queer ideas

Putting the power of mums to work

Nick Clegg is off to the UN Summit in New York at the end of September and Save The Children want to put some pressure on him to encourage world leaders to refocus their efforts to ensure we achieve the Millennium Development Goals.

Getting help from 100,000 people to nudge him in the right direction through signing a petition is part of their plan and they have decided that some influential UK parenting blogs could be a good recruiting round.

So they have invited three prominent bloggers: Josie from Sleep Is For The Weak, Sian from Mummy Tips and Eva from Nixd Minx to fly out and see what the charity is doing in Bangladesh. All three will obviously be speaking to mothers and children about their lives, hopes and fears and sharing their experiences on their blogs.

And through their blogs, they'll encourage their readers to get involved by signing the petition, donating money and giving unwanted clothes and household goods to their local Save the Children shop.

Some tweeters with huge followings like Neil Gaiman and Stephen Fry have already starting promoting the campaign (known as #blogadesh) and are generating some significant traffic.

But it will really kick off when the bloggers start writing about what they see. When someone you know and trust as a source of advice and inspiration starts talking about poverty, it's going to be more relevant, more motivating and more engaging that just seeing an advertising banner asking for help.

There's been some interesting research in the last few years in neuro-cognitive science that helps explain why this is the case. In short, if we see someone experience an emotion - anger, joy or sadness – the same neurons spark in our brain as if we were experiencing it ourselves.

It's one of the fundamental donor needs. We are driven to be sociable. We need to belong. And it's empathy which is the primary driver behind that need.

Rather than make you trawl through 1,500 words on the latest scientific research that backs up this claim, I've found this great animated video from the RSA where Jeremy Rifkin explains it far more effectively (and entertainingly) than I ever could.

As you'll see, new technology is changing the way we think about our fellow human beings. We are now extending our identities far beyond national and religious boundaries.

As a result, we are able to directly relate to people's suffering on a far more personal level - as mothers for instance – and do something that is becoming increasing clear that we psychologically need to do - offer help.

That's why I think Save The Children's approach is so exciting – it directly taps deep into our psyche and, as a result, I expect the outcome should be very rewarding for everyone who's involved - not just the people being helped in Bangladesh.

For more more details on donor needs take a look at this previous post.

Thanks to @charityclare for the heads up.

Fundraising as fashion

I was out buying a giant map today and saw this display in a nearby clothes shop.

Each bag cost £45 pounds. For each purchase, the World Food Programme receives a donation that will pay for 50 school meals for a child in Haiti.

Apparently young mums have been snapping them up, but I didn't see any actually in use. Though the US website shows that more than half a million FEED bags have now been sold worldwide.

It's an example of a charity moving the sale of the traditional badges, CDs and T-shirts firmly into the fashion world. A virtual gift that's a little more real than most.

Bags aren't the only product that FEED sells. You can also buy jewelry, cosmetics and teddy bears. Every sale helps someone in the developing world. The bears, for example, fund the purchase of PlumpyNut high nutrient paste for malnourished infants.

The concept reminded me of some similar ideas that were around in the mid 80's.

But things seem just a little more sophisticated today. A great example of this is provided by Save The Children who teamed up with Bulgari in 2009 to create a ring that sold for £200.

People give for a whole host of reasons and for those who want to publicise their generosity, it's things like this that are going to get them donating.

Are your donors simply paying spectators?

There's a great video on Social Hallucinations produced by David Gauntlet from Making is Connecting.

David looks at everyday creativity and writes about seeing a cultural shift - from a sit back and be told one to a making and doing one.

So what's this got to do with fundraising?

Quite a lot.

Something that we repeatedly find people mention in our research at Bluefrog is a sense of disappointment with charities. They enter into a relationship with an organisation in the hope that they are going to be an active part of something good. What they receive is a stream of communications talking about what the charity is doing and requests for money.

Disillusioned and unengaged, they soon stop their support (This behaviour is often incorrectly described as lapsing).

