Does Celebrity Work?

In short, yes……….. BUT…..

Don’t become consumed by it. We all look at charities that have “great” Celebrity support, or a fantasticlist of Patrons, and think WOW arent they so lucky. Are they?

I was speaking to someone recently who was trying to put together a marketing strategy for a charity and they were talking to me about the need to Celebrity support. I had to stop them in their stride and say….Look yes it is a good thing to have, but dont over focus on it. It should not be a core concern. Put it in there, more in terms of…”it would be nice if”…but certainly don’t spend 6 months of the year working on it. Its not going to pay off.

Fundraising Breakthroughs reports on a poll by Harris Interactive that showed two interesting results:

Just over half (51 percent) of Americans surveyed say that, “celebrities make little or no positive difference to the issue they are promoting,”

“One thing Americans say they have not done is support a cause or gotten more information on one because of something they heard an actor, singer or other celebrity say or do. Just 15 percent have done so compared to 85 percent who have not.”

I think too often we get pressured into needing a Celebrity supporter. I worked for an organisation once where one of the board members wanted us to get a list of celebrities on board. I put together a patron charter, so we could present what we would like them to do (it made sense to me that when we approached them we knew what we were approaching them for).

Oh No, I was told, we just want to put their name on the headed paper. Needless to say, it flew right down my priority list.

Our corporate sponsors often ask, Who is your Patron. They of course want to be associated with celebrity X by being associated with you. My advice…………..Be Honest, “well so and so does one thing a year for us and we really arent in a position to ask them to open 15 of your stores this year”.

If they just want you because you have a celebrity, its not going to be the greatest of partnerships anyway.

So when does Celebrity work?

It works when the Celebrity wants it to work. Let’s face it A list Hollywood actors aren’t sitting at home waiting for you to call! They are just like donors. They are donors. They will support the cause that they want to support. It really is that simple. I have also found that they will take part, for the most part, in the events that they want to take part in.

In those instances you are going to get great PR. The press love Celebrity, now more so than ever. So at events, gala balls, launches, you will get the coverage, once the celeb is big enough.

I dont think you should use your celebrity for calls to action, unless they too are taking action. I cringe when I hear radio ads with “this is so and so and I am calling on you to do whatever”(I normally have switched off at that stage). I dont for one second believe that this person is planning on walking 700miles or donating 10 euro a week. They are just doing an ad. Like everything we do, it needs to be real for it to work.

So it works when the celebrity is really taking part. I think the UN have used celebrity well, they really get them to go and visit the affected areas, so they can talk passionately about the cause. Red Nose Day does it well too, as does the Hole in the Wall Gang Camp. 

Final thoughts:

• Dont over focus on celebrity support
• They will tend to let you know that they want to support you
• Beware of  Rehab and Scandals
• At the same time no harm in talking to them if you get the chance
• They are a lot of work, so measure the return
• Treat them like donors, they are
• It is short term gain (but the gain can be good)
• It works when they are engaged, passionate and particiapating

Too much copy?

A friend of mine, Paul Dervan, posted yesterday about whether or not it is possible to have too much copy?

This is a question we often struggle with in non-profits when it comes to Direct Mail, and all too often I think we fall on the side, which I believe is the wrong side, that less is more. And sometimes that is because the wrong people are deciding how the mailing should look.

I remember being involved with a particular Christmas mailing for a large charity and the CEO was getting the final say on how the piece should look. He was adamant that the mailing should not go over 1 page!

This frustrated me so much. There was so much more we could have said (that was relevant) and we could have said it a lot better if he wasnt so stuck on…people won’t read more than one page. That is of course true for a certain percentage of those that get the mailing. But if we were to do everything based on this motto we would never do DM, because not everyone (in fact we all know its a very small %) is going to donate.

So what we need to think about are those that are going to donate, they will read more, because it matters to them, it is relevant to them. With good headlines, clever highlighting etc…we can engage them in the letter and once they are in they will want to know as much as you can tell them, that is relevant. As Paul says on his “there is too much copy there….” post:

If your readers are not interested, they won’t read beyond the headline, so it doesn’t matter how much copy you have. But if they read the headline and are still interested, you should give them as many reasons to buy as possible.

Paul makes this point really well , with a quote from Claude C Hopkins:

“Some say ‘Be very brief. People will read but little’. Would you say that to a salesman? With a prospect standing before him, would you confine him to any certain number of words? That would be an unthinkable handicap.”

P.S. If you aren’t convinced read some Drayton Bird!

Australian Federal Govt to Fund National Corporate Responsibility Project

As reported on the Philanthropy Oz Blog, the Australian Federal Govt has commissioned St. James Ethics Centre to carry out an extensive project over three years to expand responsible business practice right across Australia.

