Action for Children launches multimillion pound fundraising appeal on child neglect
Howard Lake | 13 October 2009 | News
Children’s charity Action for Children is launching a major fundraising appeal today (Tuesday, October 13th) to raise £17 million over the next three years to tackle child neglect. Money raised will fund targeted programmes to support vulnerable families and tackle specific areas of neglect, train and advise frontline staff and support active campaign work to ensure that children’s voices are heard and their wellbeing protected.
Neglect is the persistent failure to meet a child’s basic needs, likely to result in the serious impairment of the child’s health or development. Studies suggest that up to 10% of children are neglected (1), and it is the biggest reason for a child to need protection, ahead of both physical and sexual abuse (2). Yet despite being a major issue, child neglect is an overlooked area of child protection in the UK and the charity fears that neglected children will continue to slip through the net with potentially devastating consequences.
Action for Children is executing a three year programme of fundraising activities across the UK, integrated with marketing and PR tactics, to raise awareness and understanding of neglect (3) and fund vital support to tackle the issue, in a bid to galvanise the public’s support for the appeal.
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Celebrity TV presenter Davina McCall launched the appeal with a primetime, 3-minute advert that appeared during Channel 4 News last night, talking about child neglect and calling on the public to support the charity’s appeal by making a donation. Press adverts were used to trail the advert, and will continue to be used throughout the campaign. Davina, who will continue to appear in both brand and DRTV adverts, is joined in her support by a host of other celebrities who are supporting media activity, including Timothy Spall, David Morrissey, Jessica Hynes and Shameless star David Threfall.
Derek Humphries, DTV Director and writer of the adverts explained, ‘It was clear from the outset that this appeal demands much more than any standard fundraising approach. It’s a once-in-a-generation campaign. It’s about making the nation sit up, take notice, and take action for neglected children.”
The charity is striving to achieve its goal of raising £17 million to help neglected children through a variety of fundraising tactics including: street prospecting and cold-telemarketing to recruit new supporters, and direct mail to prospective donors that will include a survey and ‘pound pack’, calling on people to return a £1 donation.
The charity is also embarking on a media partnership with eight local radio stations in the North of England and Scotland that are part of the Bauer network (4). Stations will be engaging listeners on the issue of neglect through locally tailored editorial and online content, in order to raise over £500K in support of the appeal.
This is complemented by a high value fundraising strategy and also a programme of local fundraising through a calendar of charity events across the country. Supporters can also create bespoke marketing materials in support of events they are organising themselves through a unique ‘web to print’ system that will create and deliver a range of Action for Children branded materials.
James Briggs, Co-Founder of Open Fundraising said, “Open has relished the challenge of working with Action for Children to plan and integrate a fundraising campaign across so many channels – drawing together TV, press, radio, mail, street, phone, web and email in a way that integrates them effectively but is also completely robust in terms of tracking ROI and net income by source. Building that budget and getting all the fulfilment ready across channels was a huge undertaking for us and we can’t wait to see the results.”
Polly Neate, Action for Children’s Executive Director of External Relations and Communications says, “Neglect is a growing problem even though we understand the causes – we must work across society to fix it. This appeal is a first for the charity on so many levels. We have never used such a range and combination of fundraising, marketing, campaigning, PR and advertising tools in support of one campaign. We’re delighted at the synergy of messaging that we’re achieving through integrated fundraising and awareness-raising activity.”
Money raised through the charity’s appeal will go towards vital support services to help children and families that are struggling. The charity is calling on the public to take their action for children by visiting www.actionforchildren.org.uk
Notes to Editors
1. The study that this statistic is taken from is Gilbert, R, Spatz, Widom, C, Browne, K, Fergusson, D, Webb, E, Janson, S (2008 – 2009) Burden and consequences of child maltreatment in high-income countries, The Lancet, Child Maltreatment Series, articles 1-3
2. In the UK, almost half (48%) of children are identified as being at risk of harm because of neglect. This is calculated as a national average of the percentage of all cases subject to a child protection plan in England or the child protection register in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland that have been classified as neglect http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/rsgateway/DB/SFR/s000873/index.shtml,
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2009/09/28115405/0
http://www.dhsspsni.gov.uk/children_order_tables_2007-08_final.pdf http://www.dataunitwales.gov.uk/Documents/Publications/lgd01117_cpr_bulletin_2008_v2_eng.pdf
3. Neglect is the persistent failure to meet a child’s basic needs, likely to result in the serious impairment of the child’s health or development. It can be harder to recognise than other forms of child abuse because it is often a symptom of other long-term and complex problems in a family rather than an easily recognisable one off event. Neglect comes in many guises. The easiest way to spot the signs is if you see things on a regular basis over a period of time, it could be a child who frequently goes hungry, regularly going to school in dirty clothes, not being taken to the doctors when ill, frequently left unsupervised and living in a dirty home.
4. The eight radio stations from the Bauer network participating in the partnership are: Key 103, Radio City 96.7, 96.3 Radio Aire, Hallam FM, Metro Radio, Forth One, North Sound and Moray Firth Radio.
5. Action for Children is one of the UK’s largest children’s charities working with over 156,000 children, young people and their families at around 420 projects across the UK.
6. Previously known as NCH, Action for Children is committed to helping the most vulnerable children and young people break through injustice, deprivation and inequality so they can achieve their full potential. For further information visit www.actionforchildren.org.uk
7. DTV use the power of sound and vision to move people to action: to give money, campaign, buy products, become brand advocates. They combine the hard-nosed metrics of direct marketing with the fluid possibilities of so many new routes to market. DRTV is a speciality; delivered worldwide, with heavyweight solutions and lightweight cost, and without the usual agency hierarchies and ego. To find out more visit www.dtvgroup.co.uk
8. Open Fundraising is a specialist agency that works with charities to secure the people, the money and the influence they need to make a difference. Established in September 2008, it now employs nine staff and supplies consultancy, planning, analysis and creative services to twelve UK charities – including Action for Children, the British Heart Foundation, CRUK, Oxfam and WWF. For further information visit www.openfundraising.com
9. The integrated nature if of the appeal has been led by Darnell Consulting, a specialist Fundraising and Marketing Consultancy. For further information visit www.darnellconsulting.com
Victoria Shillito
Media Relations Officer
Action for Children
85 Highbury Park
London
N5 1UD
Direct line: 020 7704 7009
Switchboard: 020 7704 7000
Fax: 020 7704 7117
Email:
me*******@ac***************.uk
Web: www.actionforchildren.org.uk
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.