ASI ‘SMART Company’ Scholarship Fund Blog

C Bayer
Manager, Corporate Partnerships & Supporter Relations
Earthwatch Institute (Australia)
attended FIA Skills 1

First of all, I would like to thank you kindly for the support and opportunity to gain valuable training through the ASI ‘SMART Company’ Scholarship Fund.  I was recently able to attend the FIA Skills 1 training course on a fully-funded scholarship and am incredibly grateful for that opportunity.

My employer, Earthwatch Australia, is a not-for-profit environmental research organisation that has very little or no budget for training.  The opportunity to attend this course has been of great benefit to my role as well as being perfectly timed in the current and future direction of Earthwatch Australia.

Being quite new to the fundraising sector and with no prior experience, I have taken on a role that will present many challenges and I personally will enjoy those challenges!  Suffice to say however I must be actively obtaining training, new skills and increased knowledge in the fundraising realm to conquer those challenges successfully.  Attending the Skills 1 course has given me a valuable platform upon which to build this new set of skills and understanding.

Skills 1 I believe was quite different to other fundraising seminars and short training sessions I have attended to date.  I felt that the networking opportunities were more sound and useful, purely by spending three days with the same people rather than a fly by for half a day.

Starting from scratch and working through the fundamentals and principles of fundraising, as was the course schedule, has given me confidence that I am heading in the right direction with what I have picked up during my short time in this field.  However, what the presenters, whom were all highly respected people, brought to us each day through their incredible amount of experience, knowledge and wisdom was invaluable.

The group exercise on the final day in which we made a presentation to a mock Board on the development of a 3 year fundraising strategy based on all we had learnt in the preceding three days was very worthwhile.  It will contribute highly to the requirements of my role internally and was a fantastic learning experience.

With the aid of further funding from the ASI ‘SMART Company’ Scholarship Fund, I will also be attending the FIA Skills 2 through your kind generosity and again your Board’s support of my endeavours in this field.

For that I am truly grateful, as is my employer, Earthwatch Australia.  Our vision and strategy from here into the future is set on growth.  We have an incredible team working together right now, with myself being an integral part of that team.  For me to have the opportunity to take on this training and with the intention to complete all three stages of Skills 123, it takes a lot of pressure off our small organisation.  It will in fact inject a whole lot more into the future of our organisation and achieving our mission of engaging people worldwide in scientific field research and education to promote the understanding necessary for a sustainable environment.

Once again I thank you for this opportunity and for your support through the ASI ‘SMART Company’ Scholarship Fund.

M Clarebrough
Fundraising Relationship Manager
Very Special Kids
attended FIA Madison Down Under 2009

From conversations with past participants of Madison Down Under my expectations of what I wanted to achieve a Madison Down Under were high. Madison Down Under delivered all that it promised and more! I have worked in the Not for Profit sector for over 6 years and attend many conferences and seminars within the fundraising sector, Madison Down Under was most definitely the most beneficial and worthwhile professional development program that I have participated in. Madison Down Under was an extremely beneficial use of my time. 

The facilitators and guest speakers provide great insight, with the value added of many years of experience in Bequests and Donor Giving. There were ample opportunities for discussion which my group embraced with passion. Track 5 – The Gift That Goes on.. had participants from a variety of organizations (small to large) across the sector, bringing with them a range of experiences and ideas.

Madison Down Under delivered in providing me with the opportunity to not only develop key elements of a program in the areas of Bequests to benefit Very Special Kids now and into the future but to also develop strategic relationships within the fundraising industry.

Being a residential program there were ample opportunities to network across the entire not for profit industry, with likeminded individuals who draw on a broad range of experiences. I have already facilitated communication with my new contacts and am attending a web2 seminar care of one of those contacts.

The sessions were inspiring and provided an opportunity to build a realistic plan of action to fit with the resources that you have available at your organisation – whether you are a one man band or an organization with 4 bequest officers – every participant walked away with new inspiration and ideas.

One the final day each member of my group spoke enthusiastically about what they would implement on return to their organisations and this included me. I believe that I am now adequately resourced with a clear direction to develop and implement a successful financially viable Bequest program for Very Special Kids. I am enthusiastic about moving the Very Special Kids Bequest Program from passive to active within the next 6 months.

MDU Tracks is an excellent way to stay on track professionally in your organisation and personally within your profession.

Sincere thanks to all at ASI for providing me with this opportunity. I am looking forward to next year already – even if I have to invest in it personally!

