The Other Side

Simon Scriver - How A Charity Fundraiser Built An Inclusive Training Community Online

• Jane Curtis

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In Episode 8 of The Other Side, Simon Scriver shares how two failed ventures shaped a thriving, accessible training community for fundraisers.  From street fundraising to global virtual events, Simon breaks down luck vs grit, why boring work matters and how to stop under-pricing your services. 

We also discuss hiring fears, building a supportive community without burning out and whether the charity sector is ready for the growth in freelance and consultant services. 

One of my fave episodes to date, listen on all your usual platforms and at the link below.

You can connect with Simon on LinkedIn and at https://www.fundraisingeverywhere.com/

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Jane Curtis helps charity professionals transition from 9-5 employment to flexible and profitable freelance careers.

With over 20 years in the charity sector, she led teams that raised tens of millions of pounds from events before going freelance in 2018 and launching her own business in 2020.

She supported over 100 event fundraisers through her Collective membership during the pandemic. Now, she offers her signature "Charity Freelancing Course," a high-touch 1:1 programme for consultants, coaches, and freelancers seeking to make more money working fewer hours doing what they love, and in-person events like The Rich & Restored Retreat. She also provides occasional strategic events consultancy to charities.

The Charity Freelancing Course is opening for enrolment in December 2025. Make sure you're on the wait list to receive the best price!

Ready to transform your charity expertise into a profitable freelance career?

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Jane Curtis:

Welcome to the other side, the Charity Freelancers podcast. I'm Jane Curtis. This is where we explore the journey from charity professional to thriving freelancer or founder. Each week I chat with people who've made this leap from the charity sector, sharing invaluable practical tips and incredible insights firsthand. So whether you're considering making the move or you're already on your self-employed journey and want to know what goes on behind the scenes of well-known freelance businesses, you're in the right place. So let's dive into today's conversation. Simon started his charity career as a face-to-face fundraiser on the street back in 2004. He moved into the office and worked agency side after that before setting up his first business, which has since failed, now failed. After that, he worked in-house in a charity, became a freelance consultant, and then launched fundraising everywhere with Nikki Bell six and a half years ago, which he runs alongside being a keynote speaker. Simon, you're on the other side. Welcome.

Simon Scriver:

Thank you, Jane. It is it's lovely to be on the other side. Quite literally, because usually I'm asking the questions on a podcast. So it's it's lovely to be to have to do less prep.

Jane Curtis:

Yeah, great. Um, well, you don't know what I'm gonna ask you yet. You might not be saying that after. Um, what was that self-proclaimed failed business that you mentioned?

Simon Scriver:

Well, I I realised as we were talking that actually I've had two failed businesses, but my blurb is too short to mention one. But but I I did my big tragic uh failure was I ran a face-to-face agency. I set up a face-to-face fundraising agency uh with three business partners, and we had a few good, very good years, very successful years, and um, and we got very big, and then lots of stuff collided and it all fell apart, and and we went out of business, and that was horrible. That was a horrible uh time. But actually, I'd already gone out of business. My I my first business I ever set out was I I set up a website when I was like when I was a teenager and I was selling music. I was selling these like um like linking people to bootleg copies of traveling Wilbury's music, and that technically was my first business, which also failed, but that was that was a kind of a bit of a weirder story. I was I kind of uh I I got rid of most of my possessions and was on a beach in in Vanuatu, and I think just kind of had a bit of a mental breakdown, and I actually just let the domain name lapse and uh and actually my whole business, I was making money every month, and it all it all went. So I've had two failed businesses, two so far, so far, still early days, two failed businesses.

Jane Curtis:

Oh, and what what do you think those experiences sort of taught you about setting up um fundraising everywhere?

Simon Scriver:

Oh, I don't I mean they they kind of teach you what you don't want to do, definitely, you know, the bits that you want to stay away from. Um, but I guess they kind of, you know, it also it's one of those things, it's very hard to learn learn business, do you know, like you can't really prep for it too much reading books and stuff like that. I mean you can obviously, but actually going through those failures, you know, they stay stay with you because you you'll always know what to look out for. Do you know you're a bit you're a bit more savvy with your eye on the finances or the marketing or the HR, the bits that let you down. And um, I mean I don't I don't really know what I learned from from you know being on being on an island in the Pacific Island and just and just shirking responsibilities. But I think from the other business, I think, you know, you just learn a lot more about almost responsibility and consistency. You know, there's stuff you have to keep an eye on, the stuff you have to keep running even when you don't really want to. And that seems really obvious, but actually, especially as the as if you're a self-employed or a solo person, it can be really easy to kind of get caught up in the things that you you want to do or the things that you think you should be doing. And actually, sometimes there's this whole other area of the business that you just haven't really been paying attention to. So I don't know. I think it just kind of maybe broadened my or maybe took off the blinkers a little bit, you know, and just helped help me see. But I mean, I don't I don't know how much I learned really. We'll see.

