The Alzheimer’s Society’s Liz Monks chats to us about long-term ambitions and middle-distance running
You’ve been at Alzheimer’s Society for a couple of months now. How different is it to your last job at Breast Cancer Campaign?
The department I lead is bigger and broader; it includes all our fundraising initiatives, as well as education and consultancy work. We are doing a huge amount at the moment with a large number of service users, and our support stretches from pre-diagnosis all the way through a person’s dementia journey. It’s a big challenge, but I’m enjoying it and the impact fundraisers and donors can have on people with dementia.
What are your priorities for the year ahead?
If we are to achieve significant growth, we have to start looking at doing new things in new ways. We need to move away from the segmented idea that some people are donors, some are members and some are service users. Generally, they are one and the same people. We need to get them on board and think about what we can offer them throughout their dementia journey – and also the ways in which they can support us.
What is your strategy with regard to growing the events side of the charity?
We have a flagship event called Memory Walk, which is great at focusing people’s attention on raising money for the charity, but I want it to be more political. I want it to be the time of year when people come together to demand more for their loved ones who have dementia. Next year, it’ll feel more like a political march and less like a sponsored walk – although, as a fundraiser, I also have to raise more money!
Your chief executive, Jeremy Hughes, has a fundraising background. What’s it like working with him?
The best thing from my perspective is that Jeremy understands that fundraising growth is affected not just by the decisions I make, but the choices we make outside of fundraising: those concerning our services, research and campaigning. That’s why I spend the majority of my time trying to influence decisions, rather than make them. Jeremy understands that.
Alongside your day job, you’re chair of the Institute of Fundraising Convention. What are your plans and aspirations for next year’s convention?
We’re doing things from the bottom-up as well as top-down next year. We’ve talked with lots of special interest groups to hear more about what they’ve been doing, the key development challenges their area is facing and how the convention can best help. Hopefully, this will make the convention even more useful for people. Plus, it’s back at the Metropole and they’ve fixed the air conditioning and internet – so people can breathe and tweet!
What do you think are the learning and development priorities for the sector?
The reason I took on the IoF role is that I believe we need to formalise the qualifications and skills that exist within our profession. I also want people to feel proud of our profession, which is why the convention is so important. I always feel incredibly proud and motivated at the end of those three days.
You’ve said there’s a “lingering stigma” attached to dementia that comes from a lack of understanding. How do you hope to change that?
When I joined Breast Cancer Campaign, I did a lot of research into the history of the charity and the disease. Understanding how the cancer sector progressed is very useful for me now that I’m at Alzheimer’s Society. I’m hearing echoes of things that were said about cancer 30 years ago: the fear, the lack of understanding, the reluctance to admit that it’s a problem. So there’s a lot that history can teach us. But we also have to actively intervene. That’s why we’ve recently launched an initiative with the Prime Minister called ‘Dementia Friends’, which is looking to recruit a million people to help us support people with dementia.
What’s the biggest challenge of the job?
The immediate challenge is that funding for dementia services is being moved from a centralised fund to personalised budgets. This could potentially deny people with dementia who are still at home and are quite high functioning from accessing our services. If we can raise money for these people in a high-profile way, I believe we can begin to challenge the idea that you can’t do anything about dementia: you can do something about it, but it costs money.
What advice would you give to aspiring heads of fundraising?
There is a view that if people come up through a function, they need to understand all functions. People say: “I’ve worked in corporate fundraising all my life and have never done direct marketing, so I have to have a go at that.” However, I don’t believe that to be the case. The most important thing is to understand how best to communicate with colleagues, senior managers and trustees – and employ people who have the skills you don’t!
What would you be doing if you weren’t fundraising?
I ran for Britain quite a few years ago in the 800m and 1500m. Around the same time I entered the world of fundraising, I was offered a job as a track and field coach at a college in Oregon. So that’s what I like to think that my second life could have been. Everyone has those Sliding Doors moments, and I guess that was mine.
Liz Monks is director of fundraising at the Alzheimer’s Society
This article first appeared in The Fundraiser magazine, Issue 24, December 2012
