Supporter experience during the COVID-19 crisis

What might COVID-19 mean for your fundraising and your donors?
FREE. A one-hour webinar from the UK Institute of Fundraising’s Supporter Experience Special Interest Group. It’s this coming Monday March 30th at 10:00 GMT (the webinar will be recorded, if you can’t be there, live). For joining instructions and local times, see below.

Please spread the word (not the virus)

• Bring your Monday morning coffee to learn why, right now, the supporter experience is more important than ever before. Sign up via https://zoom.us/meeting/register/vpwkcumqqDIvZAdnTSk-7U035QU8kafxtw   

• Get your week off to a flying start. Six fundraisers share how they are thinking about the supporter experience in response to the current situation. Sign up via https://zoom.us/meeting/register/vpwkcumqqDIvZAdnTSk-7U035QU8kafxtw   

• 10.00 am UK time is 6.00 am on America’s East Coast, 3.00 am on the West Coast, 11.00am in Europe, 11.00am in West Africa, 1.00pm in East Africa, 3.30pm in India, 9.00pm in Australia and 11.00pm in New Zealand. 

Right now, people everywhere are feeling anxious. They will be seeking ways to cope and help them feel better.

No doubt that includes you. How should you and your organisation respond?

Along with the services they provide charities can play an important role in helping people feel good by supporting the causes they care about. But only if they approach this crisis with the right mindset. 

Join this special edition webinar, brought to you by the Institute of Fundraising’s Supporter Experience Special Interest Group, to get advice on how to approach this period. You will hear how different charities are keeping the supporter experience at the forefront of their response.

If we change our mindset from focusing on our fundraising activities, and instead focus on the experience we are giving our supporters, we could avoid losing money and actually increase income. When philanthropic muscles are stretched, out of a desire to do good as they are now, they become stronger.   

This webinar is about harnessing that strength.

Topics we aim to cover include: 

·      How organisations now need to think with regard to communicating to their supporters, no matter what they do or where they work.

·      The danger of assuming people won’t want to give and that charities mustn’t ask, despite the added pressures and uncertainty this crisis will place on them.

·      How we can help leverage the desire for people to do something positive?

·      Can you use your assets or expertise in some way?

·      What do you do if you are embedded in the community?

·      How do you retain corporate partners who are rethinking their businesses (possibly even growing it)?

·      Dealing with cancelled events.

·      What can we learn from other sectors and each other?

Hear from six speakers over one hour to help inspire you and get your week off to a flying start

10:00 am GMT kick off. See above for local times.

1.    Giles Pegram CBE, Supporter Experience Project

2.    Catherine Deakin, Changing Faces

3.    Marina Jones, Royal Opera House

4.    Magid El Amin, NSPCC

5.    Sarah Bissell, Thames Hospice

6.    Sam Afhim, Freedom from Torture

Chaired by Angela Cluff, Chair of the IoF Supporter Experience SIG

This article is part of our series on fundraising in a time of crisis, a response to the covid-19 outbreak. For the full list of contents in the series, click here.