There has been a lot of attention paid to mindfulness over the last few years, and while at the Fundraising Conference we will not be meditating or chanting we will be encouraging delegates to take a break from the ‘doing’ and consider the ‘why we are doing’ and even ‘are we doing the right thing?’
Having worked in fundraising for a long time, I know how easy it is to get caught up with what is on your desk and demands attention now. Sometimes the only time you get to look ahead is when working on the budget for next year, before being subsumed by the day to day. Having been lucky enough at Hospice UK to look at hospice fundraising nationally it struck me that the really successful teams are the ones who have carved out the time to pause, dream a vision of what they want to achieve and then reframe their thoughts on how to achieve it.
When planning the conference we have paused and reframed, which is why we are in a new home, the St John’s Conference centre in Solihull, a location which we believe will enable more people to come and join us.
The programme has undergone a shake up as well. We are delighted to welcome Mark Astarita to be our headline speaker. Mark was Director of Fundraising for the British Red Cross for 14 years and has a wealth of experience and opinions to share. In addition to his view from a national charity Mark has been a hospice trustee for many years.
Delegates will have a choice of workshops to attend ranging from managing a successful capital appeal, using non hospice organisations to help shape strategy and the step up from fundraising director to hospice CEO.
The afternoon will be your chance to reframe your hospice fundraising. We want delegates to come prepared to share strategic issues that are occupying them. Using the theory of change and the power of others who may be facing the same situation we want to start pulling the issue apart, reframe and come up with some solutions. As Rome was not built in a day then issues cannot be resolved in an afternoon but we are hoping that the learning sets will continue post conference to come up with ideas and solutions that will be shared via Hospice UK publications.
So who should attend? Of course the fundraisers, but we cannot operate in a vacuum so encourage your CEOs, trustees and hospice colleagues to attend. One of the great outcomes from the recent GDPR training has been seeing fundraising and clinical colleagues discovering that they have common problems and great solutions.
To book please click here and see you in Solihull. There will be pauses for cake – the absence of which would be a reframe too far.
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