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Blog Header Image - Interview-with-GivePanels-CEO-Nick-Burne-on-Do-More-Good-Podcast

Mike Morris
July 12, 2021

Interview with GivePanel’s CEO Nick Burne on Do More Good Podcast

Catch up with GivePanel’s CEO Nick Burne’s interview for ‘Episode $\mathbf{73}$, Season Six: Realising the Scalability of the Internet’ of the Do More Good podcast.

In his chat with James and Kenneth, Nick discusses his start in the charitable sector and the importance of investment in Facebook Fundraising. He also shares valuable lessons he learned along the way.

What Was Covered:

Listen to the Podcast Here: Listen to “Episode 73: Realising the scalability of the internet with Nick Burne, Give Panel CEO” on Spreaker.

🎙️ About the Guests and Their Start

About Do More Good

The Do More Good podcast interviews the movers and shakers from the third sector. Furthermore, it tells the stories of people doing more good.

About Nick Burne

Nick started his career in the charity sector in 2004. He holds a degree in economics. Subsequently, he specialized quickly in digital fundraising. He became the Head of Digital Fundraising at Christian Aid. Later, he joined Think Consulting in 2008. He has worked with many charitable organizations. These include the National Trust, the Salvation Army, and UNICEF.

Then, he started his own consultancy in 2013. He developed digital fundraising strategies that raised millions for good causes. During this time, he identified the untapped potential for fundraising through social networks. In 2019, he founded and became CEO of GivePanel. This platform helps non-profits manage their Facebook fundraising. He enjoys tennis and, according to his LinkedIn profile, Shake Shack burgers.

Starting Out in the Charitable Sector

I got into significant debt in my early $\text{20}$s. This happened because I’m entrepreneurial, and I had some failed ventures. These were mainly in the music industry, managing a band. I learned a lot, but the music industry wasn’t for me. I started looking for jobs. Randomly, an online job at Christian Aid came up. I knew nothing about the charity sector. When I heard ‘Christian Aid,’ I literally thought of “poverty porn” images. I wanted to change that perception. So, I went and got a job there. That’s how my career in the sector began. Truthfully, I wasn’t initially planning to work for a charity; I just needed the money.

I knew how to do the “online thing.” I had been in online marketing since 1997. I built websites for people starting at age $\text{17}$. This was very early work, and I felt confident in it. I applied for the job through a recruitment agency. They were embarrassed to say it was with Christian Aid. I said “that’s fine.” I even went to a Christian school, although I wasn’t Christian then. The funny story is, my wife interviewed me; she was my manager at Christian Aid! I think I grew on her over time!

🚀 Career Turning Points and Entrepreneurship

Coming from Outside the Industry

I actually loved that job. I never imagined doing a full-time job since I grew up in an entrepreneurial family. It was my first “proper” job, and the people were lovely.

The very first major event I remember was the Asian tsunami. This was digital fundraising’s first breakout moment. Because it happened on Boxing Day, no one was prepared. No emergency appeal or telephone bank was set up. Consequently, the website donation form was the only thing people searched for on Google. The tsunami was a massive emergency. I don’t think we’ve ever seen anything like its impact. Online donations poured in for Christian Aid. Suddenly, I went from a quiet digital fundraiser to raising huge amounts of money. That’s when I started to gain influence.

I handled all the email communications. I made us more money and optimized donations. In short, I was the coolest kid in the office that week because I had online marketing skills from a few years prior. I was well positioned. I feel very fortunate that I got into online marketing when Google was incorporated around $\text{1997}$. I really enjoyed those first years at Christian Aid. I actually imagined staying for years. I could not have imagined staying in a job that long before. I found I loved being around people, which I missed when I worked alone. Being part of a bigger team, and being a small expert, was fun.

Entrepreneurial Start and Risk

I always wanted to start my own business. I was the kind of kid who sold lemonade on the street. I was naturally that way. I always struggled to understand why everyone didn’t want to do that. However, you realize everyone’s different.

I know entrepreneurs are a certain type of person. I think they over-index in being manic or hypomanic. Crucially, you also have to be naive. If you truly thought about building the entire business, you wouldn’t even start it. You have to be incredibly green and actually naive. I think that has been a good trait of mine! I don’t think through the full consequences of starting things; I just start.

