Blog

Looking back on FintechTalents 2023…

It turns out that nothing says ‘let’s have fun at a banking event’ like basketball. So bringing a basketball challenge to Fintech Talents Festival 2023 in November turned to be a huge success.

Festival goers had the chance to compete against their colleagues and competitors – this time with a basketball arcade game – while raising funds for Kate’s Meal Appeal. Huge thanks to this year’s sponsors FirstWord Media, Bowes-Lyon Partnership – Personalised Matchmaking and Smartnumbers for making this happen, to my wingwoman Stephanie Fletcher and, of course, to the team at Fintech Talents.

Best fundraising team ever

Day one kicked off with the usual filming shenanigans from FF News | Fintech Finance, matchmaking fun with Susie and Hayley from Bowes-Lyon Partnership – Personalised Matchmaking and a nail-biting technical hitch to add to the drama. All in days work at a Comms for Good fundraiser!

Go Lisa…

Day two and the basketball competition hots up. The Enfuce v Marqeta rivalry continues; FF News | Fintech Finance‘s Luke Evans steals Ixa Nembang‘s top spot with a 322 score…for 5 minutes… before she puts him back in his place with 341; Smartnumbers Peter Moorhead‘s day one 30 sec high score of 61 is pipped by Metro Bank (UK)‘s Benjamin Dellal (74) and then an 84 from Mark Golledge. Meanwhile some get a little help from their friends.

No cheating here, nothing to see

Well done everyone – what shall we play next year? So far we’ve had votes for space invaders, Grand Prix racing and laser shooting.

Quick one. I won an award for Comms for Good. AKA: Comms for Good won an award. Thank you Fintech B2B Marketing Community, I’m delighted to be an official Positive Troublemaker Disruptor – it’s been a hair-raising ride but absolutely worth it.

I didn’t know how much winning this award would mean until it actually happened. And it felt extra special knowing how many people in the room on the night were supporters from the start. Especially when the whole idea got off to such a bumpy start.

Ultimately it’s a reminder to fight for what you know is right – even it it means going against the flow, being criticised and bullied by colleagues and leaving the job that inspired the idea.

Comms for Good was founded on the idea that being generous is smart way to grow a business, build a brand and create community. It was born from my experience of community while recovering from cancer and how people will go the extra mile for people or causes they care about.

Some people loved the idea of proactively applying these principles to corporate marketing and comms – and supporting charities along the way. Others thought it was a waste of time, unprofessional, attention-seeking and icky (because I was drawing on a personal cancer story).

This award is for all of them: the supporters and the haters. Thank you. To my supporters for holding me up. And to the haters for teaching me to fight.

During my recent trip to Ghana I was surrounded so many change makers and it was just the inspiration-boost I needed to do more. As I came back to this site and posted photos in the gallery, I scrolled through and remembered past events.

My first Comms for Good idea came to me when I was still working at Temenos, in the role of global head of comms. It was in September 2016 not long after my return to work after cancer treatment and I was vulnerable but inspired to find new ways to build communities.

We spent £2000 on two tables at a charity quiz and offered free spots to people from banks and fintechs we’d not connected with before. We launched the offer as a Twitter campaign, we attracted followers, we filled our tables with new friends, and we had a wonderful giving back to the cancer charity that had supported me. The following is the blog I shared on the Temenos site shortly afterwards. It’s no longer live there, so it’s immortalised here…

May the brand force multiplier be with you

When companies support charities that help their local communities, they are doing more than just giving. They are assisting staff, their families and friends, as well as building their brand and making powerful connections.

It’s amazing what you can do when you join forces with others. I’m still reeling from being part of an evening that involved just over 200 people having fun while raising a phenomenal amount of money to help people with cancer.

The evening in question was Dimbleby Cancer Care‘s World’s Greatest Quiz, made possible thanks to a long list of people and companies who put their hands in their pockets and/or gave up their time to make a difference. If I’d fund-raised alone, I would have been lucky to pick up a few hundred quid. Together, we raised £52,000 in one night.

I was involved on several levels. Financially – I arranged for Temenos to buy tables at the event. Professionally – I invited contacts from the world of communications who I thought would be sympathetic to the charity, but would also get the collaborative, communicative spirit in which the invitations were issued. Intellectually – I believe open collaboration can achieve so much more than working alone and that companies benefit hugely from supporting the community – and I love a quiz night! Emotionally – I’m a beneficiary of Dimbleby Cancer Care (DCC) after being treated for cervical cancer in 2015.

