valuable as we are a young, medium-sized charity with relatively low brand awareness".

This brings up an interesting question about raising awareness of a charity for different groups. I always assumed that charities focus on raising *donor* awareness of the charity, but it seems conceivable that raising awareness of e.g. YouthNet's award-winning fundraising team within the fundraising community might help in attracting more fundraisers to the team.

A tough one to explain to donors. Although much easier if you are transparent and willing to engage in discussions like this one ;-)

At YouthNet, we believe in a culture where people are valued, respected and know they matter, and where success is celebrated. Fundraising – a profession like any other – with highly skilled and trained specialists, needs and deserves recognition. Fundraisers are the lifeblood of YouthNet, responsible for generating every penny required to keep our services going. So when earlier this year, we learnt that our team had made the shortlist for 'Best Fundraising Team to work for’, we were delighted.

We are a small team (10 staff in total) and at the end of June (the end of our financial year), we were proud to have achieved our fundraising target of £3.2m. After some consideration, we felt that having a table at a celebration to recognise the value, and raise the profile of all the hard work that our fundraisers do, would be a cost effective (and motivating way) of thanking them for their efforts.

Attending these kind of events proves a useful way raise YouthNet's profile within fundraising circles – especially valuable as we are a young, medium-sized charity with relatively low brand awareness. It was also about networking and learning from our peers – and in light of the category for which we were cited – promote, not protect our profession.

As YouthNet's blogs and websites demonstrate, our content inspires some lively debate on range of issues. Including - via http://www.youthnet.org/ynblog/blog/ - comment on the work and impact of the voluntary sector. So we welcome Intelligent Giving creating debate on fundraising events – and in particular, a proud rationale for YouthNet attending the IoF celebration.

Sarah Hooker
Deputy Development Director
YouthNet
www.youthnet.org | www.TheSite.org | www.do-it.org.uk

There are two related issues here (amongst others): the remuneration of charity employees, and "thank you"s in kind to volunteers. Clearly, it's right to reward the former, and in a sales-like environment that may include champagne and events. It's also good to show appreciation to volunteers who put in a lot of effort with no desire for material reward, and without whom most charities could not exist. However, in both cases, there needs to be restraint. It's partly the principal of the thing, and partly a PR matter. For example, a charity I know that's associated with a religious order which has vows of poverty wines and dines its Trustees at a rather grand London hotel (no names, no pack drill). On the one hand, this could be justified as a form of thanks to the lay people amongst them, who give up their time and expertise for a good cause. On the other, it fits uncomfortably with the charity's ethos, and wouldn't be popular with the donors if they new about it. The moral is: think carefully before indulging, however reasonable the justification. Most of us are inclined to think it reasonable to have our efforts recognised in an enjoyable way, but equally most of us want our donations to be spent on the objects of the charity, and in line with its ethos. It's better to err on the side of caution than give offence to current and prospective donors.

I'm a fundraiser for a small charity and I don't go to the convention because well it does cost more than I or my charity want to pay. And I've got more fundraising ideas than I can use and I'm too old to be ambitious. So I'm not a top fundraiser and I won't get any awards. BUT I know some who are in that category and they are always ready to talk to me if I want any advice.

Look at the culture we live in: celebrity, fame and wealth seem more important than anything else and even the BBC lies for marketing purposes.

Yet because of the hardwork of fundraisers, we have a vibrant non-profit sector providing benefits to everyone of us and to people around the world.

The best of these charity marketeers could easily triple their salaries if they moved to the commercial sector. So if they want to have a posh do and pat themselves on the back, good for them.

And quite a few donors wouldn't understand (though quite a few would). A few years ago, when I worked for Oxfam, I suggested that the staff and volunteers bulletin could have an item about some changes in the staff pensions. The editor said no, the last time I mentioned pensions, I got letters from volunteers complaining about Oxfam wasting money on pensions for staff.

