Day 2 of #F2FCongress23 — Wednesday, 31 May 2023. 

Keynote 3A – How to build a ‘dream team’ of F2F fundraisers

Ram Ranjan Prasad – Fundraising specialist (India)

What does it take to build a resilient and effective face-to-face fundraising team? We will examine the intricacies of creating and maintaining successful F2F teams in this interactive session. Sharing our insights into the learning and development needs of fundraisers and team managers, we will then craft a blueprint.

Keynote 3B – Rocket Science

Daniel McDonnell – UNICEF (UK)
Gabrielle Edmond – Save the Children International (Spain)

How can we maximise the lifetime value of our face-to-face fundraising programmes? With case studies from around the world, including from our own charities, we’ll walk you through how you can create an experience for fundraisers and donors that makes them stick!

Workshop 2A – A tale as old as time… Actual storytelling for actual pitches.

John Jeffries – New Canvassing Experience (UK)

It’s hard to find a fundraising conference where storytelling is not on the agenda — yet all over the world, F2F fundraising too often remains rooted in numbers and facts.

We talk about ‘proposition’ and ‘donor-centricity’ — yet all over the world, pitches tend to be based on the organisation’s brand messages rather than who the prospective donor is.

This session will look at the seven basics of a good story, and how to tell one, with classic movie-based illustrations of each. And time permitting, we’ll also talk about the brain chemistry of successful storytelling.

Workshop 2B – How to make F2F work without blowing your budget.

Adriana Aguilera – The Fred Hollows Foundation (Australia)

In last 5 years, there had been multiple challenges in the Australian F2F industry, that had a huge impact on donor quality and volume delivered to charities, while prices rising. Which also presented an opportunity to explore new safeguards, models and strategies to keep F2F sustainable in the long run.

Through historic analysis, trends and strong partnerships, we found mainly two factors to improve donor retention: age and payment method. Although this is commonly know, the trick is how to incentivise teams to actually focus on this, deliver higher quality donors and keep a healthy ROI.

Since we’d applied this changes, we’d seen 12 months retention of F2F acquired donors, improved by 9%.

Workshop 2C – It’s not about the destination, it’s about the journey

Karen Delorme – The Canadian Red Cross (Canada)

Monthly giving isn’t about quick wins, especially when it comes to F2F – for that reason, perspective is everything! Learn what else you should be looking at beyond retention and attrition to determine the success of your F2F programme. Understand how to determine the true value of a guarantee, how you can optimise guarantees and, most importantly, how to balance your agency’s need to run a business with your need to acquire committed, quality donors who have a high lifetime value. Price is what you pay, value is what you get!

Workshop 2D – The Future of Face2Face Fundraising

Robert Buchhaus – Face2Face Fundraising GmbH (Austria)

The session builds on Robert’s highly acclaimed session with the same title from the IFC back in 2005 where Robert made 12 predictions about the future of the F2F fundraising. Today’s session will demonstrate how this fundraising tool evolved since then and check back in on how accurate the predictions were in 2005. Robert will also provide an overview and analysis of current trends, challenges, threats, and developments in F2F fundraising all around the world today, using examples from many situations in different markets, in various stages of development.

Robert will again make 12 predictions about the future of this fundraising technique and how it will evolve, change, and survive.

Workshop 2E – Insights on the Asian F2F market and strategies to address the global recruitment and retention crisis

Gordon McCrindle – OmniRaise (Malaysia)

Whether you work for an agency or in-house team, this workshop will provide you with actionable insights on addressing fundraiser recruitment and retention challenges. I will share data insights from the Asian F2F market on these challenges as well as our response — informed by PULSE/engagement surveys with staff, one-on-one sessions, and over 250 exit interviews and dialogue with NGOs, competitors, and the wider community. 𝗘𝗱𝘂𝗰𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 was a key theme that came emerged from our exit interviews and discussions. Young people are increasingly opting to further education, and in the Asian market, formal certification of skills and experience are huge drivers of employees’ willingness to commit. Learn how we distilled our findings to design and implement a 𝟯-𝗺𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗵 𝗰𝗲𝗿𝘁𝗶𝗳𝗶𝗰𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗴𝗿𝗮𝗺𝗺𝗲 for fundraisers, and how we are evaluating its impact on growth. Hear about our surveys and the importance of exit interviews – and how you can use these data to guide decision-making. Finally, get evaluation techniques that you can use to assess your own staff training and onboarding.

