Professional and Personal Development

Developing yourself as a fundraiser or charity worker will help to keep you up to date with new ideas, new technology and new legislation plus it will keep you in touch with the charity world of today, where raising funds is more challenging than it has ever been. In today’s competitive world of fundraising, employers expect their employees to continue with their own professional and personal development, and will often pay for training and relevant courses.

Some Ideas to Help you

Fundraising and Stress - Are you Coping?

Support4charities is pleased to announce that we are collaborating with Karen Thomas of Red Oak Coaching. Karen is an expert in Stress Management. Toni Hasler, Support4charities Director, is an expert in the charity sector and fundraising in particular, with 25 years experience working with a wide range of charities.

They are presenting their first joint workshop in July in Barnstaple, North Devon, on 3 July. This will be the first in what they are both hoping will be a series of workshops, in the South West of England initially but will also be planning to present workshops in other areas of the UK.

Some of the issues which may cause stress in fundraisers include:
Internal politics
Unrealistic targets
Ineffective relationship with Line Manager
Lack of time
Poor work/life balance

Stress can damage one's professional abilities and impact on one's personal life, if it is not dealt with and recognised. Toni and Karen between them offer an interactive one day workshop where solutions can be suggested and a way forward can be found through the maze caused by fundraising stresses. Contact us for further information, or if you would like us to do a workshop in your area. Our costs per person are affordable, even for small charities.

Really Useful Resources for all Charities

The Directory of Social Change and the Institute of Fundraising UK offer a wide range of courses for those in the charity sector, and so too does Third Sector. These organisations are also useful resources in themselves.

Distance Learning can also give you the edge in your career. The Open University is one of the better known distance education organisations offering a range of subjects and levels; UK Open Learning has a wide range of life style courses as well as those that are relevant in the charity sector, including for example, Child Psychology, Counselling, Event Planning and Management, Photography, Mental Health and much more.

Conferences

The International Fundraising Congress (IFC)

The IFC is the world’s leading conference on fundraising. The conference is usually held during October in the Netherlands. Established in 1981, the event regularly attracts around 1000 participants from over 60 countries, representing a truly diverse range of charities. It offers outstanding learning and networking opportunities to fundraisers from all over the world. The annual conference covers a wide range of topics, all relevant to fundraising in the 21st century. Persuade your boss to let you go!

Other conferences

Various other well known and respected organisations also offer regular conferences, including the Directory of Social Change ,the Institute of Fundraising, and Third Sector. They also offer a wide range of training workshops and seminars for every charity worker, from fundraisers to charity accountants and much more.

More importantly, all these conferences give you the opportunity of networking with fellow workers in the charity sector. Sharing experiences can often lead to new ideas in your own charity.