COVID-19: the coronavirus fundraising appeals
Howard Lake | 25 March 2020 | Blogs
Inevitably charities have started to launch fundraising appeals as planned sources of income and giving disappear as ‘social distancing’ and other forms of self-isolation are required of us all.
The following list is simply intended as a collection of some of the first to launch.
Some are emergency appeals to make up for lost income, while others are appeals to support the charity’s work helping those suffering because of the pandemic and its primary and secondary consequences.
🔸Important Announcement🔸Please Read & RT🔸
As a result of the continued impact of COVID-19, we would like to issue the following statement to our community. pic.twitter.com/54wzKeEgy8
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— Bone Cancer Research Trust (@BCRT) March 16, 2020
Child.org
Even new charities, digitally savvy, with social-business-like approaches to income generation can see that their income is under threat. Child.org is one such small charity that has diversified its fundraising income across pub quizzes, walking tours (which the charity runs for thousands of tourists a year), and Charity Concierge fundraising at music festivals. It has also impacted sales of the Charity’s Ride Africa cycle ride (taking place in November).
Ali Wright delivers child.org’s Feminist Walking Tour outside Buckingham Palace. This is one of the charity’s sources of earned income.
Ellie Dawes, Fundraising and Comms Manager said that their forecasts show that the charity could lose out on anywhere between 40-80% of their income this year. She said:
“We’re reaching out urgently to our supporters with this appeal, because we’ve just seen the vast majority of our sustainable income sources vanish overnight. We’re asking for donations but also contacts, ideas, any way in which our extended Child.org family may be able to help.
- SEE ALSO: Funding to tackle COVID-19 and its impact (23 March 2020)
“Child.org has always aimed to raise more of our money from enterprise – that means quizzes, tours for tourists, fundraising at festivals, cycling trips to Africa. We know that the possibility of replacing a fraction of that income by reaching out to our small network of loyal supporters is very low – but we’re exploring every opportunity at the moment and every pound raised will help us mitigate the damage.”
Video appeals
Urgency is often best conveyed in person so, if online, video is the choice, and charities are already using that for their appeals.
So many appeals, especially from small charities
Very quickly the volume of appeals grew so that it was easy to draw up lists of them:
https://twitter.com/_David_Lacey/status/1239805246638919681
This thread is packed with examples of fantastic smaller charities who have changed tack to respond to the crisis and need your help. 👇 https://t.co/bvrKbQlgRq
— Madeleine Sugden 🌎 (@madlinsudn) March 17, 2020
Appeals to government on behalf of the whole sector
The government has moved first to support for-profit businesses and employees. It has been slow in offering financial support on a similar scale to the charity sector, despite urgent lobbying by many charities and sector umbrella bodies including NCVO, Institute of Fundraising and Charity Finance Group.
If charities are to support us through this crisis, we need to support them. They need to be given a fiscal stimulus of unprecedented scope and size, says @RobinAsheem #coronavirusuk https://t.co/Q2cQQlvFss
— The RSA (@theRSAorg) March 24, 2020
Other appeals
Not all appeals are emergency or existential appeals.
If you have staff working from home due to #coronavirus
why not encourage them donate the money they’d spend on petrol to KEMP Hospice so we can continue to support people in the #WyreForest with life limiting illnesses or through bereavement #WorcestershireHour pic.twitter.com/h0TzSLwBOl— KEMP Hospice (@KEMPHospice) March 4, 2020
Appeals from other organisations
The pandemic is causing all kinds of groups and organisations to shut down of course. This includes groups that might not spring to mind such as the local recycling/reusing network Freegle which is shutting down for six months.
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.