Fair Votes Now campaign generates £15,000 online in 5 hours
Howard Lake | 10 May 2010 | News
Campaigning organisation 38 Degrees has raised over £15,000 online in five hours after it asked members and the public to help it pay for full-page adverts in today’s national newspapers to support its Fair Votes Now campaign.
The campaign aims to influence Liberal Democrat party leaders as they choose whether to accept proposals to partner with the Conservatives following the Hung Parliament result of last week’s General Election.
The 38 Degrees team had a very short deadline. They knew yesterday that senior Liberal Democrats would meet today at lunchtime to consider the proposal, with all its implications for the likelihood of introducing a fairer voting system for the UK like proportional representation. The appeal had to succeed in a matter of hours, if they were to meet the deadline for designing and booking ad space in today’s newspapers.
The appeal was straightforward: “We need to concentrate Lib Dem minds and prove how much we care”, 38 Degrees told supporters. “Let’s put big adverts in national newspapers on Monday morning, with a simple message: “Nick Clegg – Don’t sell out on PR. Fair Votes Now!””
The campaign started yesterday morning with an email appeal to its supporters and messages on Facebook and Twitter:
Donate for newspaper ads tomorrow – “Nick Clegg don’t sell out – Fair Votes Now!” http://bit.ly/anCeaj #ukelection
38 Degrees
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It then reported on progress via Twitter:
Advertisement
£500 raised in 5 minutes – “Nick Clegg, don’t sell out – Fair Votes Now!” http://bit.ly/anCeaj #dontdoitnick #ukelection38 Degrees
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£1300 raised in 10 minutes – “Nick Clegg, don’t sell out – Fair Votes Now!” http://bit.ly/anCeaj #dontdoitnick #ukelection38 Degrees
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7k raised so far – 5k more and we’re in the Times full page tomorrow. http://bit.ly/anCeaj #dontdoitnick #ukelection38 Degrees
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before announcing they had hit their target:
Thankyou, we’ve hit our £15K target! It’s too late to buy more print ads for tomorrow morning now, but we can buy online ads in the morning38 Degrees
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The current total on Monday morning stands at £19,211 from 1,229 people.
38degrees have used the money to buy one full-page advert in The Guardian and a quarter page one in The Times.
https://secure.38degrees.org.uk/page/contribute/PR
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.