James Julien: saying goodbye to a great fundraiser, and an even better guy...

It's with some irony that my last post was about a great day for the Canadian charitable sector, as this post marks a tragic day for our sector.

On Friday the 20th of February, 2009 James Julien, founder of Public Outreach and one of the pioneers of face to face fundraising in Canada, passed away in a hospital in Melbourne, Australia. James was surrounded by his mum Denise and a few close friends after suffering two strokes over the preceding few days.

Those who knew James, myself included, knew him as a charismatic and passionate fundraiser, someone equally full of energy and ideas, and above all a terrific guy.

I've read many tributes to James over the past two days and lots of them have told stories of their memories of the James Julien they knew, and in particular their first meeting, which typically was memorable.

I certainly remember the first time I met James, almost two years ago to the day, at the Fundraising Institute of Australia national fundraising conference in Melbourne at the beginning of 2007.

In some twist of fate, I kept finding myself in the same sessions as James and was intrigued by this vertically challenged guy, immaculately dressed, with a funny accent making lots of comments and observations about the topics being discussed. He wasn't necessarily accepting the norm, he was pushing the boundaries.

I was immediately drawn to him, not just because of his funny accent but because he really knew his stuff. 'This guy gets it' I thought. I had to meet him. So I went and introduced myself and we hit it off immediately. A few days later we were sharing a drink at my local watering hole and we have been colleagues and friends since.

James was actually one of, if not 'the' driving force behind me moving to Canada and setting up for Pareto Fundraising here. I joked with him and others that if things didn't work out I would blame him!

In the two years I knew him, besides his fundraising brilliance, his energy and his obvious drive, the thing that I'll remember him for are his absolute commitment to doing the right things in order to help others. Completely selfless.

James helped me enormously making the transition to his beloved Toronto and the fundraising community that he knew so well. The contacts and introductions he helped me with have really made a difference for me and for that I will be eternally grateful.

Why did he do it? Why did he make the effort for someone he had previously met just a few times? Because he believed in the work I was doing and knew it would make a difference. Simple.

That's the sort of guy he was. He didn't do what he did for fame or fortune. He did it because he cared.

My thoughts are with James' mum Denise, John, Bryan, Pamela, Mike and the rest of the Public Outreach gang.

JJ you will be missed mate. But you will be remembered for the difference you made in your 38 years.

Jono

A great day for the Canadian charitable sector

Yesterday was a great day. As I’ve posted about a few times, I was thrilled to be involved in the Canadian Fundraising & Philanthropy leadership forum, Surviving and Thriving in Challenging times.

I’m a hard one to please when it comes to professional development, but this was a brilliant day.

Why?

Firstly there were great people there. Some excellent speakers, and a fantastic bunch of delegates, over 100 of them.

Secondly, people were open, honest and sharing.

Thirdly, the quality of the information presented and the value derived from this was first class.

In the morning session we heard from Al Hatton, President and CEO of the United Way Canada, who talked about 2008, a year in review. What they had learned from a tough year. What I loved from Al was when he stipulated that we all needed to ‘make a plan based on facts’ if we were going to make inroads moving forward. Spot on Al.

We then heard from Scott Mullins of TD Bank who gave us the lowdown on what the banks are planning in 2009 in terms of charitable support. Scott’s message was that it will be more of the same in terms of the level of support but gave some great insights into what they really want to see in submissions, not what charities think they want.

Malcolm Burrows from Scotia Private Client Group talked about foundation giving, specifically referring to different types of foundations and how they may be affected moving forward. Malcolm’s take was that foundation endowments are likely to decrease by 10%-30% this year meaning that the payouts for charities (even at the 3.5% they have to payout) will be proportionately less. He also suspected that foundations are more likely at the moment to focus on existing charities they already support.

I was next cab off the rank and my slot focused on the 6 steps to avoiding recession suicide. Here they are in point form (please email me if you want a more detailed summary):

1. Practicing good relationship management with donors and not ignore them.
2. Not sacrificing long term for short term.
3. Avoiding distraction: focus on the things that will have the biggest impact.
4. Getting the balance right. Cost v value.
5. Use data to make informed and strategic decisions.
6. Look around and see what others are doing.

Besides getting the chance to rant for 45 minutes, the highlight of the day for me was Dan Pallotta’s session.

Dan is the author of "Uncharitable: How Restraints on Nonprofits Undermine Their Potential". The premise of Dan’s book and his message yesterday was that charities are unable to have a monumental impact on the world because of the constraints placed on them by society. Dan contends that we can’t really tackle pandemics like world hunger and a cure for cancer given the barriers placed upon nonprofits to deliver lots from little.

He challenges (rightly, I might add) that asking “what % of my dollar goes towards programs” is fundamentally the wrong question to ask. We should be concerned with outcomes, not cost per dollar raised or the proportion of money spent on services.

He challenges (again, rightly) the disproportionate amount of time and questioning of Senior Charity Executive salaries, the criticism that charities are placed under about spending on fundraising/marketing and that in effect we need a paradigm shift on the way charity is viewed and how we operate.

Yes, yes, yes! Finally this stuff has the opportunity to be on the public agenda. I love it.

