Opinion

Plenary speakers should not inspire

Fundraising | Ian MacQuillin | 11 Sep 2009

Conference plenaries should not be based on tales of risky endeavour or attempts to inspire, they should challenge and motivate, says Ian Macquillin.

When I edited the trade magazine for the waste management industry in the 1990s, I attended a fair number of waste management conferences. Their plenaries were always good value, especially one in particular delivered by a man who, despite being blind since birth, had trekked to the South Pole, overcoming insurmountable odds.

It was a truly inspirational story and waste management professionals left re-energised to work towards environmental sustainability.

No, of course they didn’t! That plenary never happened.

Why would professionals in the environmental sector need someone to come to their annual conference to metaphorically pat them on the back and tell them to keep up the good work? They were professionals: they already knew they were doing a good job.

So if waste managers don’t need to be regularly ‘inspired’ to keep doing their jobs, why does it appear that fundraisers do? Because that plenary I described took place at the Institute of Fundraising’s National Convention a few years back.

I’ve been attending fundraising conferences and conventions since 2001 and have noticed two things: Firstly, they are much more like glorified training days rather than a chance to explore new trends and ideas. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it did surprise me a bit.

Secondly, the plenary sessions are very ‘soft’ compared to the ‘hard’ plenaries I’d been used to in previous sectors.

I think the apparent need to inspire fundraisers is a symptom of professional immaturity that just doesn’t exist in comparable professions. Can you imagine this happening at a commercial marketing conference?

But more importantly, it prevents fundraisers from exploring genuinely new ideas and shields them from information they need to know.

In 2005, the Institute Convention held an inspirational-style morning plenary which, according to the dictionary definition of plenary, was attended by everyone – around 500 people.

It was immediately followed by the official launch of the ImpACT Coalition, an initiative that had the potential to be one of the most important fundraising developments of the decade. Almost everyone got up and walked out.

I counted those who remained. There were 32. Just 32 people hearing about something that was of vital importance to everyone who had just left for other sessions. I couldn’t understand then, and I still can’t, why the Institute hadn’t made the launch of the ImpACT Coalition the opening plenary. I’m not arguing that current fundraising plenaries aren’t interesting – the climate change guy at the Institute’s National Convention this year was fascinating – but their relevance to fundraisers is tangential at best.

Instead of aiming to inspire fundraisers in a soft way, plenaries could instead challenge fundraisers in a much harder manner. They could introduce them to ideas they’ve not engaged with before – how about Richard Dawkins talking about the evolutionary origins of charitable giving? Or perhaps Uncharitable author Dan Pallotta claiming charities should be more businesslike?*

Or they could make a call to action: Adrian Sargeant arguing for more funding for practical fundraising research?

The role of the plenary sessions should be to challenge, galvanize and mobilise fundraisers, not to inspire them.

Ian MacQuillin is communications and engagement manager of the PFRA but writes here in a personal capacity

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