One of the in-flight movies was Moneyball Starring Brad Pitt and directed by Bennett Miller.

Based on the bestseller Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, Moneyball is the true story of the Oakland A’s baseball team general manager Billy Beane.

Billy knew that they couldn’t compete with the big budgets that the other teams had to buy players so he had to win using different tactics.

Billy developed a new way of recruiting players by using computer based analysis to buy combinations of players with undervalued, yet complementary skills to form a winning combination. From changing the ‘normal’ approach based on the collected wisdom of players, managers and coaches Billy focused on buying ‘wins’ rather than players.

At first he was criticised for reinventing a system that had been working OK for years and threatening the game and the way that ‘things got done’. Then his strategy started to work. With his team Billy changed the game. His strategy was adopted by others. In fact two years later the Red Sox won the world series using Billy’s philosophy.

Despite his overall success Billy still thought he failed because the Oakland A’s didn’t win the final game of the season. His personal goal was all about his emotional romantic attachment to the game and that last win.

What can we learn from Moneyball

• It takes guts to try something new
• You can’t win by being the same as everyone else
• Helping people understand and bringing them with you is very important – it can be lonely without allies.  It was only when Billy helped the team understand his strategy that he started to see success.
• You have to have passion. Billy’s passion for his team and emotional involvement with the game was a driving force.
• Billy tells a baseball scout who criticises his strategy to ‘adapt or die’. It’s true. The world changes, your competition changes and you have a choice to adapt or to die.
• Know what success looks like and celebrate it.

So watch it for yourself. It’s got a great song at the end that made me cry a little bit and proved me wrong. You can get romantic about baseball.

Recently I was lucky enough to catch up with Vinny the Pug and learn a bit more about what he has been up to.

Vinny climbs rocks and fundraises for a range of causes. He lives in New Orleans, with his human Allen Kimble, Jr.  His business is headquartered in the Sonoran desert in Phoenix, Arizona.

When he first moved to Phoenix from lush and leafy Florida, Vinny was enchanted by the arid desert landscape and in particular – the boulders. One day he just started climbing. It wasn’t long before word got out and the editor of “CLIMBING” magazine contacted Vinny. From that day he was referred to as “Vinny the Pug Champion Rock Climber”.

With his new Champion Rock Climber status Vinny looked for every opportunity to hone his climbing skills and practiced daily on his training rock. In time he became so proficient that while still atop the boulder, he could turn 360 degrees without one paw ever making contact with the ground. Yes – it’s true.

Back in 2004, to showcase his climbing prowess Vinny embarked on a 1,000 pictures in 100 days boulder challenge. Vinny’s human came up with the idea and also took the photographs. At the end of three months of climbing and photographing in the Sonoran, there were well over one thousand photographs of Vinny posing on different boulders. It was a sad day when The Guinness World of Records rejected this as a world record attempt. But Vinny didn’t give up.

Vinny has used his Champion Rock Climber status to develop his own Vinny the Pug brand. Vinny trains fundraisers to use the new business sales models he has developed and provides them with Vinny the Pug branded merchandise to sell. Vinny says he has raised over $50,000 in both money and in-kind donations so far.  He raises money through online sales and through the sales via his Fundraiser Club network. His range includes Vinny the Pug t-shirts, posters, CDs, jewelry, purses, iPad covers and his own-labeled wines. The “Vinny the Pug Fundraiser Club” raises money for a number of human causes, although pet rescue is closest to Vinny’s heart.

Vinny sees his work as an opportunity to help causes to maximize their income and be more self-sufficient in their fundraising.

Vinny’s pet rescue fundraising target for 2012 is $1,000,000.  It will be divided among participating pet rescue organisations in North America.  He will soon embark on his fundraising tour of 100 U.S. and Canadian cities to recruit and train a thousand rescues to become Vinny the Pug Fundraiser Club members.

