Time for fundraising to evolve, says FIA chair

“We shouldn’t be motivated by fear to change what we’re doing. We should be motivated by opportunity…”

Australia’s fundraising sector is facing some major headwinds, but there are also opportunities to be a global leader, according to incoming chair of Fundraising Institute Australia (FIA), Ben Cox.

Cox, a highly regarded fundraising professional, took up the new position at the end of February. His involvement with FIA goes back several years; he has been a member of FIA since 2006 and has served two non-consecutive terms on the FIA board including his current role as director, treasurer and chair of the Finance and Audit Committee and Risk Committee. 

Cox has also been chair of the FIA Awards Committee for three years, a judge for the FIA Awards, and a member of the FIA Sustainability Taskforce which was responsible for redeveloping the FIA code and its re-launch in 2017. He is currently a Fellow of the Institute.

In a brief break between breakfasts and conference catch ups, Cox spoke exclusively to Pro Bono News on the sidelines of this year’s FIA conference about the importance of good governance in driving mission, and how Australia’s fundraisers can lead on tomorrow’s problems.

A question of governance

Governance continues to be a focus for the sector.

With extensive experience on multiple boards, including at Variety QLD, Variety Australia and the Healthcare Innovations Advisory Board for Bond University, Cox has strong views on what good governance is.

For Cox, good governance helps keep an organisation focused on its vision and mission, supported by appropriate frameworks, transparency, accountability, decision-making processes and equity and diversity.

Good governance also allows all those within an organisation to have a voice and use their skills to achieve the mission and vision, he added.

“Good governance… [is] the bridge between supporting a phenomenal management team, a phenomenal group of volunteers and members by giving them that vision, that guidance and that leadership to be able to hold us true on that path of where we need to go,” he said.

He believes the role of governance has changed over the past few years as the sector deals with successive crises.

Now, the focus is less on how to prevent risk from happening, and more on ensuring plans are in place and resourced to manage risk, recognising that most organisations now operate in a more high-risk environment.

The new role of governance treats that risk as an opportunity, Cox explained.

“I think governance has now become about how we have excellent visibility and how we are making really bold decisions and smart decisions, not because of fear of what is changing in the environment, but because it’s an opportunity to do something about it.

“We shouldn’t be motivated by fear to change what we’re doing. We should be motivated by opportunity and how we can best achieve our mission and help the people and causes that we exist to help.”

FIA’s role in this is to show leadership and set an example for other organisations, even those bigger than FIA, to follow, Cox said, whether in the areas of risk-embracing or diversity and inclusion.

Fundraising’s tests

The cost of living crisis is top of everyone’s mind right now, and Cox said it’s a key challenge facing the fundraising sector. 

“Oftentimes in the last 20 or 30 when we’ve seen amazing tests of Australian endurance with the GFC, with floods, fires, natural disasters, wars overseas, the spread of homelessness, we’ve rallied as a country. What we’re seeing with that cost of living crisis now is nearly that danger that donations are becoming a discretionary spend,” Cox mused.

“And the challenge, I think, for fundraising is how we remain engaged, relevant, and how we listen to our donors, how we understand what their challenges are and how we respond to meet those challenges.”

Despite this, he feels there is a pathway through the darkness.

“Fundraising is a practice where we are constantly changing and we’re constantly evolving, and now’s the time not to stay the same. Now’s the time when we need to listen and understand so we can find the best ways to engage and the best ways to retain our donors and to support them on their journey. Because at the end of the cost of living crisis — [which] when we look at it should be a short term crisis versus things like the environmental crisis, which will be a long term crisis — they’ll be there ready to support us after that.”

Another challenge is for not for profit governance to do better in the equity and diversity space.

Cox said organisations need to ensure they look at diversity — especially at leadership levels — as more than “simply a box to tick” and instead strive to see diversity as a valued skill set.

Other challenges facing fundraising are shared by other sectors too, like the talent shortage.

“We look at things like… hospitality workers and all different aspects of our world where we’re seeing a generational shift in having talented people there. Fundraising and not for profits have that same challenge as well, finding those talented individuals who share that passion and that commitment to make a difference and having them come on that long term career journey. It’s hard to find those people out there at the moment,” Cox said.

For him, the decision to go into fundraising was made early on. He lost both his parents to cancer at a young age, and knew he wanted to make a difference in this area. 

“I love relationships, and so it was a natural path for me to follow,” he said.

The loss of his parents awoke in Cox the desire and passion to help others like himself.

“My life was profoundly changed by one charity in particular who stepped in, who mentored me, who supported me, provided financial assistance. And they even gave me my first job out of university, working in direct marketing,” he recalled. 

“And while that professional journey started when I was 21-years-old coming out of university, it instilled a passion in me going, ‘I can make change and I can create a difference for people just like me by having a career where I can enable others to change the world who are otherwise powerless to do so through the power of thinking’. 

