Forum 2007 – Steve Purdham
A Donor Perspective on Giving, Steve Purdham, CEO and Co-Founder, We7
Steve Purdham, CEO and Co-Founder of We7, offered a donor’s perspective on giving.
Steve gave a bit of background to his career, including his first enterprise of selling sticks at the age of 8! He explained that there are many barriers to giving money – embarrassment, distractions and even charities themselves through the use of buzz/long words. It is also a question of why, when, and who to give to.
Steve suggests that many donors will “fall into giving” rather than necessarily thinking it through from the beginning.
The biggest task for fundraisers, in the CEO’s opinion, is to understand the motivation of donors (or donors-to-be). Without this understanding the charity/organisation may get a donation, but not a commitment. The personality of the giver is important when considering how to target – some want to know exactly where their money has been spent, some want to be discrete, others publicly acknowledged.
Getting into the “realm” of the givers; their comfort zone, is the key to attaining a commitment.
“Everybody is capable of giving in one form or another, they just don’t know that”.
Steve also mentioned that giving money should be easy – givers forget that there is a process involved. While this process is key, giving money should not be part of a long drawn out process with numerous people and paperwork involved.
In answer to some questions Steve pointed out that money should not be spent on a promise; wait for the donation/commitment. He also remarked that he had only been personally approached by charities once in the past 5 years (however, this is likely to have changed!).
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