The Charity Sector — 3 Big Lessons Learned
It’s been an exciting time, taking a fearless leap from the brand and agency side in the U.S. to working with a very locally routed charity in the United Kingdom.
I’ve come into the sector from the Agency side, a swanky Digital Creative Agency based in the heart of Manhattan working on brands like Pepsi, IBM and General Electric — so everything I’ve experienced over the last couple of months in the U.K. charity world has been tremendously new and refreshing. Like when you take that first slurp of a steaming ramen broth.
My role is as the Social Media Manager for The Air Ambulance Service a charity consisting of a local emergency service for adults and national air-transfer service for children.
Since November 2017 the team has launched a national campaign for The Children’s Air Ambulance which included a beautiful TV Spot. We’ve activated an Influencer program, doubled digital donations, quadrupled reach & engagement and have been working hard everyday to improve content quality, audience targeting and brand consistency across digital communication channels. I joined 2 weeks prior to the launch of the national campaign for The Children’s Air Ambulance, which was being shouldered by a number of high profile Advertising Agencies with a substantial six figure budget carrying the project.
This launch along with every project we’ve undertaken subsequently has led to some big lessons — all routed in this one TRUTH.
“Your charity is not an entitled entity, to succeed — start to think of it more as a hardworking brand”
This shift in perspective changes the way you frame every action — How you ask for donations, How you define your audience, How quickly you adapt the latest trends in tech and How you craft every piece of content.
Here are 3 big take aways
1. People won’t donate to a Charity/brand the’ve never heard off before
It’s easy to get lost in the glitz of the Ad Agency world. Our senior team that signed off on the national project, was ensured that the TV commercial would raise substantial donations for the Children’s Air Ambulance. Donations being the primary K.P.I. and not brand awareness.
However, this was not the result once the campaign launched. The Ad served as more of a tastemaker, delicately teasing what the charity is about, with a light nudge at the end of 30seconds to donate. If you’ve never heard of this charity before there’s nothing that drives you to donate. Looking back now, a robust brand awareness campaign that breaks down what the charity is about and what purpose it serves should have been first out the door and not a shiny TV ad that carries all the burden of fundraising.
The exercise made it clear — A beautiful ad does not make up for gaps in communication, does not give people a reason to give.
Large sums of money, working with the best agencies don’t warrant or guarantee action from your desired audience. The exercise still leaves me with some questions.
Is 30 seconds too short to make a convincing argument?
Does the cost of a TV ad outweigh the benefits?
2. Asking for a donation is the highest level of action desired
Once you put charities and brands on an equal playing field, it quickly becomes clear that asking your target audience for a donation is the hardest result to achieve.
In my opinion, a donation might be harder to achieve than for a brand to ask to buy its product. When you buy, you buy for your self or for your family— When you donate it’s mostly a selfless action.
So when a charity decides to ask for a donation, it’s not a step that should be taken lightly. To grow a successful charity, there should be more a focus on nurturing your base, being as transparent as possible and making sure you do the hard work of talking to your audience before coming out of no where and asking to reach into their pockets. Recently we’ve noticed a spike in engagement when sharing weekly mission stats — simple straightforward content that shows how your donations are put to work.
3. Making a donation should feel seamless, in the background “Like Magic”
We have a slack channel running internally called #TrendsToWatch. It caught my attention, that recently a lot of the most interesting trends we spoke about there — were solutions that raise funds quietly in the background. Here a couple of stand out examples.
Tech that quietly works in the background:
Donate the Change: Wearables that donate spare change every-time you make a purchase.
Cudo Donate: A software that uses your computers IP processing power to quietly generate crypto currency. All you have to do is leave your computer on :)
Tech that feels seamless:
Amazon Alexa: Alexa now comes with a new life skill “You can use your voice to make a donation” all you would have to do is say something like “Alexa, donate £20 to Greenpeace” and the smart assistant will deduct the commanded amount from your account.
These solutions bring the very latest in tech and cultural insights into the charity sector, they’re proof that now more than ever we need digital to precipitate into all functions of fundraising — Helping to make the experience of making a donation simple, straight forward and complimentary to our current lifestyle.
I’ve become quite used to being an outsider, moving from one country to another and plunging into the unknown. Over time I’ve realised I’m not alone on this path and there are benefits to being an outsider — You bring fresh eyes with you! The above formula is a scribble of what an outsider can bring to a team.