Fortunately we all got a copy of Dan’s book for attending the forum and I have to say I’m already well into it and absorbing every page.

Dan joked that to get his message heard he needed to go on a Al Gore, An Inconvenient Truth type crusade. I don’t think this is a joking matter, I think he does. This requires a movement, a shift in the way people perceive charity and the way that we operate to genuinely change the world.

Rebecca Davies from Médecins Sans Frontières Canada then gave us a really honest and open assessment of how her organization is dealing with the current economic crisis. She implored delegates to ‘fundraise from the frontline’ and gave a really moving account of her own experience visiting projects and how this has made her ‘a better fundraiser’.

Rebecca also told us about some key policy changes Médecins Sans Frontières Canada has made which allowed them to consider corporate support they previously hadn’t been able to which would now mean taking treating each corporation on a case by case basis (rather than ruling out certain sectors, with some exceptions), and how donor field visits, a practice previously un-allowed has already reaped rewards with some sizable gifts following project visits.

The day finished with a panel of experts, which I managed to get a seat on. As well as some of the previously mentioned speakers, we were joined by other sector leaders like Kimberley MacKenzie from the Lake Simcoe Conservation Foundation and David Love from the Conservation Foundation of Greater Toronto. The panel responded to questions from the floor from topics such as managing boards, policy changes right down to views on recruitment activity in the current climate.

This was a great day for the Canadian charitable sector.

Key people getting together to cut through rhetoric and talk about what’s really happening out there and what we can and are doing to continue to deliver the services we need to our beneficiaries.

I was proud to a part of it. I look forward to the next leadership forum of this type.

Jonathon

There were other sessions in additition to those mentioned, but for fear of blogging for two days, I have tried to summarize the days events..

Canadian fundraisers rallying together

I'm looking forward to tomorrow.

An idea I had a few months back comes to fruition tomorrow when my friends at Canadian Fundraiser host a Canadian first event, Surviving and Thriving in Challenging times.

There are going to be some great people there, panelists and delegates alike.

We've managed to get 100 people paid up and ready to go in what promises to be a day of sharing, best practice and hopefully real honesty about what's happening in the trenches.

And what we should do moving forward.

Not only am I looking forward to sharing my 20 cents worth in my session, but because I'll be learning myself. And that's always a good thing.

But even more so, I'm looking forward to my next blog tomorrow night. I hope there are some juicy insights to share from the coming together of 100 plus Canadian fundraisers thirsty for knowledge and coming together for the greater good.

I better get some sleep now.

Jonathon

Foundation funding: what the hell’s that all about anyway?

That’s pretty much what I used to ask myself.

I knew it played a really important role in the sector, certainly where I’ve worked, but I didn’t have a real sense of the nuts and bolts of how it worked, what funders were looking for, what turns them off etc.

Until yesterday.

You see, last year in the midst of meeting literally hundreds of Canadian charities, it became apparent to me that not only was that in area that was not given adequate attention, but there seemed to be a real lack of support, particularly for small to medium size charities and fundraising teams.

Enter my colleague James Huitson, Pareto Fundraising’s Regional Director in South East Asia.

An ‘unrepentant Brit’ (his words, not mine), James background is the antithesis of mine. Until 12 months ago he has always worked for charities. I’ve always worked in agencies (although mostly with charities). He’s primarily focused his work on seeking institutional funding, me on individuals.

And with ten plus years in this area boasting an incredibly successful record of soliciting statutory and foundation funding (with organizations in the UK such as Mind and Turning Point), I figured it was worth getting him out here to impart his knowledge on my fellow Canadian fundraisers.

Fast forward to yesterday and we ran a session entitled Trusts and Foundations: So what are they looking for and how can I make the most of my programme?

Something that James said to me last year about operating in different markets has stuck with me. "Everything is different but everything is the same". And for me this really rings true when you take an area like foundation funding versus raising money from individuals.

Like individuals, money from foundations doesn’t appear magically overnight. It’s about quality in applications, not quantity (think acquisition, same logic). And there certainly are some of the similar principles you must apply in terms of thanking, feeding back and relationship building. All fairly intuitive stuff, but incredibly important all the same.

On the flip side, there are some nuances. The biggest one is this: foundations exist to give you money, individuals don’t. In some countries there are statutory requirements to ensure that foundations give away a proportion of their money every year (in Canada it’s around 3.5% of its assets every 2 years and 80% of its receipted donations from the previous year).

The other big difference is that receiving funding from a grant making foundation won’t get you out of a cash flow pickle. Unlike going to someone really rich next week and asking for $200,000, foundation funding is long term, sometimes laborious and I imagine sometimes incredibly frustrating.

Like other sources of funding, raising money from foundations has its role. For some organizations it will play a significant part. For others it won’t: either because it doesn’t fit well within the type of work you do or the way you work, or because you have made a strategic decision not to spend your time in this area.

I’m just glad I now know what the hell they’re all about anyway.

If you want any more info in this area, contact our man on the ground James Huitson. He can be reached at james.huitson@paretofundraising.com

He’ll be happy to help.

Jonathon