The aim of the project is to expand the number of Australian companies that are adopting more responsible business practices and to improve the tools available to promote responsible business practices across all levels of corporate management.

It is great to see the government taking the lead on this and funding a project. I have always thought of Australia as a very progessive country in many ways, and this is another great example.

A little reminder….don’t spam

So we all know that we shouldn’t spam (don’t we) and none of us spam (right). Well here is a little reminder to you of why you should not Spam.

I was reading yesterday that apparently Ammado (The social networking site that aims to connect nonprofits and engaged individuals to achieve their vision) sent unsolicited emails about a UNHCR campaign to a few Irish Bloggers. They were not happy.

The result is that the bloggers below all posted negative things about Ammado and also some negative comments about charities, who they felt get this stuff wrong, (probably important to state at this point that if you click on the links below you are reading the comments of those bloggers and not mine). Justin Mason, Damien Mulley he pulls no punches so be warned!, Michelle Neylon, Suzy Byrne

So here we have an organisation whose central mission is to do good and help charities. But unfortunately trying to do good isnt a good reason to spam. 

In fairness to Ammado, they have apologised and admitted that they got it wrong, and I have no doubt that the team in there is working out how to make sure this never happens again. So I’m not here to try Ammado-bash

But the result of their actions is that now when you google Ammado, the third, fourth, fifth and sixth items to come up are about this spaming incident.

So for all non-profits out there, learn from this mistake. Dont Spamalot

Director of Appreciation Appointed

Do you ever think we will get to see this Headline?

I don’t know. But, outside of its mission, what is the most important thing a non-profit does? In my book it’s…..Appreciate.

As soon as we start to take our donations for granted, we are in trouble. As soon as we don’t treat each donation as a personal gift to us, we are in trouble. As soon as we start to send out mail merged receipts that don’t talk personally about why that person donated, we are in trouble.

I know it is difficult to wade through all the donations we get and treat each one personally, but we need to. We need to invest in this and that is why I believe non-profits need to consider appointing a Director of Appreciation. Their job description is simple:

Make sure that everyone who connects with your cause feels appreciated and ensure that every contact every single staff member has results in the donor feeling special

I think it is time for non-profits to consider such a role in their organisation. We are in the business of caring so why not care about those who allow us stay in business.

I would love to hear from anyone who knows of an organisation that has any such role, or something that is even similar?

Is this the greatest fundraising mantra?

image courtesy of i5prof

I was reassured recently that the greatest mantra a fundraiser can have in their armour is, Don’t give up.

A friend was talking to me about getting their organisation involved in helping kids in the area where their office is located. They weren’t planning on raising money instead they wanted to help the kids to raise their skill levels.

I asked why his organisation hadn’t done this before, I thought perhaps they didn’t have the resources or maybe he was going to tell me that they felt the time was right now to give back (all good answers). But the answer he gave shocked me a little. The organisation had wanted to do this for a long time, but one senior executive was blocking the plans, he just didn’t see the value. He has left now.

So as you go out there with your proposals for support, remember never to give up, it may not be you, it could simply be the organisation has internal issues that wont allow them support you, at the moment. Try find out if that is the case, or what is the case, ask why they cant support you now (of course be nice about it). 

I remember putting in a pitch for charity of the year a few years back and wasn’t successful, instead of saying ah well that sucks, I called  the company in question and asked if I could meet with them so they could let me know where i went wrong. And they did. And I learnt lots about my presentation/proposal and my own organisation. This made my future pitches a lot better. It is a worthwhile strategy, you will get really valuable information

Then stay in touch, dont harass, but let the organisation know you are still there, a newsletter every 6 months would work. Then when the time is right you will be well positioned to be considered for their support.

So remember sometimes, its not you, so dont give up

Donor Fatigue

Katya Andresen posted last week about donor fatigue. Apparently there was an article in the Associated Press that stated  that numerous disasters in a row – like the Burmese cyclone and the Chinese earthquake – create fatigue and depress giving. 

I remember years ago seeing Bob Geldof being interviewed on the news and being asked about Donor Fatigue, and he just went off on one (and I agreed with him) he basically said how can people ever be tired of wanting to help. I think the phrase Donor Fatigue is one we should try and lose, a donors resources may be exhausted, but that doesnt mean they have donor fatigue. Sometimes we do ourselves no favours by allowing terms like these creep into every day language.

There is more to the AP story, Katya sums it up as follows (the first point is one I spend a lot of time talking to people about)

1. It’s not simply the numbers of disasters, it’s the numbers themselves.  It’s well documented that people can’t grasp huge statistics or fathom masses of people in need.  We think in terms of individuals, and so the higher the scale, conversely, we feel the effect less immediately.  Says one non-giver:

“If you thought about at this very second the number of people who were suffering and dying, I could dedicate all my resources to that and yet it would be a drop in the bucket.”