Jane Curtis:

Um, so true though, there's so many shiny objects which feel so much more exciting. A lot of business is quite boring, isn't it? It's quite mundane.

Simon Scriver:

It is, and the really important stuff, it's almost like uh on a scale, like the more important it is, the more boring it is. And so, yeah, you do get caught up in stuff which is going to be fun, and you like, you know, marketing, especially, I find I fall into that trap. You end up going down this marketing route because it's fun or because it's interesting, or because you really want to do it. And actually, it makes no financial sense to spend your time doing some of that stuff. And um, I think I think that you get to that point, especially you know, running your own business, you're you're the box stops at you, so you kind of really do start paying attention to the things that matter, or you or you hire someone, you find someone who pays attention to the stuff that you can't pay attention to. So I guess you learn your weaknesses as well, and it's not always an easy lesson, but it's helpful.

Jane Curtis:

Yeah, yeah, definitely. I want to come back to that in a minute. Um, talk me through how fundraising everywhere started. I mean, it's been such a mega success and like a business model that I've always really like looked up to and been inspired by um since I set up my own business. So, how did it come around? Like, how did you meet Nikki? What what talk us through that?

Simon Scriver:

Yeah, that's always more fun, more puzzled to talk about. So, um, so I met Nikki uh at a conference, and we I was speaking at a conference. I don't think Nikki was speaking at it, I think she was maybe just getting ready to start speaking at events and stuff. But we we started bumping into each other at a lot of uh fundraising conferences and charity conferences, and we started doing some presentations together. We found we kind of like aligned on a lot of values, and uh, and a big a big chunk of that value was kind of helping non-profits and helping fundraisers and helping helping people, like helping individuals who maybe hadn't been given that opportunity, you know, they didn't have access to good training, or they didn't have access to support. Well, they worked in an environment, and we had both worked in environments where you had been told that you can't do stuff, you know, that you you kind of constantly put in this box and kind of held down a little bit. So we we realised that we really wanted to get out there and make training more available for everyone and make this fundraising community more human and more like accessible for people. And um, and we I remember we were at a conference and it was just like you know, we realised 99.9% of people weren't in the room because they couldn't afford to be there, do you know, or they couldn't take the time off, or even the speakers, you know, the speakers were not being paid, so you had speakers who leaned towards people who could afford to fund themselves to get there and things like that. So it was just felt felt very exclusionary, and we were fortunate enough to kind of be a bit on the inside, and so we decided to set up this um what was supposed to be a one-off event, you know, that was uh online, so it was a lot more accessible, it had it's subtitles, closed captions, uh, it was affordable, and it was supposed to just be a one one person thing, uh one event thing, and uh and it just went down really well that we ended up doing it again, and it and it kind of snowballed from there, and we found that there was this huge um you know, wealth of people who felt like us, who sometimes felt like misfits maybe a little bit, or maybe a bit out of it, you know, felt a bit intimidated by all these experts around you, or people who proclaim to be experts, and and we were people who didn't really have training budget in the past, or you know, they um we weren't really supported into these positions. So so we found all these other people who felt like that, and and they came on and they started coming to our events, and we launched our membership um community, and and we just had such a great response from that that it just grew from there. So now, I mean, now we're a team of I mean it's about eight of us, and we're hiring at the moment, and it's just you know, we run events all year round, mostly online. We do some like fun in-person meetups and stuff, but we have this we have brought all these fundraisers together who I think like we're always like, What do we wish we had when we were setting up, you know, when we were junior fundraisers or or like fundraisers in a head of fundraising position for the first time and you don't really know what to do. It was like, what would we have liked? And and we would have liked a community like fundraising everywhere. So it's been great. I mean, um, yeah, meeting Nikki was such had such a huge impact on my life, but it's like this ripple effect now has been really amazing because we just have like thousands of members now who who it just you know it's just fun to interact with them, you know. They feel like they feel like they're on the same page as me. It's great, it's exciting.

Jane Curtis:

So it was never an intentional kind of business in a way. It was like you were just gonna do this one event in partnership, is that right? Um both doing other things at the time.

