As part of Whitewater’s ongoing commitment to new product development and innovation, we are very excited to announce the appointment of Kevin Kibble (formerly Managing Director of Professional Fundraising magazine and Fundraising Initiatives Limited) to the Whitewater management team.

Kevin will take up the role – with immediate effect – of MD of Our Lasting Tribute, with special responsibilities to advise and develop other new product offerings for the charity sector.

Whitewater Chairman, Steve Andrews, said, “Whitewater is declaring 2008 as the year of innovation in individual donor fundraising. We have some very exciting ideas up our sleeves and need someone of Kevin’s calibre to help us to make them happen. We’re really thrilled that he is joining us.”

Kevin Kibble added, “This is a great time for me to be joining Whitewater. The new developments at Our Lasting Tribute take in memoriam fundraising to the next level, and the innovation team have some revolutionary ideas for individual giving that I look forward to helping bring to the sector.”

Posted by Whitewater Team at 03:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Massive congratulations to Albert Wheeler on his arrival into this world on December 9th! Albert is the first son of our very own Clare Wheeler (Hallsworth) and her husband Ricky.

He's clearly a very gifted child because he's already keeping us up-dated through his own website and blog.

Many congratulations to Clare, Ricky and Albert.

Steve Andrews

Posted by Whitewater Team at 12:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Back in January 2004, I hopped off the underground at Kentish Town for the first time, pulled out my A-Z to locate Fortess Road, started trundling up the hill and thought 'Where on earth am I?'. I found the alley way, went up the metal staircase and entered Whitewater HQ for my interview. Once inside, I had to smile. Sitting on that sofa in reception, I could feel the buzz going on in the office behind. I felt strangely at ease. And for four years, I've been really happy in Kentish Town. So here is my fond farewell...

On the surface, Kentish Town does not appear to contain much, but scratch a little deeper and you uncover all sorts of gems. My lunch breaks have been spent exploring the vast array of little shops the high street has to offer and I can guarantee you that anything you may need is available. When not doing that, I'd often power-walk up to the Heath for a gasp of fresh air, usually dragging an unwilling colleague along with me. And Oh! the excitement when the Sainsbury's Local opened, and I cannot even begin to count the evenings and money spent in the Junction Tavern!

As our staff base has slowly grown over the years, it has sometimes felt like this 'comfortable office' has literally been held together by sticky tape and blu-tac. I remember the sweltering summers pre-aircon installation, and sometimes the sweltering winters due to there being no thermostat for our radiators. The number of times I have had to deal with the bad plumbing because the outlay of the pipes were 'badly designed' or get the screwdriver out to sort out the pressure on the boiler... and just the general mayhem of things falling apart on a daily basis.

But still, the heart of WW has remained intact, because our base-camp has been so strong. I never thought the day would come where I would have to say goodbye. As I pack my desk up and look around me, I feel nostalgic, and a bit emotional. Perhaps I realise that I may never again have a reason to venture to Kentish Town. But one thing is for sure, if I do, I know exactly where to find everything I'll ever need. I hope Shoreditch will be just as rewarding.

Goodbye Kentish Town!

Meghan McRae

Posted by Whitewater Team at 09:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Two of Whitewater's creative team have just delivered their best creative work yet: a baby boy called Stanley! Brad (new media guru) and Anna Bell (writer extraordinaire) have scored a first and delivered their beautiful creation 18 days early without an Account Manager in sight!

Welcome to the World, Stanley. May you be blessed with your Dad's laid-backness (and IT skills) and your Mum's drive (and all round creativity).

This is one baby that'll never want for a spare jumper. Anna is a World-recognised, soon to be published, knitter. Check out Anna's website.

Steve Andrews

Posted by Whitewater Team at 03:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Have you ever been confused by data suppression reports when all you really want to know is how many records you have left to mail? Read on…

One of Whitewater's sister companies, Push Button, has created a new package specially for you - they call it CSS (Charity Suppression Service). CSS includes all the current licensed stop files (Mortascreen, NCoA, USS (Universal Suppression Service), disConnect/reConnect, Purity) as permanent match suppressions, and The Bereavement Register and GAS as temporary matches (permanent matches for these two would be charged at an extra cost). Both NCoA and reConnect can be used for tracking.

Temporary matches are usually run on cold lists. Permanent matches would be run to flag records as deceased/gone away etc on a database, so that the same record won't be selected again for future mailings.

Using CSS will save you money - you'll pay a reduced charge per match. Push Button are also offering a free Health Check service on house or donor file, so our clients will be able to see the potential benefits of their service at no initial cost.

The disadvantage? Your report will only show the total number of supressions, not a detailed breakdown per stop file. But that's why you'll pay less!

Now I know data suppression isn't everyone's idea of good conversation... but if you want to talk about this more, you know where to find me.

Hannah White

Posted by Whitewater Team at 10:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I thought I would update you on the results of the prize draw we ran for a few months, and also to remind you that there's another chance to win if you leave some feedback on our website!

