• • More choice of providers in a free market is generally a good thing for any service. Individual donors and supporters can exercise their own preferences and, because of the very low costs involved, charities can afford to have a presence on as many of the online giving platforms as they want (within reason).

• • This in turn gives more options for charities to reach as wide an audience as possible, supporting communications and campaigning objectives as well as fundraising. One easy example is of the charities which link their various online giving sites to blogs, social media profiles and specific web pages to ensure more traffic can be shared across platforms and that their key messages are getting across. The greater the presence, the greater the opportunity to grow support.

• • Consequently, charities are more likely to attract the attentions and support of self-motivated fundraisers, particularly from younger audiences than they may have worked with previously. This activity should be seen as part of the process of making it easy for people to work for charities, including volunteering. It’s not ‘just something else that has to be done’.

• • Several providers meant more opportunities to align fundraising activities with specific events as various organisers have relationships with the online giving platforms. Less organising for the charity must be a good thing?

• • More providers have driven greater flexibility in terms of the associated costs as each had to work out it’s own offering and align it charity clients’ needs. There were (and still are but to a lesser extent) pricing packages for specific events, for low volume users, for high volume users etc. As well as a number of options for extra services to enable the online giving platforms to do more than just collect donations.

But here’s the thing that makes the demise of Bmycharity most annoying for me. All of the above benefits require effort from the charities to be fully realised. I have been surprised at how many charities simply do not take online giving seriously as a proactive element of their fundraising and communications strategies.

Many simply sign up for a page and then leave it drifting along, hoping that donors will find it themselves and be sufficiently self-motivated to use it on their behalf. Great if all you want to do is generate incidental donations. Terrible if you have stretching fundraising targets to meet! I suggest that it’s no coincidence that charities which integrate their online giving activities with other plans see better results.

Simple tactics like Kidscape’s home page links to a JustGiving page or Arthritis Care’s integration of alternative ways to finding donations online via are very simple things to do. Time and again we see advice and case studies evidencing the benefits of integrating social media and other online activities with all activities. So why aren’t we all doing it? Do we have such huge budgets that we can afford to let our online giving activities just drift along in the background without using every other tool we have to raise the profile and encourage people to give this way? Of course not.

I have been lucky enough to work with the team at Bmycharity and one of the issues we discussed time and again was missed opportunities for charities to really build a strong supporter base by using all of the tools and services that providers like Bmycharity offered.  So, let’s use this insider knowledge and promise ourselves to make the most of what’s available (and for many what you’ve already paid for!) and lift our integrated fundraising communications efforts to much higher levels.

Over the next few weeks I will share a list of activities we can all do to take advantage of these services.  If you have any ideas you’d like me to share, post them here and I’ll include as many as possible. In the meantime, whatever online giving service you use, USE IT! It’s a powerful tool but like all good tools you actually have to wield and direct it to get the best results.

Adding my own experience to Emily’s views, here are some of the main considerations to make your events effective (as that’s what we’re after, right?  It’s not just about fun):