K Topp
Membership and Fundraising Officer
Carers Victoria
attended FIA Skills 1

      
In July 2009, I was awarded an ASI ‘SMART Company’ Scholarship to complete a Fundraising Institute Australia – Skills 1 – the Foundations of Fundraising course.

The course was a fantastic opportunity and learning experience for me.  It taught me about the legalities and the practicalities of fundraising including ethics and legislation and database management, as well as the strategies of fundraising such as relationship management, donor-centred fundraising, marketing and communications, direct marketing and special events.

However the greatest value of the course was in the practical and networking component.  As an assessment for the course we were to present a fundraising strategy with a team of 5 other attendees to a foundation and the hypothetical board of the foundation.  This was hard work in utilizing all the strategies and skills that we had just learnt, however it allowed us to consider the strategies in the context of a real life situation in regards to what would be successful and the cost benefit ratio for each strategy.

Additionally it was great to meet peers and potential mentors in the fundraising sector.  The opportunity to network will allow me to share ideas with others in the sector and also to learn from their experiences.  It may also provide opportunities for Carers Victoria to partner with other non-profits in our sector.

Carers Victoria represents and supports unpaid family carers who care for someone with a disability, mental illness, chronic condition or who is frail aged.  There are 2.6 million carers in Australia who by caring in an unpaid capacity save over 30.5 billion dollars.  Carers can derive a lot from their caring experience, however caring does have financial and emotional impacts, with many carers unable to work due to their caring obligations and many carers experiencing low levels of health and wellbeing.

I am passionate about supporting and representing carers in our community and thank you for providing me with the opportunity to learn so that I can better contribute to our cause.  I have already begun to use my new skills!

C Hornby
Community Relations Coordinator
Cystic Fibrosis Queensland
attended Madison Down Under 2009

Firstly, I would like to express my sincere thanks to ASI for providing me with the scholarship to attend Madison Down Under.  The opportunity to learn from leading fundraising experts and other peers was nothing short of amazing.

I attended the “Ask and You Shall Receive” track and was grateful to receive practical advice and strategies for direct response developed specifically for the not for profit sector.

The conference started with an overview of the days ahead and sessions on the elements of success of donor direct.  It was highlighted that our regular givers are our greatest prospects to develop into major gifts and in turn those that will leave bequests.

Statistics show that not for profits lose 20% of their donors each year to natural attrition.  We were given strategies on how to keep our donors engaged developing them into regular and major givers by communicating with them in the correct ways.  We also looked at generational marketing and ways and strategies to engage the different generations.

The importance and cost of keeping a donor engages as opposed to acquiring a new donor were discussed at great length and is one of things I have since shared with my work colleagues.  We are now focussed on re-engaging our lapsed donors, upgrading our existing donors and developing major gifts and bequests programs.

Paramount to all successful direct response campaigns is the quality of the list we use to communicate with our donors.  I now have valuable tools and formulas to segment our donor database to retrieve past giving histories, to find our lapsed donors, our regular donors and major givers.  I will be able to use this information to set donor goals, communicate with our donors according to their giving characteristics and build on these relationships. 

We received sample 12 month communication plans, extensive advice on mailing campaigns from a reputable mailing house, many ask campaign samples and a number of other useful resources.

Attending Madison Down Under affirmed that at Cystic Fibrosis Queensland we are one the right track with our direct mail appeals other than a bit of tweaking here and there.

On my return from Madison Down Under I have briefing my Chief Executive Officer on all that I learnt sharing with her the tools and strategies that could be easily introduced to our existing practises to enhance our direct response campaigns and in turn benefit our organisation.

Thank you once again to ASI for allowing me this opportunity – I am very grateful.

C Black
National Major Gifts Fundraiser
The Wilderness Society

I would like to say a great big thank you to ASI Smart Scholarships for the wonderful opportunity to attend Madison Down Under (MDU) 2008.

It was not without a tinge of trepidation that I began my journey to MDU, concerns that I was about to be held in ‘fundraising boot camp’ surfaced. However warm smiles, friendly greetings, re-united friends and cocktail parties soon made me feel comfortable and ready to be invigorated and inspired.

MDU provides a forum for dedicated fundraising professionals from USA and Australia to share knowledge, skills, expertise, experience, ideas and solutions to help us do our job better. My classmates were generous, courageous people enabling change across the health, education, environment and creative sectors. A very inspiring group indeed!

