BlueFrog Creative

Simply brilliant: the selected writings of George Smith

“We’ve got a newly impoverished society, we’ve got a younger generation who are going to have to build their lives via totally new economic mores, we’ve got an apparently endless recession and we can begin to talk about the end of growth through consumer spending. And in the middle of this apparently apocalyptic state of affairs, we have millions of rich people getting richer…Is this a case for specifically targeted fundraising, or isn’t it? Hit the pause button and think.”

And while you’re on pause, here’s something else to ponder. When do you think those words were written? Seems a fair representation of the problems we face today, doesn’t it? Except, of course, it isn’t.

That analysis was written by George Smith nearly 20 years ago and appears in a new book, published by the White Lion Press.

Up Smith Creek brings together articles written by George for various publications, including Professional Fundraising and Direct Response. So here’s an idea. Give yourself something rather wonderful to look forward to. Click here, put in your bank details and – hey presto – George’s book will be on its way to you.

In the meantime, let me whet your appetite.

When it comes to George’s articles, editors Marie and Ken Burnett recommend ‘One a day, taken at bedtime’. I’ve been a little disobedient and have upped the dosage. So I’m just under half way through and already there's plenty of gems to share.

There’s no one quite like George.

The articles I’ve read so far are all beautifully written – just what you’d expect from George Smith. Witty. Elegant. Truthful.

George always seems to find the perfect word (even if one or two sent me scuttling to the dictionary). Do you know anyone else who would refer to ‘the fundraising caravanserai’ making its way up to Birmingham for the annual IOF conference? If you do, be sure to let me know as I’d like to offer him or her a job. But if you want to start with writing that makes the hairs on your neck stand on end, turn to page 11.

“I just saw the Serbian mortars exploding in that Bosnian graveyard. I saw children cowering behind gravestones who only wanted to put flowers on the coffins of their little murdered friends. I saw an old lady carried off, the mayhem, the panic, the terror, the tears. And I cannot forget that there are men in those hills, Western men (Christian men?) who look through binoculars, peer through gun sights and press buttons. Do they laugh? Are they pleased with themselves?”

Good fundraising is writing is done with feeling – just like that.

He’s funny too.

If you prefer to start with a laugh, I recommend p86 and the article ‘Read any good t-shirts lately?’ Some of the more mischievous comments made me laugh out loud. On the bus.

The truth doesn’t date.

Here are some of George's thoughts on fundraising, which seem as valid today as ever. Or dare I say it, more so?

On advertising taking over from fundraising.

“The mores of advertising were bound to invade the mores of fundraising. But there are signs that the host culture is being swamped. By which I do not mean that all fundraising is nice and all advertising is nasty. What I do mean is that most advertising is pretty silly and that all fundraising is pretty damned important. We should do well to dwell on the difference.”

Jeff Brook’s spotlight on stupid ads shows just how far we’ve gone down this particular road.

On what’s wrong in fundraising…

“We live in a jaded society, increasingly suspicious of the value of good, increasingly resentful that there are no apparent simple solutions to any evil. Apathy is beginning to seep through us all, apathy born of skepticism.”

This also struck a cord:

“I sense the dead hand of dutiful professionalism squashing the fine old instinct of passion.”

On what’s needed…

“We need more candour, a greater indication that we can still think imaginatively and liberation from our predictable vocabularies.”

Read more

I met George Smith – just once, many years ago. At the time, I'm ashamed to say I hadn't read much of what he'd written. These days, I'm slightly less stupid. Here's in part why.

Tiny Essentials of writing for fundraising by George Smith (Given to new Bluefrog copywriters on their first day – if it hasn't been sent to them to read before turning up.)

Asking Properly by George Smith (The book most likely to be borrowed and not returned to the Bluefrog library)

Up Smith Creek by George Smith

(Click the link for your own copy).

Silly season

Although there's little sign of it so far this year, August is usually known as 'Silly season' by journalists. When there's no proper news, we get stories like this one about an old man mistaking a dog waste disposal bin for a letter box and this one about a cow on the loose in Germany.

That aside, there's been very little silly news this August, so I'm about to make up for that, with an article I spotted in the last ever issue of Design Week.

 

(Click to enlarge)

As you can see above, it looks at a selection of charity posters, as well as the much-discussed elsewhere rebrand of RNID, now Action on Hearing Loss.

We'll start with the sensible part of the article, which talks about the challenges of designing for charities including the idea that there should be a low perceived cost. There's also a small amount of advice about how to get good quality images at low cost (through Flickr, Think Stock, i-stock etc). 

The National Brain Appeal has a new series of posters which very sensibly uses low cost stock images. Each one features an individual and, rather than choose a shot with eye contact, they've deliberately chosen profile pictures.

'Each subject [is] in profile and turned to the left to echo The National Brain Appeal's logo.'

The creative director goes on:

"We'd like to get to the point where The National Brain Appeal owns that – so you see a profile and you immediately think of the charity."

I'm going to file these comments with the reply I was given by a branding agency when I asked why they'd picked a (particularly unpleasant) colour – 'Well we chose it because no one else is using it'.

There's a reason for that.

If like me you get a little hot under the collar when people ignore what works and do something different (not different and better), you might also enjoy this post from Mark.

