Ep. 1 - Qualities of a Great Fundraiser

Lynne and Louise tap into the insight of their guest Sheilah Henderson - a career fundraiser and now donor - and explore the various qualities that embody great fundraisers and what it takes to be successful. Hear them discuss the best personality traits suited for fundraising, the issue of pre-requisites in job postings, a donor's perspective on the value of the CFRE fundraising credential and much more.

Welcome to Raise & Shine where every episode features a donor's voice - get fundraising insights right from the source. Hear what donors think, feel and say with co-hosts Lynne Boardman and Louise Campbell. Lynne is Managing Director at Harvey McKinnon Associates and Louise is Vice President at Lions Gate Hospital Foundation. Together they have 40+ years of fundraising experience.

Thank you so much to Harvey McKinnon and Harvey McKinnon Associates for generously sponsoring this episode.

We're also so grateful to our producer, Scott Switzer, for making the magic happen.

Thank you for listening! Please join us on Linked In and Instagram.

Chapters

• 2:32 Fundraising as a Career
• 6:33 Best Fundraising Conferences
• 8:48 Donor Introduction
• 11:01 Job Requirements Limit Talent Acquisition
• 12:22 Personality of Fundraiser
• 19:28 CFRE Fundraising Credential - Is the CFRE Worth it
• 25:00 Hiring Fundraisers for Non-Profits
• 26:06 Working in Non-Profits
• 31:22 Advice for Charity Fundraising

Transcript

Ep-1-qualities-of-a-great-fundraiser

[00:00:00] Lynne Boardman: This is Raise and Shine, the podcast where you can hear the voice of donors through conversations about things that matter in fundraising.

[00:00:11] Louise Campbell: Welcome to Raise and Shine. I'm Louise Campbell. 

[00:00:15] Lynne Boardman: I'm Lynn Boardman. Let's get our conversation started.

[00:00:17] Louise Campbell: Lynn, I'm so excited for today. Here we are recording our first ever episode of Raise and Shine. It's so exciting. Um, I just can't believe we're doing it finally. 

[00:00:31] Lynne Boardman: I know. It's great. It's been a long time coming and I'm, uh, incredibly excited and I'm very excited for the first guest we have today and the topic we're having.

[00:00:39] Louise Campbell: That's right. We're starting off our first episode with fundraising as a career. How did we get here? And I guess we just thought that this was a good place to start. So when we were thinking about putting this podcast together, We thought what could make it really successful? We knew we wanted to bring the source to the table.

[00:01:00] Louise Campbell: And for us as fundraisers, the source are our 

[00:01:03] Lynne Boardman: donors. Right? 100%. Because if you think about it, without our donors, there is no hospital. And here in Canada, there's no hospital equipment, right? Without our donors, there is no Greenpeace. Without our donors, there is no, uh, Oxfam Amnesty International. Any of the charities and causes we hold dear.

[00:01:23] Lynne Boardman: So when we were talking a lot about the different resources and conferences and podcasts out there, one thing we really felt passionate about was presenting a podcast where we could have the voice of our donors at every single episode. 

[00:01:37] Louise Campbell: And today we have a great donor with us. It's Sheila Henderson.

[00:01:42] Louise Campbell: She's on our show and to help us talk about fundraising as a career. And I actually, Lynn, I can't think of a better person to have on our show. For our first episode, Sheila embodies philanthropy. Not only was she a professional fundraiser in her past life, but she's a passionate donor and a volunteer of her time.

[00:02:03] Louise Campbell: So she comes to us from a lot of different perspectives. 

[00:02:07] Lynne Boardman: The fact that she was being a volunteer and a fundraiser as a donor, what kind of relationship, personality, et cetera does she really look for in, in fundraisers? What kind of, what kind of person does she work with best? 

[00:02:24] Louise Campbell: Before we bring Sheila in on the conversation, let's talk about how we got here, Lynn.

[00:02:29] Louise Campbell: So you are the managing director of Harvey McKinnon Associates. It's one of Canada's leading nonprofit consultancies. You work with lots of high profile charities, including Oxfam Canada, amnesty International. You work with Children's Hospital Foundations across Canada. So how did you get here? 

