Guest blog: the compounding effect, saying thank you and being virtuous – Day 3 of IoF Fundraising Convention

Big thank you to the wonderful Dr Claire Routley, who covered me on live-tweeting duty on day 3, and wrote this blog about the day (links to her Twitter threads for each session are built into the article): Fundraisers already work really hard; managers can’t go to their teams and ask them to double their efforts. But could we perhaps ask them if they could do 1% more, or 1% better? A 1% improvement across several areas of work, and across several fundraisers, will soon multiply, potentially making a significant difference to a team’s fundraising success. In the first session of the day, Rob Woods and Joy Jones shared how these incremental improvements in practice can make a huge difference in fundraising, enabling Joy to coach her team to become Diabetes UK’s first #millionpoundteam.   Joy and Rob recommended: Setting a goal, which can then be broken down into manageable chunksDeveloping habits: small things that can be done every day to make an impact. Rob described these as ‘keystone habits’Creating an identity for the team, and focusing on your own role as leader within itFinding resilience by focusing on your ‘why’ (see also "Charities: we need to start with why!")Learning more about the principles by reading books such as The Kaizen Way or The Compound Effect, helping you to spot opportunities as they arise One of our keystone habits could be to say thank you promptly and well. In the second session of the day, Laura and Saul talked th