Vinnys’ top fundraising and rock climbing tips are;

• Do what you love, and do it differently than everyone else so that there is no comparison
• Don’t give up, every apparent failure is simply practice for better times that are just around the corner
• Practice, there is no other road that will lead one to greatness than practice
• Patience, there is no other vehicle that will transport one to success and ensure you’ll arrive at exactly the precise time you should
• Climb every mountain, you’ll find success on the other side, and the view is breathtaking

Good luck Vinny – let us know how you get on.

Vinny the Pug can be contacted at:  desertpugproductions@yahoo.com.

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Syndey Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 22,000 times in 2011. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 8 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

I’m giddy with the lists and advice about things to start doing, things to do better and things to stop. Frankly it’s all a bit overwhelming

I recently watched the film “The Bucket List” (A bucket list being a list of things to do before you die, from the term “kicked the bucket) in which Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson play 2 terminally ill men who go on a road trip to do the things they wanted to do before they died.

Great concept. Great film.

So inspired by their adventures, I started musing over my own bucket list.  It became very long and unmanageable, especially as I don’t know the timeframe I am working to. It felt like I wouldn’t even know where to start on actually doing my list. So I decided to take some of my own advice and think about a bucket list from a different perspective. I considered a un-bucket list. A list of things that I would not do before I die.

This was even harder. I asked my friends what they wouldn’t do. Some came up with brilliant and bizarre things; that may have crossed some boundaries and taken our friendship to a whole new level! But the majority struggled to come up with anything they categorically definitely wouldn’t do before they died, because in some cases they felt like they were closing down opportunities and others kept thinking of exceptions or situations in which their ‘wouldn’t do’ would be acceptable.

There might be some things that you think are unlikely, or immoral or you simply choose not to do. That’s OK. But in essence the un-bucket list that started as a bit of fun, has made me think that most things are possible if there is a compelling enough reason to do it and if you think creatively about how to achieve it. Maybe that’s the lesson to apply to some of the things you currently think you won’t be able to achieve in 2012?

I have laughed a lot at the un-bucket list suggestions today, so for the record a selection of responses are listed below.

Do you have any to add?

I would not….

1. Go to Tenerife (ok Playa de las Americas to be specific)
2. Read another book by Dan Brown
3. Experience Niagara falls from the inside of a barrel
4. Sleep with David Cameron
5. Ever understand how planes fly
6. Attempt to break the land speed record
7. Eat a 400g Toblerone in one go
8. Invent the iPod
9. Go on “I’m a celebrity get me out of here”
10. Have plastic surgery (just for vanity) or laser eye treatment
11. Eat tripe or insects or mine or anyone else’s shit
12. Visit Turkey
13. Run a marathon
14. Touch a snake
15. Streak
16. Become a nun
17. Deliberately hurt someone
18. Have all my teeth taken out
19. Stick to an exercise regime
20. Ever think cauliflower is an acceptable food
21. Ever spend too little time on Twitter
22. Ever be able to parallel park
23. Wear a thong in public
24. Pretend to be impressed by celebs
25. Go to the moon
26. Sleep with Johnny Depp
27. Join the Chuckle Brothers fan club
28. Take a pee in a Goan police cell again (!?)
29. Think sky diving or bungee diving was a good idea
30. Give up Nandos
31. Light my own fart
32. Kiss the pope
33. Live until I am 500
34. Believe in Santa Claus
35. Snog a dwarf
36. Swim with sharks
37. Knowingly eat dog or any kind of primate
38. Have sex with a mule – mainly due to height differential (?!)
39. Read more than 7 pages of a book without needing a nap
40. Skin a buffalo

Apart from today with the case against innovation.

You know that innovation is my favourite topic so I couldn’t let this one go without comment.

Jeff talks about his experience of developing a purely recreational web project not intended to persuade or motivate any action. But If you don’t know what you are aiming for; what success looks like – how will you know when you achieve it?