[00:02:51] Lynne Boardman: Right. Yes.

[00:02:52] Lynne Boardman: Let's take that back to the holy dawn of time. I, uh, I actually always knew I wanted to work in the nonprofit sector, so I, that is one thing I had known from the outset. The outset being, I don't know, halfway through university or something, but I didn't know I wanted to work in fundraising. So that was kind of my entry.

[00:03:10] Lynne Boardman: So in terms of nonprofits, I was working at an eating disorder clinic while I went to university. Then I worked at that wildlife charity. You remember me working that for a while? For bears, wasn't it? For bears, yeah. Yeah. The yellow bumper stickers. And then I think the big, the biggest thing that ever happened to me was when you and I moved to the uk.

[00:03:29] Lynne Boardman: Because it went from being at that time in Vancouver, I don't even know if there was an a fp here. Right, right. But we didn't know how to access jobs in the nonprofit sector at this time. Right. But the second you and I land in London, It was like being in a candy store, right? There was a two entire days worth of the Guardian job ads that had probably like 500 charity jobs, a piece, 

[00:03:54] Louise Campbell: right?

[00:03:54] Louise Campbell: Definitely a huge job 

[00:03:55] Lynne Boardman: market there. Absolutely. So that was, I think, the biggest, most pivotal moment in my career as a fundraiser, and that's when I really learned that fundraises fundraising in some ways is the basis of the nonprofit sector. 

[00:04:07] Louise Campbell: And I just wanna take it back even further to the very dawn of time, because just so everybody knows, Lynn and I have known each other since we've been Kneehigh to a grasshopper.

[00:04:16] Louise Campbell: We were brownies, we were in brownies together. Yes. Um, and for me it was, I got a degree in political science and English. I spent summers at our, uh, local newspaper. Went off to, actually, I got to use my degree in political science and went to auto, auto work for a while. And then I was back in Vancouver, a Marcos agency, and as Lynn said, we went to London.

[00:04:39] Louise Campbell: I got to work at the hospital for neuro disability there, which was one of my first forays into nonprofit, which was fantastic. And then I went off to Penguin books and worked in their film and TV department. Completely different then. Back in Vancouver, it took a while for me to actually get into nonprofit again, and I, it only came about because one of our friends said there's a job going at.

[00:05:08] Louise Campbell: The local hospital foundation, and I said, I'm not a fundraiser. Mm-hmm. And it took three times for him to tell me, just go talk to them. Just go talk to them. So it was really interesting. I mean, you knew from the outset that this is the area at least mm-hmm. The industry you wanted to be in to make a difference.

[00:05:25] Louise Campbell: Mm-hmm. And I didn't really know about it until I. I went through an outplacement service, compliments of the taxpayers of Canada after my stint in government. Um, and there we went through all of the Myers-Briggs testing, all the personality testing. And what came out came out was that something that would make me satisfied in my work would be to do good.

[00:05:48] Louise Campbell: Yeah. And it took me a while to figure it out, but I have 10 years at the hospital Foundation and it's phenomenal. 10 years time flies. 

[00:05:58] Lynne Boardman: So looking back, I think, uh, and this is where things have changed. Neither of us had formal fundraising training. Um, there's certainly much more of that around now than there was, but, uh, but neither of us sort of had a particular degree in fundraising or a C F R E or any of those things at the time.

[00:06:17] Lynne Boardman: Exactly. And I think that's one of the, one of the themes we're gonna. Explore a bit more in this conversation, isn't it about, you know, the things that make a great fundraiser and how much of that is, is personality based, right. And skills that go across a bunch of different types of careers and jobs like marketing and communications.

[00:06:32] Louise Campbell: Exactly. Because I think for us, we both learned on the job, so to speak. Right. We've been to various conferences. I know when I first started at the foundation, because of my limited fundraising background, I was. Uh, fortunate to be able to attend a fundraising primer course at the annual conference of the Association for Healthcare Professionals in Toronto.

