This year I was a contributor to sessions discussing managing fundraising talent in this rapidly changing world at the IoF national fundraising convention in July and the IoF Scottish Fundraising conference in October.

I have always valued how open and willing our sector is to sharing.  I personally have learned lots from attending conferences and having follow up conversations with the speakers or others who I met at the event; so when asked to participate I was keen to do so (plus this is a topic that I am very interested in).

At the end of the session at the national convention I was approached by someone who was interested in a few things I spoke about so we arranged to meet afterwards to discuss further over coffee.  After the talk in Scotland I was stood at the back of the room, there was a volunteer collecting in feedback forms and the last few delegates sat completing their feedback forms. Once the last form was handed to the volunteer, who by that point I was chatting to, I had a quick look at them and was disappointed to see a comment on the last form that said "would have liked more information".

I wasn't disappointed by the comment. It was that the person attending left the room without seeking out the additional information that they would have liked that I found disappointing. Reflecting back I wonder why some fundraisers take responsibility for owning their own learning and development whilst others are passive.

We owe it to ourselves, to our charities, to our donors and to our beneficiaries to be the best that we can be.  Working for a charity for many of us will mean there will be limited funds available to invest in learning and development (in this example the charity has presumably invested in their staff members development hence their attendance at conference).   Also, the demands of the day job often means that meaningful personal development is often pushed to the back of the queue.  But, in my opinion, neither are valid reasons for not owning your own learning and development it just means that you need to be more creative and re-evaluate your priorities.

So my question for the person who wanted more information is if you are not going to take the responsibility to ask for it how do you expect to find it?