Doing innovation for the sake of it or just because you can or because you are trying to be cool is an error. For starters it gives innovation a bad name, associated with wacky brainstorm sessions complete with green bean bags and warm up exercises to make the best of us cringe.

Innovation should be about delivery of a good idea that achieves a strategic business need or solves a business challenge, for example developing more effective processes, selling more ‘stuff’ or raising more money.

I agree that flouting convention and developing something new is hard. It’s much easier to just do what you have always done. It’s less hassle to just coast along. As fundraisers our job is not to just coast along. Our jobs are to change the world. And to change the world you have got to do something different.

Jeff says that there is a letter in direct mail fundraising because it works. Its convention. Good point. That doesn’t mean that convention is always right. You should be testing new things as well. New things that might even work better for some audiences.

If you want your fundraising to work you first have to get your basics right, be clear on your mission, develop your case for support, understand your donors and provide them with a compelling story that connects them emotionally with the cause, show then the difference their support can make, take care to thank them well and choose the channel best suited to their needs. Then from that place test and refine new approaches.

Fundraising innovation is about breaking down barriers to giving and making it more compelling and easier for people to give and that means trying out new ideas. The worst thing you can do is just stick to convention. Because that makes you like everyone else. To change the world you have got to do something different.

P.S. One of my favourite websites is le cool. It scrolls from left to right – Jeff perhaps you were just before your time….

Firstly, I loved speaking with Mark Cook, Nick Burne, Liz Tait and Max du Bois about integration and fundraising. Partly because when we initially met to plan the session we all had very different ideas about what integration was.

This could have been a problem, but we realised that was part of the point of tackling such an unruly topic; there is not one right approach to integration and the focus for integration can be different for everyone.

We covered channel and brand integration, how to better integrate service delivery and fundraising teams as well as looking at how fundraising teams could work more effectively together.

My integration pitch was about the huge potential to increase fundraising and better connect donors to the cause if fundraising and service staff worked more closely together.

As part of my research I looked up the definition of fundraising in the dictionary, apparently it is the;

‘organized activity of raising funds (as for an institution or political cause)’

I’m sorry but I think fundraising is way more than that, so I’ve written my own definition which is;

‘Building and brokering relationships to connect a cause or need with a supporter; providing them with the opportunity to make a difference to the world.

I believe the core of fundraising is connecting the donor to the cause, both intellectually and emotionally; this is both a science and an art. Alan Clayton.  raised this point in his excellent plenary, claiming that ”we are in the business of emotion”.

Therefore as a fundraiser your role is to broker that donor and cause relationship and in order to be excellent at that, you need to do everything you can to understand and get closer to the cause. Your service teams are on the front line, they will have so many insights and stories that will help you do that; yet when I asked the room, who has great relationships with their service staff only one or two hands went up. I think we are missing a trick.

Other reasons why I enjoyed the conference;

• There was a space shuttle in reception.
• There were lots of great sessions with inspiring speakers on a range of topics.
• There was a great atmosphere, a real buzz.
• I met some inspiring colleagues, both old friends and new faces
• I loved the near showdown in the technology masterclass. (You know who you are)
• I came away inspired and proud to work in a job where I feel I can make a difference

One of the biggest challenges, is taking time out of the day-to-day routine to learn from others and reflect on the work we are doing. But that is exactly what we must to do to be at the top of our game. It’s conferences like this that leave you invigorated and inspired full of ideas and ready to take on the world.

Well done the London Institute of Fundraising Committee. I’ll see you next year.

Plan UK work with children in the world’s poorest countries to help them build a better future. The majority of Plan’s voluntary income is from child sponsorship, I was amazed to discover that donors can go and visit the children and communities that they help and are encouraged to share their stories. From the Bramelds in Ghana to Cathy’s trip to Zimbabwe Plan are doing a great job of connecting people just like you and me to the cause by demonstrating the difference that sponsoring a child can make, not just to that individual child but to the whole community.

