WT: What are we going to do about the guy who has done a skydive for us?

Me: How much did he raise?

WT: €20

Me: God. That isn’t a huge amount.

WT: No

Me: Don’t they cost a few hundred quid to do, with the surplus you raise going to charity?

WT: Yes

Me: So he basically covered the cost of his sky dive using the Red Cross name, but actually he has only raised €20 more than the cost for the skydive.

WT: Yes.

Me: In other words, he has got money from people to pay for his skydive, and they think it is coming to charity.

WT: Yes.

Me: Did he contact us before hand so we could have had a conversation with him to head off something like this happening?

WT: No.

Me: Ok. Send it back.

WT: Send it back?

Me: Yes. Send the money back. I don’t want to be a part of this.

WT: Me neither.

Me: Great.

For a fundraiser, November and December are fascinating. The sheer number and variety of Christmas appeals is simply fantastic. The news has been daily filled with charity announcements “Demand for service X increased by 50% in 2012”. And celebrity endorsements have abounded: from Dustin for Unicef to Jedward for ISPCC.

So what is the Red Cross equivalent of the goat? Well, with respect to my friends in Oxfam who would like to position Oxfam as more of an emergency response agency, Oxfam stands in my mind clearly in the campaigning and long-term development space.

It got me thinking. What figure or item best encapsulates what a charity is about at this time of year? When I worked in Oxfam, it was definitely the goat. Oxfam Unwrapped was a pioneering alternative git campaign that led with the personality of a goat very strongly. The goat neatly tied together a fun, alternative gift idea, with real live impactful goats in the developing world. I even led donor trips to visit some of these goats in Africa.

The Red Cross is a truly emergency response focused organisation. I can’t think of any other organisation that has its reach or global impact. And for the Red Cross, the Red Cross parcel encapsulates all this.

Red Cross Parcel

Red Cross parcels are perhaps best known as the parcels that were sent to prisoners of war – food, tobacco and personal hygiene items – during the two world wars of the last century.

The modern equivalent of Red Cross parcels may still contain food, and personal hygiene items, medical supplies and if you include plastic and metal ‘parcels’, vital bottled or tanked clean drinking water. While parcels might have historically been intended for PoWs, today they have a much wider application and are a life-saver for literally tens of thousands of ordinary civilians. When earthquakes, hurricanes, or floods strike, or when warring armies and militias drive people from their homes, the Red Cross offers safety and hope, the Red Cross parcel translates that into practical items.

From Spain to the Philippines, from Syria to Ireland, people will receive Red Cross parcels this winter.

If you’d like to help, please donate today at www.redcross.ie/christmas-appeal

Although I’m now working for the Irish Red Cross, I previously worked for Oxfam, and at that time we had legitimate questions over his approach. Why send all these Irish people over to South Africa to build houses? Why not employ local tradesmen and pump more money into the local economy, creating a multiplier effect? What of the stories that the houses were flogged by local people as soon as the Irish had left?

And some part of me found the tinge of tourism a little hard to take.

I have no doubt there are answers to all these questions. No one else was building them so why not the Irish? There was probably a lack of local skilled tradesmen. Bringing Irish people galvanised and inspired an army of fundraisers who might never have raised as much money for the people in South Africa without those first-hand connections and experiences.

And as for the charge of tourism, well if we’re honest, any of us who have been lucky enough to travel to parts of the developing world with international NGOs are guilty as charged. It may be work, but of course it is being done somewhere fascinating and exotic, meeting people one would never otherwise ever have met. Having one’s horizons expanded and experience of humanity deepened. People in glass houses and all that…

But above all one thing stands out: there was a need.

In our business the need is infinite. It is one of the reasons why new charities are forever springing up. No one charity could ever cover it all. People sometimes ask me why there isn’t more consolidation in the charity sector. They think we are all “doing the same thing”, when actually we are all responding to different people in different circumstances and places.  My reply is that as long as the need is infinite, there will always be inspired people of goodwill and generosity who will want to do something about it.

People like Niall Mellon. I salute you.