Learning From Failures

It took ages to recover from my music industry failure. The band fell apart, and I lost a lot of money. I should have gotten straight back on the horse quicker, both financially and mentally. That failure sticks out as a learning experience. I initially assumed everything I touched would work out. Turns out, life is hard! I look back now and recognize I have learned to pick myself up quickly.

📈 The Road to GivePanel and Facebook Focus

Identifying the Need for Software

I moved into productized consulting. I taught organizations how to raise money through Facebook ads. However, as a consultant, I could only help a few people at a time. I thought: “How do I help $\mathbf{100-200}$ charities in a year with this?” Therefore, we created an accelerator program. This helped charities raise money on Facebook with ads. We stopped doing slow digital strategy projects, which, to be honest, were boring me. I wanted to get results for charities.

We raised money with clients on the program and had amazing successes. That was really fun. However, there is a lifecycle to these things. Productizing consulting was happening elsewhere, but not in our sector. I knew many clients were unhappy with their digital ad agencies. Many struggled with staff upskilling. In essence, GivePanel came out of a need.

But, what we were doing wasn’t ultimately software, and this kept bothering me. I grew up “inside the browser,” so everything to me is a user interface. I knew I was a software product guy at heart, more than a fundraiser. Therefore, I was always looking for that next online software product.

Focusing on Facebook Fundraising

I saw clients struggle with Facebook. They were fine with the fundraising revenue. However, they couldn’t engage their fundraisers or manage the data. We started helping them manually with spreadsheets. But, I knew there had to be a better way. I had a few too many coffees one day and realized: “This is it! There’s an idea here. We’ve got to build this platform.”

So, I hired a developer. We started building an MVP (minimum viable product). We wanted to see if there was a product-market fit. Ultimately, the tool solved their pain points with Facebook fundraising. From that one developer, we now have $\mathbf{15}$ staff and $\mathbf{220-230}$ clients in $\mathbf{10+}$ countries. All this happened in just two years. The timing was perfect; it’s been like holding onto a rocket ship during COVID.

The donation volume going through Facebook is incredibly high now. It was around $\mathbf{\$5}$ billion last year. This represents a significant $70\%$ growth over previous years. For perspective, JustGiving has raised $\mathbf{\$4.5}$ billion since it started in 2000. That’s how insane this moment is.

💰 Investment and Strategy

COVID’s Impact and The Dichotomy

It has been amazing to see our clients adopt our strategies and platform. I don’t take all the credit; amazing people came up with these ideas. However, the sector faces a dichotomy. We have clients hiring people because of digital growth. Conversely, other charities not investing in digital are laying everyone off.

We have an Academy where clients present their results. In 2020, one client forecasted an £860,000 loss. But because of our impact and the Facebook events they ran, they made £2.7 million. That is a huge turnaround. Less than three years ago, they raised under $\text{£1}$ million annually. Now they raise $\text{£3}$ million a year through Facebook.

The Reluctance to Invest

A sticking point is the overriding reluctance to invest in fundraising. You must understand the principle of “speculate to accumulate.” Doing great fundraising requires a great investment strategy. Fundraising events are predicated on spending money. For instance, you must spend on Facebook ads and buy t-shirts. Therefore, you need a board willing to provide that budget. It’s shocking how many organizations I meet where this isn’t the case. They lack the budget, especially during COVID. This becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Cutting budgets now is the worst decision. You need to invest more in fundraising during these times.

Many charities were too cautious with Facebook fundraising when the pandemic hit. I initially questioned GivePanel’s future. It took me a few weeks to decide we would invest heavily. If you take six to twelve months to decide, you lose your team and your budgets. Consequently, you end up raising less.

If you adopt new strategies and pivot into the trend, you see huge success. People at home want to raise money. They will fundraise by doing press-ups or squats because they can’t go to the gym. You hack into the current global situation and create a great fundraiser out of it. You can raise a huge amount of money. Our clients raised massive amounts of money while other charities struggled. Overall, this is largely due to a general approach to investment and risk.