“And it blew my mind. It blew my mind that someone sitting at home who thinks they can’t find a cure for cancer and have lost a loved one can make a donation and can do that, [or] for someone who is passionate about the environment but maybe can’t march the streets or maybe doesn’t have that confidence to lobby government, can make a gift and actually do that. It’s amazing.”

Good leaders and mentors and the ability to connect with the impact he was delivering, shaped his career as he continued to move up through the sector, through direct marketing and events to leading fundraising and marketing teams and eventually to the C-suite, always with a commitment to “changing our community and changing the world”.

Trust and leadership

Despite the headwinds, fundraising has opportunities ahead too, Cox feels.

The sector is working closely with the government, as the new Labor team seeks to make changes to red tape and fundraising regulations.

See more: Exclusive: National peak points members to FIA code over proposed govt principles

“Organisations in our sector have been often overburdened… and the great work that the ACNC has done has been phenomenal. But we’re now at a point with a new Productivity Commission where we can bring in some amazing harmonisation reforms to fundraising and red tape,” he said.

“It’s fantastic to be able to have a government that is working with us on that and shaping that at a national and at a local level. And I think there is a massive opportunity for organisations to have one voice together rather than lots of voices, and FIA can play a key role in that and we are already working with government in that space.”

See more: Fundraising changes welcomed, questions remain over practicalities

The reforms will also “end the doubt” for donors who have concerns about how fundraisers use their money.

Creating trust between fundraisers and donors is vital for the sustainability of the sector, Cox stressed.

“When someone makes a donation to us, there is great trust. People want to feel good about making that gift. That’s what FIA will help fundraisers do. We want to show that you’ve made an impact and the FIA works with our fundraising professionals to set the standard on that. And to me, that’s a big, big way that we demonstrate trust.”

There is also room for the Australian fundraising sector to take the lead, rather than following what is done internationally.

Part of that is through continuous education and opportunities like the FIA conference, he explained, but it’s also through self regulation.

Cox said the FIA code of conduct has been embraced by fundraising professionals around Australia, uniting them in best practice fundraising that raises money ethically and with appropriate regulations.

He said other countries, like the USA and UK, are looking at Australia’s self-regulation as a standard of excellence.

“I see an opportunity to build and grow on that because that creates trust and it makes it sustainable,” Cox said.

Other opportunities exist in diversifying how fundraisers reach the communities they are targeting, especially in the technical and digital space.

This will need targeted investment in the skills and resources needed to be successful.

“We need to be at the forefront of hiring those professionals and reshaping how we do it. We’ve done it for 30 years with direct mail experts. We’ve done it with major gifts experts, with bequest experts. That market is changing and we need to change with that as well,” he said.

“The titles and positions of people… [will] be different. But at the core, fundraising stays the same. It’s relationships, it’s engagement, it’s people, it’s making an impact.”

Solving the problems of the future

Fundraising, Cox said, is “exceptionally good” at “solving the problems of now”, of giving a voice to the voiceless and power to the powerless.

But he hopes the sector can go one better in future.

“What I see [as] the role of fundraising going forward is to solve the problems that haven’t happened yet — to be able to prevent them from occurring, to be on the front foot rather than the back foot,” he said.

He believes the shift is already happening, for example in the medical space where the focus is on research that will cure severe disease rather than just treat it.

“I think that is where fundraising can and should go into the future, where you can prevent the worst from happening. And when it does happen, we can absolutely react. But we’re solving the problems of the future rather than the problems of today,” Cox said.

It’s a big ask, but Cox said there are “phenomenal leaders” coming up through the sector who will be able to lead it to that vision.

“We only need to think of Greta Thunberg, where… there is a movement around what she has done where she wants to solve the problems of now, but also prevent them from happening in the future. And there are young, dynamic, disruptive and respectful, engaged fundraising professionals who are thinking about that. And to be honest, they’re going to be the CEOs of organisations in the future. I see an amazing opportunity to give them the right values, the right frameworks and the right skill sets to lead the country for decades to come.”

Although his term as chair has only just started, Cox already has a firm idea of how he wants to lead and what sort of legacy he would like to leave.

“I’d like my legacy to be around servant leadership — that I and the other leaders in the organisation have been able to serve the mission and the vision of FIA, [and] that when I leave the organisation is stronger, not necessarily for my personal contribution, but for the whole contribution and the leadership I’ve been able to provide. 

He’s also passionate about delivering and measuring impact, and leaving fundraising as “a more sustainable and a more diverse practice than the day I started”.

Looking around the FIA conference, he reflected on the “tribe of passionate individuals” in the sector, all working to make an impact on social causes. It’s that “spirit of camaraderie” that keeps Cox in the sector.

“We are all achieving and getting closer to achieving those things by sharing that knowledge and working together,” he said.