March 2026 Grill Wrap & Photos
- The Marketer
- 6 hours ago
- 3 min read
Bec Stott and Stephen Ellis shared their wealth of experience with an intimate crowd on March 19
This was a very special installment of Grill The Marketer, for a few reasons which I'll elaborate on at the end of this post because I know you just want to get to the meaty bits and the photo gallery.
The March panel guests were Stephen Ellis, Marketing Strategist and Founder of Thirdculture and Bec Stott, General Manager of Philanthropy at Anglicare WA.
The audience grilled them on the differences between the NFP world and the world of commercial marketing, the fine line between telling stories and being exploitative, and the challenge of safeguarding mental wellbeing when faced with the daily reality of your organisation's recipients.
We talked campaign strategy, "poverty porn", and effectiveness - all needing to be underpinned by trust; both with the end user, internal teams, and stakeholders and the essential element of bringing everyone along on the journey.
Bec spoke candidly about the intersection of her current role and that of the marketing team at Anglicare (who attended to support) and how fundraising and marketing are intrinsically linked.
Stephen spoke about some campaigns he'd been involved in with Anglicare and other international NFPs, and how differentiation was important but required trust as there can be resistance to new and bold ideas.
Both described how it can be difficult to tell real stories of the ways funds are used due to the often sensitive nature of the work done on the ground, which is one of the things that, in my opinion, make Anglicare's Choose Your Warrior campaign such a creative way to solicit regular donations.
A diverse crowd asked curious and poignant questions and the panel was expertly wrangled by fill-in MC, Mike Drysdale, who did a stellar job stepping in for Jacqueline Baril at short notice.
Alexandra Cserta took some footage and did some interviews of the attendees, so stay tuned for those on LinkedIn soon.
Tickets are available for the next event on the 28th of May. More to be announced on that shortly.
Oh, I almost forgot to tell you why this one was so special to me.
It's for several reasons, but most notably from your feedback (and the fact that so many of you stayed behind to chat further after the official event had finished) the level of trust and community in the room.
As this event cruises into it's 7th year I was wondering about the attendance numbers for March, which were lower than average (entirely my fault for being late to market) - had the event run it's course? Were we becoming irrelevant? Getting stale?
In retrospect - the smaller crowd held the same space in the room, because the people who came are so incredible, and I feel this environment allowed the panelists to open up even more.
Secondly, everything that went wrong in event planning, did (did someone say last minute MC change??!!). But my crew of helpers pitched in and got it done. And I don't think attendees noticed.
That's so special to me because they are under no obligation to help - but they do, time and time again - because they're amazing.
A bit proud of this community. If you're part of it, thank you. If you're not - you should think about joining us. We're a bit cute.