I think the world would be a better, richer place if all fundraisers were as reasonable as Gill from the National Trust.

Her professional attitude and willingness to defend her actions in measured tones and as part of a rational argument is - as the comments below show - all too rare amongst her colleagues. 

I - like many people involved with charities - occasionally think that IG pushes issues too far. But the way to debate with them is to engage with their arguments. Accusing IG of behaving conspiratorially (to pluck an example out of thin air) is most certainly not the way forward. 

The National Trust is very proud to buy a table at the Awards Dinner to say thank you to its remarkable staff, many of whom work all over England, Wales and Northern Ireland, so get together infrequently. As their Director I am totally unashamed at spending this small part of a budget on an event which celebrates excellence in our profession, gives enjoyment and says thank you for all their hard work. My team have come away desperate to win at least one award next year. To do this, they will have to do some outstanding work and be the best; they will have to take great care of our donors, and raise funds for the core purpose of The National Trust.

I thought the evening was all about donors and fulfilling donor dreams. I personally presented the award for the Fundraising Team of the Year. It was a great privilege to present it to the Royal Botanic Gardens of Edinburgh whose Fundraising Team did extremely well on a campaign. The real winners are not The Royal Botanic Garden fundraisers, but the people of Edinburgh and the visitors, who will go and enjoy this beautiful and fascinating garden which would not have been able to do all that work without the funds raised by generous donors, inspired by passionate fundraisers.

Fundraising is not some small-scale minor part of our society. It is a marvellous and thrilling profession where we ordinary people, can make extra ordinary things happen, by persuading people to join with us by supporting our causes. Have you any idea how poor this country, and other countries would be without charities?

And once a year, we take our fundraisers and we say thank you and well done.

Gill Raikes
Director of Fundraising for the National Trust, and Chair of the Institute of Fundraising Convention.

Who's noticed that the main critics of this article are the organiser (Lindsay Boswell) and a big winner (Steve Andrews) of the Awards? The whole thing looks cosy right enough to me. The main objection seems to be that it's being written about in public!

is that we have creative dedicated professional fundraisers who go out and make the case for the things the charity needs.  Every now and again we reward them by sending some to an event like this.  I'm in agreement with Champignon (although the number of potential donors that I need to convince not to restrict their donations to things we don't need is higher than they might expect - or indeed than I initially expected)

Your average uninterested, uninvolved person, who simply looks at the headline, is the person who won't let you make the case for something that isn't a physical item, a bed or another park bench, or whatever, and that is also the person that will see this headline and think "how terrible that all of the money I gave (or probably didn't) went to pay for some fancy shmancy awards dinner, and not a bed/park bench"

Now, the Director of Fundraising for Sue Ryder Care will know a lot more about fundraising than me, and if he thinks that a personal donation to pay for this will be worth his money by encouraging and rewarding staff to do better and raise more money in the future, and more than the amount he put in, I would have to agree.  But to try to sell that donation to someone with a passing interest won't be easy, and that's why we need people like IG to argue the case for and against, so the people with more than a passing interest CAN make INFORMED decisions.

The monthly donations I make are unrestricted, because I trust the charities I support to do the best possible job with them, but if I find something that they can guarantee to double, triple, quadruple their investment on, I would tell them to take my money and stick it their.  That's how to make donations count.  That's intelligent giving.

YES!  Spend my money on fundraising costs, go out and turn my £100 into £1000, that way I've helped you get £1000, not just £100.  Take my money and use it to pay for a table at the conference, so your new young keen staff can learn how to do their job better and make more money.

Thanks Mikemuses but I'm not sure I'd go so far as to deny charity sector workers electricity! I think the case for basic administrative expenses is pretty easy to make and a mandate to spend some of a charity's donations in this way can almost be implied from necessity. Much harder is the case for luxe award ceremonies, hence my suggestion that funding could be sought on a stand alone basis IF a convincing case can be made for the value these ceremonies add. The head of fundraising for Su Ryder Care evidenty thought it sufficiently worthwhile to make what amounts to a personal donation.If it can't, then what does that say about the sort of mandate from donors that charities have to divert other funds towards paying for them?

