Civil Society Media has published its latest podcast, an interview with Arthritis Action interim CEO Noha Al Afifi.
Al Afifi offered some key insights for charity professionals around impact measurements, investing for long term growth and using emotion in fundraising campaigns.
You can listen to the interview here:
An AI-generated transcript is available to read below:
Transcript
0:00
Rob Preston:
Hello and welcome to another podcast from Civil Society Media. Today's show is an Elevate fundraising conference special. Featuring an interview with Arthritis Action interim CEO Noha Al Afifi. For those of you unaware, Elevate is a new one-day charity, fundraising and technology events we're launching this year in London. Tickets are selling like hotcakes, but there are a few remaining at the time of recording and you can receive a discount if you buy one before 1 March. I enjoyed speaking to Noha very much. We talked about her career in marketing, communications and fundraising which began in her native Qatar before she moved to the UK in 2011. She offered some key insights for charity professionals around impact measurements, investing for long term growth and using emotion in fundraising campaigns. I hope you enjoy this one. And I'll speak to you again at the end.
0:52
Rob Preston:
Alright, so Noha, great to speak to you. Thank you so much for speaking to us for this podcast. And it's great to have you speaking at our upcoming event. Elevate. Are you looking forward to the event?
1:07
Noha Al Afifi:
Yeah, very much so. Exciting programme, and especially looking forward to my panel in the afternoon. Excellent.
1:13
Rob Preston:
Okay. We'll talk a bit more about that later. But first of all, it'd be great to chat to you a bit about your professional background. So you've got a background in communications in marketing and PR. You've got various accolades in that time. And you worked in Doha in Qatar for a few years for many years before moving over to the UK. So first of all, I wanted to ask you, with your, considering your background in marketing and communications, how good do you think UK charities are generally at communications?
1:50
Noha Al Afifi:
I think it varies. And they say this because charity is coming on sizes. And typically the challenge with smaller Charities is that they don't have as much resource and money to spend on comms campaigns and activities. You typically would have a part time comms person or someone who does various different activities, fundraising and comms professionals. But as the charities get larger, there is more opportunity to spend a bit more on kind of agency work and outsourcing comms or having a bigger comms team. And with that comes obviously a lot more capacity and creativity to do excellent campaigns. So I do think it varies personally. But also, I think there's a misconception that charities kind of skills within the charity sector are not basically as professional as the corporate world, and that we are lagging behind, but I don't think that's true. I think we have brilliant talent and the charity sector, it's just different priorities. And obviously, you're restricted with the resources and funding that you've got.
2:56
Rob Preston:
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Just going back to your background, so I mean, you were listed a few years ago, I think, in the PR Week UK Power book. How was that an accolade to have? And has that been useful for your career at all, personally, think
3:14
Noha Al Afifi:
I think it's been brilliant, because it does give you that kind of rubber stamp that you're, you're you're actually good at what you do. But also, it's great, as part of expanding my networks, and I say this kind of in my capacity within my role, is that you get to attend lots of different events, you get to raise the profile for the organisation that you're representing, that opens doors with also the media journalists, it gives you that added kind of level of credibility.
3:44
Rob Preston:
Yeah. Okay. So you previously worked in Doha in communications roles for various organisations the Qatar marine festival Organising Committee, the world Innovation Summit for health, New Horizons computer learning centres, and at Carnegie Mellon University. And then you moved to Arthritis Action in the UK in 2015 as communications and marketing director.
4:16
Noha Al Afifi:
2015, but I did come to the UK in 2011. So my role with the World Innovation Summit for Health, was a partnership between Qatar Foundation and the Imperial College global health care team. So I did come to the UK around that time when I started working for Wish. So it was a nice hybrid role that had a mix between kind of policy influencing in the UK and globally, but I was based in the UK within the Imperial College healthcare team.
4:43
Rob Preston:
Okay, how did you find that switch then moving to a different city? Were there sort of different rules that apply to how to work in communications and those two environments?