Clearly, the evening was a huge success for DCC, but also for Temenos. Our guests are all involved in communications in some way or other and got to meet and share ideas in a non-commercial setting. They swapped views on social media, web design, the power of the word vs pictures, advertising vs PR vs content – and discussed the latest Strictly Come Dancing line-up (Claudia Winkleman was the host and quizmaster). And importantly, they Tweeted that they were there.

The aim of inviting comms people to evenings such as this is to start building long-lasting relationships based on mutual interest in community action – and the quiz night was the first of many for us.

There’s an important role for companies to play in raising awareness about a subject that can affect both staff and their families. But in this instance, the charitable act also undoubtedly benefits the corporate world – because DCC helps cancer patients, where possible, to get back to work. By supporting it Temenos and the other companies that bought tables or sponsored the evening demonstrated their backing for the local community and their understanding of the issues people face. It’s personal, relevant and very powerful.

Going forward, Temenos – which also runs a full, global charitable-giving programme – will be using these events to connect comms professionals. They are the people with a voice, with access to the channels to share such a message, and have a huge, receptive audience. They have a chance to change comms from its role as a purely corporate function to include individuals, communities – real life. It’s about extending the reach.

My own experience of DCC was profound. The charity, through its services and its active use of social media, showed me how to put my life back together and helped me find a way to live and return to work. My experience is now benefitting not only others (through awareness-raising), but also Temenos – in business speak it’s known as the brand force multiplier.

DCC is beautifully aligned with the values of Temenos – offering collaboration, connection and support on a human and personal level. We often talk about ecosystems as necessary to shore up the survival of industries (in our case banking), but for an ecosystem to be genuinely supportive it must extend beyond the workplace to the individuals involved.

Everyone knows someone who has been touched by cancer – from the chief executive to the graduate trainee – so backing a charity such as DCC makes total business sense. It means we are supporting our staff directly and those of our customers, partners – yes, even our competitors. That’s the true benefit of the connected world.

It’s vital that we drive connections and collaborate like this. It’s my personal vision and the help of Temenos gives it momentum, allowing me to reach further. Together we can achieve so much more than on our own.

Kate’s Meal Appeal, our latest fundraiser, launches at FTT with a bang, raising over £2000 and kicking off a year-long campaign to support charities that tackle food waste and feed our communities.

Kate’s Meal Appeal enjoyed a spectacular launch at the Fintech Talents Festival on the 14th November. It was great to see so many people get involved with the golf challenge and give so generously to the food charities we are supporting. 

Kudos to the Enfuce team whose competitive spirit had them returning to the putting green again and again and again. And the noisiest players award goes to Ben Robinson from Aperture and Adrian Michaels from FirstWord Media – thanks for attracting lots of attention!

The campaign will be running well into next year to ensure we can raise as much as possible to prevent food waste and help people get the food they need.

If you’d like to host an event or fundraiser and have Kate’s Meal Appeal as your charity partner, please get in touch, we’d love to help.

Exploring the ways organisations can put generosity at the heart of doing business

I’ve partnered with Fintech Futures for a couple of years now for their annual Paytech for Good and Fintech for Good award categories, and it’s hard to believe the BankingTechnology Awards 2019 are just around the corner again. It’s such a positive experience to go through the different entries and learn about the programmes different organisations have put in place to support charity and community.

When I read through the entries for these awards, I look for organisations that can demonstrate strategic commitment to tackling social issues and are developing innovative ways to engage employees in supporting the local community. I am also keen to see examples of collaboration with industry peers to deliver maximum, sustainable impact for charitable causes. This might sound like a big ask, and perhaps too much to expect from the average commercially-orientated business in any sector, let alone Financial Services. But really it just requires a simple mindset shift, based on the understanding that we are part of the same connected world, and that by helping others we are actually helping ourselves – and by extension, our businesses too.

The very human values of connection, collaboration, and generosity need not be confined to our home lives, indeed they form part of most organisations’ vision statements. But the idea of weaving these traits into the way we do business can sometimes be approached as an after-thought, a box-ticking exercise. Through Comms for Good, I aim to shine a light on companies that are successfully demonstrating great commitment to these values and inspire others to follow their lead.