I have a better grasp of the fundraising process, researching potential donors, matching people’s needs with positive outcomes, understanding why people give, how to make the big ask, and expressing appreciation. Our captivating group of presenters shared theoretical and practical knowledge through talks, workshops, case studies and discussions. Problems and solutions were shared. The role-play exercise allowed us to test this new information and was also very entertaining.

With these new tools at hand I feel more capable of contributing to our fundraising efforts. The challenges facing The Wilderness Society are enormous. The ASI Scholarship has helped both me, and The Wilderness Society, face some of these challenges.

Thank you ASI, for your generous support.

T Brown
Fundraising Manager
Time for Kids Inc

Thank you for providing me the 50% subsidy to attend Madison Down Under – Strategic Management Track.

Time for Kids is a small South Australian charity that was not in a position to send me to MDU so the scholarship enabled me to attend. Time for Kids helps ‘at risk’, or disadvantaged children by giving a much needed break from what can often be a stressful home life. The children are matched with a volunteer family in their local community and given the opportunity to spend time with the family on a regular basis over the long term. Our aim is to give these kids positive childhood experiences, useful life lessons for later in life, and acceptance, love and care.  

The Strategic Management Track was extremely beneficial in my current role as the presenters took the participants through some useful information that can be applied immediately. 

Having attended MDU in the past and participated in different tracks it was refreshing to be able to utilise the information in my current role, without having to wait for programs to be implemented.

In particular we discussed Strategic Plans and management of staff, which were particularly relevant as we are in the process of addressing our Strategic Plan and as our organisation is growing we are looking to hire more staff.  The track was very practical and relevant with the entire group participating in discussions.

Apart from the educational aspect of MDU it provided wonderful networking opportunities. From these I was able to establish some valuable relationships that will have an impact on the work of Time for Kids as well as enable me to develop professionally.
The benefit of the event being live-in over 4 days, you get opportunities to discuss issues at length, which is not often the case at the traditional type of conference.

Thank you again for the opportunity.  The scholarships provided by ASI are often the only way many smaller charities can attend MDU and that is often vital for the charities fundraising success.

A Lee
AngliCORD

Thanks to ASI ‘SMART Company’ Scholarship Fund who funded 50% of the Madison Down Under 2008 FIA’s intensive educational program, I attended the Strategic Marketing for Fundraising track and came away with inspirations of what I can enhance in fundraising for AngliCORD.

Our track chair, Michelle Campbell together with the advisory panel of Clare MacAdam and Graham McKern provided participants with an information packed interactive program where we not only learned the importance of theory and practical ways of strategic communication and marketing, but we also developed our own marketing plan that we could apply in our workplace.

There was a wonderful cross-section of fundraising organisations represented in this track, so there is a lot of learning and sharing information from each other as well as networking.

Some of the important aspects of the program I learnt were:

• self audit of several current marketing factors for organisation’s readiness for marketing
• marketing objectives
• design marketing strategies and action plans
• consider the most appropriate communication mix
• stewardship - backing up the marketing promise
• having a case for support, including price points

Amongst the many knowledge I have acquired is one of ‘how to market unrestricted giving’. In an era where so many donors are designating their gifts for a specific purpose or projects, it is becoming much more difficult for AngliCORD to have the freedom to fund necessary programs, including our fundraising costs.  This I would be sharing with my colleagues and design a plan of action in the coming months. 

Mr Ramsbottom, once again THANK YOU for giving me this wonderful opportunity for professional development in this not-for-profit sector. 

D Bayard
Manager: PR & Fundraising
Hutt Street Centre

I admit I somewhat reluctantly agreed that this year I would finally attend Medison Down Under (MDU) - having found excuses not to in the past! What a fool I was? MDU was by far the most stimulating, inspiring, intense and fulfilling training course I have ever undertaken.

Whilst having worked in fundraising for 8 years I have flown by the seat of my pants - without any formal training. Choosing the Fundamentals Track at MDU has given me some of the basic building blocks which will enable me to confidently reassess my fundraising strategy, re-evaluate my 3 year plan, rebuild my program to make the best use of my resources and maximise my organisation’s potential for raising funds.

MDU has taught me the real value of my database and given me new ideas on how to best utilize our most important resource - our community of supporters. It has also given me the confidence to introduce new fundraising activities at Hutt Street Centre which I previously felt I lacked the skills and knowledge to initiate.

The quality of presenter in Track 1 enabled participants from a variety of not for profit organisations, and with a vast array and level of experiences, to increase our skill base and our capacity to put our new knowledge into practice back in our work places.

