Fluxx X The Brain Tumour Charity
Cast your minds back to March; the reality of the pandemic was setting in for lots of people and businesses, and the world was waking up to the realisation of what it all meant. We were all searching for meaning; for a purpose in the pandemic and a chance to reset. That’s exactly what I was looking for — feeling helpless, I was searching for an extra-curricular purpose. I was looking to use my skills as a Fluxx consultant to do good. That’s when a colleague of mine Gemma Stafford came knocking. She’d just started working with The Brain Tumour Charity (TBTC), an amazing charity that supports people living with brain tumours and is the largest dedicated funder of research into brain tumours globally. I was on board immediately.
First thing I did was research the charity. I was totally shocked to find out that Brain Tumours are the biggest cancer killer of children and adults under 40.
Let that sink in. And the thing is that most people don’t know these worrying stats, as it’s one of the least well known or talked about cancers. Despite these shocking stats the treatment hasn’t moved on much — in years. Throw in a Global Pandemic and you can imagine the effect it’s had on the charity sector.
Working with TBTC over the last 6 months has been so much fun — we’ve developed a brilliant working relationship, so much so, that I’d call my TBTC colleagues my friends. And all of this has been developed and built virtually — we’ve never actually met in real life (might be a shock when they realise how tall I am!). It’s such a great virtual story that I thought it would be nice to catch up with one of my TBTC buddies — Head of Innovation & Fundraising, Cat Alabaster, and have a chat.
J: Hey Cat. Can you believe we’ve been working together since April?! It’s crazy we haven’t met irl, what’s been most enjoyable about working together? Don’t say nothing!
C: I know it’s crazy! I’d say developing such a great working and non-working relationship during lockdown is up there. It’s been a tough time, but you guys really know how to host a zoom and make it fun — we’ve had lots of jokes, airline quizzes, guess the middle of the chocolate bar and a healthy dollop of Crazy 8s to help us through.
I even enjoyed jumping on zoom to have a working session and listening to your strange playlists in the background! It’s refreshing, engaging and we feel like you guys are truly invested in us and the organisation.
J: Yeah. We’ve definitely had some fun along the way — but my playlists are not strange! Back to The Brain Tumour Charity. It’s been a crazy year, what are the biggest challenges you’ve experienced?
C: The impact on the charity sector has been huge; for us we’ve seen some research labs being forced to put their work on pause as resources are ploughed into coronavirus, and an increase in demand for our services and support as NHS resources are increasingly focussed on the pandemic. Perhaps the biggest impact has been on fundraising — with all mass participation events cancelled, employee and community fundraising halted, and donations directed to other crisis related charities.
J: There have been so many huge charity events cancelled. How did you pivot away from f2f events?
C: The Twilight Walk is our annual flagship fundraising event. It brings our community together to take on a walking challenge to raise money, raise awareness and celebrate or remember loved ones. It’s one of our biggest income generators, and it’s also a big milestone in the community calendar as they get to meet up and chat to people who are going through the same stuff. Cancer can be very isolating and we know our community really values getting together, sharing those emotions and the whole journey with each other. We didn’t want to stop it altogether so we made a decision early on to postpone the event until early 2021, we soon realised this was unrealistic as more and more in-person events were being cancelled and we looked at different options.
Fluxx helped us gather insights from our community, research the event landscape and generate a long list of ideas to make the Twilight Walk bigger and more successful than before. Some of these we’ve already experimented with through our Virtual Twilight Walk, others we will experiment with when our event can be F2F again. So, whilst we are unable to bring everyone together in person, we still have a way to give our community the chance to come together.
J — Yes, that really struck me from the interviews I did with you — just how much the ‘togetherness’ of the walk means to people. There’s been so much change this year, has this year changed your role and what you’re working on?
C: Absolutely. I started the year wanting to set up an Innovation hub to maximise fundraising opportunities, and then when everything changed I quickly realised my role had to reflect the changing landscape. To continue to help our community, raise awareness and vital funds, innovation must be ingrained in everything we do. It was a bit daunting at first, as my background isn’t in innovation, that’s where our work with Fluxx has really come in. As well as delivering and helping with the practical side, you’ve massively helped me and others in the team up-skill. You always champion agile working and that’s exactly what’s needed right now.
J: That’s kind of you Cat. Tell me more about some of the things that stand out?
C: Not going straight to the solution. Pre-Fluxx sometimes it was harder to truly understand the problem we were trying to solve with an idea. Post-Fluxx that’s the philosophy we apply to everything and we constantly re-check in on this.
You’ve given us the confidence and techniques to think differently and it’s something we can use across the charity.
J: Yeah it’s easy to jump to the solutions quickly, it’s built into us to want to solve problems but often we’re not solving the right problem. A lot of the work we’ve done together is stepping backwards and defining what the problem is. Are the new ways of working here to stay?
C: We’ve got a lot more agile and responsive rather than going through a time consuming decision-making process. We act quicker, test ideas and experiment — this mentality is so important, now more than ever. So yes we’re holding onto these!
J: It’s great to see the TBTC are doing things a bit different in the charity sector, what advice would you give to other charities navigating these difficult times on what works and what doesn’t?
C: Trust the support of your community and the people who support your cause. We were nervous about launching a virtual walk and it’s gone better than we imagined and we should have believed in it from the start. Our community is there for a reason and those reasons haven’t changed.
J: Final question Cat — I’m sure you’ve inspired people reading this, what can they do to help out?
C: If anyone has skills or time particularly around data please shout, we’d love your help. Data is going to drive the future on services, fundraising in a smarter way and really help with making smarter decisions from our database.
J: Calling any data analysts out there; if you have any spare time and want to help, please get in touch at cat.alabaster@thebraintumourcharity.org.
Thanks for the catch up Cat, it’s been a pleasure working with you and such an amazing charity that’s helping so many people. Can’t wait to hang out in real life at the next Twilight Walk!
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Jack is a Consultant at Fluxx. Click here for useful links to all things Fluxx.
Are you curious as to how Fluxx has helped companies such as Condé Nast, Mars, Thames Water, HSBC, Addison Lee Group and many more? Learn the secrets for sustained, repeatable innovation models, from expert practitioners. Get in touch now Jack.Metcalfe@Fluxx.uk.com.
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