#304 'You're All Fundraisers' Emily Trevail & Emily Murdoch Empower Fundraising

Welcoming Emily Trevail and Emily Murdoch, the duo behind Empower Fundraising, to Purposely Podcast.Empower Fundraising is a Christchurch-based consultancy helping charities make fundraising clear, achievable and built to last. It started with a podcast.Emily and Emily launched Dear Donors to fill a gap they saw in the sector: plenty of polished campaign case studies, but not enough real stories from the people doing the work. A few months in, working together was going so well that they turned it into a business. Their clients now range across health, social services and sport, from national organisations to local Christchurch groups.The problem they set out to solve will be familiar to many listeners. Organisations know they need to fundraise more strategically but lack the time, people or outside perspective to do it. Others hire their first fundraiser with no database, nostewardship history and an expectation that the new role will cover its own salary and then some within months. Empower offers a lower-risk step in between: strategy alongside hands-on delivery and mentoring, so the organisation can carry it forward itself. For smaller groups not ready for thatlevel of support, they run peer workshops in Christchurch and on Banks Peninsula.We get into why fundraising is not sales. Sales is transactional, while fundraising connects people to impact they could not create on their own. But it is not begging either. The organisations doing it well think long term, know their donors as people rather than lists, and pick up the phone instead of sending another email. On face-to-face fundraising, the advice is to stay the course. A pool of regular givers is also the future pipeline for major gifts and bequests, and some of those donors give more each month than they pay for their streaming subscriptions.We also revisit the fundraising pyramid, including a newer view that the top is widening while middle-income giving is being squeezed. The Emilys make the case for focusingon people already connected to your cause before chasing cold audiences, and Emily T shares how the British Heart Foundation built a major research fund by working closely with forward-thinking philanthropists and corporates.Emily Trevail grew up in the UK, studied science at Bath and spent time on conservation work in the Scottish moorlands before volunteering in Nepal, helping rebuild schools after the 2015 earthquake. She cancelled herflights home to finish the school she had started. That experience set her direction, leading to roles at Shelterbox and the British Heart Foundation, where time in the bequest team showed her fundraising could be a real career.Emily Murdoch was nicknamed “little mother” as a child for looking after the other kids. After a year in Ireland she moved to New Zealand, studied health science at the University of Canterbury and joined the Cancer Society in health promotion, where she ended up splitting her time with fundraising. A great manager, Jane Sheriff, showed her what the career could be. Later, at Ronald McDonald House,the work became too close to home as a parent of young children, and she moved into consulting.The conversation closes with practical advice. Do not assume direct mail is dead. Capture good data. Use AI to help with analysis, but never to replace the human connection. Lean on the Fundraising Institute of Australasia and the widerfundraising community. And for board members, a simple challenge: give to your own charity, consider a bequest yourself, and keep the people you serve at thecentre of every decision.Find out more about EmpowerFundraising: https://www.empowerfundraising.co.nz/about-usThis episode of Purposely isbrought to you by Benevity and Trust Investments.Key Themes

In this SHORT episode of Purposely, Intrepid Travelco-founder Darrell Wade joins us on why he sees everyone from staff to travellers as stakeholders in the business, why climate became impossible to look away from, and why corporate giving works best when it's good for thebusiness too. Darrell traces it back to how Intrepid was built. Whatstarted as two shareholders quickly became a business where travellers, staff, suppliers, hoteliers and transport partners were all treated as stakeholders in the company's success. Once you see the business that way, he says, climatechange stops being someone else's problem – every stakeholder you care about is affected, and the ripple goes further still. That's not just a responsibility, in his view, but an opportunity: to start conversations, find solutions andactually change behaviour, even if no single business can solve it alone. He's wary of framing corporate giving as an obligationcompanies should feel guilty for not meeting. Instead, he argues structured philanthropy can genuinely benefit a business, and points to three reasons it works at Intrepid. It's aligned with the company's mission and values, sogiving back to destinations is simply logical. It deepens the traveller experience – pairing a trip with a local NGO working on an issue like human rights or the environment, matching donations dollar for dollar, and sending travellershome understanding the destination, not just its beaches. And it engages staff, many of whom fundraise, volunteer or give through payroll via the Intrepid Foundation – something Darrell believes makes them more engaged employees whostay longer. Key themes Seeing staff, travellers and suppliers as stakeholders inyour success Climate change as a responsibility that ripples out to everystakeholder Moving past guilt-based framing toward philanthropy thatbenefits the business Matching traveller donations to local NGOs to deepen thetravel experience Staff engagement through the Intrepid Foundation -fundraising, volunteering, payroll giving Corporate giving as a loyalty and retention tool, not justgenerosity This episode of Purposely is brought to you by Benevity and Trust Investment.

