28/07/10
Possible ways to share best practice among the charities and NGOs that practice face-to-face fundraising around the world are to be discussed at the world’s leading international fundraising conference later this year.
The PFRA has teamed up with the Resource Alliance to host an extended session at the International Fundraising Congress in the Netherlands in October.
Mick Aldridge, PFRA’s chief executive, says: “Face-to-face fundraising is a global fundraising ‘movement’ that is practised in various forms in upward of 50 countries. Yet it is a nascent one without leadership or sharing of professional or regulatory best practice.
“This means that knowledge in dealing with the media, complaints handling, professional best practice, stewardship and working with regulators and legislators is rarely shared beyond national boundaries and has to be rediscovered from scratch each time a problem is encountered.”
Attracting leading F2F practitioners from around the globe, the session will explore topics such as:
- Do fundraisers want practical skills sharing, such as swapping case studies?
- Could there be as central bank of information accessible by NGOs, such as case studies in dealing with the media or benchmarks for attrition?
- Is there a need for a full international umbrella body?
- How should territories adopt best practice: should a global code of practice be developed?
- Complaints procedures – how can charities in various territories learn from each other?
- Can what works with media relations in one territory be applied elsewhere?
- Would attrition and other benchmarks be useful internationally?
Aldridge adds: “We don’t know what level of skills sharing and information exchange fundraisers might want, but we are convinced that there is a demand for more international co-operation.
“This session will let us know what fundraisers need and what we, as a practitioners of a form of fundraising that spans continents, need to do next to deliver that.”