2. Donors need to believe they can make a difference.  That’s not the case in Burma, where aid is being blocked by the miltary government.  It’s more the case in China, where we’ve seen much more giving.

3. Personal ties make a difference – especially in faraway countries, where people may feel less immediately connected.

Create Personas

Image courtesy of Head4banG

Nancy E. Schwartz has a great blog that I try to get to read every day, but always catch up on. Earlier in the month Nancy wrote a post about creating personas. She states in it that she is a big fan of creating fully-fleshed-out fictitious characters (aka personas) to understand the base supporters and other groups an organisation wants to engage.

 

She goes on to state that:

Shaping personas is a practice that enables you to “know” your target audiences far better than simple audience segmentation, which is limited to demographic definition in most cases. Most importantly, personas are a great lead-in to audience research, and a useful ingredient in product/program/service development and testing. Use them to hone your approach as precisely as possible before you dive in with pricey and hard-to-find focus group participants or testers.

Now who doesn’t want to know their target market a lot better. I am writing a post at the moment called I am ready to give, which I will have up next week, and in it I will be talking about how do we know who wants to give and when they want to give. Its a hard one to answer but something like this certainly helps.

Nancy has a guide to  developing personas to help increase the impact of your nonprofit marketing and you can read that here.

Seth Godin talks to The Chronicle of Philanthropy

Seth Godin is a bit of a genius and every blog post of his I read I can easily think how what he is saying relates to our sector. He is also the founder of squidoo which is a user generated website that is designed to raise money for non profits and is now in the top 300 websites in the USA.

On Tuesday The Chronicle of Philanthropy had a live discussion with Seth Godin.  Here are some of the things Seth Godin had to say in response to questions, what I find fascinating even taken on their own as satements they make sense, take a look at these highlights but then read the full transcript at some point: 

1. The biggest mistake non profits make is that they’re so busy not making mistakes they end up being boring. Boring and selfish and self-absorbed, all while they’re working so hard to make the world better. It’s ironic, but true.
2. lead a tribe, and to do that you need to engage people and also to connect them with each other. I guess the short version is: talk to people the way you’d like to be talked to
3. Once non profits realize that they are marketers, not bureaucrats or truck drivers or procurement agencies, everything changes.
4. Tell stories people want to hear.
5. If you’re not changing and testing your landing pages daily, you’re wasting valuable time and money
6.  If someone opens your email, they are precious. Don’t waste them! Cherish them.
7. I think making a road sexy isn’t so hard. Or a library. The key is to focus on the BENEFIT, not the tool.
8. kiva.org (he mentions it a few times, so check it out!)
9. If you can’t turn five people into raving fans, into fanatics, into sneezers, why will you be able to impact 5,000? You won’t. One person at a time. The old fashioned way, just online.
10. Marketing is not advertising! Marketing is what you do and how you talk about it. If you do work worth talking about, word will spread. If word spreads, you get donations.
11. be the best in the world at what you do
12. go do stuff, small stuff, cheap stuff, storytelling stuff and testing stuff, you not only won’t get in trouble, you’ll get rewarded. hurry!

These points are taken directly from the Chronicle of Philanthropy site click here for the entire transcript, it is well worth the read:

 

Public Trust in Charities is up

image by Brandi Jane

Good news from the Charity Commission which published a report yesterday, Public Trust and Confidence in Charities.

More people are giving time and goods to charity now than said they did three years ago as public trust has increased. Overall public trust and confidence in charities is measured as a mean score out of 10, which has increased from 6.3 in 2005 to 6.6 in 2008.  A third of the public (35%) give charities a trust rating of eight out of ten or above.

According to the report Public Trust and Confidence in Charities published today;

nearly 1 in 5  people (18%) say they have given more than £200 to charity in the last year;
nearly half of the public (47%) say they have given goods and
one in three (36%) people say they, or someone they know, are actively involved with charities (either as an employee, trustee or volunteer)

all increases from the last time the same survey was conducted in 2005. 

The majority of people (85%) say they have given money to charity within the last year.

The survey shows that of those listed, only doctors and the police score higher than charities with the public for trust and confidence, and that the public trust charities more than several bodies including social services, banks and central and local Government.

A third (35%) say that ‘charities making a positive difference to the cause they work for’ is the most important quality in engendering trust and confidence, while 71% of people agree that charities are effective at bringing about social change.

The research also outlines the most common reasons for trusting some charities either more or less than others. Asked if there are any specific charities they trusted more or less, and asked to give a reason, the most common reason for trusting a charity more (at 25%) is people having experienced or seen for themselves what the charity does, or that they believe in its cause (19%).