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In this SHORT episode of Purposely, coach and facilitatorShruthi Vijayakumar joins us on why perfect is the enemy of good, what coaching really looks like in practice, and the moment she had to learn to back herself. Shruthi's first big lesson came early and came hard: don'tlet perfection be the enemy of good. Drafting curriculum as a young, startup market employee, she felt the full weight of imposter syndrome, chasing a version of "right" that didn't need to exist. The shift came through what she now calls design thinking and agile practice – get something out,iterate, trust your collaborators to correct you, and be humble enough to be corrected. It was, she says, a reprogramming compared to how she'd operated in university or consulting, and it made the work faster, better, and far more impactful. That same instinct carried her into coaching. In its trueform, she says, coaching isn't about telling people what to do – it's holding space and asking questions that bring out someone's own wisdom. She saw this play out in classrooms, where teachers asked children questions that surfacedtheir assumptions, prejudices and hopes, with striking effect. It was this – paired with her own interest in personal and spiritual development – that drew her into a field where she could do exactly that, full time. Shruthi started training as a coach at 24, and admits theself-doubt was real. Her own first coach set her a challenge she was sure she'd nail: find three clients by the next call. She did it anyway, stretched and held accountable by someone who was willing to push her growth. That experienceof being walked through the discomfort by someone further along the path is one she still draws on, in different forms, today. Key themes Letting go of perfectionism in early career work Design thinking and iteration over getting it right thefirst time What coaching actually looks like: holding space, not givinganswers Teaching kids to ask questions that surface their ownassumptions and hopes Learning to back yourself through the discomfort of beingstretched The value of having your own coach walk the journey with you This episode of Purposely is brought to you by Benevity and Trust Investments

Welcoming Simone Woodland, Co-founder of Circle Living, toPurposely Podcast. Simone is an architect and the co-founder of Circle Living,a people-first property development company building intergenerational, community-led neighbourhoods across New Zealand, with developments underway inWellington, Christchurch and Nelson. The idea is simple but not common in mainstream housing: design homes so people have their own privacy, while making it easy to connect with the people living around them. Originally from Bristol in the UK, Simone traces herinterest in community back to childhood, when her father ran street parties on their cul-de-sac to bring disconnected neighbours together. At 15 she helped build a house in a co-housing development in Bristol's St Werburgh's, an early,hands-on introduction to what community-built housing could look like. She studied architecture in Brighton and completed a mastersin urban design and planning at Bristol University, but found the traditional architecture industry limiting. Her early career as a social entrepreneur started with Paper Arts, a platform she built for students to showcase their work, which grew into a gallery, studios and a printing service, and eventually into a training facility teaching enterprise skills to young people. A trip around New Zealand's South Island in 2013 convincedSimone this was where she wanted to live. She moved through the Edmund Hillary Fellowship, joining its first cohort of global entrepreneurs focused on people and planet. That move led to Elemental Design and Build, a natural buildingcompany in the Tasman region working with materials like hemp, straw and earth, and eventually to the Takaka co-housing neighbourhood in Golden Bay. Simonetalks through how that first development came together: a 14 hectare piece of land secured with a 10 percent deposit, nine months to find the rest of the funding, and a model built on loans from future residents rather than a traditional developer structure. Circle Living builds on that experience with a differentfinancing model, allowing residents to buy off the plans with a deposit rather than putting large sums at risk upfront. The communities run on Sociocracy, a decentralised decision-making approach where smaller groups hold responsibilityfor specific areas rather than requiring full consensus on every decision.Simone talks candidly about what it takes to build trust within a community, why shared resources like community solar and car share schemes help keep ongoing costs down, and her long-term goal of seeing co-housing become a mainstream choice in New Zealand, in the way it already is in Denmark, where five percent of new homes are built as some form of collective housing. The conversation also gets into what community actuallydelivers day to day, including a moment when a neighbour drove ninety minutes each way to collect Simone's children after she was unable to drive, and what that kind of reciprocity means for the people who choose to live this way.