• Keep your objectives and target audience at the heart of discussions, planning and implementation. Never lose sight of what and who the event is for. This is your baseline for checking whether you are doing the right thing or not and for evaluation after the event.
• That means forgetting what you like about events and putting yourself in the shoes of your audience.  Then link what your audience wants to your organisation’s objectives and start planning from there.
• If possible, give yourself time to plan the event well.  This isn’t always realistic but the more time you have, the better your choice of venues and suppliers will be as well as maximising your chances of attracting busy celebrities and getting into your target audience’s diaries.
• Plan, plan, plan and plan. Obsession with detail is key to running successful events; from allocating specific responsibilities and deadlines to creating a list of partners and suppliers who can help you if you encounter a problem.
• Create a proforma plan so that you can do this quickly when time is tight or a great opportunity presents itself on short notice.
• Crate a contingency plan, especially if the event is outdoors, high profile or important to your organisation. This includes contingency budgets and any other emergency resources you might need to mobilise.
• Integrate your event with other activities to ensure maximum impact, both in advance of the event and as part of your follow-up activity eg; newsletters, campaigns, social media conversations, awareness campaigns etc.  People can’t attend if they don’t know the event is happening!
• When it comes to delivery, if you don’t know how to project manage, learn! Or hire an event manager it appropriate to make sure all the steps you have meticulously planned actually get implement as effectively.
• Make sure you remember the regulatory and common sense aspects like health and safety, public liability, accessibility, transport links etc. A site visit and meeting with the people who will be managing your event if appropriate is usually time very well spent.
• Choose your suppliers and partners well – recommendation and track record is always a bonus but ultimately, you have to trust them to help you meet your objectives. If they believe in your objectives, they are more likely to deliver a sterling job. Flexibility will also be key if you need someone to help you sort out issues in the middle of the night or at very short notice.
• If you are going to host celebrities and guests they must be relevant to the theme, the audience and / or the cause.  There’s no such thing as a free dinner or lunch so make them work for their free meal (and opportunity to plug their book or whatever).
• If you are engaging celebrities, use the channels they prefer for contact as circumventing them generally leads to negative perception about you and or your organisation (see Eileen Hammond’s great book on dealing with celebrities)
• Follow up your event.  Let the audience know the outcomes and thank them for their contributions and support.  Make it memorable to increase the likelihood of their ongoing support.
• Measure and track the impact of your event – focus on actions and outcomes (which includes the likelihood of attendees to support you in the future). Evaluate the process of putting on the event as well to learn how to improve your next extravaganza.

What other essentials would you add to the list.

The business concerned was a cookware and cake decorating business called Wilton and was using social media and email marketing as part of its activity mix.  However, they weren’t getting maximum value from their activities and still needed to achieve greater stand-out, increase brand awareness of all their services and encourage new customers.

The Sherpa team suggest five possible strategies to help (actually, they’re tactics but nonetheless effective) which I’ve interpreted to illustrate the benefits for UK charities:

1. Survey audience to determine email and social habits

Find out if your existing followers and email recipients are in fact the same people.  Many organisations assume that they are and treat them as the same audience.  In Wilton’s case, this proved to be a damaging assumption as 50% of the audiences were different.  We know from independent research that twitter users aren’t the same as Myspace or Facebook audiences and that those who prefer email updates aren’t necessarily the same people who follow a Facebook fan page.

2. Develop different messages for each audience

Therefore, if they are different we should ask them directly what they want from our charities via the media they prefer and develop appropriate messages or services.

For example, a member of an online support forum may not want to receive lots of email messages from a charity but may be quite happy to be a fan of the charity’s Facebook page and be updated this way.  The trick is to ensure that the messages you need to communicate are included across several media and tweaked appropriately.

3. Use email to grow social media audience, and vice versa

Just because audiences have media preferences, that doesn’t mean ‘never the twain shall meet’.  It’s smart to use each media to offer the opportunity for audiences to communicate with us through a number of channels.

In practice, this means enabling Facebook fans to sign-up for email updates and introducing your Facebook personality to your email subscribers consistently and in a way that is relevant to them.  It’s OK to plug ourselves in our own comunications!

4. Coordinate multi-channel promotions for product launches

A bit business-oriented but simple to turn to our needs.  I’ve long talked about the importance of consistent and integrated messages being used across charity communications activity and this a prime example.

If you have a campaign or major fundraising drive (like Breast Cancer Awareness Week or Comic Relief) we should be thinking about what messages we need to communicate and to whom, first and foremost.  Then, we look at the best media to deliver them and interact with those target audiences.

This way, we are focused on the objectives and audiences and end up integrating the media choices almost by default.  I see many charities start at the other end, with the media, and try to work their messages into these frameworks.  As a result, we end up communicating in silos and not delivering as powerful and consistent messages as we could.

Put simply, how many of you have heard “what shall we do with twitter?” as opposed to “what shall we do to achieve objective x?” to which one of the answers might be “use twitter”?  This is the wrong way round.

