Fundraisers use social media for mass appeal

14 October | By Maeve Hosea

When the charity LearnAsOne, which supports education in the world’s poorest countries, launched earlier this year, it eschewed the usual marketing techniques. Rather than relying on doordrops featuring sad-eyed children or celebrity ads appealing for cash, the organisation sent out Twitter updates detailing exactly what certain poverty-stricken communities needed to survive.

LearnAsOne is part of a new trend in non-profit marketing, where charities aim to build a more direct relationship with consumers through intimate services such as microblogging and other forms of social media. The organisation hopes that communicating stories directly from the communities where help is needed will generate more interest and support than a more generic approach.

The scheme also allows consumers to get involved with the communities affected in real-time. For example, LearnAsOne might tweet: “We are interviewing the community chief tomorrow. Send us an @reply if you want to ask him a question.”

But can a “digital” and “open networking” charity like LearnAsOne really make much of an impact? Last month, the Charities Aid Foundation revealed that donations are 11% down this year, while another survey suggests that charities have lost as much as £1.3bn in income due to the recession. It might be expected that most people would divert any little money they are donating to more familiar charity brands rather than smaller causes.

LearnAsOne founder Steve Heyes says that using social media tools to carry out charity marketing is far more in step with the aims of not-for-profit organisations than many other techniques. He recalls: “I previously worked in fundraising in charities and ‘where does my money go?’ was the one key question I heard time and again.”

He says that many charities don’t answer such questions well, adding: “It’s not untypical to make a donation to an appeal and then receive a newsletter six months later, which barely mentions what you actually gave to it in the first place.”

In contrast, he suggests tools such as Twitter give charities the ability to be immediate in their response. They can post pictures of projects underway and report back direct messages from the people involved on the ground.

Clean water project

It’s not just LearnAsOne turning to such techniques. The organisation Twestival uses Twitter to arrange festivals to support good works. In February 2009, the body put together events in 202 countries to benefit a safe water project called charity:water.

The $250,000 (£157,000) raised by the Twestival initiative is being used to develop sources of clean water and the charity has been posting live images of the drilling of a well in Ethiopia to show contributors how their money is being spent.

The global organiser behind Twestival, Amanda Rose, says the project has so far helped more than 17,000 people in developing countries and the power of Twitter to help organise it all has been invaluable. “That is a huge achievement by a dedicated group of volunteers in such a short time and would not have been possible even two years ago, without Twitter,” says Rose.

The organisation Warchild, which aims to protect children living in global areas of conflict, is another good cause using online marketing channels to help it deliver its messages. Warchild relies on using music to publicise its mission, which translates well into the digital, real-time sphere.

When the charity runs real-life gigs with chart-topping bands such as Keane and Coldplay to support its actions, it adds exclusive tracks to download from its website. The idea is that the young audience for the brand gets something tangible (and, most vitally, cool) in exchange for its participation with the charity.

The long-established Christian Aid charity also had its eyes on the prize of a younger demographic of supporters when it launched a youth sub-brand project with the digital-sounding name Ctrl.Alt.Shift last year.

Ctrl.Alt.Shift, headed by former PlayStation marketer Katrin Owusu, is designed to generate interest among the YouTube generation of 18- to 25-year-olds, re-engaging them with charity via digital media. Its marketing campaigns ask young audiences to think beyond the usual ways they could be proactive in supporting charities.

Short film competition

To encourage people to interact with it, Ctrl.Alt.Shift launched a short film competition earlier this year, asking people to submit a documentary idea that dealt with one of Christian Aid’s issues of concern, such as Aids awareness, war and disaster.

The prize was that the documentary winners would work with professional mentors from the film directing world to create the finished films. Popular bands, such as the Young Knives, would also score the mini-movies.

“Make sure the campaign is audience-led, not brand-led. What’s the hook? Why is the content exciting?” comments Jonathan Emmins, managing partner of Amplify, who worked with Ctrl.Alt.Shift on a film campaign last year.

The acceleration of charity operations online seems to show no sign of slowing down. While money may be tight for consumers, interactive methods are providing new ways for not-for-profit organisations to talk to their consumers with campaigns that keep them up to date with developments in real time.

Using such technology is great to boost word of mouth, says Jonathan Waddingham, charity champion at online fundraising service Just Giving. However, he warns that showing consumers immediate results on services like Twitter does not mean that charities should forget the fundamentals of traditional marketing just because new ways of communicating have emerged. “It is important to have integrated big ideas that engage at every brand touchpoint,” he warns.