Simon Scriver:

I mean, for us it was like it was kind of lead gen, you know. Like I was working as a solo consultant, like I I was doing consultancy here and there. Nikki was just coming out of um, she had had a terrible experience working um in a sort of agency. Um, and we were coming out of that, so we were kind of looking for business for ourselves. And I and I, in my experience, one of the big places that I have got business in the past, despite not, you know, I'm not a confident speaker, and I'm not, it's not something I rushed into, but public speaking and present presenting at conferences and running training for me, that was like huge driver of business, if not like the only driver of business for me, do you know? So it was um, so we were doing that, you know, we were trying to kind of get business out of that, and um, and we started, we did a few in-person events. We were doing like pay as pay as much as you want uh training events, and um, you know, because usually they can be quite expensive, and so people were paying what they felt was fair, and it was it was actually that was quite challenging because I mean what we found was people in London don't pay anything, you know. If you give them the choice, if you give them the choice, they all pay zero, whereas people in Scotland were super generous, and you know, but um so we were just kind of figuring out a way to make this work, and then it all kind of fell into place a little bit, and then and then the big thing which I haven't even mentioned is then COVID hit, yeah, and COVID suddenly made everyone take virtual seriously and realise that oh, this is a way I can still, you know, connect with people around the world or or listen to the world's best speakers or have this like access to these resources without me, you know, having to travel travel to London or fly to the Netherlands or you know, something like that. It was just like, oh, actually, you know, this this works. And then when even when COVID started to drift away a little bit, um, it was still there, you know, people still needed this, feel the people still needed a way to like stay connected to their fundraising community and stay, you know, continually professionally develop um without paying loads of money and without having to travel and and you know work around some other schedule. So so yeah, it was it was um, you know, uh a lot of things went went right for us, like there was a bit of luck in in what we did, but you know, I I'm also like like I was doing like live streaming, I was doing like video online for fundraisers for 10 years before that, you know, and no one cared. And so it was like it was like over a kind of like an overnight success, but like 10 years worth of this work that had built up to me and Nikki putting so much into our career, building connections, learning what people wanted, and just all that took time. So we were lucky in ways, but it was like you know, Nikki's an extremely hard worker, and and I can be a hard worker sometimes, and and it just yeah, it just worked together, you know.

Jane Curtis:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, do you think you would have had the success you've had if it hadn't been for the pandemic?

Simon Scriver:

I do know I we've talked we talk about this sometime, and genuinely I do, but not as quickly. Do you know? Like like that was it, that was an injection of like maybe two years, it moved us along two, three years, I'd say. I mean, one of the things we did, and we and we pivoted a bit because we were doing the fundraising everywhere, but one of the interesting things that happened during COVID is suddenly all these uh charities had to move their events online and they didn't they didn't know how to, like they didn't know what the tech behind it, they didn't know what was involved, but we'd already been doing it for it for you know years before that, other than fundraising everywhere for months and years before that. So one of the like little pivots we did at the time of COVID was we um we started hosting events for charities. We we did the tech for them and they paid us to do that, and that was actually a way that almost almost that we subsidised fundraising everywhere at the beginning because while we built our membership base, it was like okay, we need we we did need another source of income, and and so there was that opportunity. Um, so yeah, I mean COVID, COVID definitely in a weird way helped us, but obviously, you know, it it it changed the landscape of everything, it changed the way people behave and everything, and and some of that we're I suppose still reeling from as well. Do you know like we we suffered as well during COVID, but obviously people moving to virtual as has suited our model, you know, because we're we're virtual first.

Jane Curtis:

I I loved it when you did the online um events for other charities. Like I used you, um uh I thought it was great. I wish you still did it.

Simon Scriver:

In fact, I know, and it it's it's really weird because lots of people want it, and we've had we've had to turn away customers, and um, but we just we're just focused on fundraising every, you know, like it's almost a it's a viable business in itself, which we don't really have the time for, which is a strange one. You know, I've never like turned away a successful business like that. But it's like there isn't a package out there where people, you know, where someone takes care of the tech behind your event, where they take care of the speaker management, you know, where they edit your videos for you. Like there isn't, I can't, you know, people ask us for recommendations and I don't really have one because I don't know. It doesn't seem to exist. Do you know?

Jane Curtis:

No, no, no. Um, so you mentioned you're a team of eight now, is that right?

Simon Scriver:

Give or take, I lose track sometimes because we're as well. We work with a few consultants who are basically with us, you know, every month they do some bits for us. So we have, I think it's like eight employed staff, and then we're hiring, and then we have, yeah, we have maybe like five, five to ten consultants who do bits for us, and then we have a lot of partners. I mean, even like you like yourself, Jane, you know, people that we kind of where we can work with, we do work with them, and you you've spoken with us at like at our events before, and we've done stuff before. So it's like we we have this lovely little web and this lovely little community of people who are you know sharing their voice, and I think that that was an important thing for us as well. It's like that everyone had access to the microphone. So it's like if members want to share a case study, if they want to share a failure, if they want to like talk through something, then we'll we'll help put them in front of the other members. And I think because that's so much a way my fundraising career developed was like just learning from other fundraisers, you know, just getting in a room with them. And so um so yeah, it's been it's been really exciting to like have all those voices speak up and not not just the usual, you know, re the usual things.

