Last year's Loyalty Day event focused on collaboration and growing supporter loyalty together. We wrapped up the day with a roundtable discussion, hosted by About Loyalty director Richard Spencer and featuring senior leaders from three charities committed to improving the supporter experience:
Tracey Pritchard, Director of Engagement and Income Generation, RSPCA;
Paul Amadi, Chief Supporter Officer, British Red Cross; and
Joe Jenkins, Executive Director of Social Impact, The Children’s Society.
Read on for highlights from this insightful conversation, in which Tracey, Paul and Joe reflect on their personal experiences of collaboration to deliver better supporter experiences through strategy, structure, inclusion and leadership.
Happy reading and we'll see you on 21 November for Loyalty Day 2024!
Loyalty Day 2023 charity roundtable discussion highlights
Read the highlights below or watch the full discussion here on YouTube:
Strategy
Richard Spencer, About Loyalty (host):
Where has setting different strategies helped shape the experiences your supporters have received?
Tracey Pritchard, RSPCA, says:
Customer experience doesn’t have a place at the top table, so I’d recommend a strategy by stealth – start the conversation about the importance of a good customer experience and keep having that conversation until it starts to have some traction. You’ll start to bring people with you, build and grow from there. I’ve found that to be a better strategy than a big objective.
Paul Amadi, British Red Cross, says:
We’ve done the stealth thing, and we’ve had really interesting conversations accordingly! But one of the truly galvanising things for [British Red Cross] was the creation of our Supporter Experience “North Star”, which speaks to our values. It gave us a point of focus, a set of principles, and it provided real clarity to the organisation about what we mean by a meaningful and impactful supporter experience.
“When you look back, you start thinking: what are the great calls that we’ve made? One of them was creating a supporter experience team with leadership that was at the top table of our marketing and fundraising directorate." - Paul Amadi, British Red Cross
Structure
Richard Spencer, About Loyalty (host):
How have you worked with structure - or despite structure! – to help deliver amazing supporter experiences?
Paul Amadi, British Red Cross, says:
It’s a bit of a hub and spoke model – we have a structure that enables a central team to establish the principles and monitor good practice, then we ensure it gets pick-up and traction across other teams.
We have a beating heart, which is our central team, but we've got best practice embedded in other bits of the business. Other teams are starting to talk about how they can make an impactful supporter experience. But I’m always asking ‘what could we do if we have more?’.
Tracey Pritchard, RSPCA, says:
RSPCA has a pretty traditional model, but we have shared objectives for customer experience. We want people to have one experience of the RSPCA. So, for any touchpoint, you know what sort of experience you can get.
We started small, bringing in a lead role for customer experience, who has seeded the idea that the customer experience is important. We’re asking people who have the knowledge and expertise to “make it your business” – we’re getting the organisation to think about the customer.
“It’s not easy, and it’s not something you turn around overnight - you have to invest for a while before you start to see the results. Start small and keep building on what you’re doing.“ – Tracey Pritchard, RSPCA
Inclusion
Richard Spencer, About Loyalty (host):
Isha talked to us earlier about some of the traits of an inclusive organisation. Could you share where you feel you are on that journey, and what you’re doing to become more inclusive as organisations?
Tracey Pritchard, RSPCA, says:
We’re now in the ‘doing’ stage rather than the ‘thinking’ stage – we’re yet to see what the impact of that is. But I think there’s different elements that we’re starting to feel are changing: for example, we talk more about psychological safety, and people feeling able to be themselves at work. We’re trying and we’re being authentic in the way that we’re doing that.
From an external point of view, we've thought about what it means for our audiences in an authentic way - it's not a badge that we wear. We want to understand what animal welfare means to different communities and what their relationship with animals is. We want to show that animal welfare is everyone’s welfare.
Paul Amadi, British Red Cross, says:
British Red Cross has leant in significantly into the EDI agenda - but we've got so much further to go. We're an organisation that is steeped in colonialist thought. It's in our origin, and it could be inferred in our delivery model in terms of how we work overseas. It brings all sorts of associations around power dynamics, and how we live with and address white saviour complex.
For us, George Floyd was catalytic. It led to us, like many parts of society, taking a step back and doing a really hard evaluation. I really like Tracy's point about being thoughtful - this reflects in the conversations that we're having with our supporters as well, because we don't want it to be performative. It has to be really genuine and authentic.
“We don't want it to be performative. It has to be really genuine and authentic.” - Paul Amadi, British Red Cross
Leadership
Richard Spencer, About Loyalty (host):
How can different styles of leadership help to deliver an amazing supporter experience?
Joe Jenkins, The Children's Society, says:
Such an important dimension of leadership today is to create a supportive, collaborative environment. The people who are speaking to our supporters are by far the best placed to know what will add the most value to supporters.
My job is to make sure they’re empowered to add that value, and don’t have to go back through 20 sign-offs to be able to support people! It’s good as an ethical framework, but it’s also mission-critical to keep pace with the rapidly evolving world around us.
Tracey Pritchard, RSPCA, says:
Confident leaders lean more into their kindness. Kindness is at the heart of the RSPCA because it's so integral to how we need people to think about their animals to create good animal welfare.
There’s a big question of trust - kindness makes me think about trust, and the degree to which leaders trust their teams. If you're able to set the direction of travel, then step back and support your team.
Another huge thank you, from all of us at About Loyalty, to everyone who joined us to make last year such a success.
Interested in joining us for Loyalty Day 2024? Reserve your place now!