Hi, I'm Katie and I work in the fundraising department here at Canonbury Villas. In some ways, it's like most office jobs, including long hours filled with meetings, what sometimes feels like days staring at spreadsheets and fielding countless sales calls from people convinced their product, service, magical solution can revolutionise the way I do my job.
It's not exactly rock and roll, but at the same time it isn't just any old office job and Greenpeace certainly isn't any old employer. Plus, I don't think anyone here works simply to progress their career. It's about so much more than that.
No matter how tedious my day ahead might look on the way to work in the morning, I do it because I can say with complete confidence and not a hint of sarcasm that my job is helping to save the planet. And that's no mean feat.
I think that's why I was able to deal with quite an unusual sales call the other day. I picked up my ringing phone and on the other end of the line was a man offering his agency's services. I tend to get about five of these cold calls a day, so I usually try to politely get off the phone as quickly as possible. But when I enquired as to what those services might be, he said that they were experts in assisting organisations in corporate fundraising and he thought there were lots of ways they could help us.
I have to say, I was a bit taken aback. I wasn't sure if he was serious. So I said thanks very much but Greenpeace doesn't do any corporate fundraising and I was a little surprised he thought we did. I kind of thought that would be the end of the call, but the gentleman persisted. He said he was shocked and told me that he thought we were missing out on a huge area of possible funding.
I said that may be true but independence is one of our core values and this runs through everything we do, including our fundraising practices. I told him I was pretty surprised myself that he thought we would take corporate funding given the nature of our work. The man was intrigued, he just didn't get it. We went on to have a 10 minute conversation about why, in order to deliver our campaigns, Greenpeace has to remain independent from all corporations and governments and that means we only rely on the generosity of individuals for our funding.
This may mean that we miss out on a whole heap of possible donations, but we just don't have a choice. All in all we had quite a chat, which doesn't happen often on sales calls (usually I don't even get a word in edgewise). But I think the man from the agency learned something about Greenpeace and it was also nice for me to take a few minutes away from the spreadsheets to sing the praises of our individual supporters.
Without them, we wouldn't be able to do any of the work we do, they are our strength and they ensure our independence. In the end, I was quite glad that I picked up that sales call.