Jane Curtis:

So one of the things that I think um solo entrepreneurs or whatever you want to call them um find challenging is that kind of point where you need to invest in staff, you know, uh more support. And actually that kind of like do I do I do that now or do I wait and try and do more stuff alone? So I'm I'm curious as to kind of when you and Nikki noticed that you needed to start investing in staff and and realising that you couldn't do it all alone, um despite the fact that that might have seemed quite a scary investment. Do you know what I mean?

Simon Scriver:

Yeah, and it's it's still scary. Do you know? I like we lose sleep over it, and I think you know, you never recover like from our my old agency that went out of business. I mean, we we had about a hundred staff who a lot all lost their job, you know, same as ourselves when we went out of business, and that is never something I want to repeat. So we were really cautious about like bringing on employed staff. It basically got to the point. I mean, me and Nikki, um, when the pandemic hit, you know, there were times that I was working through the night and Nikki was working through the night and and really was breaking us. So it was like, okay, we could this isn't viable unless we bring someone on, but we we did it gradually, do you know, like we brought in people to do like hours for us or little project spits for us, and then as it grew and as that role cemented, we we moved them into you know either more hours or into full-time positions, and then sometimes we did advertise, we have advertised for like these full-time positions, and it it's really just like I suppose when we're comfortable the money is there and the need is there. But me and me and Nikki are both super scared, you know, like super scared of of you know not being able to pay staff. That's one of our things. So we're we're very you know, we have our reserves now and we're we're comfortable, and that's that's really good. But I don't think there's an easy answer for it. I think it's it's become easier because this idea of like consultancy is is uh has more weight by now or or fractional. I was talking to um Cindy Wagman who's big about fractional fundraisers, but fractional. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you you know, yeah, um, but yeah, so people should listen back to that. And it's um and so there's there's almost like you can do it a bit gradually now, and there's like virtual assistants, you know, there's lots of whenever when I talk to solo entrepreneurs now, most of them have a virtual assistant who you know they might just be doing a couple hours a month, or it might be scaling up and down, and so I think it's become a bit easier because you can scale it up and down like that, but it's still it net it never gets easier. Do you know? We really I can't believe we found ourselves in a position again where we have staff, but it's like okay, we can we can do this.

Jane Curtis:

You're do you're doing great. Um tell me what kind of a normal working day is in the world of Simon Scriver, if there is such a thing.

Simon Scriver:

Yeah, I don't, I mean, I don't know. That there's like there's there's repetitive stuff. I mean, there's stuff that I do all the time. So a lot of my time is like looking at data at the moment. You know, we have really good, we have a great team now who who keeps everything running and um connects with the members directly and all that. So for me, a lot of it is like looking at the data and the finances and just trying to understand, I suppose, what's working and what's not, and what people are looking for and what they're not. You know, we have we have a lot of community now and we have a lot of data. So in terms of what people are watching and what people are asking for and things like that, we keep an eye on that. Um, and then a lot of my time now is is is I don't like calling it marketing, but it's it's connecting with like partners and potential partners who are out there, you know, trying to get like we have a really good product. I'm I'm really proud of the fundraising everywhere product. And when we talk to people, it's like, oh yeah, that does make a lot of financial sense for our training. And so it so it's like it can be an easy sell, but 99% of people have never heard of us, do you know? Um, and so a lot of my time is kind of reaching out and connecting with people and just trying to find other ways that that we can get our voice lifted around the sector, but also we can you know mutually lift other people's voices, so connecting with partners like like yourself, Jane, and and and so many other people out there who are like really passionate about the non-profit sector. But then besides that, I mean I just get pulled into all sorts of bullshit, you know. It's all like my team views me as the tech guy, which is not you know, like just because I'm a nerd and I like tech, it doesn't mean I know what I'm doing. So often I have to fit try and fix things, and um, and it just yeah, it just kind of whatever's in season. Like, we just relaunched our website, so the last few months have been all about that, and then coming into Christmas, you know, we have a lot of conferences and a lot of events, and and there's a lot of stuff happening in the sector, so so a lot of my time is kept up with that, and then uh yeah, next year I'm I'm not I'm not sure what my day-to-day will look like. So there isn't really two days the same, but they're all I wake up um slightly stressed, and then I I peak stress around midday, and then by the end of the day, I'm like back down again. You're not working through the night anymore, I hope you're I'm not which is amazing, and I I mean I love my team, like we have such a great team at the moment, and and the fact that they've saved me from that, I mean, literally, like it's hard to it's hard to even imagine now because I don't think I could do it now. But working all day, working in the evening, work like running an event in Australia all through the night, and then taking my son to school like straight from that in the morning, and it's just like no, I couldn't do that again. So there's none of that now. It's like uh and and credit to Nikki, you know, Nikki is is my boss, uh, technically, and Nikki is really good at looking at the stuff looking after stuff and making sure they clock off and making sure we have our holiday days and things like that. So I'm getting better at it, but you know yourself, like when you're uh when it's your business, there's always something else you can do. You know, the only limit is is your limit, you know, people are gonna take as much as you give, and you can always do one more thing that might help. But so I you know, I'm I'm I'm I'm speaking like I know what I'm talking about here, but I don't. This is me actively trying. I'm trying to have those boundaries where I like can clock off at least by six, you know, in the evening, yeah and weekends not not look at it, but no, it's it's hard, isn't it?

