Five Lessons Fundraisers Can Learn From Clarkson’s Farm

I have always wanted a farm, mostly a hobby farm, but I wouldn’t be opposed to any farm. So, this past Christmas break, I decided to binge-watch some TV. I came across Clarkson’s Farm, with Jeremy Clarkson, a motoring journalist I didn’t know much about before watching the series on Prime. Clarkson’s Farm is a 1000-acre farm located in the Cotswolds, named Diddly Squat.

The main revenue streams for the farm include livestock, crops, and the farm shop. However, in season three, Jeremy explores the non-arable or non-farmable areas of the farm, discovering all sorts of interesting things, including pigs, mushrooms, blackberries, and nettles. I learned that people eat nettles, the plant that stings when touched. They are apparently quite delicious as soup. Who knew? Oh, and the farm shop can only sell items sourced from within a sixteen-mile radius of the farm.

I became engrossed in the antics and challenges of farm life, binge-watching all three seasons back-to-back. While I recognized that it is genuinely funny on multiple levels—and it truly is—and that it has cured me of the desire to have a hobby farm, I also realized there are numerous lessons to be learned from it that are, indeed, applicable to fundraising. 

First of all, Jeremy knows very little about farming. Although he has a vision for what he wants to achieve and the means and drive to achieve it, in his first season, he must learn to work with experts and follow the rules of farming, which proves very challenging for him. 

Lesson Number One: If you are a new board member, executive or fundraiser, you need to learn the lay of the land before you can charge in and be a disrupter. 

Each season, Jeremy tries to maximize profits and brainstorm various interesting plans (out-of-the-box ideas) that, on paper, are designed to either save money on necessary purchases or generate a new revenue stream.  

Ideas like renting goats to clear out a rough area of the farm that could not be mowed rather than clearing the area himself, growing wasabi in a natural spring (wasn’t a great crop and was hard to sell) and growing mushrooms in a pre-existing underground bunker that needed some shoring up first of course (sales did ok but in the end was overrun with them and got mold…death for the shroom crop).  Then he tried to harvest the natural bounty of berries for jam and nettles for soup to sell in the farm shop.  Both are met by regulations and challenges in harvesting that again either went terribly wrong or were not profitable.

As ingenious as they seemed, all these endeavours created much more work with very little return and, in some cases, a loss.

Lesson Number Two: Get rid of what’s not working and ask what it’s costing you—human capital and financial.

In every season, there is, of course, livestock. Season one featured sheep, which were also used to manage his grass fields that, by law, needed to be kept mown. However, sheep require their own mowing, or shearing, as they call it.  Jeremy thinks he can do this himself to save a few bucks. Unfortunately, that goes wildly wrong, and he ends up paying professional shearers and barely breaking even on the sheep. He then hires a shepherdess to manage the sheep.  Jeremy is beginning to learn there are no shortcuts and you need to put in the time to do it right.

The next year, he gets cows and chickens. That goes slightly better once he figures out how to keep the cows in their pastures (and free from contracting Bovine Tuberculosis) and the foxes away from the chickens. The trip to the butcher at the end is rather tough for Jeremy, but he is resigned to selling the meat in the farm store. 

Lesson Number Three: Pick your timing and strategy well – plan. Don’t take on too much and get bogged down in busy work that brings you little return or that can be outsourced at a reasonable rate.  Consider the external and internal factors that can affect your results. Do you have time to manage the process from beginning to end?

In season three, Jeremy falls in love with his Oxford Sandy and Black pigs. I say he falls in love because this is where he faces some of his biggest challenges but won’t let them go. He is determined to succeed and keep the pigs.  He has challenges breeding, and once they are bred and have piglets…the piglets are dying at an alarming rate… this was emotionally overwhelming for both Jeremy and his partner, Lisa. 

But this is where he really dug deep. He didn’t pass this problem off to someone else; instead, he found a solution to the problem of the piglet deaths. 

The pigs are housed in small igloo-style enclosures, and the problem arises when the sow lies down, as they end up lying on top of the piglets and crushing them. He developed a concept for a ring in the enclosure to prevent the mother pig from lying flush against the sidewall, thereby giving the piglets space to sleep next to her without the risk of being crushed. This idea was truly ingenious and ultimately received a patent and saw widespread use.

Lesson Number Four: Be better at what you love – if you love your pig and want to farm pigs, find your pig ring to ensure efficiency and effectiveness.  In fundraising, this is most likely an event, but it could also be a direct response mailing, a newsletter communication or any number of other strategies.  Whatever it is, make sure you are maximizing your returns. 

Sometimes dung happens – in farming, it’s weather, pests, timing, regulations, or lack of resources (sharing tractors/people’s time). The crops on the farm were particularly susceptible to these factors.  And truthfully, most of these types of challenges are, in fact, beyond the farmer’s control.  So, as a farmer and a fundraiser, you must be flexible and able to pivot when unexpected things happen. 

Lesson Number Five: Diversify your revenue streams. A few years ago, we faced COVID-19 and its impact on events; this past year in Canada, it was the postal strike. This situation left many non-profits struggling to meet their revenue goals, particularly the larger organizations with no options to pivot. 

Conclusion

Fortunately for farmers, many of them have farmers insurance to offset some of the losses from a bad season. Non-profits don’t have that sort of safety net to fall back on, so you have to create your own.  Diverse revenue streams are the best way to do that.

Try new things—at least once every few years. Experiment with something new. Don’t be afraid. It’s okay to fail or not do well right out of the gate. If it’s your beloved pig, fix what went wrong… if not… move on. But on the other hand, you might just knock it out of the park and be the next big thing or pig-ring!

Let your goals and priorities guide your strategy, and base your plan on the organizational resources you have available. For example, if you find it difficult to recruit and engage volunteers, events may pose a significant challenge for your organization. However, events also have the potential to attract volunteers, so you might consider hiring someone to manage an event for you. While this might reduce your profit from the event, sometimes letting someone else shear your sheep is better than having no sheep at all. And by sheep, I mean events.

Happy farming (fundraising), everyone!  There is true joy in reaping a generous bounty of crops and donors alike.

PS…I’ve heard season 4 of Clarkson’s Farm will be released in May of 2025, and there is talk of a season 5!!