[00:06:53] Louise Campbell: You were there. It was a lot of fun networking, meeting people, and for me personally, a game changer and getting it, uh, the basics in fundraising. And Lynn, you've done really well with conferences. You speak at so many 

Well, 

[00:07:08] Lynne Boardman: and I just wanna give a shout out to, you know, all of those associations and individuals that have done everything they can to increase knowledge sharing and education in our sector.

[00:07:19] Lynne Boardman: Right. So certainly the AF. P the Association of Fundraising Professionals over the years and the conferences they've put on Toronto Congress icon in the United States. Uh, Western Canadian Fundraising Conference has been around now for five or six or seven years. Banff Compass. I think these are all great, and that's all from a recognition that, uh, that there isn't necessarily these really organized kind of university courses and fundraising that you can get So big kudos to them.

[00:07:47] Louise Campbell: I mean, even from that, we, we learn a lot. Yeah. But our own observation to date has been not a huge amount of input from actual donors. Mm-hmm. At these events. And maybe that's what's missing and that's what motivated us to start this podcast and focus on the source, our donors. So every episode will feature a donor's voice and their perspectives so that we can learn from our actual.

[00:08:12] Louise Campbell: Source. 

[00:08:12] Lynne Boardman: Absolutely. So the, some of the things we have coming ahead, uh, in terms of donors are like donors talking about attitudes towards money. For example, donors talking about what it's like to be involved in an events committee. Donors who we, you know, use some of our for crazy fundraising lingo, like major gift donors and big gift donors and things like that.

[00:08:33] Lynne Boardman: Um, I'm particularly passionate about legacies and requests. So we'll have on some donors who can speak to us about leaving a gift and their will. 

[00:08:41] Louise Campbell: And we wanna talk about donors from diverse cultures as well. 

[00:08:44] Lynne Boardman: 100%. Yeah. Yeah. Lots Coming up. This feels like a great time to pull our guest into the conversation.

[00:08:50] Louise Campbell: So we have Sheila Henderson with us. Welcome Sheila. Thank you. So I know you as a donor and a volunteer with Lionsgate Hospital Foundation, but you're so much more than that. I know. Um, you spent several years in the hotel industry and in business, and then you went on to Endeavor. Maybe you could tell us about how you got into fundraising.

[00:09:14] Louise Campbell: Lynn and I were just talking about how we did. 

[00:09:17] Sheilah Henderson: Well, I got into fundraising by the back door I suppose. I was hired to be executive director of Endeavor, which was the gala, gala do in Vancouver back in the day, and I just fell into it and did that. It was, you know, event fundraising and that was the first toe in the water, if you will.

[00:09:41] Louise Campbell: And then I think you went on to the Vancouver Community College. College Foundation. 

[00:09:45] Sheilah Henderson: Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. And again, that was an issue where the previous head of the foundation left quite abruptly, and one of the board members knew me and I was brought into men some fences within the college, between the administration of the college and the foundation.

[00:10:05] Sheilah Henderson: They were very separate. And it didn't take very long to sort that out. And I went for six months and stayed for eight years. 

[00:10:13] Lynne Boardman: That's like when we went to 

[00:10:14] Louise Campbell: London. Exactly. We went for one year and stayed eight. 

[00:10:18] Sheilah Henderson: Um, when I was in high school, my father was an engineer and worked all over the world, so they were gone some of the time.

[00:10:25] Sheilah Henderson: And my parents came back from one of their trips and thought it would be a good idea if I went to hotel school in Switzerland. I was having none of that. I didn't have the confidence to go off by myself. So I went to ubc, dropped out, and then worked for 13 years in the hotel business. What did my parents know?

[00:10:44] Sheilah Henderson: I mean, they knew nothing except they did know it all. So, um, when I was at vcc, they didn't care. They just needed. Somebody that could. Mend fences, I guess. And, um, so, but when I left vcc, they posted my job and you had to have a master's degree, which I just thought was re and, and even my boss said, it's ridiculous.