Jane Curtis:

So, what do you do? Do you have like some kind of habits to look after your mental health? Like, what do you do kind of day to day to just sort of step away?

Simon Scriver:

No, I'm the I'm the last person you should be talking to about mental health. I'm so bad at uh and I really struggle with my mental health. I'm trying to get better, you know. I was in therapy for a long time, had a really good psychiatrist, and and now it's like it's a lot of mental exercises, you know. So I obviously like a walk helps, but when I feel shit, I can't go for a walk, and exercise help. When I feel shit, I can't exercise. So a lot of it is just talking your brain down and convincing yourself, okay, not everyone's mad at you. You know, this can wait another couple days. The world isn't going to end if you don't fix this. Like this, you know, here's the logical steps we can do now to tackle it. So for me, it's it's more of like a mental tightrope walk where I'm like, I'm drawing on the tools that I've learned um through my mental health career at those times to try and stay on top of it. But you know, I know exercise helps and I know eating well helps and drinking water helps and all that stuff, but it's like you know, when when it when you're in it, it's very hard to do it. To convince yourself to take a lunch break when you're when you're stressed, it's hard.

Jane Curtis:

Yeah, and conversely, when you're feeling really good, you don't do those things often. Do you know what I mean? Like yeah, you don't need to so it's like I feel great, I don't need to go for a water, but actually that's exactly what you should be doing. Um it's really hard.

Simon Scriver:

And if you have any tips, I mean I'm I am all is, but it's like, yeah, it's especially when it's your own business, it's like there is no line, you know, there is no limit except your own. And it's like, how do you draw that limit when you're like, okay, if I just do this, it means this will be better in the future. And it's like, how do you balance that? I I don't, I don't know, do you know, but it's like it's it's definitely a an ongoing daily conscious thing I have to do. Like it, it's not a habit, it's there's no habit in it. There's no, it's like I have to, you know, it's almost like physiotherapy of the brain. It's like every day you have to think, okay, I'm not, I'm not gonna go crazy to it.

Jane Curtis:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I it sounds like really basic, but I put my all my well-being kind of tasks on my to-do list so that they're in there alongside my work. I mean, I'm very list oriented. Like, if I don't have a list, I'm totally fucked because I have no idea what I'm doing. So um, so like I'll put swim three times, you know, this week or whatever, like, and I have to take those off. For me, that's mate, I will motivate myself um to kind of do that. Um, but yeah, I yeah, you have to be con it's it's they're the first things to get bumped, aren't they?

Simon Scriver:

I mean, I used to have a good habit, I would put in stuff in the in the calendar, do you know, like almost like an hour of do nothing or an hour of go outside, and and and then that that used to help, but I don't know why that slipped. I think it does become to that point, it's like, oh well, if I just move this do nothing, I can fit another meeting in, and then it's like you know, you lose the run of your cells, and then you realise you're burnt out again. So it's hard, like it's a constant struggle, and and my heart goes out to any self-employed people because I don't know how we do it, you know, like it's really boundaries, boundaries, boundaries.

Jane Curtis:

Um, I'm gonna be sat down a lot today, so I know that I have to force myself out because my back will start crying out in pain and like um you need one of those walking desks, the c the treadmill desk, or something. I do, but I would just end up sitting down. Um tell me about some a recent chat, or maybe not so recent, but a challenge that you faced as a business owner.

Simon Scriver:

Oh, there's so many, isn't there? I mean, I think like um God, what are what what are the recent challenges that that we've had? I mean, I think we're we're constantly we're constantly struggling with the challenge of what the sector needs versus what it wants versus what it does. Do you know? And I think like we find that when we're trying to create content and trying to support members and and you know, attendees and customers to our events, it's really hard. You know, if you if you ask people what they want, they want training on this, this, and this. But when you organise training on that, they don't, you know, people don't necessarily register for it or they don't necessarily pay for it. And um, and then you'll organise some lines like some stupid session which like nobody's asked for, and it'll be super popular. So it's it's really hard to like read what people want, and I think that's that's a constant challenge we have. And the challenge, you know, within that is is balancing between paid and free and and where you price your your product. I mean, we're doing our budgets for next year at the moment and looking at pricing and everything like that, and that's always such a challenge because it's like you know, you have organisations and you have business out there with lots of budget who wouldn't blink twice at what you know what you're asking for sometimes. But sometimes we find ourselves arguing arguing with with um not arguing, but you know, not seeing eye to eye with chat charities or or people because they don't want to spend you know 50 quid on a on a day's training, or you know, some people don't even want us, you know, like we have free trials for our membership and things like that, and you get some people who will constantly use the free trial but never pay.