Our monthly prize draw started at the beginning of the year for those who subscribed for email notifications when our blog was updated. Each month a winner not only got to donate £100 to a charity of their choice but also got to enjoy a £50 Amazon voucher.

The lucky readers, in monthly order, were...

February: Natasha Hopkins nominated St Margaret's Hospice Somerset to receive £100 on her behalf.

March: Leyla Rutter asked for her £100 to go to the Newcastle Dog & Cat Shelter.

April: David Conroy of Volunteering England chose Chance UK as the organisation to benefit from his win.

May: Cassie Edmiston of The Big C Appeal split her donation between Maggie’s Centres and The MPS Society.

June: Ian Clark, of Christian Stewardship, Diocese of Chichester chose SAT-7 to receive his donation.

July: Tania Cohen of Another.Com asked for her £100 to go to Volunteer Reading Help

Thanks to all the winners for allowing us to publish their names and the charities close to their hearts - and thanks to everyone who took part!

Maria Bavio

Posted by Whitewater Team at 01:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

From here at least, it's hard to believe a full year has already passed since the official launch of Whitewater's new, cutting-edge, bloggy website. The statistics package on our webhost page show that people are finding more of interest here than they ever did on the old site, but what we really need to know is not how many people visit at what time of day and how many pages they view - but what you think of what you see when you get here.

Is there anything you think we do well and would like to see more of?
Is there anything you think we do less well and would like to see less of?
Do you read our site through newsfeed/RSS software (ie NetNewsWire, FeedDemon, Bloglines, etc), when prompted by an email notification, or by checking your bookmarks regularly?

Leave your feedback in the comments (if for any reason you don't want to go public, just write the magic words 'Do not publish' at the top of your comment - your message will still be read, it just won't appear here on the site), and as a little incentive we're going to offer our usual prize: Everyone who gives feedback will be entered in a prize draw on the last working day of September (28th). The first name out of the electronic hat will win a £50 Amazon voucher, and a £100 donation to the charity of their choice. So be sure to leave a valid email address so we can contact you.

I shouldn't sign off without thanking and congratulating all my colleagues here for coming up with the content that kept this site alive. They have been almost universally patient and accommodating to their demanding and haranguing blog-mistress (that would be me). Well done Whitewater!

Anna Crofton

Posted by Whitewater Team at 09:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)

I thought I'd introduce you, today, to one of Britain's newest charities: SolarAid.

SolarAid will be officially launched in the UK in a few weeks time. Their dream is that the world's poor will have universal access to clean, renewable power.

SolarAid aim to bring solar lanterns to a million households by 2012 as the first step to creating an extraordinary new charity, raising and spending £40million per year by that year.

I've had the privilege of advising the SolarAid team on their individual donor strategy. We're creating a charity that is focused on the world's two greatest challenges: poverty and climate change. And we're creating a charity that will give donors what they want... and will reap the rewards for it.

You heard it here first! I expect SolarAid to be one of the great charities of the 21st Century.

Steve Andrews

Posted by Whitewater Team at 01:55 PM | Permalink

Way back in January Paula asked me to put together a team to examine our internal processes. I admit it, putting concrete and well-documented processes in place isn't exciting, but I think everyone understands that they're essential for ensuring the quality of a job, from briefing to production. And they make everyone's life easier: easier to understand where we are in a job, easier to show new staff members and clients how we work, and easier to make sure that everything that comes out of Whitewater is produced to the highest possible standard.

So after months of consultation, discussion and revision, we were ready to deliver a half-day training session to the whole agency to talk them through our new 'bible' - the Whitewater process document.

In fact, most of the processes didn't change that much, but it's useful to have it all written down in one place. And it's flexible, so we can adapt it for individual clients if need be.

We all know that processes aren't always the most interesting subject. But like the old Chinese curse*, sometimes 'interesting' is the last thing you want - particularly when you're referring to the progression of a client job. In that case, we want 'predictable', 'routine' - even 'uneventful'. Our new processes will help us save the 'interesting' for the creative, the strategy and the results.

* "May you live in interesting times."

Marcella McGing

Posted by Whitewater Team at 03:22 PM | Permalink

Our lovely Head of Production, had a baby girl, Esther, on the 1st of August! Esther weighed in at 8.4lb and arrived at 10am - and we bet Heather's pleased she decided to start her maternity leave a week early.

Congratulations Heather, Nick, and big brother Isaac - we look forward to meeting Esther soon!

Posted by Whitewater Team at 09:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Last Friday, Whitewater closed the office early and headed out to the countryside with other halves and kids... to join the party at Whitewater Fest 2007, the third and biggest yet of this annual event.

copyright: Amy Gilpin

Bouncy castles, kegs of beer and karaoke kept us up late into the night. A major highlight was the extraordinary performance from singer songwriter, Meghan McRae. Check her out here. Some of you may recognise Meg as our lovely Office Manager.

copyright: Steve Tse

For anyone interested, the photos are here!

