This week the collective were meant to be delivering a supporter experience masterclass to a group of fundraisers from Red Nose Clown Doctors International. When the inevitable cancellation came (and we got over the disappointment of missing out on apple strudel), we quickly worked to develop a virtual version of the content.

Life under lockdown is a challenge for us all and we’ve been trying to practice what we preach about agile working and supporter experience. So, based on feedback at the end of day one, we adapted the second day’s content and iterated on our learnings from the day. This made sure the second day of the masterclass was even better and meeting people’s needs.

Of course, it wasn’t all plain sailing! So when people got ‘trapped’ in random Zoom call room we adapted a ‘growth mindset’ to solve the problem with a smile on our faces and kept going.

None of use would choose to be operating in the current crazy conditions, but it shows the approach we’ve been developing is super adaptable and can ground us in a rapidly changing environment.

It also encouraged us that the design-thinking model we’ve been developing is fit for purpose and the key principles we’ve developed our sound. These are:

Be led by your supporters
Making sure you’re focusing on the highest potential ideas
Test things as simply as possible before scaling

The 20 participants used the tools and techniques we’ve adapted to meet their goals over the two days. They developed some amazing ideas and developed a simple plan to take away and start testing their top ideas straight away.

One tool that that was particularly useful in the current climate is the SCAMPER model for developing ideas (see bottom of post)

To use this, you simply take a set amount of time (a couple of minutes is usually a good starting point) to use each of the words as a prompt to stimulate ideas around the topic you’re discussing. So currently you may be thinking about how you can substitute, adapt, modify your current fundraising!

This is just one of many tools we used to make the workshop a success and we’re grateful to Red Nose Clown Doctors International for being open-minded and engaging so well with all the content and activities. If you’d like to talk about how you could develop bespoke remote workshops to try and solve some of your current fundraising problems, then drop us a line. We’d be delighted to help.

SCAMPER-ing to virtual working: lessons and tips