With so much reliance on income from one fundraising stream, it seems that Plan are looking to diversify. Their newest campaign is called “Plan your story”. It is an online video application that takes your key information from Facebook to create a personal story of your life and how it may have been impacted if you did not have a birth certificate. It aims to put you in the shoes of the millions of girls around the world whose births are not registered, for example you are asked to consider being married at the age of 14; as an inability to prove your age could result in being married off whilst a child. It is part of Plan UK’s Because I am a Girl campaign and aims to test Facebook as a platform for raising money, gain insights on what works and what doesn’t –from an online fundraising perspective and gain a greater understanding of Plans’ online audience.

So I gave it a go. I was uncomfortable with giving an application access to my information on Facebook, especially with all the media coverage about privacy. I still am anxious about it, but decided to do it anyway as I was curious to see my story.

While I waited for my story to load, there is a counter on the screen that showed me the number of people born without birth certificates while I was waiting. Nice touch.

Then accompanied by emotional music, I saw my story unfold. Using my images and information on Facebook, I was asked to remember what it was like being at school, studying for exams; exams that many girls are excluded from taking, the exams that change a path in your life. I was reminded of the friends I made and not forgetting the time I got a detention for chewing gum. I loved the page in the book that showed an album of my friends profile pictures. However when asked to picture what life would have been like without certain people, selected at random from my friends list, it didn’t work for me as they were people I do not know very well, so their non-existence would not have made an impact at all. If there is a way of selecting more active friends, that would have worked, or perhaps it’s a lesson for me to take my own advice and reconsider the friends I have on Facebook. 

One page reminded me that some people are not able to express opinions; they don’t have a voice, and then linked to my latest status updates. Great idea although somewhat ashamedly my latest update was,

‘There is a prawn at the bottom of the escalator at Angel. Think he is too small to hop on. Hope he is ok.’

It talks about your first crush; how did they know about my crush on George Michael in 1987? and asks you to imagine, at that point in your life what it would have been like to have had no choice but to marry a stranger more than twice your age or older, like thousands of 14 year olds without a birth certificate are forced to do.

I really like Plan your story and whilst there is room for improvement, its leading the way in showing how Facebook can be used to help donors feel a personal and emotional connection to the cause, which is what fundraising is all about.

I felt quite moved by this application (prawn aside), it did make me consider the life choices that I have been lucky to have. It made an emotional connection as well as providing solid facts and figures and there is a clear ask for a donation. Did I make one? Of course. I want to know how you are going to steward me….

The app is streamed in real-time so I can’t link you to mine, but you can try for yourself here or check out this sample. I would love to know what do you think?

It’s a first class conference with lots to learn for fundraisers of all disciplines and levels. Check out some of the great speakers here.

So if you want to bag yourself a free pass tweet me @lucyinnovation in 140 characters or less to tell me why you should go. Be sure to include the hashtag #ioflondon

The best tweeters, in my opinion, get the pass.

I have until 5pm on Friday to decide.

Simple.

I knew I couldn’t replace them, (physically or emotionally!) so I investigated getting them mended. My local shoe mender took one look, inhaled quickly over his teeth and shook his head slowly, and said, “no. we don’t do zips here”. He suggested I tried some other shoe mender ‘in town’. *

So yesterday, when ‘in town’ I made another attempt at solving my cold foot challenge. The two shoe menders at Charing Cross Station were closed for lunch. In my frustration I remembered someone telling me about how good Timpson were, so I looked on my phone to see if there was a shop nearby.

I wish companies would think about how people are accessing their websites now. Stood in the cold waiting for the data to download and then trying to navigate reams of information on a little screen just to find a list of stores isn’t a great experience.

Anyway, I found a Timpson, I called them to find out exactly where they were and spoke to a friendly guy who gave me directions. Ten minutes later when I arrived he greeted me with a big smile and remembered the phone call.