Also, I just wanted to clarify on my last post that when I said "tedious to you" I did not mean tedious to you personally Jax!  

...mikemuses, is the fact that Atos Origin, sponsors of the awards we're nominated for, also supported the IoF Convention. It's a small world, etc., etc...

Adam, Intelligent Giving

Mikemuses says "People want to pay for my charity to buy beds to care for people in. We HAVE beds, what we don't have is money to pay the electricity. But people don't want to pay for utility bills, or staff wages, they want to buy stuff."

Perhaps you need a creative, professional fundraiser who can make the case for real value of your organisation.

Barnardo’s was delighted to be short listed for two awards at the Institute of Fundraising Awards Dinner and even more delighted to win the award for the Most Innovative Fundraising Campaign. The campaign - entitled ‘Store Wars’-was first launched with one of our leading corporate supporters to meet the needs of their community investment and employee involvement programme. The campaign has since raised over £55,000 for Barnardo’s work with vulnerable children and young people. Innovations such as this will help to ensure that we can continue to meet donor and supporter needs and raise vital funds to support even more children and families.

Barnardo’s is proud of its staff and volunteers. This event provided an opportunity to celebrate success and to recognize the special contribution of committed individuals and fundraising teams. Far from being a junket, this event represented a modest investmentin saying well done and thanks.
Steve O'Connor, Director of Fundraising, Barnardo's

Does anyone detect any irony in the fact that above the list of 'recent comments' sits a logo proclaiming 'New Media Awards finalist'?  No?  Just me?  Fair enough

Champignon - I stand by my suggestion that, if there is real value in this kind of event, then it ought to be possible to convince donors to give money to fund it directly.

If only that were the case.  People want to pay for my charity to buy beds to care for people in.  We HAVE beds, what we don't have is money to pay the electricity.  But people don't want to pay for utility bills, or staff wages, they want to buy stuff.

Jax, thank you for responding to my comments. I'm not sure I'm completely convinced (I'm not a high maintenance donor) but I did find what you said interesting and helpful.  I stand by my suggestion that, if there is real value in this kind of event, then it ought to be possible to convince donors to give money to fund it directly, rather than diverting resources that were donated with other purposes in mind.

Also illuminating is the fact that the rest of the comments here seem, to an outsider, to be so much childish political infighting. No one else thought it might be worth addressing a donor's concerns and none of the respondents sounds as if they have any significant experience working outside the charitable sector. In the real business world, you never stop having to justify your role in the organisation and you will never succeed if you tire for one moment of doing so. The arguments may be tedious to you but that is not the point.

One other point ... I'm not sure it's fair to make a deal out of the lack of talk at the awards of donors' wishes. For two reasons:
1) It's an award ceremony. There is only time for the very briefest citations otherwise it gets very dull.
2) Pleasing donors is implicit. Fundraisers tend not to raise much money unless they inspire and/or please donors.

ORBIS won an award in the category of 'Best use of direct marketing for donor development' for the way they said thank you to donors.

This is the IoF recognising good practice in respecting and caring for donors.

Having just read this blog and not knowing much about the IoF I can see the justification in the impression received by IG staff that the 'feel' of the event was lacking in integrity. In my previous experience this type of event can really put people off charities, often largely because they have left a corporate world they didn't believe in thinking they were going to get a better quality of experience.
There are ways to say well done and thank you without resorting to excess and indulgence which is what appears to have occurred here.
It might be a good time for the IoF to survey the attendees at the conference to see how they perceive it. They might get a surprise.......IG can't have been the only ones wondering about the ethics of the situation.