[00:11:13] Sheilah Henderson: But that is, maybe it was the academic. World Day we were in, I don't know, but it seems everywhere needs a master's at 

[00:11:21] Louise Campbell: minimum, so that's so interesting. Right? I mean, we just need to think about that for a second. Are we requesting, um, Qualifications that are often too high and therefore limiting our applicant pool, do you think?

[00:11:37] Sheilah Henderson: I would think so. And I think that in bigger organizations, not in small ones, but in bigger organizations, when resumes or applications go, they go to hr. And the HR person, as far as I know, I don't know, I never worked in hr. They go down and they look at education, and if it doesn't go at Master's, it goes into the bin.

[00:11:56] Sheilah Henderson: Well, To me that's ridiculous. Yes, I 

[00:11:59] Lynne Boardman: completely agree. What is the, um, expression you hire for? Hire for personality and train for skills. Mm-hmm. And I just think that's so true. That's how I do my hiring 100%. And I think, like you say, Louise, we are limiting the pool of people. I think it. It's just easy.

[00:12:17] Lynne Boardman: It's an easy way to filter, right? But I think we're missing out on a lot of good people, cuz to me, I would say in fundraising personality trumps qualifications. Absolutely. 

[00:12:29] Louise Campbell: If you don't have the right qualities, I think you're probably not cut out for the job of fundraising. And um, so maybe we can just talk a little bit about what those qualities might be.

[00:12:40] Louise Campbell: So Sheila, as a donor, what do you look for in, I guess, someone who's asking you for money? 

[00:12:48] Sheilah Henderson: You, you have to have come to me with something as relevant to you. To me. Mm-hmm. Um, which means even before, not even before you've done the research, but to listen to what my interests are and, um, see if you can find.

[00:13:10] Sheilah Henderson: The A hook. Yeah. That's awesome. But there's sort of one other, and it just popped into my mind about. When my husband, my husband died at Lionsgate 20 years ago, and he, his friends before when we knew he was not going to survive, um, they wanted to do something for us. Mm-hmm. And Stewart, who was in marketing and advertising all his life, said, um, he would like to raise them to help him raise money for the, for the chemo.

[00:13:47] Sheilah Henderson: The chemotherapeutic. Yeah. Yeah. And the, the foundation president took that idea of Stewart's, the president was able to show him there was a greater need in a different area in the hospital. 

[00:14:01] Louise Campbell: So you're talking about relevance, it's key. The cause has to resonate with the donor. Yes. So that involves research.

[00:14:09] Louise Campbell: Basically. We have to research and just know our donors. 

[00:14:13] Lynne Boardman: Yeah, absolutely. I have a friend who's a brilliant, um, management consultant and she's also a brilliant fundraiser. And one of the things, the questions that she always asks someone, a donor that she's working with is what is near and dear to your heart?

[00:14:27] Lynne Boardman: Yeah. And she says that has always opened up so much like she was working with this one fellow who's was a significant donor. Um, I think it was kind of to like a A Y M C A type thing in Tennessee, I believe. And she was showing him all around the facility. And she asked him the question, what's near and dear to your heart?

[00:14:46] Lynne Boardman: And he said something along the lines of, I will always remember, you know, my being the son of a single mother and coming downstairs in the middle of the night and finding her crying over a table full of bills that she always hid that from us. Right? And, and then he talked about the teen centers he used to go to that, uh, kind of, he felt saved his life, like saved his adolescences.

[00:15:07] Lynne Boardman: And so she was instantly then able to walk him through the doors of a. Similar project that they had going on at the center, but without that question, she wouldn't have known. Yeah. And made that connection. And that connection was everything. But 

then 

[00:15:20] Sheilah Henderson: again that's cuz she was listening. Like listening.

[00:15:22] Sheilah Henderson: Exactly. Exactly. 

[00:15:25] Louise Campbell: Earlier, Sheila, you also, when we were talking, you mentioned the importance of, uh, fundraisers being people. Persons and we were talking about how it's important to be able to communicate with all sorts of different people. Mm-hmm. Younger people, older people, people from all walks of life.

