# Do you turn your stories into direct fundraising activity?

- Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/2012/09/12/do-you-turn-your-stories-direct-fundraising-activity/
- Published: 2012-09-12T15:25:02+01:00
- Author: Kevin Baughen

We’ve said it and read plenty of times about how a great story can help to ‘sell’
your charity to a supporter or donor. But just having the great story is only half
the job; it’s (obviously) about how we use the story to underpin a fundraising ask
that makes it valuable.

I thought I’d share with you a ‘test’ campaign run by [Make-A-Wish UK](http://www.make-a-wish.org.uk)
which is simple in its approach, didn’t cost very much and, in my opinion at least,
ticks several of the boxes needed to make a ‘story’ really useful for fundraising.

The [charity grants](https://fundraising.co.uk/2016/11/15/google-grants-for-charities/)
wishes (experiences) to children with life-threatening conditions and as such has
plenty of stories featuring the children they’ve helped over the years. The wish
stories include before, during and post-event elements and prove much more powerful
when delivered face to face.

## Advertisement

[⌊Make A Wish child May⌉⌊Make A Wish child May⌉[Therefore, the fundraising team 
decided to test whether they could emulate the positive reactions they generated
when speaking to people face to face via other channels and the “Remember Princess
May” campaign was created.

[Emails were sent to supporters](https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B9saas62S_kZNWQzREp1ZlJ5OXc)
with one including a picture of May (a previous wish child) on the two-year anniversary
of her death. The picture is all about the great experience the wish created for
May and the positive memories it built for her family. But more powerfully, the 
email linked to a [Youtube video of May’s dad](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfkiRwWgGwQ)
who tells more of May’s story, explains how Make-A-Wish helped bring some joy to
not only May’s life but to the whole family.

His story, just like his emotion, is genuine and powerful and it this context which
enables him to honestly and openly ask that viewers donate to the charity to help
more families like his.

The campaign was also featured in the Make-A-Wish supporter [newsletter](http://makeawish.createsend1.com/t/ViewEmail/y/280BF67884B87399/B733E51C8156C422C68C6A341B5D209E),
building on the messages featured in the email and volunteers also received updates
not just on the campaign messages but also on results and to encourage them to support
the campaign wherever possible.

The campaign isn’t perfect (what is?) but there’s lots to learn from their approach:

 * They used a very human story. It features a little girl and her immediate family
   and individual donors can relate to this far more easily than huge scale issues
   or other great big numbers. “Could you give to help this family” is much more
   real to many people than “A million people need your help…” The first is a story
   and the second a statistic.
 * There’s lots of emotion without being trite, flippant or guilting people into
   giving (although some would argue this makes it less powerful as an ask). And
   the emotion that is incorporated is positive – watch the video – is about helping
   bring smiles and creating happy memories.
 * Video, paper-based and email channels were used to reach as wide an audience 
   as possible cost-effectively. But key is that they were planned and appeared 
   to me at least to be integrated rather than random messages.
 * There was an obvious progression to the campaign for volunteers so they could
   get behind it and push the fundraising message – including results and social
   media reach updates.
 * The team analysed other activity and recognised that a different approach was
   worth testing via channels that they hadn’t heavily used in this way.

As we said above, there are things the team could do differently if they decide 
to roll out the approach on a larger scale:

 * More frequent asks throughout. The video contained a powerful message but it 
   didn’t seem to come through with as much clarity elsewhere. The only really prominent
   mechanism was the Remember May [JustGiving page](http://www.justgiving.com/RememberMay)…
 * More specific asks perhaps… specific amounts to deliver particular wishes eg:
   £50 buys XXXX, £25 helps us to YYYY
 * The campaign and link to the video should appear on the charity’s website home
   page, maximising chances for it to be seen.
 * And they could be using their social media channels more effectively and in a
   more coordinated way to really spread the work about May’s story.
 * Send the follow up information to donors as well as volunteers (this may yet 
   be the plan, of course) to show how generous – or not – donors have been in support
   of the charity creating memories like this for other families.

I’ve donated and I hope the ‘test’ succeeds. What do you think about how they shared
this story?

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