The Need For Different Digital Fundraising Models

We don’t talk enough about how different models work for different organizations. The events model works brilliantly for health and medical organizations, like cancer charities and animal charities. However, it doesn’t work as well for International Development charities. Conversely, emergency fundraising works brilliantly for international organizations when crises happen.

Digital isn’t always the best fit for your organization. Some organizations just can’t get it to work. That’s the reality. You wouldn’t open an e-commerce shop for everything. Ultimately, digital fundraising won’t be for everyone.

🤝 Alignment, Team, and Focus

Aligning with Facebook

GivePanel’s biggest strength, and biggest weakness, is Facebook. The strength comes from being tightly connected to an incredibly scalable platform. Facebook is the embedded fundraising system I always dreamed of. It gives us access to a huge community and provides a peer-to-peer environment. Crucially, users don’t have to leave the platform to donate.

Users connect naturally with friends and family there. These are the perfect people to become donors. Then, the inbuilt advertising platform allows us to reach everyone and guide them to this experience. This tool is amazing, and we have a healthy partnership with Meta. Consequently, we align ourselves with a partner that has onboarded well over a million non-profits.

The negative side? We are a derivative of Facebook. We don’t control what they release, and changes can affect us. However, we work to help them. While Meta focuses on keeping users engaged for its advertising model, we are obsessed with caring for non-profits every day. Facebook builds the core charity tools, but we go the extra mile and build additional specialized tools. For the long term, we won’t be exclusively a Facebook platform.

Charities will always have needs that Meta won’t get to. I realized we should be influencing Facebook to build better tools for charities. We want more charities to adopt Facebook because the fundraising tools raise more money. Anything that raises more money is a good thing.

If GivePanel had to close because Facebook copied us, that would still be massive social capital. I define my success by impact, not money. I would go to bed happy knowing I influenced things positively.

The Team Behind GivePanel

We are growing quickly. We welcome new people at every team meeting. We have $\mathbf{13}$ full-time employees and $\mathbf{13}$ freelancers. Naturally, you can’t hire everyone in one day. However, we are growing fast, about $\text{20-30}$ people in total.

How would they describe Nick Burne the leader? Informal. Not very corporate. Probably creative. I think our staff find GivePanel a rewarding place to work. They see charities achieve incredible success. Our morale is very high. We were a remote company before Lockdown. I look forward to meeting up with the team. We have an amazing group of people.

Challenges and Focus

We haven’t had too many challenges. The sheer volume of work is the main challenge. It involves stewarding the platform and building it one day at a time. We focus on keeping up with demand.

I tell charities that the rudest word in our sector is the F-word: Focus. I have the ability now to have extreme focus, which surprised me. What GivePanel enables me to do is generate lots of ideas for the platform. We have an exciting roadmap. Our clients tell us what they need next, and we build those things. This project could keep me busy for a long time. Every day is interesting. I find that in software, you don’t have to come up with a completely new idea; the problem is always changing.

We do releases every few weeks. We are very good at getting new stuff out, which our charities love. That keeps me busy. I have learned that when you get mature, you learn how to focus. Furthermore, it’s hard to focus when things aren’t going well. You start escaping into other things. But at the moment, everything is going well.

🔮 Future and Legacy

Advice to Anyone with an Idea

Ideas are like buses; they come every five minutes. Execution, not the idea, is everything. If you don’t act on an idea, it’s useless. You must act as fast as possible. What I do is try to kill the idea first and see if it comes back. Try to forget it. Only when $\text{10}$ clients start asking for it do we keep thinking about it. Then, I might wake up thinking, “Yes, that’s the idea!” Ideas must survive. Once an idea survives, act upon it, test it, and get it out quickly.

I see so many people procrastinate. They create a business card or website first. You can start a business without a website. You can start a business without a business card. You just need to start talking to customers to see if they want it. We call that product-market fit.