[00:15:43] Louise Campbell: Did you wanna tell us a little bit more about 

[00:15:45] Sheilah Henderson: that? Well, I've, um, I've always thought that you pretty, when I worked at the college, cuz it was a blue collar co college, um, that. The donors to the college, a lot of it were business people, whether it was diesel mechanics or people in the food industry. You needed to be able to talk to the ceo, but also the people on the floor.

[00:16:15] Sheilah Henderson: Mm. And that's what I used to say to the people that worked with me. 

[00:16:19] Louise Campbell: And maybe from a, um, just thinking in your, your donor head space, so can you think back on your experiences and was there any one particular instance where the importance of certain qualities became apparent to you? 

[00:16:37] Sheilah Henderson: You know how you get letters that are, have been personalized and sometimes they're, your name is there and they cross it out and actually write your name and put a little note.

[00:16:46] Sheilah Henderson: And there was a fundraiser that I knew we used to see a lot, but didn't really know. And I used to get these letters with no note, nothing personal. Mm-hmm. And, and it ha. I, it just used to tick me off. I mean, I would think you see me once a week, you couldn't write my name down, and it was very obvious it was missing.

[00:17:12] Sheilah Henderson: I. Um, any communication needs to be personal, even if you're just the way you say hello, or you leave a message on the phone or write a note, you know, just a, a quick note. Um, just to acknowledge the fact that this person who's got printed material that they're sending to all these people that they looked at the name and saw, oh, I know that person.

[00:17:39] Sheilah Henderson: Mm-hmm. 

[00:17:40] Lynne Boardman: There was one thing that you said that I thought was really fascinating, which was when you were hired at the Vancouver Community College Foundation, it was to be, and you said a fence 

[00:17:49] Sheilah Henderson: vendor. Yeah, the, the person that had been there previously was a good fundraiser, but didn't know how to communicate with the college administration and had been hired without the knowledge of the college administration.

[00:18:04] Sheilah Henderson: And so people had their backs up? Yes, yes. And so she left and um, I was just asked to come in. For like six, six, maximum of six months to see if they could, we could mend the fence. And I mean, it took me 20 minutes. It wasn't hard, but it was because that person who had been my predecessor was the wrong person for the job.

[00:18:30] Sheilah Henderson: Absolutely. And I remember because I knew her wondering, why have you taken this job? This is not something you're gonna like. 

[00:18:40] Lynne Boardman: Yeah. So this has two things to me. One is that I've worked with so many hundreds of charities as a consultant and the siloing, the silos within nonprofits and the conflict within nonprofits, it's probably something that many donors would never realize.

[00:18:56] Lynne Boardman: The extent to that can be there. Mm-hmm. I could probably name a hundred. Charities right now that could hire someone to be the fence member. I mean, that is a fantastic, that's a fantastic position. And the second thing you said a bit about, it's having the right person in the right job. Mm-hmm. And there's that analogy of having the right people on the bus, right.

[00:19:16] Lynne Boardman: The right people in the right seats on the right bus. And I think that cuz a nice segue into talking a little bit about hiring and how we make sure that we have the right person for the right job. 

[00:19:26] Louise Campbell: Absolutely. And one thing in the fundraising industry that is, I guess a benchmark piece, is the C F R E, and that's the certified fundraising executive qualification.

[00:19:39] Louise Campbell: And I mean it, it's. Hugely important for formalizing and elevating, um, the standardization and accountability of the fundraising industry. Um, it gives us all that much more credibility and hats off to everyone who has achieved their C F R E. It's a huge, huge accomplishment. Um, I think Lynn and I. I've talked about it many times about getting our C F E designation and I think then life just got in the way for us, didn't it?

[00:20:12] Lynne Boardman: Well you mean when sometimes people have babies and their marbles fell outta their heads and I can't study anymore cuz school's harder than work. 

[00:20:19] Louise Campbell: I, yeah, I reremember, there was one point where I. Was about to order the study cards from Amazon and that didn't actually happen. So I'm just curious. I mean, in our office, I know there's one person that has it, right?

[00:20:34] Louise Campbell: Lynn, in your office? 