But when people can actively do something more than sit back and give, they create cultural capital that benefits them as much as the charities they support.

An example of this is craftivism.

And an example of craftivism is Save the Children's Knit One, Save One campaign. This generated over half a million knitted hats for newborn babies in developing countries. It was also responsible for generating 50,000 messages that were delivered to Gordon Brown encouraging him to do more to help prevent deaths among children.

Save the Children isn't unique. When you think about it, there are a number of examples of this type of engagement already offered by charities.

Child sponsorship provides donors with an opportunity to write (and receive letters). Kiva enables people to help set-up new businesses (and see how they are performing). Care International offers supporters the chance to send advice and good wishes along with educational materials to school children in developing countries.

Organisations that fill the gap between giving cash and full-time volunteering are benefiting from the desire people have to create and connect. It doesn't matter if this is done on-line or off-line, but by giving people the chance to create change rather than simply be paying spectators, we offer them a welcome opportunity to add meaning to their world AND move it in the direction many of us would like.

That's the sort of approach that drives real engagement. It's an idea that I find really exciting. If you've got a few minutes to spare, you should really watch this video.

Show donors what they can do. Not what they can't

When it comes to creating appeals, there is a natural assumption that high numbers generate high levels of income.

If many thousands of people are at risk or in danger, logic would dictate that donors will give more money than if just one person is affected.

And this seems to be the practice that many charities follow. Take a look at any emergency ad and you'll probably see the size of the task featured in the first paragraph – 280,000 people forced from their homes, thousands buried alive and 23 million facing life threatening shortages of food.

These ads, from three great organisations probably raised significant sums. But there is a growing body of research that shows featuring such large numbers serves to suppress response rates, perhaps reducing the effectiveness of these essential fundraising tools.

By presenting unimaginable levels of need we make people feel helpless. Such large numbers don't convey need or increase urgency. They simply serve to remind donors of the people that they can't help.

Combating helplessness is one of the key need states that donors experience. And by helping them tackle it, we can dramatically increase the amount of money we raise.

I learned this lesson back when I worked at ActionAid. We were running a new set of ads to recruit child sponsors. One execution that had performed well in research wasn't working on the page. It featured a photograph of a young Nepalese girl, Kumari, holding her baby sister.

We swapped the photograph to another of Kumari and ran the ad again. This time she was on her own. The response rate immediately hit the expected target.

Same design, same copy, same child.

I wasn't 100% sure if it was featuring just Kumari that had improved the response rate – facial expression had a role to play too. But subsequent tests and research demonstrated the effectiveness of focusing on one person in appeal communications.

Dr. Paul Slovic offers some examples of these studies in a fascinating webinar from The Communications Network.

In it he presents the "Collapse of Compassion" model to describe the reduction in response rates when the number of people in need of help is increased.

One study that he refers to sums this up rather well. Three groups of people were each presented with a different communications asking them to help Save The Children.

• A factual letter full of statistics...

Food shortages in Malawi are effecting more than 3 million children.

• A letter about one girl, Rokia and the impact of the food shortages on her.

• A combined approach featuring both the statistics and Rokia's story.

The factual letter generated an average gift of $1.14, Rokia's letter generated an average gift of $2.38 and the combined approach generated $1.43.

He also describes a Swedish study that found the difference between featuring two children instead of one amounted to a reduction in income of approximately 15%.

There is plenty more to learn by listening to the complete webinar. Not least, you'll hear Paul's advice on what charities can do to improve their appeal results.

And that can be summed up very simply – show donors what they can do – not what they can't.

By focusing on the magnitude of problems we push donors away. By helping them combat their feelings of helplessness we will engage and involve them.

Click here to read more about the complete set of donor need states.

The misdirected power of the brand

Some people think I don't like branding. They are wrong. I love great brands. The trouble is that I don't think many charity brands are very well managed and there are a growing number of pieces of research that serve to confirm my beliefs.

I thought I'd share a few of them after reading the recently published Charity Brand Index which features the UK's top 100 charity brands.

