Friday night. I'm just coming back from the International Fundraising Congress, my head packed with new ideas and new insights, fragments of strong networking moments and of good fun with fundraisers from all over the world. As I experienced before, the conference offered an excellent organisation and networking environment, and we were spoilt with some very interesting workshops. The closing plenary sent all attending fundraisers home with a big challenge: if you look at long term results on a global scale, of course many good things have happened, but mankind has not made a giant leap. There is more poverty today than ten years ago, in spite of all the efforts of charities, which face large scale challenges but do not achieve large scale solutions. Public opinion wants charities to solve the world's burning issues, but expects this to be done spending as little as possible on overhead costs, salaries and marketing investments. To change the world it might be necessary to change charities and public thinking about charities. There is a lot to learn from the commercial world, such as taking risk, daring to invest, accept trial and error, and make the profession of changing the world attractive to today's brilliant young minds.

Throughout this three-day conference we learnt more about the way fundraising is likely to change in the coming years. Traditional direct mail is not dead, but is just one little element in the fundraising mix, amongst face-to-face asking, telephone fundraising, DRTV, online fundraising, events, community fundraising, advocacy, making your social network work for you, mobile, video, gaming... 

Some buzzwords: the gaming layer, or fluffers opposed to biters (those who communicate softly with donors, and those who brutally go for the ask) need to find each other halfway. Is there a need for a social CRM solution, capturing individual social network behaviour? Probably, but at the same time, it is clear that donors/consumers are in control and marketers are no longer. Contact points are growing rapidly, and it seems impossible to monitor all these entry points and get actionable intelligence on what's happening “out there”. This “out there” being the internet, where huge opportunities are to be had for those who know how to use it. Social media are not the magical fundraising trick many hoped it would be, reeling in loads of funds in an effortless, fun way. "Everything on the internet is like accelerated direct marketing" is an often heard quote. Facebook does not offer direct result, but indirectly it can be a great tool to get support for your cause, and get in touch with your supporters. And why not let those supporters do some of the work for you? Every share of a donation on Facebook is potentially worth 12 dollars.  A smartphone or a laptop with internet card can bring donors and beneficiaries in direct contact.

How to use all these new tools? In the end of the day, it's all "just" new channels, but the same ingredients: tell a compelling story, convey emotion, present a clear and achievable goal, repeat the ask frequently (without getting a bore), put the donor first, thank people for their help and give them a good feeling in return. The IFC surely succeeded in sending its attendants home with a good feeling, and charged batteries to confront their daily mission.