More shortlisted entries for the IoF National Awards 2010
Howard Lake | 1 June 2010 | Blogs
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 to acquire, renew or upgrade donors. Applications might demonstrate the use of blogs, websites, viral marketing and podcasts, mobile phone technology and digital TV.
The shortlisted entries are:
Advertisement
Merlin – Haiti Emergency E-Appeal
MS Society of Great Britain and Northern Ireland – SMS, E-newsletters and (interactive fundraising) Website – Project SEW
Oxfam GB – Oxfam Unwrapped Christmas 2009 e-mail campaign
Merlin – Haiti Emergency E-Appeal
The overall target for this was £250,000 to fund the initial stages of Merlin’s response to the Haiti earthquake. The target for efundraising was £38,704 with £3,704 from an emergency email and £80,000 from the website (excluding email donations). Actual income was £13,597 from the email and £116,903 from the website. Emedia was felt to be appropriate because of the speed of response required. Social media use of Twitter and Facebook also mean instant and personal communications, meeting audience needs for information about the earthquake, and getting information about Merlin’s actions out in the public domain. At the peak on Twitter Merlin had a readers’ reach of over 60,000 – more than the number of people on the database. The email was sent within three hours of launching the appeal. Feedback emails were sent to supporters using Vismail so video footage of patients helped in Haiti brought the situation to life and demonstrated the difference donations had made.
MS Society – Project S.E.W.
The MS Society wanted to improve its website, introduce an online sign-up facility, an online sponsorship facility and e-newsletters, make text messaging the primary response mechanism for high value fundraising activity and hit the overall fundraising income target for 2009. The project was managed in two phases and took one year from start to finish. The project was led by an integrated team from across the Society including representatives from the community & events fundraising, marketing, database and web teams. The aim was to increase the number of hits on the fundraising website by 30%, secure 50% of sign-ups online, raise £200k through the sponsorship pages and reach the overall fundraising target for this area of £2.7m in 2009. In the event the number of hits increased by 271% and 74% of all event registrations are now made online. £223k was raised online in the first nine months of the project, saving £11k in charges that would have been incurred if the money had been raised on Justgiving.com.
Oxfam GB – Oxfam Unwrapped
The overall campaign aimed to reposition the offering away from the ‘funusual’ to the impact that charity gifts can have. It needed to drive increased sales with a target to increase revenue to £240,000, retarget existing and lapsed customers to increase repurchase rates and integrate email into the broader online marketing campaign. The email campaign was part of an integrated online marketing campaign that included natural search, paid for search and online banners. Email was highly appropriate because the target audience is internet savvy, it enabled Oxfam to bring the ‘small gift, big difference’ concept to life in a variety of ways and it was a highly cost-effective way of reaching the audience with the frequency needed during the Christmas season. The campaign was highly successful with sales income increasing to £362k and an RoI for the campaign of 11.3. Refinements for 2010 will include developing bundled offers in conjunction with the Oxfam online shop and reducing wastage by using email behavioural ‘flags’ real-time and cutting excess send costs.
Best use of Event Fundraising
For the campaign that demonstrates the best use of event fundraising conducted by any charity, or a branch of a national charity or charities.The successful charity may have used one or a series of events to deliver a successful event fundraising campaign.
The shortlisted entries are: Action for Children, Byte Night
Barnardo’s ,Store Wars
Shelter, Vertical Rush Action for Children
Byte Night
This IT industry sleep out was held in London, Thames Valley, Manchester, Newcastle and Edinburgh. Event participants had to raise a minimum level of sponsorship from £2,500 to £5,000 per team of five to sleep out for one night in October. A bespoke website was set up and dm emails sent to select contacts from Action for Children’s supporter database. Bespoke fundraising materials were produced and £90,000 worth of free print space negotiated in publications such as Computing, CIO and Computer Weekly. 684 sleepers took part against a projected number of 600 with £550,000 raised against a target of £475,000. As well as raising awareness and funds, the event also enabled Action for Children to develop strong lasting relationships with key individuals within the technology sector. It provides a great opportunity for cross-team working at the charity as well as involving a large number of volunteers.