It was compiled using survey data from 3,032 people, who were asked about their awareness of charities and the impression they had of them.

"Respondents were asked about their awareness of 30 charities randomly selected from the list of 150. After highlighting those they were aware of, they were then assigned a maximum of five charities to focus on in the main survey. Respondents were then asked their views on these 150 charities, the metrics subsequently making up the top 100 ranking being: relevance, distinctiveness, familiarity, trust and impression.

‘Consideration to donate’ acted as a proxy for all these measures, which were then all multiplied by prompted awareness to ensure that charities which were loved by a few, but had low awareness, did not achieve a disproportionate rank."

The top ten were:

Macmillan Cancer Support
Cancer Research UK
NSPCC
RSPCA
BBC Children in Need
British Heart Foundation
Comic Relief
Marie Curie Cancer Care
RNLI
British Red Cross

Macmillan, with voluntary income of less than a third of Cancer Research UK, were surprise winners. Their high familiarity score and an extremely positive impression of the brand lifted them clear of the competition.

But what does all this actually mean? What is a brand actually worth?

A study published earlier in the year attempted to estimate the value of American charities. They gave top spot to the YMCA (a charity that doesn't even feature in the UK list) with a worth of almost $6.4 billion. The charity with the best brand image was the American Cancer Society.

A different set of criteria was used to build the US list. They included such factors as size of budget, potential for future growth, volunteer numbers and news coverage in their analysis.

These differences in approaches seem to back up John Murphy's thoughts on brand valuation. John founded global branding consultancy, Interbrand, and has a refreshingly honest opinion on the subject...

"Brand valuation is a 'social science' not a 'physical science'. Valuation opinions will always be just that – opinions."

For me, any assessment of charity brand value has to be based on the additional income it will help generate. The fact that someone knows that a charity exists or answers a specific need is worthless if it doesn't translate to the bottom line. And 'propensity to donate' doesn't quite cut the mustard for me.

It's why reports and studies that inflate the value of brand building activities are so dangerous. Branding is seen by a growing number of people as a universal panacea to a charity's ills and there is precious little evidence to back up their belief.

Branding just doesn't seem to be solving the deep-seated problems the sector faces.

Joshua G2 undertake research into which brands are most loved and hated by the British public and have included charities in their studies. Last year they found that Cancer Research was most loved (followed by Macmillan, RSPCA, NSPCC and PDSA) and Christian Aid was most hated (followed by War on Want,  Oxfam, The Salvation Army and RSPCA). Results for 2007 are here.

But what's interesting is to try and uncover why charities engender these emotions.

Luckily GMI / Mintel did their own study to try and uncover the attitudes underling these emotional reactions (also published in 2008). They assessed charities on a variety of characteristics. These included, trust, social responsibility, pride, innovation, great service, good value, good reputation, distinctive image, consistent high quality and caring for the environment. These were mapped out on radar charts. I've reproduced those for Cancer Research UK and Christian Aid. The darker shape represents the scoring for the charity, the lighter shape is the average for all charities they analysed.

You can see that Cancer Research UK scores very highly on trust and on good reputation. Christian Aid in comparison does very badly on both indices. But what is jaw-droppingly surprising is just how low both charities score on great customer service. But they are not alone – the fact is that every other charity they looked at also scores poorly in this area. Seven other radar charts are posted here (including Friends of The Earth, NSPCC, RSPCA, The Royal British Legion, The British Heart Foundation, Save the Children and Oxfam).

When asked about how engaging these brands were, the results were as shocking. Cancer Research UK was best with 12% of those surveyed describing the brand as engaging. The majority scored in single figures.

And it doesn't take a genius to understand why. Brand guidelines are almost always about the charity. Phrases such as we are brave, we are outraged, we are effective, we are honest and we are just dominate these booklets. And far too often, brand policing is solely about ensuring these sentiments are included in copy. 