5. Stagger messages over time and across channels for seasonal campaigns

The ‘awareness’ day, week or month is a useful example of how messages can be staggered over time to build to the crescendo of your event or milestone.

The trick here is to deliver your specific tactical messages whilst linking them consistently to your overarching campaign objective / message.  Dogs’ Trust for example uses twitter extensively to update its followers on the latest events.  More details are sent via email, posted on their website and via Facebook.  They don’t need to communicate every detail through every media.

I would also add a few more tips to the Marketing Sherpa List:

6. Don’t forget that these are 2-way communications channels

You will receive feedback via emails, through Facebook and twitter and it is now a cardinal sin to ignore it, the cost being that your audience simply stops interacting with you.  That’s not to say you have to respond personally to every message you receive across the widest range of media.  Just remember to implement ideas that your audiences share with you across the various channels and definitely tell them when you’ve done so.  This gives you credibility because you are listening as well as broadcasting and are interested in what they have to tell you.

Similarly with supporter experiences; if someone has sent you a picture of their latest fundraising event, it’s dead easy to post a photo and a short comment across all the media you utilise, always linking it to your core objectives and other campaign websites.

7. Dedicate real resources to integrating your communications

Lots of charities still doubt the efficacy of social and even e-media communications.  Tell those people that what they think doesn’t count!  It’s what your audience prefers that counts.  You need to communicate using the channels that they prefer and, as media choices increase, we all need to acknowledge the need for resources to do this effectively.

Some charities have dedicated teams looking at social media and emarketing but that’s not always possible.  In this case, I would suggest that everyone in a charity can contribute to the communications effort via these channels; the investment will come from putting together a policy or framework within which the team will do so.  Get these parameters in place and owned by the fundraising / communications functions and integration of messages becomes much easier.

Remember the simple cause and effect we are looking for:

Integration = communications delivering consistent messages = improved brand/campaign awareness = increase likelihood of action by audiences = better results for your charity.

With thanks to the guys at Marketing Sherpa

I’ve been speaking with marketers and fundraisers this week about this very problem.  The background is the ubiquitous Christmas appeal with this particular charity receiving a wide range of feedback from their target audience.  On the one-hand the fundraising team received thank you notes for the good work the charity does along with donations.  One example comprised a handwritten note asking them to “please accept the enclosed cheque for £1,000″.  From a £25 ask, you can see why they are happy that some donors are so keen to support their cause.

On the other hand, they hadn’t received as many complaints as previous campaigns and were pondering whether this was a positive indicator regarding their efforts.  In my experience, it may well be a positive indicator but, like many measures we use, it probably doesn’t tell the whole story if we only look at this indicator in isolation.

We need to understand more about our audiences’ wants, needs and preferences before we can make any firm decisions on our communications.  As proof, here is an excerpt from the same charity’s online forum:

“I am wondering if someone out there knows something I do not.  Like, have I won the lottery, premium bonds or what.  Do I go round throwing my money, whatever I have, around.  I know it’s coming up to Christmas, but my letter box is crammed full of begging letters every day.

And what do you do with all the ones you receive?  I don’t want to sound mean, but I just cannot afford to donate this or that amount every month… Some years ago, I did send a donation to the XXXXXXX and ever since I’ve been inundated with begging letters from them.

Do you think I am being mean?”

Does this look familiar?  As individuals, are we feeling any differently?

Clearly, not every recipient of the Christmas appeal is as keen (or able) to support the campaign as the generous donor above.  The groundswell of support this individual received (ie; no, you are not mean…) from subsequent posts was interesting in that it was supportive of their view but did not go as far as to denigrate this charity.  Rather, there seemed to be an acceptance that all charities need to fundraise in tough times but it would be great if they could do it in a way more targeted at the individual.

Incidentally, there were also lots of comments about direct mail practices, with ‘crap gifts’ and ‘making me feel guilty’ featuring as major turn-offs.  This is a big enough subject for a future blog but at least backs up the Institute of Fundraising’s current stance on stamping out negative practices.