[00:20:37] Lynne Boardman: I think in our office, probably about four people out of 20 have 

[00:20:41] Louise Campbell: it. Okay. And I. Do you understand that there's more than 7,700, or sorry, apparently there's more than 7,700 fundraising professionals from over 25 countries who currently have this C F R E designation. Sheila, a question for you.

[00:21:02] Louise Campbell: So as a donor, is a fundraiser having this designation important 

to 

[00:21:08] Sheilah Henderson: you? Absolutely not. It doesn't make, and I know what it is. So as a donor, as a former fundraiser, I know what it is and it doesn't make the slightest bit of difference to me. 

[00:21:20] Louise Campbell: Right. But I think if, and Lynn, maybe if, I don't know, we were a few years younger, it would be important for us to be getting this to move forward in our careers.

[00:21:31] Louise Campbell: It seems to be something that's requested in powering qualifications. 

[00:21:35] Lynne Boardman: Yeah. I think there's two things. There is what we touched on before, like. Do we, and maybe is it a Canadian thing? Is it a North American thing where we're a little bit obsessive about qualifications and education And sometimes I think that stands in our own way of hiring really great people.

[00:21:50] Lynne Boardman: Um, and the other thing is, I think that if that particular accreditation is useful, I think it, um, I would still like to get it. I think it does add some value. Uh, I can imagine that for some donors, If they're wanting to talk really specifically about sort of, um, I dunno, gifts of shares or, and stocks and some of those, you know, really technical, kind of planned giving, we call them ways of giving.

[00:22:15] Lynne Boardman: Uh, I think it might be comforting, comforting for them to know that somebody has gone through the kind of schooling that knows all the ins and outs of things like 

[00:22:22] Sheilah Henderson: that. I agree with that, and I am not one of those donors. Yes, that can. I wish I was, but I'm not saying that it, it doesn't hurt. I mean, I wish I had done it, but I fell into fundraising and I.

[00:22:39] Sheilah Henderson: I wasn't, I had enough trouble at ubc, so no, I, studying I was not, is not a strong point for me. 

[00:22:50] Louise Campbell: I think there's also the recertification aspect that we need to keep in mind. So every three years you have to. Earn X number of points and that takes time and that takes speaking at conferences, et cetera. Um, but on the other hand, it's great for keeping your skills sharp, I would imagine.

[00:23:10] Lynne Boardman: Yeah, I mean, I think there's a fine line there because I know within my own network, numerous people who over the course of their time in fundraising, have raised hundreds of millions of dollars and yet are. Kind of expected and in some cases a little bit struggling for the time to put together their recertification.

[00:23:27] Lynne Boardman: And of course at that point it seems a little bit crazy. Um, there's other ways in which, um, people for who are newer in their careers, it could be a really good idea. 

[00:23:37] Louise Campbell: And you wanna move ahead? Yeah. Right. If you wanted to get a new job, I think a CF r e designation is important. Mm-hmm. Um, but for instance, like you're saying, um, I had the, I was fortunate enough to work on a successful a hundred million dollar campaign.

[00:23:54] Louise Campbell: I don't have it. I think experience, and we've talked about how you can gain experience training on the job, going to conferences, taking the odd course perhaps. I don't, it's a fine line, but let's just agree that having both would be ideal. 

[00:24:11] Sheilah Henderson: Yeah. And so all these people that have C F R E after they name, have they redone whatever they have to do every three years, or do they just put 

[00:24:22] Lynne Boardman: C or do they just keep it there?

[00:24:23] Lynne Boardman: That's a good 

[00:24:24] Louise Campbell: question. I don't know a good question. We have to put that one on the C 

[00:24:27] Sheilah Henderson: f E, but you know what, it's a bit like. Book Learning doesn't make you Yeah. A good whatever it is. I mean, we talked about that. I mean, we all know about doctors who, who did not do bedside 1 0 1. Yeah. And they're, you know, they, they're brilliant at what they do, but when it comes to communicating with people, not so much.

[00:24:47] Sheilah Henderson: Yeah. So 

[00:24:47] Louise Campbell: maybe it comes back to the qualities, right? Mm-hmm. We've been talking about communication, being a people person. These things probably Trump everything. Absolutely. That's 

[00:24:57] Lynne Boardman: what I think. And I think that, you know, that does segue into hiring cuz you do have to spend the time to figure out whether, you know, whether you have the right person in the right seat on the right bus.

