Institute of Fundraising National Awards 2009
Howard Lake | 9 June 2009 | Blogs
It’s time again for the shortlisted entries for the Institute of Fundraising National Awards. Another year with really difficult decisions for the judges to make. Here are the first few categories for you to see for yourself the calibre of the shortlisted entries – listed strictly in alphabetical order.
The winners will be announced at the Awards Dinner at the Institute of Fundraising National Convention on Monday 6 July.
Best use of e-media
For the campaign that demonstrates the best use of either one single form of e-media or the successful application of a range of techniques (including innovative and successful use of blogs, websites, email marketing, podcasts, mobile phone technology and DRTV).
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Comic Relief
Sport Relief Incentives Email Campaign
The aim of the campaign was to convince participants in Sport Relief events that raising money is an integral and essential part of the experience and to motivate them to start getting sponsored and raise more money before the end of the campaign. It was aimed at people who had registered for an online fundraising page through sportrelief.com. At set-up people were encouraged to sign up to be contacted, creating a pool of warm leads. E-media was clearly the best way to communicate tailored messages to various segments within that audience.
The campaign achieved 50.6% open rate as against a target of 25.1% and raised £111,839.88. Email was far more immediate than anything that could have been achieved with more traditional media. Print, for example, would only have allowed a one-way communication, but the object was to create a follow up communication within a short time frame. Being able to segment online fundraising data, tracking responses and re-segmenting accordingly was an entirely new and groundbreaking approach and it is now being used for future campaigns and in others such as Red Nose Day.
Crisis
Crisis Christmas Card Challenge
The Challenge asked FTSE 500 companies to donate their Christmas card budget, in return for which they received a personalised Christmas e-card to send clients and featured in a spread in the Financial Times. The campaign aimed revitalise the Christmas Card campaign and to raise £800,000, retain warm donors and attract new ones. As Crisis was asking companies to send an e-card, it felt it was appropriate to use e-media and a microsite to drive the campaign. All offline activity drove companies to the microsite and there were banners on the FT website.
Costs were £70,000 and the campaign raised £651,000, achieving £9.30 on every £1 spent to deliver. This was less than the original target, but an excellent result in such an uncertain economic climate. Seventy four companies took part with 62 per cent of participants from 2007 returning in 2008.
NSPCC
NSPCC monkey banner
Designed to recruit new regular monthly donors using banner advertising this campaign was aimed at predominantly women between the ages of 30-54. The group was family-oriented, slightly more affluent than average and online savvy.
An online video showed a vicious assault on a stuffed monkey, drawing parallels with violence against vulnerable children. No other medium would have allowed such visual impact and the opportunity to deliver such an immediate response. A range of formats was used: leaderboard, mpu, skyscraper and superskycraper, allowing the NSPCC to maximise the media reach of banners to all different sites.
Projected income was £80,871 with ROI of 0.55. Results achieved saw £132,623 raised with an ROI of 0.83. The average gift was 15 per cent over target – £60 rather than £52.
Best Business-Charity Partnership (large charity)
Oxfam/Marks & Spencer
M&S & Oxfam Clothes Exchange
The main objective of the campaign was to increase the amount of good quality clothes donated to Oxfam shops. The partnership was set up so that when a consumer donates an item of M&S clothing to any of Oxfam’s shops in the UK or Ireland, they receive a £5/7Euro voucher redeemable at M&S against a £35/50Euro spend on clothing, home or beauty products. The two organisations developed a joint PR and marketing plan to explain the scheme and had the support of two M&S celebrities: Laura Bailey and Mylene Klass.
The scheme raised over £1.8m for Oxfam in its first year and donations of M&S clothes more than doubled, giving Oxfam more high quality clothes to sell. M&S reduced the amount of its clothes going to landfill by nearly 1,400 tonnes. It also engaged its customers on how to reduce the impact they have on the environment. The amount of vouchers redeemed was very high.
Oxfam has monitored how many M&S clothes were received before and during the campaign, also how many vouchers have been handed out and M&S has monitored how many have been redeemed. Because the campaign has been so successful, what started as a six-month pilot is continuing for the foreseeable future.
