“The human connection is always stronger” – my notes from Tim Lockie’s plenary talk at Fundraising Everywhere’s #FundraisingTech conference

Today I attended an excellent talk by Tim Lockie, Founder and CEO of The Human Stack entitled 'The Human Stack? Tired of bad data? Focus on Feelings, not Features' and my notes are here. We have a misguided view that technology is more powerful than the human side – human connection is always stronger. As fundraisers we should all know that, of course. 3 tips for humaning in a tech world. 1. Human base code is belonging. We need to understand both stacks, but they have different base stacks Humans are motivated by belonging, not true/false. We will lie in order to fit in. That’s what we need to tap into when we think about tech and fundraising. 2. Don’t treat people like objects Do not talk about people as projects – it breaks relationships! This applies to fundraising: donors are not donations But humans aren’t tech – eg with CRM implementation We need connection because we aren’t objects 3. Feelings are a feature, not a bug Disruption > capacity We only have so much capacity for disruption before we can’t take any more With tech, we create disruption all the time But Disruption is great for tech but not for humans! The feelings we have about tech are all valid. We evolve around tech and all feelings including rage will come up. Just like fundraising, in fact! Technologists and fundraisers should be allies. Because we need each other. And we need to know each other well. Our beliefs, below the line, af