Unless we are communicating with very small groups of people, it’s incredibly difficult to get any message and media mix 100% right.  We also need to acknowledge that we are in the midst of a major financial recession so people are tightening their belts more than previously.  As a result we may need to adjust both our expectations and activities accordingly.

Notwithstanding these common-sense considerations, here are a few suggestions of actions we can all take to get as close as possible to the right message and media mix:

• Regularly ask your audiences about their message and media preferences through non-appeal communications like newsletters or magazines them.  Use media you already have; this shouldn’t be an industry and shouldn’t cost any more than thinking time.
• Actually engage them in the process of creating your campaigns, eg: why not ask your supporters in the summer what kind of Christmas appeal they would like to see?  Then include in the Christmas messages that they are the result of what your audiences told you they wanted

• Use third party research to understand societal and demographic trends as they pertain to your communications activity.  Your 30 year-old audience is going to have a lot in common with 30 year-olds per se so do your homework before writing copy and choosing images.  There is also a lot of free research available so take advantage of what’s around before commissioning anything specific for your organisation.  This can include case studies from agency websites, presentations from slideshare.com, studies from the Institute of Fundraising etc. There is lots of useful information out there.

• Use internal research.  This is so frequently forgotten it makes me angry.  How many people in your organisation meet with or talk to the donors, supporters, members of the public (ie; target audiences)?  Ask them what they are hearing.  Arrange for regular feedback sessions to pick their brains about what issues or opportunities might be out there and of interest to your target audiences.
• When you make audience-driven changes, it can be useful to tell the audience that this is what you have done.  For example, I receive Christmas raffle tickets from a number of charities asking me to sell them on their behalf.  Some of last year’s packs were pretty low on quality (but will remain nameless) and I fed this back to the charities concerned.  What would have really inspired me to engage this Christmas would be if one of those charities had contacted me, made reference to the fact that I had told them I wasn’t a fan of festive raffle tickets and given me an alternative way to help.
• Use organisational experience. Be honest; how many of you conduct campaign reviews or at least collect results but then put them away?  They should be one of the first things you look at when planning any new activity.  Why risk making the same mistakes again or not benefitting from that great success next time around?  This also includes picking the brains of anyone who has worked elsewhere and learning from other organisation’s successes and flops.
• Accept that, despite what some ‘gurus’ might tell you, you can’t please all of the people all of the time; life doesn’t work like that.  Your job is to understand as much as you can about motivators and preferences for your target audiences, put your campaigns together AND listen to what they tell you as a result.  Learn from the feedback (verify it with them if necessary – see point 1) and change your approach accordingly.

At London’s Victoria station there is always a different group of individuals collecting for various charities and in early November, prime concourse space was occupied by this year’s Poppy Appeal team.  I wanted to donate and collect my poppy so dutifully waited in line with other commuters whilst the team (presumably volunteers) tried to manage the human traffic as quickly as possible.

Whilst waiting, I was a little shocked and disappointed to hear the way in which the volunteers were speaking to the waiting donors (that’s what we were).  Most of the team were older, some wearing medals and clearly had a personal affinity with the campaign – all of which is positive.  However, they clearly were not used to rush hour and the bustle / crush this creates.  Donors were being ordered around, told they were stupid if they were going to attach a poppy in a certain way, tutted at and ignored by the volunteers.  I actually saw one younger donor ‘told off’ (seriously) by a volunteer for wanting change from a £10 note!

Once that individual had left, a bearded older volunteer looked at me, rolled his eyes and muttered “bloody teenagers”; as if I was supposed to empathise.  At this point, I started to worry that as soon as I had my poppy and walked away, the surly volunteer would be tutting to the next donor that men with long hair and an earring shouldn’t be allowed out in public.

If brand awareness = ‘I’ve heard of you’, then brand credibility = ‘I want to engage with you’ and I did want to engage with The Royal British Legion’s Poppy Appeal.  The key point is that, in spite of the behaviours I experienced, I still do.  This campaign (perhaps more importantly than the charity?) has serious credibility in my eyes and it has earned the right to make a few mistakes and not to lose my support.