[00:25:07] Lynne Boardman: And I was thinking to myself of many, uh, many of my clients struggled to hire, you know, again this is Lingo, but ma good major gift fundraisers. And they'll find people who are brilliant at desk research. So great at, you know, finding out about people really, really good at writing letters, great at writing grant applications.

[00:25:26] Lynne Boardman: They cannot make the ask. Mm-hmm. So then they've hired this person, trained this person got this person in place and they just cannot pick up the phone and make a cold call or pick up the phone and make a call or kind of close the deal if you wanna use that kind of language. And I think that's interesting.

[00:25:41] Lynne Boardman: I mean, ideally it, again, you'd have both, but it takes a very special, unique personality to be able to sit across from somebody and say, could you give $50,000 to this? Right. How about a hundred million to kickstart my capital campaign? Right, exactly. That takes a very special personality and I don't think that any accreditation or necessarily education is going to influence that.

[00:26:05] Louise Campbell: And maybe Lynn, cuz you were talking about how you always knew you wanted to be in the nonprofit sector. Mm-hmm. So there are ways to be in it not being a fundraiser. You mentioned database managers, so many different positions mm-hmm. In, in the nonprofit sector. Maybe we can talk a little bit about nonprofits and just nonprofit as an industry.

[00:26:25] Louise Campbell: So what are the benefits? Why, why did you 

[00:26:29] Lynne Boardman: want to Right, right. Be there. Right. I think it was similar to what you said earlier on when you were talking about your, you know, Myers Briggs. Right? Right. It's part of your personality. I think that I did want to, um, work in a sector that made things. Better for people may.

[00:26:48] Lynne Boardman: And you know, I think I started out actually, uh, eating disorder clinic. Knowing people, again, it goes back to a connection, doesn't it? Knowing someone who'd struggled with an eating disorder, then it was kind of like an animal charity. Uh, then my first UK job was, uh, a cancer charity. So it was having that personal connection.

[00:27:07] Lynne Boardman: I think for me 

[00:27:09] Sheilah Henderson: it's sort of not what you know, who you know. Mm-hmm. And I think from the. If you're hiring somebody, if they come with some kind of a personal con connection, it sort of elevates them a bit. Yeah. Because they who, you know, if you use somebody in the old days, I don't know if you do it now, but you put references down.

[00:27:30] Sheilah Henderson: Yeah. And you put the references that were applicable to whatever job, whether you were in the hotel business or in the nonprofit 

[00:27:38] Louise Campbell: sector. Yeah. So, Sheila, how did the nonprofit sector measure up for you against the hotel industry? In terms of, we all know we make lower salaries. Um, but to Lynn's point, the feeling of making a difference in many ways makes up for 

[00:27:54] Sheilah Henderson: that.

[00:27:55] Sheilah Henderson: Well, it's funny, the hotel business, it's better now, but back in the day you didn't make a lot of money No. In that either. Um, but I, when I went to Endeavor, which was a huge event, um, I had been working at Four Seasons Hotels for quite a few years and they always opened the hotel with a bang. They didn't do a soft opening.

[00:28:17] Sheilah Henderson: And I, when I went to work at Endeavor, I said, this is like a hotel opening once a year, because that's what it was. You had a finite time to do it. This was, you know, at a certain time, on a certain day, you opened the doors. Any event, fundraising is very different to capital campaigns. Is it? Absolutely. You know, and, and I happened to have the hotel experience when I went to Endeavor.

[00:28:44] Sheilah Henderson: I didn't realize how closely connected an event was to opening a hotel where a hotel that opened with a bang, an event, opens with a bang, and that experience was invaluable. And, and Endeavor was an interesting organization because there were 11, sometimes even 13 or 14 different beneficiaries for each year.