Open Stage

This format offers you the opportunity to present something yourself. If you are interested, you can either prepare a short talk or present something spontaneously.

Keynote 4A – Self-regulation as a framework for long-term sustainability in F2F fundraising: a practical guide for your market.

Sherry Bell – PFFA Professional Face-to-Face Fundraising Association (USA)
Peter Hills-Jones – Public Fundraising Regulatory Association (Australia)
Angela Norton – Public Fundraising Regulatory Association (New Zealand)

Join us for this interactive session, where we’ll talk about face-to-face fundraising regulation in our own countries — the USA, Australia and New Zealand — as well as global trends in F2F regulation. We’ll also run a group competition — “The Crisis Game” — to spark thinking and discussion on the needs and resources in your own countries and markets. We believe that regulation leads to safer, better and more sustainable fundraising, and that by strengthening public trust, we can increase charitable impact. Don’t miss this critical discussion and the opportunity to build our collective understanding!

Keynote 4B – Turn challenges into opportunities for your in-house F2F programme.

Suchada Bhukittikul – UNHCR (Thailand)

Suchada will share best practices from all over the UNHCR world to help you turn around your in-house F2F programme.

After the pandemic and generational shifts, F2F fundraising cannot remain the same. This session will present the differences you can make to your programme with new ways of thinking and shifting your mindset.

Suchada will help you turn your challenges to opportunities – including through innovative recruitment practises, being creative in finding F2F locations for qualified donors, and finding new ways to keep younger F2F fundraisers motivated.

Workshop 3A – Fighting the U.S. Supreme Court — one Planned Parenthood story at a time.

Letal Zidkony – Planned Parenthood (USA)
John Jeffries – New Canvassing Experience (UK)

Planned Parenthood is the leading advocate for, and provider of, reproductive health services and abortion care in the United States. It had a history of using canvassing to raise funds, but in 2021, relaunched its F2F fundraising programme with a new provider and a different approach, focused on individual storytelling, and an appeal to genuine connection and human empathy.

In 2022, The US Supreme Court overturned Roe vs. Wade, and in doing so allowed individual states to make providing an abortion illegal, which many of done and some are in the process of right now. The fight for reproductive healthcare goes on.
This case study will show how an understanding of storytelling — and the need to pitch to empathy rather than outrage — is key for a campaign that is providing market leading results.

Workshop 3B – Hiring the best! Overcoming the challenges we have faced and optimising your fundraiser recruitment by entering the digital world of F2F promotion.

Gill Marshall – Amnesty International (UK)
Mafalda Rodrigues – Amnesty International (Portugal)

Fundraiser recruitment is without a doubt one of the most important aspects of a successful F2F programme. Although this topic has always been relevant, 2022 was one of the most challenging years for Amnesty International teams globally when it came to attracting new, quality, F2F applicants. Hear how different teams across the world have dealt with this crisis, by going back to the basics as well as being forced to innovate in ways never thought of before.

Hear how Amnesty International Portugal transformed their recruitment process, stepping into the digital world of promotion, using paid and organic online strategies to reach new, high quality audiences. From planning the strategy itself, implementation, monitoring new applications, down to details of the on-boarding process, this F2F team have reinvented themselves in a competitive work market. Hear about the tools they’ve developed, and how these have been used to bring about the success they have seen.

Workshop 3C – How can Big Data help us keep F2F donors for longer?

Tobin Aldrich – AAW Partnership (UK)
Imogen Ward – AAW Partnership (UK)

Big Data offers nonprofits opportunities to target face-to-face activities to find the best donors, cost-effectively and to use what we know or can find out about supporters to develop the communications programmes that will engage them the best in order to secure long-term commitment.

