Irish charities continue to invest in marketing
Howard Lake | 21 December 2010 | News
An Irish charity has revealed that it will spend €400,000 on its Christmas fundraising campaign with an expectation that it will make a return of three to four times that for the investment.
Allison McNamara of development charity Bothar told the Irish Times that it needed this investment to get its message across.
“We launched our campaign two weeks ago and we are getting a positive response. But donations are not as high as last year. Where people used to give us € 100, now they are giving € 50. We find that for every € 1 we spend on marketing, we get € 3 to € 4 back. We are doing TV again this year but not on as large a scale as last year because it is expensive,” Alison told the Irish Times.
Homelessness charity Dublin Simon raises about € 4 million from the public every year and Lorna Cronnelly says about three-quarters of that comes in the run-up to Christmas. This year, Simon says it is spending between € 90,000 and € 100,000 through agencies Mediaworks, Irish International and Bonfire.
Dublin Simon also says that the recession has caused it to change its strategy and its radio ads will not ask for a specific amount. Last year similar ads asked for €25.
Trocaire indicated in the Irish Times article that it will spend around €500,000 on marketing its Global Gift campaign which last year raised €2.6 million.
Predictions for this year’s Christmas campaigns are mixed with Focus Ireland expecting a further drop in income while Our Lady’s Hospice Harold’s Cross in Dublin is hoping for a return similar to last year.
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.