A day filled with data insights, dinosaur puns and seeing familiar faces is a wonderful way to spend a Wednesday. 

Hosted by the Chartered Institute of Fundraising (CIOF) Insight in Fundraising Special Interest Group (IOF SIG) at the great Natural History Museum, the Insightful Bytes networking event on 17th April 2024 was one to remember for some of our team. It was ‘DINO-mite’! 

Here are our top three takeaways from the event: 

1. The way we brief and collaborate with clients is shifting. There’s far more to a brief than simply asking ‘what do you want and when do you want it by?’. The ideals of everyone involved are important, however we need to be aware not everyone will be satisfied with every single idea put forward. Therefore, the briefing process must encourage time for resistance management – this will ensure objectives are met with mindfulness.

2. When managing your team, in order to deliver effective, positive results we should maintain focus on the ‘now’ rather than putting too much emphasis on ambitious forecasts. It’s the duty of managers to mitigate any present-day anxieties felt by the team. Only then can those future forecasts feel attainable, with a motivated team. 

3. Soft KPIs are just as important as hard KPIs. Summarised beautifully by one of the speakers, Manjit Curtis: “Soft KPIs are from the heart and hard KPIs come from the head.” Don’t let them conflict with each other but rather evaluate them so EVERY KPI can be executed harmoniously in line with your business/campaign objectives.

We found these insights as epic as the dinosaurs in the museum and hope you also find them useful.