4:55
Noha Al Afifi:
Yes and no, because that role was more focused on medium policy influencing, I would say the UK climate is a lot different from any other country really, because that role in particular was global in nature. So how you do things in the Middle East and influence government is a lot different from policy influencing activity in the UK, and also, in working directly with journalists and getting the message out. The processes are different, but I enjoyed it, because it was a varied role, and you get to experience different perspectives, you get to go to different governments in parliament and try to pitch your case and get support.
5:32
Rob Preston:
Okay, interesting. And moving to the charity sector. So when you did join Arthritis Action, how was that? Did you always want to work in the charity sector? Was that something that you had always planned to do?
5:44
Noha Al Afifi:
I always wanted to work for a healthcare organisation, non-profit or charity. So my next step from Wish was really actively looking for opportunities in a healthcare setting. So Arthritis Action was one of the options that was available to me, I wanted to look at all different health conditions, because my previous role looked at a variety of health conditions affecting people globally. Things like cancer, diabetes, affordable care, etc. So that felt like a natural transition from that room.
6:18
Rob Preston:
Was there anything particular about arthritis in particular, that you that that made you think this is a cause you wanted to work on?
6:24
Noha Al Afifi:
I mean, I'll be honest, it wasn't an obvious cause to me. And I knew that there would be challenges in relation to communication and fundraising. Because it's not, it wasn't at the time, one of the big health conditions in the UK in particular, it wasn't the big five. Right now, it is finally one of the major conditions within the major conditions strategy. But it wasn't the case eight or nine years ago. So I knew I would be facing a new challenge. And that was a big part of my motivation for wanting to work with Arthritis Action is actually taking on a new challenge and trying to cut through the noise and trying to increase understanding of a condition that a lot of people dismiss as an older person's disease. So I liked that challenge.
7:09
Rob Preston:
Okay, that's interesting. Yeah. And so the roles are really sorry, initially, you were marketing communications director, but then you moved into overseeing the fundraising department as well. How was that as a switch? And was fundraising something you thought about previously? Or did the opportunity just kind of present itself while you were at the charity?
7:31
Noha Al Afifi:
So, yes, and no. Again, just going back to my previous role I transitioned from policy forms into partnerships, so especially corporate partnerships, and seeking sponsorships for the various activities that the initiative had organised. And I had great success. And I realised the reason behind that was because I applied all the skills that I've got all the writing of the copywriting, in particular, the pitching skills of putting proposals together, very similar to how you kind of sell a press release, you know, for a PR, different audience, but you still need that skill. You need to understand your audience and tailor approaches and the messaging. And I thought, and I did really well in that role. So I felt maybe I could do the same for Arthritis Action. We have had fundraisers that we managed, but we needed someone with more kind of a strategic look, how do we bring it all together? And that's a skill that I had as well. So that's how the transition really happened into looking at different income streams and tying that into comms activity, so the teams could work hand in hand, you can't have a good fundraising campaign without the columns and the narrative, a strong narrative behind it.
8:46
Rob Preston:
Do you think it's really important for charities to have those different functions working kind of in sync with each other? I suppose with Arthritis Action, it's relatively small or medium-sized charity. So perhaps at really big charities there, they work with a bit more separately.
9:02
Noha Al Afifi:
Exactly. But I think because we're smaller, as you say, the fundraisers lean on the comms team, to kind of put it's basically the language putting the right language together to put a campaign together. And I will use an example later in our conversation where it was just, it was a nice exercise that brought them together to produce a fundraising campaign that's actually out there right now.
9:26
Rob Preston:
Okay, great. Yeah. I look forward to hearing more about that. So you, one of the things you led on at or you have led on Arthritis Action is setting up the charities measurement and surface evaluation processes, which has led to its annual impact report that it does now. How important is measuring impact to your charity and charities in general?