Steve Andrews

Posted by Whitewater Team at 01:30 PM | Permalink

By now, you've probably come up with a method of keeping track of the blogs you're interested in, whether that's a list of bookmarks you visit daily, or a newsreader like NetNewsWire or a Windows equivalent.

If you've defaulted to using a list of bookmarks, consider giving Bloglines a try. It's a browser-based application (so there's no software to download) and it will replace all those bookmarks with just one site where you can catch up with all you reading. It works like this: you set up an account, and are given a bookmark link to 'Subscribe with Bloglines'. When you visit a new blog and want to keep track of it, hit this bookmark and it adds the site to your list of subscriptions.

Then, each lunchtime as you enjoy your sandwich, or whenever it is you catch up with blog-reading, you just visit your Bloglines account. When the number of subscriptions gets unwieldy, you can organise them into folders - mine looks like this (click to enlarge). The bold numbers show how many new posts in each folder there are to read. The plain numbers in brackets show the posts that I've clicked to 'save', so I can come back to them and read again.

Of course, conscientious professional that you are, you'll be looking for lots of interesting blogs to read on the subject of non-profit marketing. Once you've added Whitewater, you could do worse than starting your search with a list of every website that has taken part in the Carnival of Non-Profit Consultants over the last year.

And let us know if you have any other 'must reads'!

Anna Crofton

Posted by Whitewater Team at 09:56 AM | Permalink

I'd like to introduce you to our latest part-time member of staff. Meet Bentley. He works here occasionally, and his role is an important one: to enchant us, to pop from desk to desk while he checks out what we're up to (and whether we have inadvertently put anything edible in the bin under our desk), to lie in such a way that you have to step over him to move around the office, and generally to make us laugh.

We've all recently learned not to prepare a yummy lunch and turn our back, leaving it on the kitchen counter. A verbal warning was given, but no formal disciplinary action was taken - this time.

Bee Clarke

Posted by Whitewater Team at 09:22 AM | Permalink

Just thought I'd pop in and let you know the results of our monthly prize draws!

We've had two draws so far. Our first winner was Natasha Hopkins, who requested £100 be donated on her behalf to St Margaret's Hospice Somerset, and our winner in March was Leyla Butter, who asked for her £100 to go to the Newcastle Dog & Cat Shelter.

We hope that both winners are also enjoying their £50 Amazon vouchers!

The next draw is on 30th April, and on the last working day of each month - £100 to the charity of your choice and a £50 voucher could be yours. But you've got to be in it to win it! Subscribe!!

Maria Bavio

Posted by Whitewater Team at 12:34 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

The world of nonprofit blogs is small, but growing. I thought I'd point you in the direction of a few I check regularly: hopefully they'll provide a good jump-off point for discovering many more. These few are all US-based - our transatlantic cousins are ahead of us in the use of this technology.

First up is Getting Attention. Nancy E Schwartz updates very regularly with great content. Recent gems include tips on starting online conversations, using your enewsletters to best effect, and she has a whole category on blogging in case you're still wondering why you should care.

The Nonprofit Blog Exchange is a great resource for links to other nonprofit blogs: just scroll down and look at the huge list under the heading 'Blogroll'.

Kiri Leroux at NonProfit Communications is always interesting, and currently has a post up on things you can do to make your website more user-friendly - without having to redesign the whole thing.

Kiri has also been linking a lot recently to the Carnival of Nonprofit Consultants. Let me explain: A 'carnival' happens where a host collates a number of posts, from various blogs, on a given topic. The host creates a single post on his or her own site, linking to all the posts (or the best, depending on numbers participating) submitted on the subject. It's a very cool way of discovering lots of new, relevant sites. The Donor Power Blog is hosting next week's carnival and it's an open topic - so if you're blogging on the subject of nonprofit fundraising you need to get your entry in, tout de suite! Help! I think that means me!

In the next week or so I'll be searching out UK-based nonprofit blogs - give us your recommendations, regardless of geography, and we'll see if we can build our own list of blogs that deserve our attention.

Anna Crofton

Posted by Whitewater Team at 02:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Have you ever played Old English Skittles? There are only a couple of places in London with old-fashioned skittle alleys - we found one in the cellar of a nice gastro-pub, The Freemasons Arms, conveniently located just a short distance from us in Hampstead.

Now I can tell you know that skittles is nothing like ten-pin bowling. You don’t get a bowling ball, you get a flat, wooden disc-shaped implement: the 'cheese'.

The order of play is that you grab your cheese, take two steps, and hurl it (preferably in the direction of the skittles some 21ft away) without bouncing! Thankfully a nice man, Paul, showed us how to throw this dangerous weapon, otherwise I’m sure there could have been serious damage caused!

I can thoroughly recommend a night of skittles to anyone. We had such a hoot! The real ale and wine were flowing, and the noise we made enticed a few punters to nip down and see what we were up to!

The night was just what the doctor ordered - after a few really busy months, it was great to let off some steam. Needless to say, next morning the atmosphere in the office was rather subdued...

Nicky Thomas

Posted by Whitewater Team at 01:46 PM | Permalink