Of course we don't have any clients yet.
Simone and I stayed with Sean and Christiana in February. Legendary visit, too. A new farmer's market every day.
"I've been doing a lot of audits lately," he said.
It was late night. You look up a lot. The stars in subtropical eastern Australia shine hard as lasers; almost painful. We sat on an unlighted lawn, near the archery target, near the pineapple nursery, yards of our exposed skin heavily misted in bug repellent. You chemical-up here, even if you're a vegan: only way to go outside, really. Native Australian wildlife rustled around us; Sean is a certified venomous snake rescuer (spot the contradiction in that title). World musician Xavier Rudd lives next door; he was tucked in, too.
Sean and I had just returned from the pub. It had been for this nosy tourist a most extraordinary ordinary experience. Christiana and Simone were long asleep and exploring dreamland. "The lads" were reluctant to turn in. We fetched ourselves fresh drinks.
Started with fundraising industry gossip, then moved on to exchanging embarrassing family secrets.
"Me, too!" I said. About the audits.
Something's shaking the foundations. Major nonprofits are tuning up their engines.
Recent audit-type clients for Tom include Save the Children (US), UNHCR (US), Oxfam (AU), Harlem RBI (NYC) and Animal Rescue League of Boston. Tom focuses on messaging and donor-centricity ... and making considerably more money (yeah, that's pretty much a promise) from existing donors by changing the way the organization talks.
Sean is the brilliantly empathetic co-founder of Pareto, Australia's biggest direct mail and telephone fundraising firm. Sean graduated in maths. Is annoyingly analytical. Knows his data inside and out, so he's right all the time. Tender side, too. Geek dominatrix. His part of the audit reads all your org.'s relevant meters. Then he shows you exactly what you're doing well or ill in your mass fundraising.
But, as I say, we have ZERO clients for our 360-degree "audit-oscopy" product at this moment.
Consider yourself announced to. There's never been anything like this on earth before.