From Ronan Ryan, Head of Fundraising and Communications

It’s our colleagues from the Philippines Red Cross responding to the recent devastating floods in their country. The photo has gone viral amongst Red Crossers on twitter – just type in Red Cross amphibians and you will see.

What interested me more was where the photo was posted. The Chairman of the Red Cross in the Philippines has a personal Facebook page which from here looks like it functions as the official page of the Society (Although that is culturally odd to me as an Irish person, it certainly personalises and puts a face on the work of the Society).

What I love about this Facebook page is that the communication is 2-way – it provides a forum for 2-way conversation between the Red Cross teams coordinating the response on the ground, and people experiencing the crisis ‘live’. You get a real sense of being involved and part of a humanitarian response – even if only as a spectator. And yet it clearly has a very practical function of getting crucial information out to those in need, and crucial information to those running the operation to ensure that operation is most effective.

During the Dublin floods last autumn Twitter exploded with information about what was going on where (#whatthefliuch trended for the week in typical Dub humour), and you could argue that AA Roadwatch and Met Eireann effectively provide an on-going information service on severe weather conditions here in Ireland. Communicators can now use geo-targeted texting to get key messages and calls to action into the right hands at the exact right time.

Could social media and other digital channels be the future of communicating with those affected by natural disaster or severe weather here in Ireland? What about those with no access to the net or no mobiles or coverage? What about older audiences?

Answers on a postcard

Ronan Ryan, Head of Fundraising at the Irish Red Cross

According to an article in the Evening Echo (April 12th 2012), Churches in Cork are to ask parishioners if they want to ban church gate collections as there is a feeling that parishioners are “feeling harassed”. Cork charities are appealing strongly to parishioners to ‘vote no’ when asked.

Two things strike me. One; it is actually a smart move of the hierarchy involved to ask parishioners directly. It is a strong communications message from an organisation that is not renowned for taking on board others’ opinions on how they should conduct their business. It also cleverly takes the Church out of the firing line of any decision – ‘we asked the people, and the people have spoken’.

But the real story here is theory of ‘harassment’. People are feeling ‘harassed’ as they walk into mass. Now this may be true, but the problem is ‘feeling harassed’ is an incredibly subjective experience and somebody reporting it second-hand is not the same as someone saying “I feel harassed”. The latter statement lets you engage in dialogue – allows you adjust your behaviour as a fundraiser – allows you to take the person into account as a human being. The former is a rhetorical device that kills the debate. You cant’ get to the bottom of it as you are not talking directly to the individual concerned.

This is akin to the debate on ‘chuggers’ (a derogatory term used to describe charity fundraisers that I personally find de humanizing and factually untrue – it derives from charity muggers). It excites very high feelings. Many people hate it. Yet many don’t mind it at all. And generally I find those with the strongest opinions against it are those least likely to give to charity. There seems to be a direct relationship. Try it next time someone gives out about being asked for money or a direct debit. Ask them if they actually honestly, really honestly, give to charity regularly.

I care deeply about people, as do all fundraisers I know. I’m happy to ask and be asked to support causes that really matter. I am also happy to say no. But I’ve observed that many people feel guilty saying no, or don’t feel comfortable with this, so would prefer not to feel it, and blame the fundraiser for their experience.

Folks, the bad news is – that the fundraiser didn’t cause your guilt.

The good news is that there is any easy way to get rid of it. Just give.

Note added April 23rd 2012:

I wanted to follow up this post with two clarifications that have arisen in response to a few comments I’ve had about the post.

The first is that emphasise that I am in no way having a go at the Church or local clergy in particular. As I said in the post, I think they have done exactly the right thing. If people are reporting feeling harassed as they come to mass, asking parishioners for their views is brave, transparent and commendable.

The second is that I did not have individual or part of the country in mind when commenting on reports of people feeling harassed. The blog post is a response to a conversation going on on the Facebook page of the Evening Echo, and since then the Irish Independent. So, I am addressing a comment one hears frequently as a fundraiser from people who are not comfortable for various reasons with fundraising. It is one I have heard many times from different people. What I haven’t heard is someone sticking up for the fundraisers!

All opinions are my own,
Ronan