Barnardo’s Store Wars
Store Wars took place in 20 Barnardo’s stores across the UK with 200 employees for PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). It involves teams of up to 10 people taking over a Barnardo’s charity shop for the day and competing against each other to achieve the greatest percentage increase in sales. Teams were also asked to fundraise as much as possible in the two weeks prior to their event. Success was measured by the amount of money raised in total by the PwC teams, the percentage increase in normal sales of the shops achieved by the teams, and feedback from the teams. Projected income was £40,000. In total the teams raised £114,880 and the winning team increased sales by 4060%. The buzz the teams created around the shops meant more people visited them and the increase in footfall continued after the event. Staff motivation was also increased and the event has full buy-in from the fundraising department, regional media managers and the whole retail function.
Shelter Vertical Rush
Vertical Rush 2009 was the UK’s first ever tower running event that saw hundreds of runners racing up 920 steps to the top of Tower 42, the tallest building in the City of London. Shelter aimed to raise £50k with expenditure of £25k (actual income was £164,000 with expenditure of £24,000, giving an overall RoI of 7:1). The event was launched in January 2009 and 600 people recruited to take part. People could either sign up as individuals or as a team of five. The event garnered excellent media coverage on BBC Radio London, Blue Peter and in Metro, Men’s Health, Guardian Online, FT Weekend and Runner’s World magazine. Because of this and the popularity of the event itself, Shelter was able to raise significant awareness not only of the event, but also of the Shelter brand and work. Within Shelter, there was collaboration between design, media, web and data income teams and the event had the support of all senior staff within Shelter. The event will run again in 2010 with 300 more runners and a target income of £250,000.
Best Business-Charity Relationship
For the best relationship between a charity and a business that provides benefit to the charity within the eligibility criteria. Applications can be from charities with over £1m annual income.
The shortlisted entrants are:
Comic Relief – Red Nose Day/TK Maxx t-shirt partnership
Royal British Legion – Here’s to our soldiers with Hovis
St Luke’s (Cheshire) Hospice – Bentley, St Luke’s and the Routemaster Bus
Comic Relief
This campaign aimed to build on TKMaxx’s partnership with Comic Relief and ra
ise the highest donation to date for the campaign of at least £2m through sales of a 100% fair trade certified organic cotton t-shirt, produced in Africa. Stella McCartney was approached to design a range of iconic t-shirts for the campaign. T-shirt sales were tracked on a daily basis and projected success was based on an 80% sell through of the t-shirts. TKMaxx’s target was to raise £2.4m and there was no cost to Comic Relief. TK Maxx actually raised over £3.3m and employee fundraising raised £348,000. As well as raising record amounts, the campaign was also the start of a relationship with Mali farmers who produced the cotton. TK Maxx is continuing to use the fair trade cotton in products actually produced by the company.
Royal British Legion – Here’s to our soldiers, with Hovis
The Hovis brand was targeted to raise £100,000 for the Royal British Legion (TRBL) through selling 2.5m Seed Sensations packs from 15 October to 15 November 2009. Hovis pledged a 4p donation from every pack of Hovis Seed Sensations bread and rolls during this period and all the bread lines carried an eye-catching Poppy imagery and a promotional message encouraging consumers to help raise £100,000 for the Poppy Appeal. The Seed Sensations range is one of Hovis’ premium brands and already had poppy seeds in the recipe. The brightly branded poppy packs helped with additional exposure and helped with shelf stand among other competitive brands. A jointly branded press and TV advertising campaign generated greater awareness. The campaign raised £130,654 with £101,000 coming through the sales of bread and rolls. The additional sum was the result of many internal fundraising initiatives including employees volunteering to become poppy collectors for the day and a dress down day and raffle at Hovis Head Office.
St Luke’s (Cheshire) Hospice – Bentley, St Luke’s and the Routemaster Bus
St Luke’s recognised that corporate sponsorship was going to be difficult to maintain throughout the recession so it launched an In KINDness campaign focusing on working with companies to provide goods and services rather than money. The largest corporate sponsor, Bentley Motors, was on board from day one. The company supplied manpower and materials for the redevelopment of two charity shops and a garden at the hospice. Next St Luke’s needed to address the need for more community outreach. They tracked down a Routemaster bus and bought it. The Bentley directors allowed staff to use down time to renovate the bus and they committed more than 2,000 man hours to the project. This saved £60k on refurbishment and close ties to Bentley led to further opportunities.
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.