My dad said, “Ideas without actions are dreams.” He instilled that idea in me. Can you execute your idea? Can you find something where you turn that idea into a product people want to buy? That’s when you have something valuable. You can’t do that unless you put a product in front of someone. It could just be a piece of paper or a conversation. Find $\text{10}$ friends who might want the product. Just ask them! Have that first conversation with a potential customer as quickly as possible. Be skeptical about your idea; try to think it’s bad, because everyone else will. At GivePanel, we started by putting a landing page together with a waitlist. We sent it out to people we knew. We got $\text{300}$ people after the first day. We did that all in one day, with no finished product.

The Future of GivePanel

Fundraising is being aggregated. Facebook aggregated fundraising because that’s what their platform does. This creates a major problem for charities. You used to own your own experience and data, but now you’ve been aggregated. You must survive. Take this aggregation as a reality. You have to adapt to a whole new model.

We are moving toward a world of third-party social platforms. This gives charities less control. We see ourselves helping non-profits navigate this new world. We help them survive and thrive across aggregated third-party platforms—TikTok, Facebook, Amazon. Whoever it might be, we want to be the interface between the platforms and the charities with our panel. That is our positioning.

Plans for Next Year and Leadership

I have reduced the text to less than $\mathbf{300}$ words, focusing on clarity, sentence variety, and the two main themes: Product Development and Company Growth.

🚀 The Future of GivePanel: Product, People, and Scale

Focus on Product and Velocity

We always aim to be a product-led company. Our number one objective is delivering the best product for our clients. We have invested heavily, but we still see ways to make the product better. Our customers constantly help feed into that development.

We want to help as many organizations as possible raise more money. The next year is about executing on our existing work. Furthermore, we are increasing the velocity of how quickly we help charities. These are super exciting times! Instagram is incredibly interesting for us; Instagram fundraisers are definitely on the cards and we expect them to be a big thing.

Building the Company and Culture

You must build two products when starting a company: the product itself, and then the product that builds the product—that is the company. When you start, it’s just the founder and the developer. My focus now is building the company: building the ethos, the culture, looking after our staff, and hiring more people.

A CEO at this stage is essentially a full-time recruiter or $\text{HR}$ executive. This is new for me. I’m not naturally a $\text{CEO}$-manager type; I’m more of a creative person. It requires a different set of skills, and I will be learning.

We might have to hire someone better at management than me. However, that’s fine! I don’t need to cling to the CEO title. The question is whether I can successfully run a $\text{40}$ or $\text{50}$ person company. That requires a challenging, different set of skills. I am open to how that works out, but an exciting road lies ahead.

Legacy and Inspiration

I certainly don’t see my legacy as fundraising and charity. I’ve helped charities raise a lot of money over the years. I don’t even measure the total amount. For example, I tried to work it out once for our website; it came out to over a billion. I’ve been doing this for a long time. We’ve had amazing appeals, like working for UNICEF across $\text{60}$ countries. I’m not solely responsible for all of that, but I was involved.

My legacy is much more personal. I never knew what I wanted to do with my life. I didn’t choose to work in the charity sector. I just needed the job, and then I stayed. So, I have no grand career legacy in mind. Instead, I define my legacy by: Am I a good dad? Am I generous with strangers and the people around me? What do I do when no one else is looking? Who am I really behind closed doors?

I have no grand plan for leading the sector. I am okay with who I am when alone. I know my heart is in the right place. I am very passionate about giving. There is a lot of bad press about billionaires, but I also see healthy giving. I see entrepreneurs trying to change the world. I would like to be known as generous. I think that is a healthy goal.

Sources of Support and Inspiration

I chat with my wife and go out for a walk on tough days. However, I’m not great at consulting others about problems. I’ve been considering how to have more mentors in my life. I believe that would really help me. I have a couple of mentors, but I need a deeper relationship. Perhaps this has uncovered a weakness I need to address.

My wife is a constant inspiration. She is so generous. For example, during the Lockdown, she got the community together. They planted daffodils in our local park. The park was once dingy, but not anymore. The daffodils bloom every spring. She organized the whole thing and bought the bulbs. That was a message of hope. She does that kind of thing all the time. She keeps me on the straight and narrow.

Our customers inspire me, too. Their honest, hard work to raise money is amazing. Remember the story where our customer turned an $\text{£860,000}$ loss into a $\text{£2.7}$ million profit? That required incredibly hard work. Our customers inspire us the most!