When better together is more than just a slogan.

I was down in Australia last month, working with the fabulous DTV team, running lots of creative workshops, spreading the word about IFC 2019 and 2020, and generally doing all of that stuff that feels so privileged that it can be hard to think of it as work. And I was also witnessing first-hand the wonderful spirit of volunteering that pervades so much of Aussie society.

Flying into Sydney, I’d seen the wall of smoke across the horizon to the north. Two nights later I woke at 3am to the smell of ash drifting into the city. Sydney Harbour was at times a haze. It’s one thing to see news reports of bushfires, and another thing to wake in the night smelling them, to have colleagues daily on the brink of evacuation, to have a workshop with Red Cross interrupted with emergency calls, and to know that Nicola, who runs our Sydney office, has a fine husband who is working as a volunteer firefighter. Volunteers fighting fires. Volunteers equipping evacuation shelters. Volunteers running into fires to pluck koalas from the inferno. It’s that kind of place.

RFS volunteers and NSW Fire and Rescue officers fight one of many bushfires.

Sydney CBD shrouded in bushfire smoke (Credit: Stephen Coates).

The sense of community was everywhere. Along with Nicola, and Gavin Coopey from More Strategic, we ran workshops in Sydney and Melbourne to share what we had learned at IFC last year. This is Australia, so for many fundraisers getting the budget to travel to IFC on the other side of the world is a rare opportunity indeed. People shared insights, case studies, knowledge freely for the greater good.

I found myself chatting to Steve Martin from Fred Hollows (an astonishingly iconic Aussie cause in its own right) and he mentioned a great appeal he had seen from Greenpeace that day, about the bushfires. I immediately imagined that Greenpeace would have made the obvious connection between climate change and the bushfires which due to drought and extreme high temperatures have arrived very early this year. I was envisaging the appeal headline along the lines of ‘FFS now will you listen?!’

With Steve’s permission, I’m reproducing the Greenpeace email below.

The Greenpeace email to ask people to donate to the Rural Fire Service.

Would your organisation sign off a fundraising message like that? I have no doubt that it’s a great move from Greenpeace to stand together with other causes when backs are against the wall. In our increasingly interconnected world, let’s remember just how inextricably linked our missions are. We work for our causes, but also for a greater good. Better together.

To help the NSW Rural Fire Service continue this life saving work click here.

Bio

Derek Humphries is a director and creative strategist at DTV Group and helps causes worldwide communicate and fundraise with undiluted inspiration.