9:49
Noha Al Afifi:
I think it's fundamental that charities demonstrate the difference that they make with their audiences and kind of society as a whole and their service users for many reasons, a) it increases credibility, you can't be saying we're doing amazing things without showing it. I think for funding, it's vital. Because if you're not able to demonstrate the difference you're making, then why would a funder consider giving you money, you need to make the case for funding, if something has worked really well, you need to measure and you need to track and you need to report that effectively. Also, I think linked to credibility is reputation. If you want to maintain a kind of high standard, and a really positive reputation amongst your audiences, need to routinely measure and report on impact. And I think a really obvious one is, you know, as charities, in particular, we have a responsibility towards our stakeholders. They're entrusting us with their money, so every penny counts. So I do think we have a responsibility towards everyone that we're here for, to show them where every penny has been spent.
11:02
Rob Preston:
So it's obviously an important thing for charities to do from what you've said, but is it a challenging thing to implement? And are there some things that are quite difficult to measure, I suppose in terms of an outcome that a charity's achieved?
11:15
Noha Al Afifi:
Yes. And also, the other challenge is, sometimes that requires money, investment into proper monitoring programmes, monitoring evaluation programmes. So I think we always have these chats in the office, I think, for qualitative outcomes, that that's easier. You can track how many people attended an event, or how many people listed the website. But actually, what's harder is what the behaviour change, what have people done, as a response to attending your event or going to your website. And that's a lot harder to measure. There are methods that can be deployed, we have done some of that, but again, we're cautious that some of that costs a lot of money if you want to do that regularly. So we preserve it for campaigns, or maybe bigger programmes. So for example, you could do perception surveys and awareness surveys and use a sample audience, right. And you could say, if it's an awareness raising activity, you could say, have you heard of Arthritis Action? And then you measure kind of the percentage and whether that's grown over time? Or how do you know what arthritis is? Or do you know, what age group impacts more, it's things like that. And you can measure kind of wider responses from your, from your audiences, basically consumer surveys, etc. So that sort of stuff you can you can get, but it requires more cost attached to it. So yes, I would say it's challenging to get into kind of the meaty outcomes sometimes, as opposed to kind of easier metrics and some simpler metrics.
13:01
Rob Preston:
Have you seen an increase in kind of awareness of arthritis in the time you've been there? And if you've been able to kind of report that in an effective way?
13:09
Noha Al Afifi:
Yes. So that is one thing that we look at every two or three years, we do a YouGov survey. So that looks at the state of play, and the impact of arthritis on daily life. So we look at all sorts of things. But then there's an element that looks at charity brand awareness, and also arthritis awareness. So in terms of charity awareness, I think in 2018, it was 10% and up to 25%. In 2022. Wow. Okay. Yeah. So we were very pleased with that. So that's our benchmark now. So every two or three years, we'll be asking the same question, obviously, wouldn't be the same people, but it's the same sample size, so about 2500 people.
13:56
Rob Preston:
And you mentioned that, when you ask people for money, sort of how can you do that without showing the outcomes that you have? Have you received feedback from either individual donors or corporates? Or institutional funders who've said, Oh, it's, it's great that you've got this impact report. It gives us confidence that we're giving you money and you're doing something useful with it.
14:18
Noha Al Afifi:
100%, we've heard that from partners, we've heard that from kind of trust funders as well. And I think and they do regularly request it, especially not just the impact report, kind of a report of following on from the completion of a project as well as the more detailed stuff as well.
14:40
Rob Preston:
Excellent, OK. So you became the interim CEO at Arthritis Action in November. How has it been so far in the first few months? How have you found the step up? And has it been an interesting journey, I suppose from being a comms person originally and kind of writing, perhaps, scripts and things for spokespeople and then sort of being the spokesperson yourself now.
15:06
Noha Al Afifi:
It's very different from my previous role. And I think that that's exciting. But also it comes with a set of challenges. So the exciting bit for me has always been the external facing activity, raising profile networking, with government, networking with partners, corporate funders, etc, and that's still part of my role. And I very much still enjoy that. I think that the challenges are associated with being responsible for more areas across the business. So it's not just fundraising communications. Now, I'm responsible for finance for operations for service delivery, obviously, on an exec level, but I didn't have that in my previous role. So there's a bit of a learning curve there. But kind of going back to your earlier points on measurement and impact measurement, that's something that I've set up. So I always had some sort of oversight on how well we're doing across all areas. But for me, it's managing those functions as well, that that that's new to me, but it's great, I think the other challenging elements, which is no surprises governance, so navigating that we have five new trustees, and, and they only joined two months ago, three months ago. And we've got, right now we've got nine board members, so the majority are new. So it's about just, yeah, understanding more about the board expectations from the chief exec. I'm a board member for two different organisations, so national voices and CIP er, but I've ever been on the other side, if that makes sense. So that's a learning curve for me as well.
