SHORT 'How to run a successful campaign', Jo Taylor Exec Chair of Pay What It Takes & CEO of The Siddle Family Foundation

Welcome to Purposely SHORT, a weekly episode, featuring one of our friends or past guests and their expertise on a certain topic.

This weeks episode features Jo Taylor Executive Chair of 'Pay What It Takes' (PWIT), a coalition between for purpose organisations and funders aiming to redefine philanthropy and reshape the funding landscape for the charitable sector.

Their objective is to challenge the cycle of underfunding and organisational challenges by advocating for unrestricted funding or a 30% addition to project-based funding to adequately cover indirect costs. Episode Highlights

- The importance of looking elsewhere for inspiration, to other parts of the world where people and organisations may have tackled the same or similar issues. That is what Jo and her team did when they looked at American foundations who had the same issue and were solving the same problem (the starvation cycle).

-Practical steps on running a successful campaign:

Focus on those organisations and people closest to your mission and who are the most aligned at the start of your campaign

Peer leadership and adoption / buy in crucial to the success of any campaign particularly in philanthropy

Context:

A pivotal catalyst for this movement was the inquiry titled 'A Sector in Peril,' laying the foundation for collaboration among like-minded foundations. The Coalition led by Jo, and comprising Philanthropy Australia, the Centre for Social Impact, Social Ventures Australia, The Origin Foundation, and the Paul Ramsay Foundation, conducted comprehensive research, interviews, literature reviews, case studies, and workshops to address chronic underfunding of core operational expenses within Australian organizations. The vulnerabilities exposed during the COVID-19 pandemic further emphasized the critical need for adequate funding.

Listen to Episode #176 of Purposely for more, where Jo emphasises the necessity to challenge misconceptions surrounding indirect costs and advocates for a redefined evaluation of efficiency and effectiveness by funders. This paradigm shift demands courage and peer leadership within the sector, recognising the entrenched mental models ingrained in both funders and nonprofit organizations that need to be reshaped. Jo is also the CEO of The Siddle Family Foundation.