Save the Children and Reckitt Benckiser
SCF and Reckitt Benckiser launched the Save 100,000 Lives campaign funding health work in Angola and Tanzania with a three-year target of £1m from 2006-2008. The campaign focused on simple live-saving interventions for pregnant women, newborns, babies and children under five including supplying mosquito nets, vaccinations, rehydration salts, illness prevention, promoting exclusive breast-feeding. The cost of the work is around £10 per child. The target was reached by December 2007, and by December 2008 Reckitt Benckiser raised an additional £545,000. Reckitt Benckiser are world leaders in health care and promoted the campaign globally so that worldwide 23,000 staff are now engaged with the partnership. A wide range of staff fundraising has transformed it into SCF’s largest global corporate partnership. Because the campaign has been so successful, the company has committed to a further five years.
Chestnut Tree House children’s hospice/Virgin Atlantic
Chestnut Tree House was nominated as the Virgin Atlantic staff Charity of the Year for 2008 with an initial aim of raising £29,000 to allow Chestnut Tree House to buy a new wheelchair accessible minibus. As the campaign progressed, a further objective to raise funds to employ an additional community care support worker, made possible through Virgin Atlantic’s links with the Variety Club of Great Britain Golf Society. The partnership has resulted in greatly increased understanding of the services provided by Chestnut Tree House among VA’s staff and for the charity, the minibus and additional funds for an extra worker. All funds raised came from activities arranged by the staff and included events such as sponsored swims, runs, charity golf day, auctions and VBay.
Best use of face-to-face
For the campaign that demonstrates innovation linked to success with face-to-face activity at any level.
CLIC Sargent and Gift Fundraising Ltd
The main objective was to continue to raise awareness and support for CLIC Sargent through street fundraising in the South West of England. Uniquely donors were given invitations to encourage them to visit a CLIC Sargent Home from Home, Sam’s House in Bristol so they could see exactly where their money was going.
The target was to recruit 1,500 new supporters with an average gift of £132.50 and Gift Aid sign-up of 80 per cent. In the end the campaign achieved 88 per cent sign up to Gift Aid and an average gift of £137.13.
All fundraisers were given detailed training materials that included the charity’s background and history, a detailed description of their services, case studies, financial information and a detailed list of responses to frequently asked questions. Fundraisers also visited one of CLIC Sargent’s research labs in Bristol and their Home from Home.
Macmillan Cancer Support national door-to-door fundraising launch 2008 (with agency Home)
The main objectives were to integrate the D2D campaign with Macmillan’s brand awareness activity and DM recruitment drive. It also wanted to roll out the D2D programme nationwide and increase the volume of email addresses and telephone numbers obtained to increase development opportunities. The charity wanted to include D2D fundraising to recruit a younger audience.
Macmillan trained fundraisers about its services and also from a Macmillan service user, as well as training from Home Fundraising.
The target was to recruit 7,000 supporters with an average year 1 gift of £96 and 3-payment attrition of 25 per cent. Actual figures saw 7,056 new supporters recruited with an average Year 1 gif of £101.21 and attrition running at 19 per cent.
Shelter two-step door-to-door campaign (agency Tim Lilley Fundraising Consultancy)
Shelter wanted to recruit committed supporters giving at a higher level than existing channels. TLFC fundraisers make at least two house visits. On the first, they introduce the charity and arrange an appointment to come back at a more convenient time. This establishes respect for the potential supporter, who is left with a leaflet explaining Shelter’s work.
Shelter targeted professional people aged 35-64 who own their own homes and have above average incomes. An ROI of 1.5 is anticipated in year 3 for overall F2F activity, and an average gift of at least £80 per annum before Gift Aid with attrition in year 1 to be below 55%.
Latest figures suggest that year 1 attrition has remained below 18 per cent with 97 per cent of new supporters signing up to Gift Aid with an average gift of £134. The partnership allowed us to talk intelligently to a specific audience on their own terms.
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.