16:40
Rob Preston:
Has it changed your perspective as a trustee at those other organisations. Now, you've seen it from the chief execs point of view?
Noha Al Afifi:
100%. Yes.
Rob Preston:
Well, it sounds like you've been enjoying it. I don't know if you'll be able to comment on this. But it's are you thinking about trying to be the permanent CEO? Are there any plans for that at all? In your future?
16:59
Noha Al Afifi:
No, I'm happy to talk about that. So it's interim, because the substantive CEO is on maternity leave. So depends on what she decides to do. Closer to the time, I think the plan for her is probably around December time to return. So it will all depend on what she would like to do next. In terms of me, I think it's early days, so far, I'm enjoying it, there is challenge, but it might I might have a better idea closer to that time anyway, whether this is something I would permanently like to do or, you know, go back to the income generation comms activity, which I very much enjoy.
17:38
Rob Preston:
Excellent. Okay. Great. So let's talk a bit about Elevate, our first ever Elevate Conference, which is taking place on the 20th of March. Yeah, so it's a tough time for fundraisers, would you say, are you looking forward to being able to address a lot of fundraisers in the room and to be able to kind of discuss some of the issues they might be facing?
18:03
Noha Al Afifi:
100%, I think we've gone from Covid to the cost-of-living crisis into a recession. It never gets easier. There are global wars, competing causes, there's a lot going on. And it's hard for a lot of fundraisers, to cut through the noise. Because there's, there's so much information out there. You know, I'm just looking from a consumer perspective, there's a lot going on, a lot of messaging going around. And I think if you don't have the loyalty from the donor side and the profile, it will be very difficult for many fundraisers at the moment.
18:45
Rob Preston:
Absolutely. And your closing panel in which you're speaking is about using emotion in fundraising campaigns. And that's something that I think has perhaps changed in the last few years. Is that Is it a more difficult balance to strike now for charities? Because they don't want to be accused of shock tactics or poverty porn, as it's sometimes called, called, when they're appealing to supporters? And yet they also, I mean, now more than ever want to be able to generate that response from members of the public. So yeah, is it more of a challenge these days, would you say?
19:21
Noha Al Afifi:
I think so. And I think it's because that tactic isn't new. You want to instil some sort of emotional response. I mean, that's how people react to things right and you want a positive reaction. Sometimes they may not be if it's such a sad image and sad messaging, and actually, it may not lead a person to support the organisation just might make them really sad. But I do think there's a lot of that at the moment, which is why I don't want to say people become numb to it, but they almost do, when they're surrounded by sad news all the time. You need to be really creative, I think, to get the message out, not rely on those tactics alone. I think that the shock element is important. And I'll give the example of our current fundraising and comms campaign. So Clear Channel has very kindly donated space for us all over the country, they've only started using the posters Monday, actually. And literally, it's all over the UK. And that, the messaging behind that is very simple. So we used human stories, so real people. And we thought we'd focus on younger people, because arthritis is always associated with older age. So we have a couple of young ambassadors who are in their 20s. And the one that's being used a lot more I can see is Tanya who is a 23-year-old. And the message is, I hadn't lived the day without pain since I was 12. It's a message and created that almost shock and surprise elements. Oh, you know, anyone thinking it's an older person's disease, probably, we would have changed that perception. And then there's like a very simple support message. So that's the theme of the of the campaign. And I think it's quite timely now. Because I will be presenting at Elevate. I do think it's about finding the right balance, and finding very simple messaging and trying to be innovative, and not repeating what everyone's seeing everywhere.
