We had a full house of 30 young creative people join us, and I had conversations with a couple of them about how charities treat them and I thought I'd share some thoughts about it here.
I am sick of hearing people talk about how feckless, irresponsible and selfish people my age and younger are. I know that every generation faintly disapproves of the next, but in our case I think the onset of technology has made it worse.
I hear people my parents age worry aloud that video games have made us short in concentration and violent, that reality television makes us all seek instant gratification, and that social networking has made us mistake online conversations for real friendships.
I've heard people say that televised violence has made us insensitive to the suffering around us, our online profiles self-obsessed and shallow.
I have to say this is not my experience.
I know some really exceptional people who make real sacrifices to make this world better. People who protect human rights in Nepal, who provide medical care in Calais, I have friends who've raised huge amounts of money running marathons, and who volunteer their time mentoring and supporting vulnerable people.
My experience of my generation is that we engage emotionally and intellectually with the problems that we see in the world, and that given the opportunity we'll take action to make a difference. But I also think that the old fashioned ways of raising money from us just don't work.
Taking out a direct debit for £20 a month and getting an email or letter about the good being done as a result of your donation, must have felt really meaningful back when communication was slow and information hard to come by. Pity marketing of the old school Band-Aid style worked when we only had access to news reports about the scale of a problem. But now we have more access to information, we want to know more, not just about the problem, but about how charities are solving it. We want to be more than chequebooks. We want to be a part of the solution.
We know that raising money is key and we know how to do it. You are not going to get into our wallets through guilting us. But engage us and you'd be amazed what we can do.
On Wednesday I spoke to high end marketers who are desperate to work with charities but not in the way charities want to engage them. They know how to reach out to people and get them to act on their emotions - but are frustrated that they only ever get to redesign logos rather than being given a problem to solve.
I spoke to lawyers, to designers, business people and artists and they all agreed that they'd give more, and encourage others to do the same if they felt like their skills were valued - and these were some really skilled people!
So Wednesday we held a life drawing dinner party at Soho House. 30 people created some lovely art, ate an amazing meal, laughed, drank and had some really opinionated discussions. Myself, Bella and Charlotte had a clear idea of what we wanted when we put together the evening. No guilt, no asking people to get out their chequebooks, no forcing people into conversations about why Contact a Family exists. Instead we wanted people to have a genuinely good time, to listen to what they thought, find out what they were into, and begin meaningful relationships.
I think we achieved that. As people left a couple regaled me with stories of being shown heart-breaking videos over dinner and then being challenged to hit fundraising targets (they donated but refused all future contact with the charity), being called to be told about a child's early death, and being asked to give more money (they cancelled their direct debit), and being shamed for wearing expensive shoes by a chugger. We didn't do that. Our guests left happy, they learnt a little bit about a charity they'd never been exposed to before, and between them they donated £1357 including gift aid. Plus we made some friends - who have more valuable things to offer than just their money.
If you came along - thank you. And if you didn't but are reading and sharing this blog - thankyou. If you are talking about the rights of disabled children and raising awareness in your social networks - thankyou. If you are one of the people who've made the 45 THOUSAND visits to my tiny little blog - Thankyou.
And if you've got an idea about something you can do to make the world a better place - thankyou. I'd love to help - it doesn't need to be this charity - anything you care about. Let me know if I can help you make contact with organisation where you can make a difference - because the thing with our generation is, our social networks make us pretty well connected.
And you know what - if you do want to donate - that's great too, you can do it here.
Take care kids. Sometime this week I'll be posting about knitted shorts - so keep your eye out for that!
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