Acting ‘for Good’ need not always be about a large-scale CSR initiative, however; extra resources and budget are not always required. Once you get into the mindset, there are many simple ways for an organisation to support charities by weaving generosity into the way they do business. Here are some good examples:

•  Need insight or feedback? You could offer a charity donation incentive to encourage your audience to complete your survey. Document sharing tech company, Pushfor, did this recently

•  Selling event tickets? Offer to donate £x of ticket sales to charity at your next corporate event, or offer a ‘charity plus sponsorship package’ for event sponsors. Or follow FinTech Talents’ lead by offering a charity some free space to exhibit at your event

•  Exhibiting at a conference? Spend your ‘corporate giveaway’ budget on branded charity donation gift cards and put them in your delegate bags in place of the pens and golf balls. The charity-tech company, For Good Causes, can help with this

•  A night out? Entertain your clients or business partners or host your team building night at a charity fundraising event – charities regularly run quiz nights, comedy shows, and dinners in fun settings. It will probably work out cheaper than a restaurant, and be much more worthwhile

•  Promoting a book or whitepaper? Offer to donate proceeds to a good cause. Fintech, Bud, are doing just that with their Open Banking book launch

•  Team training and development – do you offer charity volunteering days? (This idea is my personal favourite). Incentivise your employees to make the most of volunteering days by making them part of their personal development goals. Use this time as an opportunity for staff to develop new skills, for example, by designing a fundraising campaign or event for a charity, or delivering a TED-style talk or blog about their volunteering experience

•  Offer your meeting room or event space to a non-profit that needs it – I recently helped a charity find office space for a team training day, which saved them £££. It’s also worth looking at the Ethical Angel platform for a more formalized approach to matching your resources with charity needs.

The Banking Technology Awards brought a touch of sparkle to December and the second Comms for Good /Fintech Futures collaboration for the year, the FinTechforGood award.

This was the time to shine for a bank or fintech demonstrating outstanding collaboration and going above and beyond CSR-box-ticking in support of charity.

The deserving winner was Deutsche Bank and their CommunIT Hackathon, which saw 800 Deutsche Bank employees working in collaboration with Cure Leukaemia to create a digital app prototype that helps connect and benefit leukaemia patients worldwide.

It’s always wonderful to have the opportunity to honour the organisations that do great things for good causes – congratulations, Deutsche Bank!

I’ve just finished co-hosting a pop-up photography exhibition with mental health research charity, MQ, at the FintechTalents 2018 #fintech community festival.  The photos were the ones you may have seen in tube trains recently as part of the powerful #WeSwear campaign with celebrities demanding we give a **** about mental illness.

This is such a important message and something so relevant to us all that I want to get as many famous #fintech faces to take on this cause and swear to help too.  After all, most fintech-ers I know are pretty noisy, so who better to amplify the message: it’s time to tackle mental illness.

So I am looking for people who will allow Comms of Good and MQ to publish and share their photos in the #WeSwear template to spread the word within the banking sector and raise awareness of the vital work MQ do.

If you’d like to take part in the campaign,  drop me (Kate Bolton) a note at comms4good@gmail.com and I’ll let you know how.

I am so proud that Comms for Good is attending the industry’s first ever Fintech festival, FintechTalents, this week and to be involved in this community of inspiring individuals and organisations determined to make a difference.  VC Innovations, the organisation behind the festival, describes how communities are part of their DNA:

“We don’t build brands, we build communities… formed by dreamers and doers, innovators and creators, problem solvers and solution providers, advisers and deciders.”

I love this vision, it resonates loud and clear with me. It is through these kinds of communities, where individuals and organisations join forces and rally together, that we can drive real change – not just in our industries, not just for customers, but for society as a whole.

For my part, I will be there with wonderful mental health research charity, MQ Mental health, helping them extend their powerful #WeSwear campaign to the fintech world. At a time when the importance of understanding and tackling mental illness is becoming more clear, it is vital that industries and organisations stand up and pledge their support.

Through an exhibition of hauntingly beautiful photos of well-known people swearing to speak out and draw attention to mental health issues, FTT festival-goers will be encouraged to learn more about how they can help – including by adding their own faces to the campaign and spreading the word through their own social channels.

Here’s my face in the #WeSwear template – and over the coming days you will see more familiar #fintech faces join me, as we join forces to make some noise about an issue that impacts us all.

If you or your organisation would like to take part in the #WeSwear campaign by sharing your own image, or if you’d like to discuss other ways to get involved, please get in touch via comms4good@gmail.com.

We’re so excited to be hosting this pop-up photography exhibition together with Starling Bank on behalf of mental health research charity, MQ.

The exhibition is by royal photographer, Matt Holyoak, and features the faces of the charity’s powerful We Swear campaign, which you may have seen on bill boards and in the tube.

Hosted at a private reception at Starling Bank’s offices in the City, guests will have the opportunity to view the incredible photos of the celebrities and MQ supporters who have shared their stories to help us understand why we urgently need more mental health research.

We will also hear from our special guest speakers from the business world their views on why and how we can and should take on mental health issues together.

This will be a wonderful evening of networking with friends from banking, fintech and the wider business community, while learning more and raising awareness of a hugely important issue that touches us all.

You can register here if you’d like to come.