Jane Curtis:

Right.

Simon Scriver:

Do you know? And it's like I don't begrudge them because you know we've been in sit we've all been in situations when you're like that, but when it's like when when it's five years on and you're kind of extracting this service and you're never putting them a penny back in, it's hard. And I mean, one of the things every once in a while, I'd say only like once a year, we get we get an email from someone who who's like, Can you I I love your emails, I love all the information you send and everything, but can you stop sending the emails where you're selling something? So can you only send like the free knowledge and free expertise and free information stuff like that, and never ask me for money in return? And it's like, and and these are fundraisers, you know. I get very cranky. I really want to go back to them sometimes. It's like, you know, if you operated like that as a fundraiser, you or in any capacity, it's like you know, some somewhere there has to be value exchange. And if if the person, you know, if you're relying on free all the time, then you're gonna get what free gives you. You know, you're gonna get companies that pull out, companies that go out of business, you're gonna get the same speakers, you're gonna get like just lower quality, you know, all these problems with not investing in it yourself. So I find that a real challenging thing in the sector is how do we balance it to achieve what we're trying to achieve, which is make training accessible for as many as possible. How do you balance that with paying the bills? Do you know? And I think I think I I'm sure you know this and most of your guests and it's like we're in an interesting space where we sit almost between the non-profit sector and the private sector. And so you're like you're living to private sector costs and standards, but you're expected to charge non-profit rates, and it it doesn't always add up sometimes. So that's that's my high horse. It's like, yeah, challenges every day is a challenge, isn't it? But for me, that that's been playing on my mind lately is that kind of that haggling over just like paying the basic to support your staff, you know, paying paying just the bare minimum for professional development. It's like I can't believe we're still haggling over this.

Jane Curtis:

I know why are we still having this conversation in 2025? Um so you mentioned your um your team are a great source of support for you, but if for people who perhaps don't have a team, like have you got any advice on kind of networks, communities that they might want to lean into um or that you would recommend?

Simon Scriver:

Um yeah, I mean, like uh like obviously there's lots of fundraising specific ones, but I think in terms of like a broader as a business owner. The networks that have helped me. I mean, I have to say, one one of the things I always I think we talked about last time we chatted. I always come back to Toastmasters, you know, for people who don't know Toastmasters, which was about public speaking, you know, helping me with my public speaking and confidence and networking, even. And for me, that was one of the most invaluable things I got as a business owner was the ability to speak in front of a room full of people and the ability to network, which I didn't really have before. And so for me, Toastmasters was like a huge thing, and I I would weirdly recommend it to any business owner. I think it like fits really nicely for business owners. Um, but beyond that, it's like you know, these these business networking things and these communities, I I find it almost works better for me just more informally. I have to steal someone's phrase, put to steal Paul Nazareth's Paul Nazareth's phrase, he has a personal board of directors. And I I've started thinking like that that I have this personal board of directors, so I have this like these seven people who I know are always there for me, like to, you know, I really trust their advice, and they've been through more than me in a lot of respects, and and so so it's these people who I've almost like picked up along my career where I've seen them aspired to be as good as them almost and just kind of reached out to them. And and in our sector, especially, it's like I found find people just so helpful and friendly. Like if you ask to pick someone's brain, they'll let you, and and it might develop into this ongoing relationship where they really support you or you support each other. So that kind of that kind of thing really works for me. Um, but I just you know, I like these online communities that like fundraising chat, and there's all the these consultant Facebook groups and things. I I like keeping an eye on those, you know, to see what's going on, and when you have a question, people are there for you. But I just find when people are so good, you know, if you want a cup of tea with someone, they'll do it. And I I for me, I've like learned and and benefited so much from those relationships in the past, it's been great.

Jane Curtis:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Same. Um, so what advice would you give to someone who's perhaps working in nine to five who wants to step out into the world of freelance or business ownership? What would your advice be?