I believe that one of the fundamentals of a fundraiser’s character is the ability to represent the organisation in which they work with confidence, passion and integrity. MDU is presented in such a way that participants leave with the confidence that our work is important and valued, not just by our employers, but by those who want to support our organisations. Donors, sponsors, boards and foundations need to know that the person and the organisation in which they are entrusting their money have integrity, skills, knowledge, confidence and expertise in their field. The intense learning opportunity provided by MDU definitely helps to build that capacity.

I am pleased to admit I was wrong in my expectation of what Madison Down Under could offer me. I will definitely be one of the first to register again next year and I am extremly grateful that ASI assisted my organisation, Hutt Street Centre, by providing me with a scholarship to attend.

N Gow
Manager, Fundraising and Events
Nordoff-Robbins Music Therapy
 

Firstly, I would like to express my deepest thanks to ASI for giving me the opportunity to attend the Fundraising Skills 1 course.  Nordoff-Robbins Music Therapy is a small charity with little or no budget for professional development so if it wasn’t for ASI, I wouldn’t have had a chance to complete this important training session. 

Skills 1 was a fantastic learning opportunity and I have gained new fundraising skills which can be put into place immediately on my return to the office.  In fact, my ‘to-do’ list has increased dramatically, which is a good thing !!!  As well as new skills, I also have refreshed ideas about how we currently do things.  I also met a great bunch of fellow fundraising professionals and we shared ideas of what works and what doesn’t work within our industry.

The course covered topics which include bequests, donor development, special events, legislation and ethics, donor database management and direct marketing and was presented by experienced leading members of the fundraising industry.  We also worked in groups on a case study which we presented to a panel on conclusion of the course, this was a wonderful way to test our new skills & knowledge.

Thank you to the Fundraising Institute of Australia for presenting such a varied and interesting training session.  And again, thank you to the ASI scholarship program for giving me the chance to attend.  This course will definitely improve the fundraising efforts of Nordoff-Robbins Music Therapy, which will in turn raise more funds and allow more disadvantaged people the chance to enrich their lives via the power of music therapy.

K Ward
Communications and Fundraising Officer
Object: Australian Centre for Craft and Design – New South Wales
 

Thanks to the opportunity provided by the ASI ‘Smart Company’ Scholarship, I now feel as though I am qualified in my title of ‘Fundraiser’.  The scholarship allowed me to attend FIA’s (Fundraising Institute of Australia) Skills 1 course, which has given me a fantastic framework on which to base my current (and future) work in fundraising.

Coming from a small, not-for-profit arts organisation, our fundraising department is at a crucial stage in establishing and developing an effective giving program.  The Skills 1 program has given me the knowledge to build our organisation’s program on a solid foundation.  I have already been able to incorporate key elements of the course into our program, such as a strategy to communicate with and nurture our donors, to strengthen our existing program and retain support.

I found the depth of content in the course incredibly insightful and as a ‘foundations’ course, was impressed that the detail provided allowed participants to engage with the content on a deeper level.  It was also inspiring to hear from people who echoed the most current trends and principles being explored in Australia and internationally.

Following on from the course, I now continually look for examples of effective campaigns and believe that there is a great opportunity to be gained in keeping up to date with trends, technology and donors’ interests.

The high calibre of presentations by the guest speakers gave the course a truly three- dimensional edge.  Group activities, visual examples, story telling and lectures, allowed the group to come away with an extremely holistic picture of philanthropy.  Some of the simplest activities, such as quickly summing up your organisation’s mission to a potential donor, were often the most poignant.  As a result, our organisation is currently solidifying its mission and brand.

One of the most insightful elements of the course was simply the privilege to be in a room full of people from different organisations, who share the same goal.  Being the only person from an arts background, I found myself talking to others and sharing stories about our experiences and in the end absorbed a great deal from those working in more traditional humanitarian or charity fundraising roles.

The arts community has struggled historically with philanthropy and even today relies on different models to those used by charities and NGO’s.  By sharing experiences with colleagues across different organisations, I was able to identify the significant differences (and sometimes similarities) in our approach and identify the common threads that have achieved success.

In all forms of fundraising and possibly even more importantly in the arts, I have learned the importance of communication and relationships in fostering support.  I am now even more passionate about championing philanthropy in the arts and hope to be able to implement a giving program within my organisation that is accessible to a broad audience.

Again, my thanks to ASI for this wonderful opportunity!  I am incredibly excited about the possibilities for fundraising in the arts and believe that increased knowledge in philanthropy will help provide invaluable opportunities for our outstanding Australian practitioners.