Welcoming Darrell Wade to Purposely Podcast. Darrell co-founded Intrepid Travel, one of the largestadventure travel companies in the world and a certified B Corp, built on the idea that travel should give something back to the places it touches. He is also Chair of Philanthropy Australia, the peak body working to build a strongerculture of giving across the country. The idea for Intrepid came together in 1988, on a nine monthoverland trip across Africa in a converted truck with a group of friends, including his now wife Anna and university mate Geoff “Manch” Manchester. Back in Australia, a good job with a strong salary was on offer. Darrell was ready to take it and put the travel company idea aside, until Anna told him he would be a pain in the ass unless he started the business. He did, expecting a 90 percent chance of failure. The company was bootstrapped on 20,000 dollars between the two founders, and the first five years were lean. Darrell talks candidly about the slow build, the early days running the entire business from a single desk while Manch led trips in Thailand, and the gradual shift from a lifestyle choice into a genuine company with a plan. A significant turning point came in 2011, when Intrepid solda 60 percent stake to Tui Group. Darrell describes the decision and the four years that followed as oil and water. The cultures were fundamentally incompatible, growth stalled, and in 2015 the founders unwound the deal. Within a month of separating, the business was growing again. He is direct about whathe took from it: financial logic is not enough if the culture does not hold together. Darrell also talks about the moment his thinking on climatechanged. Reading Tim Flannery's The Weather Makers on a family safari in Botswana, not long after Intrepid had won an award for responsible tourism, he realised the company was not the environmental good guy he thought it was. Hedescribes it plainly: they were part of the problem. That reckoning shaped Intrepid's climate work from there on, including taking the entire office and a thousand travellers to see An Inconvenient Truth. The conversation covers the depth of the COVID crash too.Intrepid went from operating in 120 countries to zero almost overnight, and the company had to make significant redundancies to survive. Darrell shares a moment from that day that has stayed with him: a staff member he had just maderedundant stopped him in the office and asked if he was okay. The episode closes on giving. Darrell sets out why Intrepidbuilt structured philanthropy into the business through The Intrepid Foundation, the case for corporate giving as something that benefits customers, staff and the business itself rather than a purely altruistic add-on, and his view on doing philanthropy thoughtfully rather than assuming good intentions are enough. He also speaks to his role as Chair of Philanthropy Australia, and what it means to govern a peak body trying to build a stronger, broader culture of giving across the country rather than leaving it concentrated among high net worth donors. This episode of Purposely is brought to you by Benevityand Trust Investments.Key Themes

In this Purposely Short, we revisit a four-minute segment from our full conversation with Liz Gibbs on how mission-driven organisations can fund and invest in innovation to grow their social impact.Liz points to examples like Eli Care to show what it takes for charities, social enterprises and philanthropic investors to move beyond one-off grants and take an investment-minded approach that still stays true to mission. She talks through how capital can be structured and partnered, so it supports good causes now while helping build sustainable, impact-led enterprises for the future.This one is useful for charity leaders, impact investors and funders working out where philanthropy, investment and innovation meet.Key themes• Why more funders are looking to invest in innovation and commercial models, not just rely on one-off grants• What Eli Care shows about blending commercial discipline with social mission• The capital and partnerships needed to back early-stage, impact-focused ventures• What boards and leadership teams should weigh up on risk, return and mission• How funding strategy can build long-term, community-level impact, not just short-term outputsThis episode of Purposely is brought to you by Benevity and Trust Investments

