What to expect

The Masterclass is a bit of an experiment, with Sean Triner and Jan Chisholm commissioned by The Resource Alliance to try this new approach. It is well planned, but has never been done before, so expect the unexpected! The plan, however, is simple.

The Lost Dogs’ Home are giving access to their entire data analysis information as a training tool.
Following a bit of an overview about data, gathering it, using it and what to look for we get practical pretty quickly.

What we are going to do is pretend we have been commissioned by The Lost Dogs’ Home to advise them on a fundraising plan.

We are going to go back in time, to 2003. You will see some short interviews of the Managing Director of The Lost Dogs’ Home and be given key information about the Australian fundraising sector in 2003.

You will also be shown data analysis from The Lost Dogs’ Home, looking at their data up to 31 December 2002.

Each group will be given a different task to grow either income or number of supporters by certain amounts, and with different 'constraints' imposed by the Managing Director of The Lost Dogs' Home. These tasks are:

Earth: Your plan must increase income by 500% by 2008, without our cost of fundraising ever going above 40%.
Wind: Your plan must increase income by 500% by 2008, with no restrictions on cost of fundraising, though the net income we have available for services must increase every year.
Fire: Your plan must increase income by 100% by 2008, without our cost of fundraising ever going above 40%.
Water: Your plan must increase the numbers of donors we have to 50,000 by 2008, without our cost of fundraising ever going above 40%.

Groups will be able to ask further questions from Jan and Sean who will be playing the part of the Managing Director and fundraising staff at The Lost Dogs’ Home.

Groups will then go away and devise a plan.

Groups will then come back and share the plans, we will discuss merits, techniques and want further information would be needed to actually make the plans work.

The Masterclass will conclude with another short video and a data snapshot for the The Lost Dogs’ Home in 2008, explaining what plan they followed and what happened for them.

By the end of it, we hope to increase all attendees understanding and ability of how to interpret data, prioritise and ask the right questions for preparing any plan.

We think it is going to be brilliant, lots of people – especially those wonderful people working at The Lost Dogs’ Home – have put tons of work into it, but ultimately it will only work if you go for it too. We’ll need you to work hard together to get the most out of it.

Thanks – and I hope you enjoy it.