She has a knack, she says, of meeting people “where they are at and that doesn’t necessarily mean wanting to be bombarded with data.” She is able to connect with them and can tell someone’s mood by the tone of their hello. There is a whole world of information in the cadences of speech, the sighs, and the background sounds of dinner being made or children crying. “They might just have had surgery and would like to be asked how they are doing,” she says. "They don’t want a script; they want a conversation.”

And Lisa has had many interesting conversations during the nine years she has worked as a Greenpeace fundraiser. Every evening, she talks to people right across the country. “You never know,” she says. “I could be talking to a farmer one minute and a journalist the next or an elderly woman looking after 20 cats.” The thing they have in common is that they all donate to Greenpeace. Perhaps surprisingly and contrary to the stereotypes, they include people who might not be expected to give money to an environmental group: people working on “oil rigs, in nuclear plants and even in the military, where it might be frowned upon to be a supporter of Greenpeace.”

Because they are concerned about the environment, many donors are already very well informed, and Lisa doesn’t want to preach to the converted. On the other hand, if people are interested, she will give them lots of information about the issues and the ongoing efforts of Greenpeace. This means that she has to be extremely well informed herself.

“As fundraisers, we are the vital link between the campaigners and the donors, so we are briefed on the campaigns every day. We are always up to date,” she says. When Greenpeace has had a success, people will often make supportive remarks. They will also comment on what Greenpeace should be doing to have the most effect.

Recently Lisa has noticed a sharp increase in people’s awareness of the environment and about global warming specifically. “When I started talking about climate change, it wasn’t on most people’s radar,” she recalls. “It wasn’t so much that they were unaware, but they just didn’t grasp the urgency,” she says. That changed with the release of Al Gore’s film, An Inconvenient Truth. Now people are asking what they can do and that translates into an increase in donations.

Donations are important – very important - but for Lisa so is the conversation. Phone calls will vary in length from just a few minutes to as long as 20 minutes. Some members are in a position to give while some are not, but either way she always enjoys connecting with Greenpeace supporters. 

It is the conversations that Lisa enjoys most about her job. “What I like best,” she says, “is when I can interact with people in a real way. I learn what is going on across the country and what people are thinking.”

They also confide in her “all the time.” The job of fundraiser, therefore, meshes nicely with Lisa’s studies in psychotherapy. It also pays her to pursue her passion, which is working for social justice, something she has sought for years, whether it was while employed at a community radio station or working on First Nation land claims.

She, like her donors, is also moved by her concern for the planet. “I have been motivated by the vast amount of time I spent in the mountains of British Columbia as a child. Being in nature, I couldn’t help but notice its paradoxical majesty and fragility and that all living things are connected.” She has long been mystified “by people’s disregard for the planet – for what sustains us all.”

But it doesn’t get her down because as she has long learned from being an activist, “There is so much of an effort being made to make the world a better place. I take a lot of encouragement from the strides Greenpeace and others have made. I have seen their power.”