How to grow your appeal

The growth of the Save the Children’s annual restricted appeal

How it all started

N.B. not the traditional major donor model for a capital appeal...

Feasibility study

Donor identification by constituency

Goal setting

Project and campaign calendar

Individual giving appeals calendarAdding a new propositionOffering option to give to restricted findsDemonstrating tangible impactCreating sense of ownership

• Individual giving appeals calendar

• Adding a new proposition

• Offering option to give to restricted funds

• Demonstrating tangible impact

• Creating sense of ownership

Income growth

£0.00

£100,000.00

£200,000.00

£300,000.00

£400,000.00

£500,000.00

£600,000.00

£700,000.00

£800,000.00

2009 2010 2011 2012

Gross income

Audience growth throughout the years 2009 2010 2011 2012

Warm supporters

Warm supporters

Warm supportersProspectsHV donorsCold DM Legacy ask integration (ask in thank you)

Warm supportersProspectsHV donorsCold DM Legacy ask integrationCold otherMajor donorsCommunityPR & CelebritiesDigital

Started in 2009

• Best performing appeal in the programme

• 2010 saw opportunity for growth – started planning

Brand context

Testing our way in 2010 – Tanzania Appeal

• Selected a wider range of people from the warm file to mail

• Testing ask prompts • Testing high value pack (to middle donors)• Role of engagement • First online appeal• Development of the journey

2010 – Tanzania Appeal

2010 – Tanzania Appeal HV

2011 South Sudan Appeal

• Drive net income, but also look to improve the responsiveness of those less responsive segments

• Introduction of the high value audience • Introduction of the legacy ask integration

to the campaign • Test low value £5 buy a brick tactic to less

responsive segments • Test in direct mail acquisition• Introduction of a reminder appeal

2011 South Sudan Appeal

Warm supporter

appeal

2011 South Sudan Appeal Low Value

Low value & acquisition

pack

2011 South Sudan Appeal online

Email Appeals

Donation landing pages

Feedback / engagement journey

Clinic built and lives saved in Children

Now

Email feedback / engagement journey

Email AskEmail Thank

You

Open for business – first babies delivered

2012 Bangladesh Appeal

Community (Save the Children Week)

Digital Hub

Individual Giving & Legacy

PR & Celebrities

Corporate

Trust, Major &

HV

Marketing partnerships

Campaigning

Virtual Clinic1) Quick Donate2) Browse and shop for

items3) Items over £250 - option

to set up a Just Giving page

Individual Giving

Baby Nirob, 10 weeks old suffering from severe diarrhoea and wheezing with every breath

Acquiring Supporters Existing Supporters

Radio SMS ask across a range

of stations

DRTVTesting across existing

stations

OutdoorTesting trains and buses

Digital Banners

Cold Mail

Press ads and Inserts (low volume testing)

Mail appeal and reminder

Email segments

SMS

Supporter journeys for responders online and

offlineIncluding campaigning and legacy asksThank you to cold

respondentsCampaigning ask

Shopping centresFace to face ask, £5 SMS to buy a brick

Roll out of £5 buys a brick engagement

Trusts, Major & High value

Major Donors High Value Trusts

community giving

AMYA ChallengeAsian youth group bucket

collections

pilots – new audiences Existing Supporters

Nursery ChallengeSponsorship for nursery children to dress up as what they want to be

Curry Life Magazine targeting restaurant trade

a) Run a curry night b) Put £1 on the bill c) donate tips

for a week

Collections and House to House

Baking – Cakes!

Retail

Raffles, Collections,

Tombola

Branch Activity Tea Parties, Coffee

Mornings, Frog Races!

Corporate partners

Collections in 3 Stores

6 Collections e.g. Birmingham Bull Ring

Communication to supporters, banners on their website, in match

programme 5th May

Gifts in kind to the clinics e.g. condoms,

cleaning productsMatch funding for

bloggingFunding for 1 clinic

build!

virtual clinic wall of fame

Photos link to face book

Corporate donations

Can be anonymous too

What have we learnt?

What have we learn?

• We can drive an integrated organisational fundraising appeal!

• It really can be used to engage different audiences

• Planning needs to commence earlier – 7 months is not enough for e.g. corporate to get on board

• Gathering content can be expensive • Although a staggered launch the campaign felt

integrated across all types of story and engagement

• Digital needs a BIG one day burst to have stand out

What have we learnt?

• Country and perceived need can influence engagement

• Visual and target and deadline are important

• An enemy • Need led images • Strong project management is required –

to help build integration cross team. One person/team owning the project from within the lead fundraising team

Top tips to take away

What to consider for an integrated capital appeal

• Objectives and KPIs agreed at outset• Structure and process/project management• Resources • Budgeting & objective setting – what does

success look like? • Content gathering - before, during and after• Contingency planning• The right partners - internal and external• Test your way in • Start early - rolling planning

How to assess whether it’s right for you?

• Can you restrict funds to a particular project?

• Opportunity cost? Restricted versus unrestricted

• Do you have the ability to emotionally engage someone with your cause?

• Can you create a supporter experience? • Do you have the organisation behind your

ambitions?• Can you demonstrate the impact of the

appeal to your decision makers?

2010 Tanzania Appeal learning

• Drove an increase in income of almost £40k through better targeting and prompting

• Message engagement helps to drive those usually less responsive segments to give, those multi givers who wrote a card gave a higher average gift

• Small proportion of income was from online – but it showed potential for future growth

• Introduction of the ‘feedback journey’ had a good impact on email address penetration

• Prioritise how to increase the performance of those less responsive segments through testing tactics.

2011 South Sudan Appeal Learning

• Campaign raised approximately £844,000 – the best campaign performance in years

• Reminder appeal had a big impact on the success• HV donors contributed £46,800 additional income

to the appeal • Low value prompting did increase the

responsiveness, but did have an impact on the overall income.

• Direct mail acquisition was a huge success achieving a 4.26% response rate

• Legacy ask in thank you outperformed any of the other legacy activity throughout the year

Crowdfunding

Campaign highlights

Celebrity PR

Est. reach 10,500,000Outdoor results

Radio resultsFace to

face

Legacy Pledges

Blogger Conference

I want to be

Venue collections

Volunteer trip PR

Supporter Feedback

I just made a donation after seeing the excellent report from Myleene Klass on the ITV news.

I made a donation, I lived in the next village to where Nirob lives, so this appeal really touched my heart.

I saw the picture of Nirob on the envelope, I fell in love with him.

House to house income was up 50% [owing to] higher profile and having a specific theme with a pamphlet to give out.

Supporter engagemen

t

Room for improvement

DRTV

AMYA Challenge

Press ads

Campaigning integration