[00:29:13] Sheilah Henderson: So there really, you know, we had to raise as much money as we could for those beneficiaries and. It, it was in the early days of big auctions. Mm-hmm. And big parties and so forth. But it was nice to know that we were, in some cases the, the money was going to bigger organizations like the Art Gallery and the Symphony, but the most important purpose was Endeavor because we were raising money for fig, but mostly smaller organizations that would never have had that opportunity to raise that amount of money.

[00:29:46] Sheilah Henderson: Whereas the hotel was a business. As much as the experience I gained from the hotel opening, it was much more significant to me to raise money for nonprofit organizations, particularly smaller ones that would never have raised that kind of money if they had to do it alone. 

[00:30:05] Lynne Boardman: One thing I wanted to jump in and say, I completely agree, and that's also why I'm in the nonprofit sector, that you get to work really hard and have a great deal of meaning.

[00:30:15] Lynne Boardman: For me, it's sort of, I, I love working consultancy because I have such a variety of of clients, so I might know that my letter raised money for a well in Africa, and I might know that it helped buy an echocardiogram at the hospital. Absolutely one. Thing. I wanna make sure nobody listening thinks though, if they're considering changing careers into the nonprofit sector, I think sometimes people can think that they're coming to the nonprofit sector and it's gonna be a lot easier.

[00:30:42] Lynne Boardman: It's gonna be like less work. I've worked really hard and the, you know, the business sector, now I'm gonna, I'm gonna chill out and come over to my nonprofit sector. Cuz actually I almost think if anything, uh, the hours are a little bit longer. And it's more intense. Right? And 

[00:31:00] Louise Campbell: the pay is a little bit less.

[00:31:02] Louise Campbell: Yeah. So we hear, 

[00:31:04] Lynne Boardman: so we hear a little bit.

[00:31:09] Louise Campbell: Sheila, thank you so much. This has been an amazing conversation. Um, it's your insight as a donor has been very informative for us. And before we let you go here, we just want to ask you one question. 

[00:31:25] Lynne Boardman: What is one piece of advice that you would give to anyone involved in fundraising or thinking of working in fundraising?

[00:31:33] Lynne Boardman: Listen. 

[00:31:34] Sheilah Henderson: Listen to the potential donors. Listen to the people you work with. Listen to 

[00:31:40] Lynne Boardman: everybody. That was amazing. I love ending on listening though, right? Because that is the theme of this episode. Thank you for me as well, Sheila Louise, what would you say, uh, wrapping things up for our listeners, what would you say were two or three key takeaways from talking to Sheila that you're gonna go forward with?

[00:31:58] Louise Campbell: So Lynn, I think it's really about being a good communicator. Being a great listener and we really need to know our donors. 

[00:32:07] Lynne Boardman: I think one thing, as fundraisers, we have to remember, our donors are not cash machines. We are not just going to tap, ask for more money, ask for money, ask for money, right? I think half of our job is to be what's called a dream broker, right?

[00:32:21] Lynne Boardman: That we are actually trying to help our donors fulfill their vision and do something that's meaningful for them. As much as we are trying to raise the dollars on a spreadsheet. 

[00:32:31] Louise Campbell: Like we're selling the dream of philanthropy. Mm-hmm. In fact, sometimes I think in many ways we are in a sales role, rightly or wrongly.

[00:32:44] Lynne Boardman: Again, it's so important to have the right personality in the right job, but maybe, uh, you know, a guide to folks out there who are doing the hiring from a donor's perspective. Perspective perspective. Sheila is telling us that it matters a lot more about the personality of the person who's asking her for, for this important donation as opposed to what kind of 

[00:33:03] Louise Campbell: qualifications.

[00:33:04] Louise Campbell: And if you can be passionate as well, if you care about what you're doing, it's a winning combination. Thanks 

[00:33:10] Lynne Boardman: for joining us for another episode of Reason Shine the podcast. This episode was produced by Scott Switzer. For more information and episodes, visit, raise and shine on LinkedIn or subscribe to our show wherever you get your podcasts.

[00:33:23] Lynne Boardman: We'd like to thank our sponsor, Harvey McKinnon, the fundraising consultancy raising millions of dollars for charities across Canada and the us. Visit harvey mckinnon.com for more information.