Cut the clutter on off-the-page fundraising
Howard Lake | 27 April 2011 | News
It is time to cut the clutter on fundraising appeals, argues marketing and advertising consultant Andrew Papworth in his latest monthly newsletter. “Off-the–page fundraising is fast becoming a junk yard of logos, codes, reference numbers and other clutter”, he writes in the May issue of ‘Harvest’ newsletter, published next week.
The newsletter highlights the problem facing art directors of the ever-growing number of graphics and textual information made necessary by statutory and voluntary regulatory bodies and the increasing demands of hi-tech communications.
Logos and graphics you are likely to see on fundraising appeals include the Fundraising Standards Board tickbox, the Gift Aid logo, the Direct Debit logo, the Direct Marketing Association logo, and perhaps even a QR code.
“It’s hard to know what can be done to cut down the clutter,” said Papworth “because of the demands of modern payment methods and the need to allay donors’ concerns about bad practice; but graphic designers could certainly help if they designed their logos to take up as little space as possible whilst achieving their objectives.”
The newsletter also features praise for a Water Aid advert that makes a virtue of text giving, a good idea from the Labour Party for personalising mailshots, suggestions for using QR codes more imaginatively, and analysis of two adverts featuring trees that “fail to make their points”.
Andrew Papworth has been a freelance marketing and advertising consultant for many years. He used to run the Charity Monitor on behalf of the RNLI and syndicated its findings to several other major charities. His Harvest newsletter features issues relating to advertising, marketing and communications as they affect charities. It is available free on request either as a hard copy by mail or as a pdf.
www.andrewpapworth.co.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.