Growing up, my parents inculcated the mantra of never phoning anyone after 8 pm. You could make a quick call at 5 to, but never 5 past! Eight pm was telephone pumpkin time. This stayed with me all my life. Therefore, when my phone rang at 21:30 on a cold blustery Cape Town winter’s night, 25 years ago this month, I was startled.
‘Good evening, Jill, I hope it’s not too late, this is Paul Britton from SANCCOB. We really need your help’.
I had never heard of Paul Britton and in the moment, taking a late call, I couldn’t place SANCCOB either.
‘The ship is breaking up badly and we now know that 2 000 tonnes of oil will be released.’
My eye caught the newspaper. Of course! The ship, MV Treasure, had run aground near Robben Island two days before, and SANCCOB had something to do with coastal birds. I couldn’t remember what the whole acronym stood for. Paul continued to tell me that there were an estimated 40 000 African penguins in danger of extinction and that this was the largest colony of this species on the planet. Other seabirds were threatened too.
‘We need R7 million urgently. Can you help us raise it, please?’ (This is R25 million in today’s money!)
‘Yes,’ I said, despite knowing that fundraising is never quick. I had no idea how we would do it, nor did I know, in that moment, that the exercise would hold the world’s attention.
Only two and a half decades ago, yet it was a different time. There was no social media. We had the internet and email, but most people were slow to embrace it, after all, the South African postal service still worked, and we had fax machines. I was impressed to see that the organisation had a website, albeit one designed by a 16-year-old grandson of one of the wonderful elderly volunteers, who cared for injured penguins in their gardens, complete with paddling pools. The young geek had secured the obvious domain name, but the site was rudimentary. At least it existed. I quickly recognised the value of the media interest in the disaster.
My team and I sprang into action. The fundraising was not hard, just lots to manage as so many people and companies wanted to help.
A huge shed was made available in the city’s railway goods yard – it was the size of three football grounds. 20 000 oil-soaked penguins were rescued and taken there to be washed, medicated and force fed (as penguins aren’t used to eating dead pilchards). Everyone went there to volunteer, including the Mother City’s entire homeless population as one of the true heroes of the rescue was supermarket chain, Pick ‘n Pay, whose staff set up a 24/7 free canteen to feed the volunteers. Local socialites did not last long after they realised that the little creatures pecked and scratched and their expensive manicures did not survive a penguin washing session!
The entire process was overseen by Dr Estelle van der Merwe, a vet specialising in the care of seabirds. I don’t think that this phenomenal lady slept more than three hours out of 24 for over four months. The only way that she and I could meet was to chat in the long canteen queue. It would take about 20 minutes just to get a cup of tea. A week into my involvement we were having an in-queue meeting. She asked me how it was going, and I lamented that I wished that the website could take donations and that I had investigated, but it would cost over R100 000 to enable that.
A lady behind us tapped me on the shoulder and said, ‘My son can help with that.’ She turned out to be Mark Shuttleworth’s mother. Mark, South Africa’s first IT dollar billionaire, had just done a deal to sell his technology for military class safe encryption for e-commerce – the very thing we needed. Within 24-hours Mark had this sorted out and the first donation arrived of $100 000 from the Bird Club of Taiwan!
The fundraising was a dream, and the money poured in. I referred to the exercise in my fundraising copy as ‘the largest animal rescue since Noah’. It was hard work but rewarding.
SANCCOB was lucky that the global media had picked up on the story and kept it alive and the money was secured. But not all NPOs are so fortunate.
Have you considered the risks that could face your organisation? We cannot predict the future, but we should consider what could go wrong (on many levels and across the NPO: funding/cash flow, leadership, admin support, tech failures or hacks, service delivery, reputational damage or even if a key board or staff member were to resign, take ill or die suddenly). Is succession planning in place?
We cannot predict a global pandemic nor know that a new American president will cut off lifeline funding, literally keeping people (and NPOs) alive. But we can and should identify risks across our organisations and have mitigation measures in place.
We’re presenting a new course: Risk Management for NPOs on 21st August, covering an array of topics, including:
- Understanding Risk in the Non-profit Context
- Governance, Compliance and Leadership
- Financial Risks
- Fundraising and Income Risks
- Risk Identification, Assessment and Evaluation
- Mitigation Strategies
- Operational and Reputational Risks
- Risks in Human Resources and Volunteer Management
- Strategic, Technological, Environmental and External Risks
To book: https://www.papillonpress.biz/training/training-schedule/
