Every year, The Guardian & Observer run an annual appeal, encouraging its readers to donate to one of several nominated charities.
Usually the appeal will raise hundreds of thousands of pounds as well as providing hugely beneficial publicity to the charities by featuring them in its publications.
However, in 2015 something extraordinary happened.
The Guardian & Observer appeal had already hit £0.5million within two weeks of its launch. By the end of the appeal it would have topped £2.6million.
Why had an appeal that usually raises an entirely admirable £400k suddenly exploded?
Because, in 2015, The Guardian & Observer, working with donations management experts, Charities Trust, decided to do things a bit differently.
Many newspapers simply pick just a single charity, which have usually gone through a lengthy application procedure to be considered as a beneficiary of the appeal.
However, in recent years The Guardian group has chosen an umbrella cause to support. In 2014, they chose mental health and in 2015, they chose refugees.
They created the “We Stand Together” appeal in support of the refugee crisis and handpicked a number of different charities from around the world, including Migrant Offshore Aid Station, Doctors of the World UK, Red Cross, Refugee Council, City of Sanctuary and Asylum Seeker Resource Centre.
As Editor-in-chief Katharine Viner explained in an Guardian article published as the appeal closed in January: “As the donations flooded in and momentum rapidly grew — £100,000 after three days, £500,000 in a fortnight, £1m by mid-December — it became clear that something special was happening.
“As a Guardian leader column noted just before Christmas, the appeal had become a testament to the existence of a “compassionate and generous story to be told about this nation’s attitude to refugees” not easily heard amid the clamour of mainstream discussion.
“At the heart of the appeal’s success was the generosity of our readers, who not only donated in their thousands but whose commitment and willingness to, as one donor put it, “stand up and be counted” turned our annual charity appeal into a broader statement of values, carrying a powerful message about solidarity, humanity and justice.”
Charities Trust, which is an award-winning, charitable donations management company for the UK corporate sector, has provided payment processing services in support of The Guardian & Observer Christmas appeal for the past 5 years.
Linda Minnis, CEO of Charities Trust, said: “They chose the right cause at the right time and allowed donors to support multiple charities, rather than just one.
“This completely revolutionised the way these types of newspaper appeals are usually run.
“I would certainly recommend that organisations, which run these large scale appeals, need to consider looking for a cause or a theme to their campaign and having multiple charity recipients.
“The idea of running a campaign like this and managing millions of pounds of donations across multiple charities is understandably daunting for many organisations but that is where our expertise comes in.”
This year the Guardian sought to make its relationship with donors more dynamic. It collected data on who gave, why, how, how much and when, and used the ongoing insights from this to shape and drive its appeal campaign:
Charities trust was able to provide:
- an online donation page, which worked across all platforms including mobile and tablet
- the ability to brand the donation page to match The Guardian & Observer’s own style guides
- a social media share button, which allowed donors to not only share the fact they had supported the cause but also their reasons
- up- to the minute reports including Google analytics, metrics targets and goals.
- enhanced marketing data to allow for greater data exchange and analysis by the Guardian
- as well as online donations, cheques, coupons, charity vouchers and phone donations are also available
- the ability to administer payments to overseas charities as well as managing all due diligence associated with working with foreign organisations
- a “dial in day” where Guardian & Observer staff could take phone donations and speak to donors in person. This day alone generated over £86k in donations.
If your organisation is interested in finding out how you could run a similar campaign please contact us here