Welcoming Tara Arnold back to Purposely Podcast. Tara is a fundraising consultant, engaged by grant making charities including Unbound Philanthropy and Lloyds Bank Foundation to help small and mid sized nonprofits strengthen their income generation. This is her second appearance this year on the show, following an earlier conversation about her work in grant making at Sharegift, and this time the focus turns to what she sees from inside the charities she supports.Tara works through a funder plus model, where a grant comes bundled with an offer of consultancy support. With Unbound, that support is light touch and opt in, a follow up email after a grant is confirmed. With Lloyds, charities apply directly for up to six days of support across fundraising, finance, volunteering or governance. In both cases Tara is usually introduced at CEO or director level, working on strategy rather than day to day delivery, and she starts every relationship by listening before she advises.Much of the conversation centres on income diversification. Tara describes charities that dip into difficulty because they lean on a single funding stream, often grants, and never build anything alongside it. She talks through practical, lowcost ways to test new approaches, from a five minute ask at the end of an online event to reviewing untapped supporter bases the charity has never directly asked for money. She is blunt about the discomfort many charities feelaround fundraising itself, describing organisations with long term, loyal supporters who have simply never been asked to give.A recurring theme is the mismatch between expectation and resourcing. Tara has seen new fundraisers hired with no budget and an unspoken expectation that they raise their own salary in year one. She calls it insanity, and argues that if acharity cannot answer a straightforward question about budget and culture in an interview, that is a warning sign for any fundraiser considering the role. She also flags basics that get missed constantly, including no reserves policy, nofundraiser on the board, and donors thanked late or not at all.The conversation closes on stewardship, the unglamorous work of keeping donors and funders engaged after the money lands. Tara's examples are small and human, athirty second video from a charity worker, a short case study, a one line thank you email. None of it costs much. All of it, she says, is what actually keeps funding relationships alive.The funder plus model and how consultancy support gets triggered without being forced on charitiesWhy income diversification matters and how to test new fundraising approaches cheaplyThe real cost of underfunding a fundraiser's role, and what questions to ask before taking the jobGetting buy-in and a genuine fundraising culture across an organisation, not just the fundraising teamStewardship as the quiet, unglamorous work that keeps donors and funders engagedBasics that get missed: reserves policies, fundraiser representation on boards, and simply saying thank youThis episode of Purposely isbrought to you by Benevity and Trust Investments.Key Themes

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In this SHORT episode of Purposely, we are back with SimonBowden, Head of Philanthropic Services at Forsyth Barr, on why investment firms are bringing philanthropy into the advisory relationship, and what that means in practice. Simon explains that demand from clients is a big part ofwhat is driving the shift. Generational wealth transfer is bringing people into the conversation who have a strong interest in how their money affects the world around them. Holistic financial advice, the kind that starts with what aperson actually cares about, naturally makes room for that conversation. He talks through how firms like Forsyth Barr handle thepracticalities. A regular distribution to a charity is straightforward. When it comes to larger gifts or capital, partnerships with community foundations anddonor advised funds mean the money can keep working in perpetuity while the advisor stays involved. It is a model that works for the client, the advisor and the organisations being supported. And when the giving conversation opens up, something elsehappens. Clients start talking about their values, what they care about, how their wealth was built and who they want to remember. Advisors who have known clients for years often come out of those conversations having learned thingsthey never knew. It deepens the relationship on both sides. •       Why investment firms are building philanthropicservices teams and what is driving client demand•       How donor advised funds and community foundations fitinto the advisory relationship•       Keeping capital working in perpetuity while supportinggood causes•       Generational wealth transfer and the shift in whatclients want from financial advice•       What opening up the giving conversation does for theadvisor-client relationship This episode of Purposely is brought to you by Benevity and Trust InvestmentsKey Themes