A Conversation on Integrated Marketing and Fundraising, Part 3

[Editor's note: This is third and final part of a three-part conversation on integrated marketing and fundraising with members of the fundraising sector's newly formed Integrated Marketing Advisory Board (IMAB). Click here to view part 1 and here for part 2.]

Here, FundRaising Success wraps up its conversation with IMAB Chairman Michael Johnston, founder and president of Hewitt and Johnston Consultants (hjc), and IMAB member Sara Spivey, chief marketing officer at Convio, about the role of the IMAB and the importance of integrated marketing and fundraising in today's landscape.

FundRaising Success: How can organizations break down the silos to begin becoming an integrated organization?
Michael Johnston: My wife is a Glaswegian engineer, and as a Scottish person she said, "Effective change is a full-contact sport." Maybe she means rugby in her case. It means getting people in a room, and it's as simple as that. Change and integration doesn't happen unless you have a process to listen to people, see what the issues are, where are the barriers, and then you have to get everybody in a room. Then it's facilitating agreement — how do we realign and align properly to get this done or to do these things better? That's a strategic weakness in organizations who say we can just rearrange all this stuff on paper and with vendors, and we're going to do it.

It means getting people in a room. What's the shared reality? Do we all know that we're in the same place? If there isn't a shared reality, you can't move forward to be integrated. Is there a shared vision of the future after shared reality? Where are we going to end up? How is that better? Once you get that kind of agreement in a room, then you can start putting those tactical plans together about making the trains run better and on time.