Best face-to-face campaign
Howard Lake | 12 June 2007 | Blogs
This award is given for the campaign that demonstrates innovation linked to success with face-to-face fundraising. Judges were looking for applications that showed proof of creativity and development of the technique.
The shortlisted entries (in alphabetical order) are:
The Arcadia Group
The Arcadia Group launched its payroll giving scheme in 1990, but it had only been promoted on a limited localised level and there was no central co-ordinated policy or marketing campaign for the scheme. The company decided to use Workplace Giving UK, a professional fundraising organisation, to carry out a relaunch to its 26,000 workforce in 2,000 locations including head office, stores and concessions within department stores.
The scheme was relaunched in September 2005 with a co-ordinated promotional campaign covering all employees within all locations within the following 18 months and on an ongoing basis. The company set a target to raise £100,000 for UK charities and get five per cent of the workforce involved in the scheme.
By December 2006, the scheme was generating more than £155,000 a year with over eight per cent participation, and the company is now working towards a 10 per cent uptake. The scheme is being included in the series of new benefits guides for employees, the company has produced ‘Thank You For Giving’ ads and featured the scheme in its employee magazine. The company is keen to enhance and improve the scheme in the future.
Mencap
Research revealed that face-to-face would be the best method of communication to recruit younger donors. It is cost-effective and by working with a PFO (DialogueDirect), the charity could ensure a high level of professionalism on the street and on private sites.
Mencap wanted to recruit 12,000 new regular donors on direct debit from street fundraising and a further 2,000 via recruitment on private sites. It aimed to obtain an average gift of £6 a month (£72 a year) with at least 70 per cent gift aid penetration. This campaign was 38 per cent bigger than any previous campaign.
At the end of the campaign it had achieved 10,528 sign-ups on street and 1,402 on private sites, but the average gift achieved was £84.18 on street and £84.81 on private sites. Mencap attributes this to improved and consistent training and tangible shopping list items. A higher level of gift aid was also achieved – 79 per cent on street and 88 per cent on private sites.
Quarriers
Quarriers wanted to recruit 4,000 donors with an average monthly gift of £8; raise awareness of its work with the general public and reduce attrition levels at six months from the previous average of 41 per cent.
This door-to-door campaign was run with Fundraising Initiatives, who had worked with Quarriers on its previous two campaigns. From research with the doorstep team leaders Quarriers changed the look of the leave-behind pack and the doorstep presenter, adding more pictures and using bulleted text. The ask was also increased from £6.50 a month to £8.
Over the six months of the campaign it achieved income of £170,000 (to end January), with projected year-end income of £230,000 – break-even comes in month 14. The average gift size was £8 (97 per cent of donors), Gift Aid uptake was 89 per cent and the attrition rate reduced to 34 per cent.
During the course of the campaign Quarriers also took part in T in the Park with the help of volunteers from the door-to-door team, and ran an SMS competition for the first time, resulting in around 200 new enquirers for events from a younger age group than it had managed to reach by other means.
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.