I’m Mr Brightside

For the last eight years I have gotten used to people referring to the ‘dark side’.

Sometimes they mean ‘working for a corporate’. Often they mean ‘working for a supplier to the charity sector’.

Well… after twelve years or so of working for marketing agencies… eight in agencies that only worked with charities… I have joined a charity.

I am now working for the Inspire Foundation. I am the Director of Fundraising and Communications.

I hope you check out our website.

And I hope you try really hard to find the donate button.

But I doubt you will try hard enough… so of course feel free to leave me your details here and I’ll let you know when I’ve had it moved.

And please wish me luck or even ask me questions about what making the switch is like.

Honest challenges and hope

Image courtesy of John Hyatt http://johnhyattillustration.com

The advert above is often applauded as a successful advert. It is said that it generated over 5,000 applications for Shackleton’s adventure.

I learnt today that the advert may actually be a fake. Not just the illustration above which is of course fake (the English spelling of ‘honor’ is honour) but in fact that Shackleton may have placed an advert something more akin to:

“Hands wanted for long voyage in small boat. No pay, no prospects, not much pleasure.”

What the fake and the probable original share is raw honesty. Whilst none of us would suggest that charity marketing is full of lies. We should not neglect to tell our supporters exactly what the situation is. For example, if no breakthroughs have been made, we should explain why. Furthermore if we cannot explain why our service works, then we’re clearly not ready to be trusted with people’s money.

What the fake does offer though is hope. It presents the harsh challenge alongside the possible glorious outcome.

Honest challenges and hope – two more ingredients for successful fundraising communications.

A role for brands

It is the 40th Anniversary of Woodstock this year.

I came across this clever copy on a piece of merchandise being sold to commemorate the event.

Setting aside my amusement at the idea of selling merchandise for Woodstock, I felt that the copy was really well written. But more than that I realized it sums up eloquently the role of a charity brand.

A charity brand should support the accomplishment of the charity’s aims.

This means that it shouldn’t interfere. Nor should it consume too much resource. But I believe that if a brand helps achieve anything positive for the organisation – even a more motivated and effective workforce…. then the brand has helped support the accomplishment of the charity’s goals.

This is hard to measure of course… which is why I believe charity branding exercises get such a bashing… but that doesn’t mean that branding shouldn’t be considered an important part of the mix.

A beautiful example of good charity branding I believe is Macmillan in the UK. The branding work they undertook remained true to the brand values the nurses themselves had already created.

Ever since, they’ve stepped out of the shadows of cancer and received the recognition they deserve.

A lesson from bears

I am attempting to read several books at the same time. I get over excited when I get books for Christmas, try and start them all, and then find myself wrangling over which deserves gets my full attention.

It always gets me thinking about the direct mail letters that charities send out. People like to read… so how do we ensure that they feel compelled to give the letter more of their attention than the cereal packet, paper or blog?

I had only moved maybe twenty feet when she saw me, let out a most electrifying vocalization that I could only call a ‘roar’, and she bolted after me. I can still see her clearing the log in as much detail as if it were yesterday. I began to run for the heavy timber but after a few steps, realized it was futile. The choice was then to get knocked down or lie down myself and play dead.

Do I have your attention?

Using first-hand testimonials is a great way to capture attention. And better still by italicizing it, you draw the reader’s eye to it.

‘Bear Attacks… their causes and avoidance’ by Stephen Herrero grabbed me that way.

Can art help charities?

This piece of art was hung in a gallery in Germany in 2006. Amnesty International reported that over 7,000 visitors saw the sculpture in just two weeks.

The clickrates on amnesty-international.de during the promotion were 16% higher than in the previous months, and they received 50% more applications for memberships right after the promotion.

I think it is a wonderful example of engaging an audience with the benficiaries of Amnesty’s work – something that is really hard to do. (See under “Who am I?” for another example)

But as a fundraiser I can see from the metrics that the strategy was to generate PR rather than generate a direct response.

This art (and many other great pieces) can generate attention and interest in a cause… I am interested in whether it can then be stratgecially partnered with elements that generate the act of giving.

If everyone else is using case studies should you?

Sad fact is that not every charity is using case studies in their fundraising.

But as Christmas approaches it can feel like every charity is keen to tell you about someone who is in need of help.

To be considered ‘different’ and ‘creative’, marketers often rush to find a different way of presenting their organisation from their competitors, but fundraisers take note it is your job to tell stories in order to raise money.

To make your fundraising stick in people’s minds you should ensure that you tell a compelling emotional story about someone that your charity has helped. Better still tell them about someone who needs help.

Professor Paul Slovic released a paper entitled “If I look at the mass I will never act” in which he explored why perfectly good people aren’t moved to help in response to genocide or mass suffering.

In one study he cites that when people were asked to donate to Save the Children to combat hunger in Africa they were presented with three different approaches:

1) help a Seven year old girl called Rokia.
2) help 21 million starving Africans.
3) help Rokia who is one of 21 milltion starving Africans.

The study showed that people gave higher donaton to scenario 1 than 2. And in fact scenario 3 had a signficant impact in reducing donations compared to 1.

People want to help people. So instead of presenting them with statistics like a newspaper, present them with an idnivudal story.

“If I look at the mass I will never act” is something Mother Teresa of all people. She was just being honest. The reason why so many charities use a case study iin their fundraising is because it reflects what your audience think and feel.

Read more of the psychological studies here.