In 1786 or thereabouts, Robert Burns said “O wad some Power the giftie gie us, To see oursels as ithers see us! It wad frae mony a blunder free us, An’ foolish notion”. Which roughly translates to: “wouldn’t it be helpful to see ourselves the way others do? we might not make quite so many mistakes if we could…”.
I recently had the privilege of seeing myself from a different perspective when I attended the Scottish Conference of the Institute of Fundraising. I’m not a fundraiser – I think was one of very few delegates who was not a fundraiser or a fundraising consultant – so this gave me a whole new way of looking at the world. It was instructive to see myself as the “target” of a fundraiser’s work, to see myself as they see me – a source of funding! And – with my own professional IT hat on – to hear about the experiments that charities are trying with websites, social networking and “Web 2.0″. Like Jara (a baby elephant) who has her own Bebo profile and has appeared on various dating websites and other social networks. It also gave me a fantastic insight into the life, worries, skills and language of the fundraiser.
Ever heard of “Dorothy Donor”? It was new to me…a type of donor that every fundraiser understands and refers to. Try Googling it and see what comes up (there’s a really interesting blog on trust, for example).
In case you’re wondering what on earth I was doing at a conference for fundraisers, it’s because I’m doing more projects with charities these days, so it seemed like a really good way to learn some of their language and find out about their issues, so I can be of more help to my charity clients.
I think it’s a great idea to attend events (conferences etc) run by your clients, or at any rate in their field. It’s such a good way to step outside the supplier-client relationship and see both yourself, and them, from a more detached perspective.
You also, of course, get more insight into their current concerns and issues – which helps you to “speak their language”.