Merging can make sense…think about it

I get concerned when I hear read things like this:

During March 2008, 364 charities were registered. Of these 357 were “main” charities and 7 were subsidiaries. This brings the total of charities registered for 2008 to 1289. (Source Charity Commission)

Currently in the UK alone there are 190, 387 charities on the Register. Ok so 83% of these are raising below 100,000 and of course they are needed but I wonder on the level of the larger charities who are operating in the same space is there not a case for more of these charities to merge, achieve more together.

Look at your Mission
Surely the mission of all our organisations is really to cease to exist. If we are charged with ending poverty in the third world or finding a cure to a certain disease well then should we not look at how we can best achieve that goal. If there is an organisation in the same space as us, would we be more effective if we were to work together? Could we cease to exist if we did this. Ok again being realistic this may not be possible, but wont it show our donors that we truly want to try.

Try and remove the Politicis
Of course each organisation has its own politics and there will be resistance, thats not what we do, or my old favourite…we have never done that before! They arent good enough reasons not to take a more strategic look at your mission and what you are supposed to be doing. We need to step away from our own personal objectives and if we are truly passionate about solving the issue our organisation faces then mergers should always be on the table. Look at your organisation and why it was set up when it was set up? Then ask yourself, if you were to set it up today what would you do?

Test it, form an Alliance
So it’s risky business, of course it is. It wont happen over night and it wont always make sense. So why not test it, form an alliance. Begin working with organisations with similar missions and goals as you have. Form a joint fundraising campaign, try it. Fundraising is fiercely competitive, we dont really like telling each other what we are doing. I recently was told by someone that they were offended when another fundraiser asked them what they had raised so far this year! Why is that a bad thing?

I was encouraged today when I read on Fundraising UK that Help the Aged and Age Concern are starting an extensive consultation process to look at a merger.

Is this the future?

Online Videos to support your cause

Sandra Sims posted about this on her Step by Step Fundraising Blog. She gives some great examples of how non profits are using videos to support their cause. She highlights the one above from the Children’s Neuroblastoma Cancer Foundation, which is really great and well worth a watch. It kept me glued for the duration

I was a little disappointed that there was no really strong call to action at the end of it though.

New Gift Aid Wording suggestion

I read this on the Freelance Fundraisers Jottings Blog:

Following the Government’s decision to allow charities to continue benefiting from Gift Aid at the pre-tax cut rate of 22p in the £1, the Institute of Fundraising, after consultation with the HMRC, has come up with the following text to go on all Gift Aid declarations:

“If you Gift-Aid your donation, ‘x charity’ will continue to receive an additional 28p. ‘X charity’ can claim Gift Aid tax relief of 25p on every pound you give. HM Revenue & Customs will also be operating transitional provisions for Gift Aid donations made from 6 April 2008 until 5 April 2011, paying a Government supplement of 3p on every pound you give.”

For any charities that had already reprinted their Gift Aid and other donation literature to take into account the new reduction in income tax rate, the HMRC have said it will be OK to continue using these, until existing supplies need to be replaced. There is no requirement to either shred or reprint any materials, which would only be a wasted cost to those charities.

It is important that all charities, no matter how large or small, should continue to make best use of this opportunity to continue to promote the use of Gift Aid and try to increase the % of donors taking advantage of if. In this way, they will lessen the impact of the reduction in income when the 3 year special provision comes to an end.

For more information about Gift Aid and how to make the most of it, check out the Institute of Fundraising’s special briefings at: www.tax-effective-giving.org.uk/downloads.html

Your Comment = a donation

Read this on Beths Blog. A blog called Dig Trends are going to donate $10 up to a 5k limit to the US Campaign for Burma for every comment or trackback to their post.

I think this is a great move by these guys, its driving traffic to their blog and probably their company site, increasing awareness about who they are and what they do, and somehow it feels ok. In other words I think they really do want to help and aren’t just using the situation. I actually would like to see more companies doing this, companies that have great online presence, using that position to help others. How about if the top 10 sites all did this, what impact would that have? Linking back to a single cause, the impact could be huge, beyond the 5,000 limit.

So Im going to trackback.

British Heart Foundation

Fundraising UK  posted about this…… The British Heart Foundation have added a virtual collection to their Help a Heart Campaign.

Is the success of the campaign not based on pin/badge sales? Will this work? Essentially its a justgiving page that someone would normally use to set up for sponsorship…hmmmm Would be interested in the seeing what is raised from this. Will the Irish Heart Foundation follow suit (read my post about Happy Heart Weekend here)

They have a BHF blog and Help a Heart Blog so clearly they are knowledgable in terms of web 2.0