Gift Aid Consortium boosts Gift Aid conversion
Howard Lake | 1 May 2003 | News
The 2002/03 multi-charity Gift Aid Consortium campaign has reported a 17% increase in response compared to the 2001/02 campaign.
The Consortium involves some of the UK’s leading charities pooling their data and sharing costs to contact their mutual supporters to make a single Gift Aid request that covers all of the charities they support who have contacted them.
It has run every year since Gift Aid was introduced and is one of the few examples of a strategic through-the-line communications campaign in the voluntary sector. Since its formation 30 of the UK’s leading charities have participated in the Gift Aid Consortium, raising them an estimated £3 million in additional revenue.
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Previous campaigns were simple in design: charity supporters were sent a mail pack and non-responders were contacted by telephone four weeks later. This year’s successful campaign was delivered through the use of an integrated mail, inbound telephone, outbound telemarketing and Web based campaign.
This year’s campaign followed research conducted in January 2002 that identified procrastination and a level of misunderstanding about Gift Aid as key reasons for non-response. As a result, the campaign structure was enhanced, making it easier for supporters to respond and simplifying the Gift Aid message. The introduction of these campaign refinements saw the percentage of supporters giving their Gift Aid declaration increase by 24% to 37.5%.
Karl Holweger, Chief Executive, Pell & Bales, said: “At a time when all charities should be looking at ways to increase the Gift Aid penetration of their databases and declarations are proving harder to gain, the Gift Aid Consortium offers a proven, cost effective and unique way for charities to secure more Gift Aid declaration.”
Pell & Bales are the lead agency co-ordinating the project and providing telemarketing services. Database management is being provided by Occam with The Response Team providing mail pack creative, production and Web site development.
The 2001/02 Gift Aid Consortium campaign won the Best Fundraising Award at the 2002 Marketing Direct Intelligence Awards.
If you would like to get involved in this year’s campaign please contact: Paul de Gregorio, Account Director, Pell & Bales on
020 7689 4333 extension 340.
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.