Steve the Manager and I chatted about the devastation of boots breaking. To be fair I’m not sure he really felt the pain, but he made a valiant attempt which I appreciated. We also discussed the weather; we are British that’s what we do.  He explained the process to mend the boot, and why it would take 2 weeks and that he would call me personally if there was any problems.

On the counter I spotted this. Timpsons campaign for better service.

The first question; Have we amazed you? Actually you did, because your service was good, partly emphasised because most places give decidedly less than amazing service, plus you were actually open when I needed you.

£250 incentive; this is interesting. I don’t give feedback to be put in a prize draw. That’s not an incentive for me. I’m writing this and sending off my postcard because Steve did a great job and should be recognised for that.

We know that personal recommendations are key to making purchasing decisions so the ‘would you recommend a friend /colleague?’ question is a good one.

I think there was a couple of things missing; perhaps seeking to learn if anything didn’t amaze and suggestions for improvement.

I also question whether there should be a line about how they will use my data. As much as I loved the service I don’t want you to get in touch with me. (unless its Steve to talk about my boot.)

The branch number wasn’t filled in, so if I don’t write which branch amazed me how will Timpson be able to feed back to that amazing branch?

I’m impressed that there was a feedback card in the first place. It’s amazing how many customer-facing businesses don’t actively seek feedback from the people who are the key to their business success.

I was talking to a friend recently about how he felt about seeking 360 feedback from clients, which he does at the end of every piece of work. He felt apprehensive. Especially as part of his service was to give feedback to fundraisers on their work, he felt concerned that an invite for feedback could be ‘pay back time’. I don’t actually think that is the case, but understand his apprehension.

So it can feel a bit scary, but if you don’t seek feedback, how will you know the amazing things you are doing that you could do more of? And as importantly, how will you know where to make improvements?

When you are giving feedback, do consider the impact it will have. Always tell people when they have done a good job, and always tell people when they haven’t, but take care to be constructive and thoughtful. Telling someone they are rubbish with no explanation isn’t ok. It’s just plain mean.

So get over the fear and make giving feedback and seeking feedback from customers, clients, donors or colleagues a habit.

Without feedback it’s hard to become amazing at what you do. And you all deserve to be amazing. Right?

Your thoughts and feedback welcome…

*’in town’ being central London

An infographic is short for ‘information graphic’ and is a visual representation of information data or knowledge. They are the perfect tool for presenting complex information quickly and clearly.

How much information do you receive on your average day? For most of us it’s more that our brains can process. As we become increasingly connected through use of mobile and online technology our attention spans are becoming shorter as we try to process increasing amounts of information. As we flit from task pretending ‘multi-task’, the ability to filter information is becoming more and more important.

So the task for anyone getting their message to stand out amongst all the background noise is becoming harder than ever. I think infographics are a good way to grab attention and they tend to be shared widely via digital media. This blog by Mick Dee provides some good examples of how infographics work and some tips for developing your own.

So given what a great tool an infographic is for expressing complex issues in a compelling way and demonstrating impact, I am surprised that more charities are not using them. Infographics can showcase a charities expertise, demonstrate their view in a wider political and social environment or could be a way to thank donors or keep them up to date on progress. They provide visual clues on the cause and can bring a sense of fun where appropriate.

Howard Lake has been collating examples of fundraising infographics here. My favourites include;

Leeds University’s Alumni & Development Team have presented the results of their matched giving campaign in infographic form as a thank you to the donors who gave. It will appear on the back cover of the next donor newsletter. Brilliant.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation have some interesting infographics, including an interactive one on it’s campaign to end malaria.

Charity water and eNonprofit Benchmarks Survey are both making good use of infographics to communicate their messages. Click on the links on the images to see in more detail.

So next time you have a message to get across to donors, supporters, volunteers, staff or the general public, bin the lengthy word document or email, and think if using an infographic will work harder in cutting through the background noise to enable you to get the results that you want.