We will take data and learnings from F2F programmes worldwide to answer questions such as — What drives effective retention? What data tools can help us understand retention dynamics and where to concentrate resources? What are the latest tools and approaches we should be considering? And — How can we use data from social media to help us develop the most effective supporter journeys?

This will be an interactive session with participants encouraged to share their learnings and experiences to build our collective understanding.

Workshop 3D – Working with your charities’ biggest champions within vulnerable groups

Matt Radford – Vulnerable Paths (UK)

Charities must be confident they are empowering and supporting people in vulnerable circumstances – circumstances which could, for example, significantly disadvantage or harm people because of unfair treatment, exploitation or discrimination. Getting this right can bring great positive impacts for everyone involved.

In this session, Matt will cover the What, Who, Why, When and How of Vulnerability, demonstrating how being able to recognise vulnerability can improve your programmes of work, supporter experience and staff wellbeing.
He will present best practice examples and principles for working with Vulnerable groups, answer audience questions, and provide actionable advice on things you can start doing right away to improve your work with donors, supporters, staff and volunteers.

Workshop 3E – How attractive is the role of F2F fundraiser? Findings from a survey of Austrian students.

Stephan Kropf – Austrian Fundraising Association (Austria)

Further information to follow.

Open Stage

This format offers you the opportunity to present something yourself. If you are interested, you can either prepare a short talk or present something spontaneously.

Keynote 5 – Inspiring low-cost ideas for a successful F2F donor journey

Flavia Lang Revkolevsky – Tools4Change (Brazil)
Eduardo Massa – Amnesty International (Brazil)

Hear inspiring low-cost ideas to build your multi-channel donor journey – from a sign-up in the street to the first donor communication, achieving as low as 4% cancellation rates at the start of the journey.

In this session, we will focus on inspiring and technical low-cost ideas to impact the beginning of the donor journey. We will share successful examples of new approaches for potential donors, small changes you can make in donor communications – making it simpler, more personal and authentic, while integrating F2F with other channels like SMS, email and WhatsApp to help to strengthen the supporter relationship from the point of signup.

Session – The Future of Face2Face Fundraising

Robert Buchhaus – Face2Face Fundraising GmbH (Austria)

The session builds on Robert*s highly acclaimed session with the same title from the IFC back in 2005 where Robert made 12 predictions about the future of the Face-to-Face Fundraising technique. The current sessions will on one side demonstrate how this fundraising tool evolved since then and check on how accurate the predictions were in 2005. On the other side it will give an overview and analysis of current trends, challenges, threats and developments in face to face fundraising all around the world today, using examples from many situations in different markets which represent different stages of development of the technique and how they are or were addressed.

Again Robert will make 12 predictions about the future of where this fundraising technique will go and if and how it will evolve, change and survive.

Keynote 6 – The best job in the world

Barratt Kennett – EFCOMM PTY Ltd (Australia)

Why rocking F2F fundraising with a team of winners ist better than anything else that exists.

OPTIONAL: The European Foundation Sector – searching for new partnerships

Time: 18:00-19:30
Venue: ERSTE Foundation

Ruth Williams – Austrian Foundation Association (Austria)
Franz Karl Prüller – ERSTE Foundation (Austria)

Our society is facing multiple problems – from climate change, rising inequality fueled by an energy and cost of living crisis, the threat to democracy in many countries or people who had to flee their homes due to war or environmental disasters. The number of crises will rise in the next couple of years. Foundations address the question, how they can radically transform philanthropic collaboratives to magnify their capacity to address large-scale social, economic, and environmental challenges. Discuss the recent developments in the sector and the role of partnerships between foundations and Non-for-Profits with Austria´s largest Foundation – the ERSTE Stiftung – and the CEO of the Austrian Foundation Association and members of the Philanthropy Europe Association – Philea – the European Foundation Sector!