Partnership signals shift in fundraising strategy
Howard Lake | 19 May 2009 | News
The Irish Heart Foundation has started a partnership with Vodafone in what it describes as a move away from an events fundraising strategy towards more direct work with individuals.
One of the new initiatives with Vodafone is a mobile phone recycling programme. Vodafone is also backing Happy Heart weekend, in which €2 pins are being sold nationwide to generate funds for the IHF. Happy Heart is the IHF’s biggest single fundraiser of the year, and last year, generated donations of €652,000. The IHF needs to raise between €5.5 million and €6 million this year.
Aidan Stacey, fundraising director of the IHF, described the organisation’s Vodafone link as “a major two-year sponsorship” deal. He said these initiatives represented the start of active campaigning. The IHF was limited in the type of brand it could approach for sponsor ship, having decided not to seek backing from the food or drink sector, since its mission is to reduce heart disease.
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“We needed a brand leader that would give us some profile. We wanted to show brands that the IHF is also a substantial brand in its own right, and could handle this kind of connection,” he said.
Vodafone’s participation has already helped the IHF secure significant press coverage of its initiatives and the IHF had experienced a small increase in donations via church collections in the first four months of this year.
“We’re also experiencing a marked increase in the number of people volunteering to help us,” he said.
The other significant impact of the recession had been a falloff in interest by mid-sized donors in glamour, or sport based events, which used to be big revenue drivers, said Stacey.
“The big charities, like ourselves, are going back to the individual.”
www.irishheart.ie
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.