What this process does is suppress the focus on generating engagement with donors. A hand typed and signed letter on poor quality stock that talks about what the donor has achieved is rarely going to appear in a set of brand guidelines, but in comparison with a branded corporate style mailing, I know which pack is going to raise most money AND bring the donor closer to the charity. And it is only through reducing the distance between the charity and the donor that we are going to engender real understanding and solidarity.

The days of the self-congratulatory brand are over. We must acknowledge that our brands live solely in the minds of our supporters. Research shows that the majority of people still trust and regard most charities highly. The role of any brand strategy should be to tackle key weaknesses and that includes managing the brand experience as well as influencing brand understanding and values. By doing so, we will take a huge leap forward in managing the ongoing problem of dis-engagement and the accompanying attrition that afflicts so many charities.

My recommendation is we do this by answering the needs of donors. If you haven't seen my posts on donor needs, I'd recommend you look at this.

By engaging and serving those who support us, attrition is being tackled and significant additional funds are being generated – even in times of recession.

Finally, if this has got you thinking, I'd recommend that you read a recent post from Aline Reed on her blog, Bluefrog Creative  where she shares some of her thoughts on brands that generate feelings of love.

The lure of celebrity

After sharing a few thoughts on the impact celebrities can have on appeals on Conor's fundraising blog, I've spent some time thinking about the recently announced NCVO celebrity-laden campaign aimed at encouraging people to donate £2 a month (or possibly volunteer a few hours). You can see Adam Rothwell's (Intelligent Giving) views here and Tania Mason's (Professional Fundraising) views here.

The campaign is likely to revolve around the question, "What do you believe in?" and aims to promote giving via a focus on generic causes.

Louis High, the NCVO's head of communications and campaigns, said it would feature celebrities making statements such as "I believe that all children should grow up free of fear. What do you believe in?" or "I believe in equality for disabled people. What do you believe in?"

Anything that is going to encourage people to give money to charities gets my support, so good luck Louis, more power to you. It seems the Giving Scotland campaign was pretty effective – albeit under very different circumstances –  so this is worth a go.

However, I do have a few concerns...

The £2 (or £3) a month message has been used very heavily on TV, on packs and in inserts for years. 

The thinking behind the approach is that it reduces one of the main barriers to giving – the I can't afford it reflex. As a result, it generates a fairly good response. With careful handling, it's not too difficult to encourage donors to upgrade and give a little more each month.

But, as fundraisers, we know that the good intention that our appeals create, lasts for a flash before being lost in the general hurly burley of people's daily lives. The faster and easier we make it for someone to respond, the better our response rate will be. From pre-paid envelopes in packs, to telephone numbers and text response on TV ads, easy is essential.

Because the fact is, people get distracted very quickly, and though they often mean to give, we need to make it simple for them to do so. It's pretty much the main reason we run reminder appeals – it's sad but people tend to forget about us.

It's likely that a generic £2 a month campaign will act as a prompt to remind people about their good intentions and uplift response rates for charities that already use the £2 a month method – which will bias the effect of the campaign towards the bigger fundraising operations – smaller charities should get ready for this campaign by preparing some work with a £2 a month prompt – but what success we'll see really depends on which celebrities get involved.

Most of my experience in using celebrity endorsement in appeals has been in standard DM, where it can have a profound effect. I was involved in developing a pack for one charity that featured an endorsement from a celebrity that had first hand experience of the organisation's work. This person was a national treasure; trusted and loved by millions. The appeal was a fantastic success which I put down to our brilliant creative work. But a few years later the celebrity decided to concentrate their support on another organisation and was to have their endorsement removed from the pack. Luckily we tested their absence and the results showed that this celebrity was responsible for over half the responses to the appeal (which helped the charity persuade the celeb not to withdraw completely).

I've also been involved in testing endorsements from celebrities against those of donors able to talk with authority about the work of the charity. And in these cases, the donors always won. If I remember correctly the best endorsement was from a rural doctor (from Devon, if you're interested). 

