Cork’s 96FM are hosting Irelands 3rd Radiothon (and the third ever outside of North America). The station will broadcast tomorrow (Thursday 26th) from 6am until Saturday 6pm from the Children’s Wards in Cork (Mercy & CUH).
I am involved with these events and they are amazing fundraising events and amazing Radio. Listen here the stories you hear will amaze and inspire you.
Fundraising Success is looking to compile ideas, insights and comments from fundraisers on What is the most important issue facing fundraisers at the moment.
I would encourage you to submit a comment as the results will make interesting reading for us all.
To send responses/comments, e-mail: mbattistelli@napco.com. Responses should not exceed 100 words
For those of us who are inspired by Paul Newman and who have been lucky enough to work in an organisation he has helped to set up the news coming from Fox News is another astounding sign of the mans greatness and at the same time the news in tinged with sadness.
Fox report that:
Movie star Paul Newman has quietly turned over the entire value of his ownership in Newman’s Own — the company that makes salad dressing and cookies — to charity.
The value of handing this ownership over is worth $120 million. The news of this has broken at the same time that reports of the actor being ill has also come to light, but it should be noted that the two were unrelated, and the process had begun 2 years ago.
Newman’s Own is the best example I can think of when I think of companies that are set up ethically and are in business for the benefit of others.
I have spoken about mergers and partnerships before and here is a great example. 26 organisations (and more are welcome) have joined up to launch the website Stop Climate Chaos (i just love that name). The coalition is campaigning to ensure Ireland plays its part in preventing runaway climate change
Together they are hosting the 2nd Umbrella Action Day on Sandymount Strand on Sunday, June 15th 2008 at 3p.m.
This is a family event which highlights the need for political action to tackle climate change. This day hopes to serve as a reminder to our government that we still want reduction in emissions to be firmly on the agenda and to ask them to take measures to put a fair price on carbon pollution!
Great idea, engaging the masses for change. I wonder will anyone from the Government comment or attend?
The website also has a great Call to Action section.
Yesterday Business in the Community Ireland welcomed it’s 50th member, Cara Partners.
The mission of Business in the Community Ireland (BITCI) is to harness the power of Irish business to maximise its positive impact on all its stakeholders. It is a non-profit organisation specialising in advice and guidance to leading companies on corporate responsibility and corporate community involvement. BITCI is also the national partner in Ireland for CSR Europe, the co-ordinating body on corporate responsibility at a European level.
Read more about Business in the Community Ireland Here and Business in the Community UK Here
picture from Professional Fundraising site
Professional Fundraising has just released an article which talks about a presentation Joe Saxton, of nfpsynergy made in the opening plenary of the PF Conference on 21 May.
Saxton was made the point that charities dont differentiate themselves enough. He used five bottles of cleaning product to illustrate his point, stating that it was easy for a consumer to tell the difference between these products, if you were to change the names to those of charities it isnt as easy.
Nice way to make the point.
The article ends with this:
Charities should intertwine giving with living, he said. “The best fundraising is where people are not sure whether their motivation is for their benefit or for charities’ benefit,” he said, but added that fundraisers should create products that allowed people to know exactly how they should give and what they would get
Read the full article here
I came across this survey carried out by Business Plus again this morning, online. I remeber reading it last year and today thought you may be interested in taking a read, just click here. It has 12 case studies, easy read and some useful information.
Business Plus has a great website, you can register and read a lot of articles from their magazine.
Childline have been running their BBQ appeal for maybe 3 years now. I really like the idea, it works because it is simple. People have BBQs in the summer anyway so a charity angle isn’t hard to tag on. Ask your friends around for a BBQ and ask them to bring 2 euro, or whatever.
I have to admit I was annoyed when I first heard about the campaign. I had just finished putting together the Odlums pancake party and a BBQ appeal was my next planned appeal. Childline got in ahead of me!
Anyway this year they have teamed up with Centra. Or they have sold title sponsorship to centra (would love to know for how much). There is a huge outdoor presence with Billboards, Dart Cards and Bus advertising, so perhaps this is where the Centra money is being spent. But you cant get away from it.
Once again TV3 are on board, they are great for things like this and in many ways they give the charity the leverage to make more from the likes of centra.
The campaign is will be a success. It ticks all the boxes for all involved. Childline talk about families and the need to spend time together, BBQs are perfect for this. For Centra it makes people think Centra when they think BBQ, drives traffic.
I’m not mad on 3 elements of their promotion.