Simon Scriver:

I have two bits of advice because and I and they come straight to mind because I always give these advice because people are asking this a lot. It's firstly start now, is that you don't have to wait until everything's in place and everything's perfect, and you have money and you have comfort, and then you make the big switch. You can start now in your 95, you can start mailing, start your building your mailing list, you can start blogging, you can start that presence of being a sort of expert in that area. And that might be you know a year or two or more before you switch. I know when I first became a consultant, I already had my mailing list because I'd been blogging and emailing for a few years, and and so when I when I finally actually switched, I was able to go out to that audience and be like, okay, I this is what I'm doing. And and that's where I got my first two clients was from that list I already had. So I would say that's a big thing if you're even thinking about it, setting up a business or going out onto something, is to start that content creation and that expertise and that that list building, and I think that's really important. Um, and then the second thing I always say to people is about not undervaluing yourself, you know, not underpricing yourself. And and that was the it was great advice I got when I started is is mainly American consultants would say to me, you need to double your prices, yeah. And and that seemed like so scary, and you know, I wasn't get I wasn't getting all the business I wanted at this price. Why would I charge double? Right, you know, but then they they were 100% right because you when I doubled my price, it didn't make any uh effect to my you know how much business or how much interest was coming in. It just meant I had a bit more of a cushion when with the clients that I had. So I think um, you know, it's not just about like charge as much as you can, but I think like it we have a tendency to undercut ourselves when we first start because you have that lack of confidence, but also maybe that lack of a or I did anyway, that lack of awareness of costs, you know, the real cost behind that hour you do for a client is like there's there's three hours on either side of it, you know, where you're faffing around and stuff like that. So so it's about understanding that from the beginning. And and so to this day, it's like anyone I I mean who's just gone into business almost as a joke, I'm just like double your prices. And so you don't know what my price is, it doesn't matter, just double.

Jane Curtis:

Yeah, that's not even at the beginning. I would say that that's good advice for anyone at any point in their journey. Um, because yeah, notoriously, that is what's happening in my experience. And yeah, it's it's funny, isn't it, that we think that, oh, we're not getting people at this price. If I double them, I won't be getting more, you know, how would I get more clients? But we don't often think that actually if we're underpricing, that can also have negative connotations, right? Um and and that clients could be looking and thinking, well, hang on a minute, if they're that cheap, how are they actually going to be any good, you know?

Simon Scriver:

Um I was I was chatting, and I have this friend, this woman in Canada, who um we used to talk a lot about business, she was running a business and she came back to me years later and she said I gave her advice. I don't remember giving this this advice. Um, but she she said I did give it and it was the best advice, and she said she quotes me to this day, and it and apparently I said, if you're too busy, you're not charging enough. And because she she was like fully slammed, she was always working, she was whatever. And I was like, Well, why are you not charging enough? And she's like, Well, because I'll lose clients, and it's like, but then you'll have the breathing space to do this and breathing space to do nothing, and whatever. But and and you know, obviously, it's not as simple as that. You you have to properly measure it, but actually, in a lot of ways, it is as simple as that. Like, if you're fully flat out, yeah, it's like you're you're not charging enough. You can afford to like lose some of that space and and um and just support yourself a bit more, right?

Jane Curtis:

And also like coming back to the reasons why you want to leave employment, most people want to do it because they want more flexibility and more freedom. Yeah, yeah.

Simon Scriver:

Actually, moving from nine to five into something that's even more time consuming um is not really the goal, I wouldn't say it's so funny, it's like having a baby to save a marriage, it's just like you know, moving moving into self-employment to get more time. It's like I it just doesn't work like that. I think it's like you do it because you love it, you know, you do it because it doesn't necessarily feel like work while you're doing it, and and it's like if you find a job you love, you'll actually just never have a day off in your life, you know. It's like that's the truth. It's like you will be working on a holiday, but you won't mind it because you're doing what you love. I think, I think um, I don't know, but you you can get to the point, and I feel like I've entered that point in the last couple years where you can take the foot off a little bit, it's like you have people to support you, you have stuff that is running, and you can kind of you know, I had my first holiday where I didn't check emails. Oh, well, that's great. It was like, wow, I can't, I couldn't believe it. It was it was bizarre.

Jane Curtis:

Yeah, that's brilliant. Um, well done. Uh just one final question. Um, and I didn't sort of give you a heads up on this, so if you don't want to answer it, it's fine. Um I'm I'm interested to know if you think that there is more of a shift of people coming out of charity, so charity folk who are leaving the sector to go freelance um or set themselves up as self-employed. And if you do think that there's a trend for that at the moment, because obviously I've got a skew slightly skewed perspective on things uh where all my clients are people who are doing that. Um is that a worrying shift in your opinion?

