# Most innovative fundraising campaign

- Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/2011/06/30/most-innovative-fundraising-campaign-795/
- Published: 2011-06-30T12:14:01+01:00
- Author: Howard Lake

For the campaign that shows significant innovation in fundraising.

 

The shortlisted entries in alphabetical order are:

## Advertisement

 

Breakthrough Breast Cancer – Too Many Women

 

Scope – Grangewood Venture Philanthropy Project

 

WaterAid – Dig Toilets, Not Graves

 

**Breakthrough Breast Cancer**

 

Too Many Women is an innovative fundraising campaign because of the simplicity of
its concept and because it has embraced the digital and social networking world 
to capture the imagination of a new generation of fundraisers. It has its own website,
blogs, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube sites and links up directly with JustGiving.
It has maximised personal networks and free online channels to encourage fast and
efficient awareness raising and very effective giving. This campaign was the idea
of two of Breakthrough’s supporters, and this could have posed a significant risk
to Breakthrough because the charity was entirely dependent on them to deliver the
campaign on target and on time. So far it has worked brilliantly and has raised 
a huge amount of funds and awareness for Breakthrough at little cost. It could be
easily replicated by other charities regardless of size or beneficiaries.

 

**Scope**

 

The Grangewood Venture Philanthropy Project was a campaign to raise £1.8m to fund
the transformation of one of Scope’s services for disabled adults. Scope based the
campaign around a new approach to fundraising that could acquire high value donors
not necessarily sympathetic to disability issues. Central to this was an innovative
financial product that was designed to appeal to venture philanthropists and grantmaking
trusts. It combined a relatively small, tax-effective donation with a zero interest
loan from a donor to leverage an additional commercial loan. Robust financial planning
and the scrutiny of the board mitigated risk and gates were built into the development
to ensure the support of trustees and the executive board. The target was reached
three months early and the model is now an established way of fundraising for Scope.

 

**WaterAid**

 

Dig Toilets, not graves saw WaterAid undertake cold recruitment of new donors on
the back of a sanitation message, timed to coincide with the Millennium Development
Goals summit and the generation of campaigning noise to apply pressure on the UK
government to take a lead on the issue. Creative included a remote control replica
faeces chasing the unsuspecting public around the streets of London, achieving over
250,000 views on YouTube. 167 spades sprung from the ground in Trafalgar square 
and the core DRTV ad contrasted jovial UK school children singing ‘The diarrhoea
song’ with a grieving Zambian boy, his own sister a victim of diarrhoea, completing
the rhyme. It showed how difficult issues can be made to work in different but successful
ways.

 

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