Thanks Steve. Actually, we don't have to make our minds up. It's still legitimate at this stage for us to keep weighing up what we hear. It's not a fudge and it is the truth: we are not dogmatic on this issue when asked by the press. Read the article again. There's a dig at ignorant donors and a nod towards the Institute's position. That said, if the article had been wholly balanced the outcome would have been this:
- no-one would have read it because it was boring
- we wouldn't have received anywhere near the number of comments (among which, CLIC Sargent's and Lindsay Boswell's were the most informative because they quoted facts)

In response to Steve's last comment, and others that have been critical, I think it is worth repeating the following:

1. We have no problem with fundraisers attending networking events, or learning how to do their jobs better.
2. We understand that charities operate in a competitive marketplace and need to spend decent amounts of money attempting to get an often ungenerous public to support their cause.
3. We think that, if they are successful, fundraisers have every right to celebrate their achievements.

On the other hand, however:

1. We think fundraisers should be transparent. We named the charities which paid for tables at the Awards. We did this in the name - purely - of promoting transparency. Surely there's nothing to object to in this? 
2. We think fundraisers could often pay more attention to donors' wishes. Hence Dave's observation that donors might be a bit miffed at the seeming extravagance of some aspects of the Convention.

As I've written elsewhere, I have great respect for what fundraisers do. They deserve to enjoy their jobs like anyone else. But when they have their parties, I think it would be nice if, perhaps, donors' concerns featured more prominently in the conversation.

Adam, Intelligent Giving

Thank you for your response to my contribution to this blog. I find it quite fasinating that you think this debate is going to be informative to donors, especially when you have only given them "the party" factor. As I said previously alot of intensive training went on thru the three days along with contact at an expo of resources which assist charites and their fundraisers to raise funds for their orgnisations and plan how to use these frugally. The conference is actually an example of extremely good value for money for all charities that attended. Where else would you get such an amazing variety of seminars and training sessions, as most quality training days anywhere in the UK are averaging at least £200-300 per day. By the way, What sessions did Intelligent Giving go to, or was it just the dinner! I think your organisation has marred these awards that were given to some very dedicated people and organisations which deserve to be acknowledged for all the intense effort and innovative ideas that they have brought to professional fundraising.

I've been a big fan of Intelligent Giving but this article is poor and lacks a degree of intelligence. This well-funded site puts real pressure on charities to become more professional, particularly in their fundraising. To respond to this pressure, charities need to recruit the best marketing people; competing with other industries which pay much higher salaries. If the sector doesn't incentivise and reward staff with relatively modest award ceremonies like this, they have no hope of inspiring the best people to stay in the sector and do a great job.

You guys have got to make your minds up.

If you want the sector to return to coffee mornings and knitting circles than we wont need to worry about motivating talented people. We could go down that road but society will pay a heavy price.

This article wreaks of ill-informed bias against the Institute of Fundraising. That organisation has been working for years to improve fundraisings' accountability and response to donors' wishes. It's been doing so since long before your website was born.

But then I guess you know you've lost the arguement when the Editor has to succumb to the 'We wos only provoking a debate to be interesting' arguement. What nonsense.

...is to stimulate debate. And that's what we have done here. Avril, thanks for your comment, but this isn't really about publicity; it's about *interesting* information. Donors will learn a lot more about professional fundraising here than on charityfacts.org. The point is that they'll want to read it because it's interesting, with different points of view - not an anodyne single voice. This page will stay here and be searchable for years to come - a relevant resource which can grow and inform.

CLIC Sargent attended the Institute of Fundraising Awards 2007 where it had received two nominations for awards, one for the most innovative fundraising campaign (for Yummy Mummy Week), and one for the best fundraiser (Nikki Betts).

The decision to attend the awards was not taken lightly. But we chose to use the opportunity to influence some of our key supporters, and network with others in the industry. On our table - the cost of which was subsidised by the Institute of Fundraising itself - we had representatives from a leading national newspaper, two corporate partners and one previous event sponsor. One of our patrons also accepted an invitation to the event. As a result of this event, we hope to have further bolstered our position with these partners, and motivated our patron to continue to support our work.

