Many of the most difficult challenges for fundraisers involve influencing your colleagues. Whether its persuading someone in another team to support your idea or getting your proposal signed off by your Chief Exec, it can feel an uphill struggle.

For practical ideas and plenty of encouragement, I was excited to talk to the always-inspiring Paul McKenzie. Paul is a very experienced fundraising leader, and he is convinced that we have far more power to positively influence people within our charity than we might think. Paul and Rob share examples and offer three practical things anyone can do to better connect, build strong cross-team relationships and make change happen.

Thank you for supporting our show, for example, by sharing it with colleagues or on social media. We are both on LinkedIn and on X / twitter Rob is @woods_rob and Paul is @scottallpaul.

Have you ever thought about creating a podcast to engage your community?

This time we look at an award-winning podcast, The Log Books, which has run for three successful seasons. Rob talks to Stephanie Fuller, CEO of Switchboard and Adam Zmith from Aunt Nell, who collaborated to create the show.

We explore why and how they made it, how it helps the charity connect with its community, and other benefits the show has brought.

Thank you for supporting our show, for example, by sharing it with colleagues or on social media. We are both on LinkedIn and on X / twitter Rob is @woods_rob and Adam is @AdamZmith.

In our second interview with the experienced philanthropy advisor Tom Hall, we share a fundamental element that most wealthy philanthropists are looking for when deciding whether to make a major gift.

Tom is Managing Director, Global Head of Social Impact and Philanthropy at UBS and over the last ten years he has had conversations with more than 4000 High Net Worth Individuals about their philanthropy. Through these conversations and in witnessing many transformational donations Tom has gained valuable insight into how they make decisions.

In this, our second interview, Tom shares the second crucial element that philanthropists especially value in requests for funding from charities. And he shares various tips to help fundraisers improve this element of their proposition.

Thank you for supporting our show, for example, by sharing it with your team or on social media. We are both on LinkedIn and on X / twitter Rob is @woods_rob.