Anyway overall I like the appeal. Martin King (the nicest man in media) and Lorraine Keane are the faces of it too, making the TV3 link a strong one (smart move tv3).
If you dont have a BBQ event in your marketplace, maybe now is the time to start thinking about one?
I came across this on the Intelligent Giving Blog. And the ad certainly has made me think.
I think this is a great ad. Comedian Bob Monkhouse’ estate must be giving permission for his image to be used, and fair play to them. Monkhouse died of Prostate Cancer in 2003, so who better to be a spokesperson for Prostate Cancer Research Foundation
Monkhouse was known for his cheesey, corny, but well timed and witty jokes, and this seems to me to be the most well timed of them all, 5 years after his death. Has it made you think?
These ads are well thought out, and are not like anything I have seen before. I stated previously that I really liked the Focus Ireland ads, but this one beats that hands down.
Intelligent giving was a little critical of the ad (overall they loved it too though)
For all the innovation, it’s not clear what charity donors cash will actually support. The PCRF’s logo is tucked away in tiny writing, in a bottom corner of the poster – and the website we’re directed to (giveafewbob.org) doesn’t clearly belong to the PCRF.
It’s odd that the PCRF is passing up this chance to build its brand. Name recognition is massively important to charities – it’s why such dreadful monikers as Age Concern and Help the Aged persist – yet the PCRF doesn’t seem to give this a high priority. But if few people know about its existence, how is it going to raise funds over the long term? Surely Monkhouse can’t be relied on forever?
But this may be a minor quibble.
Great campaign, and well done to all involved.
I wrote earlier about mergers (I think charities should start looking into them more), so I was interested to read, from the AFP Blog, that the Tuscon Citizen agrees with me.
In the article it states that:
Tucson is an exceptionally caring and giving community when it comes to supporting nonprofits. But the sheer number of nonprofits is staggering: 3,732 are registered in Pima County…………..That’s why it is good to hear that even more are taking the step toward merger and eliminating duplication.
They make a good point, if you have 20 organisations working in the same space, how does a donor decide who to support? They state that:
clearly there is overlap and duplication, with layers of administration siphoning money that should go to providing services.
Now I dont like the way that last part is phrased, siphoning money….hmmm, I think that could have been phrased differently.
Three months ago, Tucson’s only two nonprofit providers of shelter beds for domestic-violence victims announced they will merge. Brewster Center Domestic Violence Services and Tucson Centers for Women and Children expect to be one agency by July 1. It will be named Emerge!
Like I stated in my original post (read it here) this isnt easy, it isnt always going to work, it wont be popular, but I truly believe we need to consider it. Read the full Tuscon Citizen article here
I wrote about Taglines a while back. At the time I stated that Nancy E. Schwartz was working on a tagline survey. Well that work has led to the opening of voting in the first Getting Attention Nonprofit Tagline Awards.
1,050 tag lines were submitted and Nancy has whittled them down to 10 categories, with a short list of nominees.
I just voted and it only took a couple of minutes. Voting closes on June 20th.
Nancy is also encouraging people to sign up to her newsletter and in return you will get a copy of the Tagline Report she has compiled. I think it is going to be well worth read, I dont think we value taglines enough and we really should take this as report as an opportunity of looking at what our taglines say about our organisation.
You can Vote Here.
40,000 women took part in today’s Women’s Mini Marathon in Dublin raising millions for charities all over Ireland.
Since March charities have been recruiting women to take part in the event to raise money for their cause. The big charities will have had thousands running for them, but this day is also a great day for smaller local charities to raise money and also some awareness.
The women wore the bright coloured t-shirts of their charity and joined in with the carnival atmosphere. This is a great day and forms a huge part of every charities calendar of events.
This event is really smartly sponsored by Flora. By association they have aligned themselves with practically every charity in the country. Their logo (which is part of the mini marathon logo) is all over every charity website and they get every charity to use the name Flora in all their print materials, all the PR releases etc…How much does all this cost??
Only 1,000 euro! Yes, you see it is smart sponsorship.
For all those mentions and logo displays they offer a donation of 1,000 to one charity! I think it is incredible. I am sure their deal with Women’s Mini Marathon Ltd is worth a lot more, but the goodwill they get by linking in with these charities only costs 1,000!
Anyway, a great day out for thousands of women. And over the next few months hundreds of charities will be getting sent in cheques and cash from their volunteers who took the time to not only take part in the event but also raise money for their cause.
Conor Byrne's Blog 