How we're responding to the Covid-19 crisis

These are uncertain and worrying times for lots of people and I hope that you and yours are keeping well. The situation with Covid-19 is changing day-to-day and there are a lot of things we simply don’t know and can’t fully plan for.

However we wanted to let you know the steps that we’re currently taking in Ask Direct.

All our decisions are being guided by four priorities.

1. Protecting the health of our staff and their families.
2. Contributing to the public health goal of reducing social contact and increasing social distance.
3. Maintaining the best possible service for our clients.
4. Protecting the financial security of Ask Direct so that we remain a viable, sustainable business.

We are lucky in that the vast majority of our work doesn’t require us to be office based. So with that in mind we are transitioning immediately to remote working for everyone. We don’t envisage that this will have any impact on our ability to successfully manage our clients' projects.

We had already stopped all international business travel and from now on we’ll only be scheduling face-to-face meetings that are absolutely necessary. We’ll use Google Hangouts, Skype or Zoom instead.

We are currently reviewing the situation with all our suppliers to understand their contingency plans and to identify any potential problems in our supply chains.

Obviously there are a lot of unknowns at this stage and things will emerge that will be beyond our control, but our aim is to ensure the least possible disruption to our clients’ campaigns and projects.

We’ll be keeping the situation under constant review and responding to the situation as it develops over the coming weeks.

You may have questions about your own fundraising and how Covid-19 will impact it. 

We've already seen high profile community and events fundraising cancelled or postponed. And there are clearly challenges with face-to-face and door-to-door. 

But when it comes to direct marketing we strongly recommend that you stick to your existing plans, particularly in light of the potential loss of income from other sources. The organisations that cope best with crises like this are the ones that maintain their fundraising budgets (or increase them) and press ahead with what has been shown to work.

In fact, if you've had to cancel events - or make other cuts - you may need to look at doing more direct marketing or digital work. If so, we'd be very happy to help or advise - just get in touch.

I'd also recommend reading these two blogs by Sean Triner and Michael Rosen, which say exactly what we've been advising to our own clients:

Take care and stay safe,

Damian

Damian O'Broin     @damianobroin