Simon Scriver:

Yeah, I mean I I would 100% say it's happening, and I and it's really interesting to hear because we haven't talked about this before. Like it's interesting to hear you say you think you see the same thing. Um, and I wasn't sure if it's just because the space we work in, you know, that people reach out to us when they're going freelance. I think it is happening, and I think it's I mean, it must be from years, you know, to nobody's surprise, there's been years of charities not treating their staff well. You know, you're part you're punished if you work in a charity in in every respect, you're paid less, you work more hours, you're expected to do it out of the good of your heart, even though you know you're not paying your mortgage out of the good of your heart. So I think like with there's been this kind of sustained, not abuse, but like mistreatment of charity staff, which has driven people to that. And so I think COVID was a catalyst for it where people realised actually the flexibility, the virtualness, all these things together have have driven people to that point. You know, especially when you see charities who are making their staff go into the office five days a week and things like that. It's like, of course, you're gonna lose stuff. So I think I think it's our own fault as a sector. I think we've done it. But is it a bad thing? I mean, that's a really interesting one because I don't know if it is, you know, like I don't know. I I've always struggled to see the difference between someone who works for an agency or someone who's a consultant and someone who works in-house. You know, obviously there's like little pros and cons, but there's a weird misconception that that that they're very different, and I don't think they are. I mean, one of the interesting things you'll see like at um conferences or or a lot of these community groups, they won't let you take part if you're if you don't work in a charity. You know, you have to be work employed in a charity rather than an agency or a freelancer. And and for me, I never really understood that because it's like, well, you're still passionate about the cause, you know, you're still passionate about the work, you still have the same skills and knowledge, and sometimes you have more skills and knowledge because you have access to all this extra data and all this. So I don't know. I mean, I'm curious to hear what the argument against it is, you know, what why it might be a problem, but for me, it's like it could be what we need, do you know? It could, it could be what we need in terms of restructuring. I mean, ch charities are a weird model because it's like every charity is like two businesses, you know, you've got one business which is implementing the work and doing all that, and then you've got this whole other business which is marketing and sales and all that stuff, you know, where we're which is where we sit a lot of the time. And it's kind of like you know, further unpicking of those two. Is it a bad thing? I mean, I'm not I'm not sure.

Jane Curtis:

No, it's an interesting one.

Simon Scriver:

Do you have an answer?

Jane Curtis:

Um, I mean, I certainly think there is more of a shift to it since 2018 when I became freelance when it actually was relatively unusual. I think not unusual, but certainly less usual than now. Um, and yeah, so I don't think it's a bad thing, but again, I'm seeing this from a really sort of skewed perspective. Um yeah, it will require the charities to think differently and to behave differently, and whether or not we're kind of ready as a sector for that. Um but then don't you think freelancers have a place in that discussion as well? And and you know, could actually be part of that solution to rebuild the sector and um to to make things more innovative and creative and and just to work better.

Simon Scriver:

Work more flexibly and and more, you know, across across the silos. And I think like yeah, like I mean, you've seen that you you've seen that from years ago. Like that's your business is supporting people like that. It's like so it's good, it's good for you, but I think you're right that it is like there's really strong positive things we can gain from that model if we if we do it right, and so that's why I love to see the support you give people like that. But it's like, yeah, it's just it's not a surprise, is it? It's like who I mean, working working in a charity now is tough, you know, it's always been tough, but at the moment it's like, would I go back to that? You know, I'd I'd really struggle to go back to that environment where it's like you feel like you're the bad guy for working extra hours and being paid less. Like I find that I find that tough.

Jane Curtis:

Yeah. Okay, well, we'll have to continue this conversation at another time because we're uh yeah, we're we're out of time now. Um but I think I think we should. I think we should have this discussion.

Simon Scriver:

Yeah, um, there's a heated debate though.

Jane Curtis:

I do, I agree. Um, how can listeners get in touch with you, Simon, on LinkedIn is your main platform?

Simon Scriver:

Yeah, I'm kind of I've kind of shut down everything now except LinkedIn, which I'm still um there. So you can find Simon Scriver on LinkedIn or um or fundraisingverywhere.com is our website. So um we're always happy to hear from anyone through fundraisingverywhere.com.

Jane Curtis:

Amazing. Thank you so much for your time, especially as you're recovering from um illness.

Simon Scriver:

COVID 20. Um thank you for having me, Jane. It's always so lovely to speak to you. So thank thank you for having me on this.

Jane Curtis:

Oh, great, thank you. That's a wrap on another episode of the other side. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider sharing it with a colleague who might be thinking about their own freelance journey. And if you haven't already, make sure to subscribe so you don't miss any future episodes. Remember, freelancing doesn't have to be a lonely journey. Whether it's joining communities like the Charity Freelancer Chat or signing up to the Charity Freelancing course or simply reaching out to former colleagues, connection is key to thriving as a freelancer. You can find all the links and resources we mentioned today in the show notes. And if you want to connect with me, you can find me on LinkedIn, where you can also sign up to the Charity Freelancing course waitlist. Until next time, keep exploring what's possible on the other side.