It Might Be Awkward, But it Will Be Fine

This week, I’ve been doing lots of my — and from what I can gather, lots of other people’s — least favourite part of fundraising: picking up the phone. I know. Despite my expert (ahem, note sarcasm) handling of the Ship telephone in Veronica’s absence, it just isn’t my preferred way of talking to someone. Give me a face-to-face interaction (body language! Tone! Smiling!) or a written interaction (time to think about my responses! Not fearing that my Essex accent might jump out and be perceived!) any day.

I think it goes hand-in-hand with having a fairly anxious brain, but I always tend to assume the worst will happen when I pick up the phone. But what would that even look like? WELL.

Some context for my tale: lots of Trusts and Foundations are run through LLPs/accountacy firms/financial advisers, etc. So when I phoned a Trust whose number I’d found on the Charity Commission website, to find out a little more about their grantmaking approach, I wasn’t massively surprised when a (lovely) person from a chartered accountants picked up. However, when I told her I was hoping to speak to someone regarding the Trust and its grantmaking approach, what followed was approximately fifteen seconds of silence. Do you know how long fifteen seconds of silence is when you are a person who doesn’t love phone calls, making a phone call? It’s a long time.

To make a long story short, the lovely person on the other end of the phone did not have any idea who I was, what our charity is, or how I might actually reach the Trust I was trying to contact. This is a less-than-ideal scenario for a fundraiser. This is an even more less-than-ideal scenario for a fundraiser who does not enjoy telephone communications, especially when they are going badly. I was uneasy.

But then I remembered what telephones were invented for: having a chat. I talked about our charity and asked about my new acquaintance too, and suddenly it didn’t matter that I had not achieved my desired outcome of talking to a representative from the Trust. I did not make a miracle out of a mishap here — don’t get me wrong. I didn’t sign up a new volunteer through the call, or secure lots of new funding from the accountants themselves (although she did say ‘feel free to phone me back, once you’ve figured out what’s going on!’ so maybe we do have a new contact to explore).

I think what I am trying to say is not that things can always be turned around to go well, but that sometimes it’s good to have them go badly. It can be useful to have the things you are worried about take shape. Ultimately, I didn’t get what I wanted. I had an awkward experience, with someone I didn’t particularly need to talk to and who probably had a million better things to do than talk to me. I didn’t get anywhere close to what I was aiming for when I picked up the phone. And so what?

So nothing. I hung up the phone. No one died. And now I can tell my worried little brain in the future that if a call like that happens again, I can hang up the phone afterwards and no major disaster will have occurred. I picked up the phone again and proceeded to have some great and productive phonecalls this week, too. Ones that have generated brilliant opportunities that I am excited to take further!

So: things go wrong, and sometimes there isn’t a solution (no alternative phone number, e-mail address or postal address exists for the trust I was trying to reach. No solution). Sometimes it seems like no progress is made. But if the thing you are worried about happens and actually — nothing happens, that seems like something to celebrate.