I should also point out that I've seen some appeals dependent on celebrity endorsement absolutely bomb. Just because someone is famous doesn't mean we'll listen or be influenced by them. But how do we know who might be best to include in this campaign?

The NCVO could use the Davie-Brown Index, which offers marketers a systematic approach to quantifying the effect a celebrity might have on an advertising campaign. The index consists of a 1.5 million member consumer research panel that scores celebrities on eight criteria: appeal, notice, trendsetting, influence, trust, endorsement, aspiration and awareness. Getting access to the index isn't cheap, but New York Magazine had a chance to assess a group of New York based celebrities back in 2006. They found Michael J. Fox had the highest overall appeal with a trust rating of 75.9, which compared to Paris Hilton's 36.7. 

And if they wanted to find out what causes Michael (or Paris) is interested in, they could check out www.looktothestars.org which details the charity work of 1,642 celebrities (and counting). They would find that apart from his own foundation that is looking to develop a cure for Parkinson's, he is also supporting causes involved with HIV/AIDS. youth, children, disaster relief, health, homelessness and women.

And then we come to the message. The small amount of information currently available on the NCVO campaign doesn't really excite me. How many of us really want children to grow up in a world of fear or discrimination?  It's a bit of a no brainer and we know that's not always the best way to motivate donors. But Professional Fundraising reports that this was tested regionally over Christmas, so the rollout campaign should be based on a solid foundation. I'll look forward to seeing the final execution.

There's a similar-ish campaign backed by Intel that has recently been launched in the US – The Small Things Challenge  (Similar because it's taking a celebrity based approach and placing emphasis on small gifts. Not similar because income raised is being distributed to just two charities – Kiva and Save the Children).  Intel is pledging to give 5 cents for everyone who visits www.smallthingschallenge.com and clicks a magic button. It's not a new idea, but it's driving people to a place where they can be signed up by the participating charities or get involved in the auction where they can bid for things like laptops and guitars signed by various celebs. This is half the battle. Maybe the NCVO might be considering some similar means to drive traffic to a central site where people can flag up interest so charities  can contact them.

I'll look forward to finding out what exactly the NCVO have in store for us. We are sailing in uncharted waters and though all the evidence is pointing to individual giving staying strong, a little nudge in the right direction shouldn't do us any harm and will hopefully do us some good. I'm sure all charities will be given a heads up on the final theme and dates so they can factor this into their own fundraising campaigns. But won't that mean everyone is out there asking at the same time? Cripes, that'll be overkill. Think of the giving fatigue!

You just can't win can you?

Good luck mates.

Shopping for ideas

I don't often go to the Bexhill-on-Sea Observer for information on fundraising, but when I worked at the YMCA, I spent a great deal of time in my appeals administration department. Debbie Bland, who ran it, had a very keen nose for assessing how well an appeal was doing just by looking at the first few bags of post through the door. She knew in a day or two, what our database would be telling us in a month.

That was why, in the light of everyone's worries about the economy, I was concerned to read a report on a downturn in donations to charity shops. Save the Children's, Anne Pitchforth, has seen a big drop in goods coming in...

People are holding on to their clothes and not buying new ones. I think people are saving their pennies as they are not sure what's happening from week to week; no one knows what's going to happen, or who is going to be out of work.

The story is repeated by staff from the local CRUK and Scope shops. It's only Oxfam who is bucking the trend. And why's that? Oxfam are running a promotion with Marks and Spencers where for every bag of clothes that contains at least one M&S item, the donor gets a £5 voucher to redeem in their local M&S on any purchase over £35. As the Oxfam manager says herself...

The recession isn't helping, but for the past six months we have had the M&S promotion which has generated a lot of interest, and because it's gone so well it has recently been extended.

The recession is coming. And it will hit us in the voluntary sector. But it's thinking like this that shows that we are not helpless. By understanding the donor's needs and responding to them, we need not face the economic downturn with fear. We can do something. We can adapt our approaches to the environment we are working in and we can continue to succeed.