What do high-definition televisions, falling memberships and face-to-face fundraisers have in common? It's all about 3D, says David Philpott. 

So there we were, sauntering through the Peter Jones, Sloane Square, department store in Old Londinium, when our spiralling escalatory ascent – matched only by my browsing fatigue – delivered us safely to the electronics area. As we weaved slalom-like between the fool's gold that in this case was all shiny black – televisions in all configurations, including HD-ready, plasma, internet-enabled, whole home entertainment systems no less – our path led us to one which proclaimed itself to offer the ultimate 3D experience.  

"Load of rubbish," I muttered in the manner of my dear departed cockney granddad, who used to pronounce verdicts on all things technological that he did not understand, even though he was but a paper-hanger by trade.

"Oh look," said the love of my life. "We have to put these glasses on to see it properly."

I put my pair on but like Thomas in the gospels, I had no faith that these would prove to be anything other than an annoying gimmicky accoutrement.

"Oh my giddy aunt," said Mrs P, or words to that effect, as she ducked to avoid a golf ball that she thought was going to hit her in the face.  I concurred, as with all the confidence of the Sloane Ranger, I stepped forward to shake hands with Tiger Woods on the eighteenth green.

"This 3D lark has moved on since the horror flicks of the 1960s," I said, my epiphany complete.

When last week, I was helping to facilitate an awayday for a national membership organisation, the phrase 3D came up again; this time though, in a completely different context.

"If we are going to halt membership attrition," said Mary, a successful project manager in the engineering industry, "we need to understand the 3Ds," she declared emphatically.

While the rest of us pretended to know what she was talking about, she mercifully went on and gave us a definition – perhaps a high-definition explanation - of what she meant.

"Organisations like ours need to come to terms with life in 3D. Some of our members are dead and some have simply disappeared. There is nothing we can do about that.  But what of the disaffected?" she challenged. "Surely we can do something to re-engage with them?"

And so it was that me and my posse spent the rest of the day ensconced in the new £17m Turner Contemporary Art Gallery in Margate, devising strategies to re-engage with the backsliders, the lapsed and the lackadaisical.

Mary’s use of the word disaffected – as opposed to disillusioned or disappointed - got me thinking about the donor/supporter attrition rates that many charities have been experiencing in recent years. It is not enough to simply blame this on the recession, since that is only part of the story. One little-known charity that I work with generates a staggering £600,000 a year for its child sponsorship programme in Africa – an amount incidentally that has risen year on year, right through the recession.

"How do you do it?" I asked Richard, the understated CEO of this incredible organisation. "It’s mostly from people who have been on our teams to Africa and seen what we are doing. They have been moved. They have been affected," he said.

Come to think of it, isn’t the success of so many hospices and cancer charities built upon this underlying principle? "They were so good to my mother when she was terminally ill," says the man just about to run a marathon to raise money for Macmillan, "for me, this is personal."

Chugging has damaged giving culture

The opposite of this of course is high street 'chugging', which to my mind has done more damage to the culture of giving here in Blighty than almost anything else. Whereas the man-in-the-street philanthropy encouraged by the likes of Comic Relief has educated the public and taught us that you cannot expect the government to do everything, chugging is a dirty stain on our industry. Why? Accosted in their lunch breaks by youths whom we all know will tomorrow be in the same spot championing some other cause - when victims do sign up - it can only ever be for superficial reasons. They cannot have been affected on the basis of a 60-second sales pitch.  

"He was such a nice man" or "she wouldn’t give up – I felt pressured," they might say, notwithstanding the rules of engagement. Little wonder then if the direct debit is cancelled within the first year of the contract. In my experience, the end rarely justifies the means.

Oh, and just in case you are wondering. We did not buy a 3D telly. The experience was fun at the time but it did not affect us enough to make us want to enter into a long-term relationship with a finance company. Something that not a few charities might want to think about before they start engaging chuggers.