Brand credibility does have to be earned and usually this is achieved by a charity doing just what it sets out to do.  Supporting people it’s supposed to support, running its own affairs efficiently and (often forgotten) communicating all of the above to supporters so that we can see the outcomes of their interventions.  The Royal British Legion has let me know just how it helps people and for how long it has been doing so with the support of the public.  And that’s why they are credible to me and why I continue to support them.

If more charities developed credibility in this way, I believe the sector would not be so concerned about trying new ideas, like social media, or investing their way out of the recession in the way business seems more inclined to do.

Do we carry these attributes through to our fundraising and campaigning messages? Clearly, the answer is ‘not all of the time’; if we did, fundraising and awareness building would be easy.

Therefore, it’s probably worth reviewing a few basics. According to Thaler Pakar from Neurocooking, if we all think about the last story we heard and felt compelled to share, it’s likely there will be several common attributes:

• The story is fairly short, probably taking no more than three minutes to tell, and most likely taking no more than 90 seconds.
• There is a clear beginning, middle, and end, which assist you in remembering and retelling the story.
• It offers some surprise: an unexpected statement or outcome, perhaps, or an unlikely hero.
• It was personally relevant to you and there’s a reason why the person with whom you shared it would find it interesting.

In professional storytelling and creative writing circles, these attributes are known as brevity, clarity, narrative arc, relevancy, and surprise. In other words, the story has to have sufficient meaning, substance, relevance and power to be worth repeating (for we all want the viral effect to work for us).

For charities (and indeed any brand owner) the crux is relevance and the likelihood of sharing the story. These underpin future activity and without them, no viral benefit will be possible. Who is going to retweet or post a dull story on their Facebook page? In 2009 it’s these tools which reach a far greater audience than the literal word of mouth.

I would add to this list of attributes ‘legs’, which is a term I used when coming up with campaign themes which needed to underpin multiple tactical activities. It suggests stamina or staying power and stories which have this longer life-span will generally be retold more often and for longer as they remain powerful and relevant. Just look at Biblical parables as examples of stories which many people still perceive to be highly relevant.

So far I think this is all common sense but we don’t always apply these lessons as well as we could. Here’s a charity example to illustrate the point.

Yesterday, I received the first of this year’s Christmas raffle tickets to sell on behalf of a health charity I occasionally support but won’t name here. The mailpack contained several tailored elements but they were not linked together to tell me a whole story.

That said, one of the elements contained a mini-story of the founders who were spurred on, by the untimely and tragic deaths of their children, to set up this worthy organisation and grow it into the successful fundraising charity it is today. I found this element compelling (and am indeed repeating it to you!), it followed a clear timeline from start to middle to end and was told in only a couple of paragraphs. I would imagine that to the right audience, this story also has ‘legs’ as the tale of human perseverance in the face of tragedy and the resultant selfless activity is hugely positive.

But they’ve told me this story before. I know how it starts, middles and ends and without any content to make me think or feel differently, I wasn’t inclined to do anything differently. What seemed to be missing was Pakar’s ’surprise’. This doesn’t mean the charity should have included something to induce heart-stopping shock, but there should be something that makes the reader stop and think for a moment; and then do something.

The other elements of the mailpack seemed to dilute the impact of their story and without the ‘narrative arc’ to draw it all together, I think the end result was less powerful than it deserved to be. With the increasing use of video and social media by charities, these rules are arguably more important than ever as target audiences are receiving greater volumes of stories from a wide variety of sources. We need to score very highly on relevance (to the target audience and to our ask), brevity and the kind of impact which means viewers and readers will repeat our message to others.

It’s also worth remembering that these rules apply to all audience communications; from individual donors to journalists and from Trustees to corporate partners. What is relevant and powerful to each may be different but the principles still apply. Our ’surprise’ element should make them want to do something, even if it is only to tell their friends, family, colleagues and boss what we told them.

If anyone has any examples of powerful charity storytelling, please do share them so I can post them for everyone’s benefit.