21:23
Rob Preston:
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I was gonna ask you this earlier, but I will move back to it now. So you've, one of the things that are happening at your charity, and this does link to fundraising as you're making an investment in the fundraising side of Arthritis Action. So you're planning from your new strategy, you're planning to not see a return immediately, you're planning to see a deficit for the next few years. So how, how was that as a decision to make that we're actually we're going to, we're trying to invest in the long term now. At a difficult time for, the charity, and also to try and get the trustees, as you mentioned, working with trustees is a challenge as a CEO, how is it getting their buy-in? I suppose that, yeah, we need to, we need to look to the long term here.
22:17
Noha Al Afifi:
What you've said, I think, with the board and kind of their support is vital in this and their understanding of the climate that we're working in. We have been traditionally relying on legacies for many years, I think they form two-thirds of our income. And they've always known, our board has always known that we need to diversify. Like I say fundraising is such a volatile area. And we can certainly rely on that year on year. So the decision on diversifying income was implemented or kind of decided upon a couple of years ago. The next three years are about honing in on the areas that we think will be the most lucrative and effective for us. And these are major donors, trusts, corporates and government funding. So we previously didn't seek or receive government funding, but because like I mentioned earlier, arthritis is now kind of part of the major condition strategy. Actually, government can prioritise some funding and allocated towards projects that help people with arthritis and bone and joint conditions. So that's a new kind of exciting opportunity for us that we finally have that avenue. So, all those areas are new to us. And that's why it's not an immediate solution. It's not medium term plans. We're making all the kind of the efforts now and the investments now so that we can see the full impact of that in the next two or three years.
23:55
Rob Preston:
Yeah, that's interesting. Yeah. I mean, major donors are quite a big topic at the moment in the sector. I think we've seen government figures and, and members of the Charity Commission as well, talking about the need for philanthropy to kind of increase in this country. So yeah, that's quite significant potential avenue of fundraising for you.
24:17
Noha Al Afifi:
And we have, you know, our boards, some of them are quite connected, in the City of London, and this is based in London. So we are talking about maybe regional approaches and networks. And then from there, hopefully, we can get into some major donor opportunities.
24:34
Rob Preston:
Yeah, as they're less likely to be as keenly affected by the cost of living crisis, I suppose on their ability to donate.
24:43
Noha Al Afifi:
Yeah, but what we are finding is they really need that personal connection to the cause. That's what we found has been the underlying kind of theme. For example, the Clear Channel partnership that came about because the person who's in charge of those programmes lives with arthritis. So we think that is the most effective approach into corporate or major donor funding.
25:07
Rob Preston:
Okay, that's interesting. Well, thank you so much for speaking to us now. And it's just finally, I want to ask, are there any other further tips you could give to fundraisers or charity professionals listening to this?
25:22
Noha Al Afifi:
I mean, there are some key things that might be useful, I think, to implement an effective fundraising campaign or get the message out there. I think finding your niche is really important. And for us, that was people who either have arthritis or are affected or have a family member. So it's not, I think, if the goal is public funding, or public understanding, that's too broad. And the reality is, there will be people who will be motivated or interested in particular topics more than others. So it's really about finding your niche, identifying the audiences, and really drilling down on who your main personas are. For different types of activity. I think that's really important as well. Keep the message simple. And do your research. I think it's important to and that, and I think, because a lot of the time, you know, charity workers are so busy in the day to day, you don't have the time to look at the researching companies or individuals or campaigns. But I think that is so useful to just allocate some time towards that, and trying to be creative and then implementing the activities.
26:33
Rob Preston:
So, take a step back and do the research. Yeah. Excellent. Great, thank you so much. And it's so I'm really looking forward to hearing you talk at our Elevate conference very soon.
26:43
Noha Al Afifi:
Thank you. I'm looking forward to it.
26:44
Rob Preston:
Thank you for listening to this podcast episode and thank you to know her for being such a great guest. If you enjoyed this episode, please like and subscribe as we hope to do more later this year. Until then, I hope you stay safe and well. And thanks again for listening.
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