3 things I learnt from working in a more digital way

Just over a year ago my team and I were set the challenge of cracking cold acquisition for mid value supporters. We were asked to figure out how to get in front of people who had never interacted with Cancer Research UK and persuade them to give to us at £25 a month or above.

Most people start giving to charity at the lower end of the scale, around £2 or £5 a month, and traditional methods of acquisition (telemarketing, door to door) are in decline. We knew this wasn’t going to be easy.

However, in our team we’ve always championed an entrepreneurial spirit and have aligned ourselves with the words of Henry Ford: “If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got.”

So, we decided to try a different approach.

There are many benefits to working at Cancer Research UK, with one being our infrastructure and support network. I started speaking to colleagues about the problem we were trying to solve and was quickly put in touch with various people in our Technology directorate. I was grateful for the help, but I must admit, at first this direction confused me. I didn’t know if what I needed was a technical or digital solution. But working with these teams soon opened my eyes to a new way of working, a culture and confidence to explore problems that don’t always find their answer in the shape of an app or a website.

Our approach came in the form of a spoke. A spoke is a dedicated project team made up of experts from a range of tech teams, here to upskill me and my team to help us move forwards and fix the problem ourselves. The old ‘give a man a fish and he’ll eat for a day, teach him to fish and he’ll eat for a lifetime’ adage.

There were highs and lows, and many bumps in the road. However, we were in it together and when times got tough there was humour, the pub and Beyoncé...

Here are the 3 main things I learnt working in this way:

1.       Words matter

Our team are now well versed in agile language and have embraced Slack, Trello, demos and retros. However, it has left some of our colleagues a little bewildered to say the least.

Our project relies on collaborating with a number of teams, gaining their buy in and ensuring they’re as excited as we are about what we’re trying to deliver. This is dependant on communication. Since working in the spoke we’ve tried to reach a balance of intrigue with our language as well as clarity. It’s easy to get sucked into the agile world and wax lyrical about ideation, stretching and building, Kanban and scrum, retros and demos. But if people don’t understand you they won’t back you. They won’t be able to get excited about something that doesn’t have meaning to them.

We now have a Kanban board which allows us to work in the open – giving our colleagues a visual representation of our work that goes beyond the jargon.

Think about how you tell your story and look outside of your own team. Ask how you can phrase what you’re doing in a way that others will understand – and get excited about.

 2.       It’s hard. But that’s ok.

The innovation/design/new product development, or whatever you want to call it, process is hard. Things don’t happen in a nice straight linear way. You go over stuff again, and again. People disagree on how to do stuff, when to do it, and why we should do it. But this is all part of the process and if it was easy then we wouldn’t be being as creative as possible. The boundaries wouldn’t have been pushed, and we’d end up with what we’ve always got.

My top tips for when things feel hard is be honest with each other. Use retros constructively to openly and bravely voice your frustrations in a way that will better the group, not harm it. In one retro we used pictures of Beyoncé showing different emotions to illustrate how we’d felt over the past 2 weeks. This softened us giving difficult feedback to others and made it more comfortable to share.

         

Use team members where they are needed. We didn’t all have to be in the room all the time. Carefully selecting who was needed for what allowed us to be leaner and get things done quicker.

As a team manager, be there for your team, let them know that it’s ok if it feels slow, difficult or frustrating. Let them know that we will get there. But look after yourself. Make sure that you have a support network, so you can lead when it gets tough.

3. Talk to others who have been through it and share your story – pass it on.

One thing that I found super helpful was being put in touch with someone who had already been through the process. She could let me know honestly how much of my time would be taken up, where and when I would be needed for decision making, and the challenges to expect. As well as the advantages I, and my team, would gain by being a part of the process.

I now feel a duty to pass this on to others and will happily do so. Since I know how important and helpful it is.

We’ve been on a journey with this spoke and it’s transformed our team culture. We now have the skills and confidence to pursue our work in a lean way, testing and iterating our ideas and continually putting the supporter at the centre of what we do.

Spokes have a bright future but listening to people that have been on one will be key to ensuring they’re useful for others, both within and outside the spoke. And making sure they bring as much value as possible to Cancer Research UK and the incredible life-saving work we do.

Alice Larden
Senior Fundraising Manager (Mid Value)