Eddie Energy: 5 lessons for the charity sector from Eddie the Eagle

Eddie didn’t set out to become a ski jumper.

He was a plasterer from Gloucestershire who loved snow sports, originally trying his hand at alpine ski racing! When that didn't work out, he searched for another way ... and discovered what he described as "a gap in the market" - Great Britain didn’t have a ski jumper.

So he became one.

Unlike his peers, he trained using borrowed gear, slept in odd places, and funded the whole pursuit through sheer persistence and passion. In other words, the opposite of the perfectly resourced Olympic programme.

And yet, somehow he did it.

"I had no money, no training facilities, no snow, no trainer, but I still managed to ski jump for my country - and getting there was my gold medal."

This challenge is relatable to those working in charities, where ambition and passion are huge, but resources are sometimes lacking - I get it, I've worked for charities myself!

You rarely start with perfect conditions. More often you start with belief, a laptop, and a fundraising target that is as terrifying as the view from a 90-metre high platform. But as Eddie proved, sometimes the most unlikely path is the one worth travelling.

One of the things that makes Eddie’s story so compelling is that the outcome was never really the point.

He wasn’t going to win gold. He knew it. The commentators knew it. The entire Olympic field he was competing against definitely knew it.

But he jumped anyway. Quite literally!

That kind of courage sits, perhaps surprisingly, at the heart of good fundraising and charity leadership. Launching a new appeal doesn’t come with guarantees. Applying for a major grant doesn’t mean success. A new campaign idea might soar, or it might land with a thud.

The same is true when charities experiment with digital for example, progress rarely happens in a straight line. The Charity Digital Skills Report shows a sector exploring new tools and approaches while often facing constraints around funding, strategy and skills. In many cases, organisations are learning as they go, rather than following a perfectly mapped roadmap.

Which brings us back to Eddie, who said:

“If you’ve got ambition, then go for it. You know, unless you try, you’ll never know.”

And perhaps that’s the real lesson: progress rarely comes from certainty, but from trying.

If Eddie’s Olympic journey had a theme, it would probably be persistence.

He fell. He struggled. His glasses famously fogged up mid-jump. The distances weren’t exactly world record-breaking - sorry, Eddie - but no amount of falling was going to keep him down. He famously said:

"Where is it written that the Olympics are only for winners?”

In the charity world, persistence is not a nice-to-have, it’s usually part of the day-to-day.

Fundraising appeals take months to prepare. Grants you spend hours applying for are rejected. Events get rained on. Campaigns sometimes miss their targets. Digital experiments can flop despite weeks of effort.

Yet the mission continues. Because what you do every day really matters, and what separates thriving organisations is often the willingness to learn from setbacks, rather than retreat from them.

Every campaign teaches something. Every supporter interaction or donation adds insight. Every experiment refines the next attempt.

Another striking part of Eddie’s story is how resourceful he had to be.

Elite sports programmes usually involve cutting-edge facilities and substantial funding. Eddie had… rather less of that.

"I was exemplifying the Olympian who took up a challenge as a sportsman, without a trainer, in a country without mountains and without snow. And, inside of two years, I was representing my country."

He certainly found ways around barriers that would have stopped many others. In many ways, charities operate in a similar landscape to this. Your budgets are finite, teams can be small, and expectations from supporters are quite rightly high.

Yet, Eddie's story shows that constraint can have an unexpected upside ...

When resources are limited, thinking outside-the-box often follows. Charities begin to explore new approaches, experiment with digital fundraising, test different supporter journeys, explore new income streams and improve the internal systems that free up time and insight.

I saw this first-hand when I worked at Kicks Count. During COVID, just as awareness needed to grow, many of the usual fundraising opportunities disappeared. So, like many others, we repurposed what we already had, turning existing content, supporter networks and digital channels into new ways to keep the message moving.

As a quick side note - technology can help here too. Tools like Access Raise make it easier for teams to run campaigns, connect with supporters and turn that creativity into real fundraising momentum.

What technology can never replace though, is determination. But, it can help determination travel further.

One thing became very clear listening to Eddie speak that day: people remember stories.

He didn’t deliver a lecture or a list of life lessons, he simply told the story of what's happened in his life. The attempts, the setbacks, the moments that felt slightly ridiculous and embarrassing, and the small victories that kept him going. The room moved with it, laughing in one moment and listening quietly the next.

That’s the power of a well-told story - it draws people in.

Charities understand this instinctively, but it can be easy to lose sight of when you’re deep in campaign plans, reporting metrics or updating your website. Evidence and statistics absolutely matter, but what often stays with people is the human story behind the work.

Eddie’s story resonated not because it was perfect, but because it was honest, human and full of relatable moments.

The same principle applies in the charity sector. When charities share the real journeys behind their work, supporters can see the impact, understand the challenge and feel part of the progress. Storytelling isn’t just a communication tool - it’s one of the most powerful ways to help people understand why the work matters at all.

What people remember about Eddie isn’t where he finished. It’s the pure grit, the humour and the unmoveable spirit it took to get there at all.

That same spirit runs quietly through the charity sector every day.

The sector is full of people fuelled by passion and an aim to inspire people and change their lives. Like Eddie, progress also rarely comes from a single big leap, but a series of brave attempts, fuelled by belief in the cause and a willingness to keep going.

And perhaps that’s the real lesson of Eddie energy: sometimes the most powerful thing you can do is simply take the jump. As Eddie himself has said:

“You don’t have to be the best in the world. You just have to try your best.”