In addition to using the event for training and networking opportunities, we also used the evening to celebrate the achievements of our staff. Nikki Betts, who won the award - Best Fundraiser, has worked tirelessly for CLIC Sargent for several years. We felt it was important to recognise her achievements. Only through rewarding and motivating our staff are we able to get the best out of them, and attract other candidates to work for our organisation.

As a member of the Institute of Fundraising, I had the pleasure of being a participant at the conference this year. I find it unbelievable that an organisation like Intelliegent giving can be so scathing of an event which was a chance to give fundraisers the opportunity of some very high quality training and networking which can only benefit charities, donors and fundraisers. As a fundraiser for 30 years I am not sure what Intelligent Giving are hoping to gain by this sort of publicity.

Thanks, Lindsay, for your comments. 

First, I should apologize for giving a wrong impression of how much money the Institute makes from the Convention. The figures Lindsay quotes from this year look entirely reasonable; and the Institute’s accounts from 2005-6 (PDF, 1MB) show that it actually made a loss on last year’s event – though this, of course, raises all sorts of issues of its own. 

Second, however, I think it’s disingenuous for Lindsay to claim that the Convention would ‘only’ cost £527 to attend.  The Institute’s own website states that a non-member attending the Convention would have to shell out between £707 and £1,347. 

Finally, I agree with Lindsay that fundraisers don’t exactly live the life of hedge-fund managers. I am sure that most of them are in the business for the best of reasons.  But none of this contradicts my central point: that when fundraisers meet up to slap each other on the back, they could talk less about marketing, and more about how they can best respond to their donors’ concerns.

Adam, Intelligent Giving

Nothings Free In Life.

This article shows dishearteningly little comprehension of the way in which UK charities work. No charity spends money lightly.

National Convention is not a marketing event, but an intensive 3-day training and networking programme that aims to raise standards in fundraising. Run alongside Convention, the National Awards evening is largely funded by corporate sponsors. Several charities do purchase tables in order to motivate and reward hard working staff who, over the course of the year, raise millions for the charity they work for.

Fundraisers don’t get paid a fortune or have huge expense accounts. On the whole, they operate on a shoestring budget and are expected to achieve the impossible. But, the National Awards are a once a year opportunity for the country’s top fundraisers to get together, learn from their peers and to recognise success which has been so crucial in saving lives and making the world a better place.

As for the fundraisers and charities that won awards, they didn’t do it in order to get a slap up meal, but because it is their job – to raise funds as effectively as possible. Anyone who donated to any of the winning campaigns should feel proud and confident that they gave their money to one of the most effective campaigns. Individual award winners will serve as an inspiration to thousands of fundraisers.

Lindsay Boswell - Chief Executive, Institute of Fundraising

Lindsay is the head of the Institute of Fundraising. Thanks for your comment, Lindsay (if it is you). I assure you there was no deliberate delay/deletion of your first comment. Our Drupal system is to blame, although we've never known it to delete a comment.

We posted a response more than one and a half hours ago and still it is not there. It is highly suspicious that you clearly delay our right of reply while posting complete untruths. Adam from Intelligent Giving says that it would have cost £1000 for a delegate to get the three day experience that the volunteer got. Rubbish. It is half that amount at £527 for a three day pass. He also talks about us "raking in £600,000". This is just misleading and deliberately so. You claim to champion transparency and then use totaly misleading figures. It is too soon to know what final performance from this was but the budget for the National Convention was:

Costs: £492,726
Delegate income: £447,852
Sponsorship: £105,500
Profit: £60,626.

In addition to this we run the awards dinner and the exhibition. We deliberately moved this event away from Birmingham three years ago to bring the price down in order to make it more accessible. We offer bursaries and volunteer places. The profit funds our work to support fundraisers and charities to be more effective.