In the meantime, here's a few thoughts for designing for charities.

• People engage with shots of a single subject, with eye contact.
• It's not always the hardest need shot that works. Images that convey emotion and allow the viewer to connect with the subject are the best.
• There are all sorts of ways work can look low-cost. We call our approach 'inside-track' and you can see some examples here.
• If you want someone to do something, don't hide away your call to action. Make it big. Make it central to your idea.
• Reversed out copy reduces readership, so does displaying copy at an angle.
• Don't design for yourself, design for your audience.

Why should someone support you?

If you're reading this, chances are you're a fundraiser for one cause, or several. I'm sure you spend much of your time persuading people to support you. But, I wonder, do you ever show them why they should?

This has been on my mind since I saw the end of a television programme about car company, Rolls Royce. I should say straight away that I know very little about cars, so I won't be on this subject for long, but it was a selling technique that caught my eye.

Historically, the almost silent, smooth-running engine was one, major aspect of the car in which the company took pride. So much so, it became a key selling point and Rolls Royce salesmen found a great way to demonstrate this to potential customers.

They would take a coin, balance it on its side on top of the engine, and it wouldn't fall over when the engine started ticking over.

(Jay Leno refers to this in an article here)

No need for a long sales pitch after that.

This aspect of the car also inspired this beautiful advert by David Ogilvy, which BF Senior Copywriter, Felix, wrote about in a previous post on this blog (click to read).

If you click on it and read it, this advert is a list of selling points.

As an aside, I particularly like no. 3.

The Rolls-Royce is designed as an owner-driver car. It is eighteen inches shorter than the largest domestic car.

I'm sure you'll see right away why I picked that one out. It's going straight to the buyer and looking at how the car can meet their needs. We always aim to do the same for donors.

Anyway, I've been looking round to see if any charities have identified a USP like Rolls Royce did, then used it to show a donor the difference they make. 

Many charities find this hard because they do many things in a particular field. I was wondering if anyone had found such a unique way to define themselves.

Click to watch the film on this page and you'll see that MacMillan Cancer Support  describe themselves as a cushion. Or rather Suzie, who has benefited from the support of a nurse describes them as one. I don't know how well it works but you'll see it's on the charity's donate page. It was the most interesting example I could find of a charity defining themselves so tightly and finding a tangible USP.

Taking the Rolls Royce example a little more loosely, there are lots of nice ways that a charity can show a donor what it is doing on a project basis. Here's one I worked on recently.

We were asking supporters of Network for Animals to help stamp out the dog meat trade, a subject that generally performs well with donors. We want to find a new angle, a way to bring the cruelty of this practice to life for the donor.

Instead of putting a coin on an engine, we put this in their hand.

 It's a length of nylon cord, used to tie up dogs on the way to slaughter. During the transportation, their mouths are tightly bound and their legs tied together. Many die a horrible death in the back of a lorry. 

Before I depress you any further, let's move onto the good news that this worked well as a fundraising piece. Here's the whole pack.

 

(Click to enlarge) 

So that's it for this time's show and tell, which has been all about 'showing' not just 'telling'.

 

Is this the most personalised mailing ever?

Well, for one man it certainly was. I'll explain why in a moment.

 (Click to enlarge - this is the US version of the pack) 

This is one part of a fundraising campaign we have been running for Imperial College, London. And there's a little story behind it.

Last year, Adrian Salmon of Leeds University demonstrated to me the power of the alumni-university relationship. He kindly invited me to speak at the CASE conference. How could I refuse? I went to Leeds University. I said I'd love to but...

...I don't really know anything about alumni fundraising.

Thankfully this wasn't enough to put Adrian off. I presented on the techniques we have used to engage donors and build strong relationships with them, for charities as diverse as the Art Fund, WSPA and The Stroke Association, to take three examples. And a little while later, Ros and Zoe at Imperial came to us suggesting we employ a similar approach for them, centred around donor needs, to raise money for scholarships.

What a wonderful opportunity. And as I mentioned, the pack above is a part of the resulting work, which also included on and offline communications. 

So what's so personal about it?

Well, we soon found out that Ros and Zoe had done an incredibly sophisticated mailing themselves the previous year. To build on this, we found a way of using their great data to appeal to students of different generations.

Ros and Zoe set us the challenge of increasing participation and we put in place a target of more than doubling the response rate from the previous year. One way we tried to do this was being relevent (this previous post from Mark expands on this point).

So if you studied at Imperial in the sixties, you had a greetings card with an image from that time to remind you of your time at university. This one in fact.

From the fifties through to more recent graduates, each segment received a different photo to take them back to the university education they cherished – with the aim of motivating them to fund scholarships for the next intake of students.

That's already pretty personal, especially with copy to match.

But when the version of the pack pictured above went out, a man rang up to say he was in the photo! He asked where we'd got it from and could he have more copies! So that really is super, super personalised. If only we could have done that for everyone.

Anyway, the good news is that, by the time you read this, we should have beaten target in just three weeks and the reminder has only just mailed.

With higher education funding in a state of flux, there's a new imperative for universities to raise funds. Many are moving away from annual appeals to fuller fundraising programmes. Imperial's drive to increase the number of active donors seem like a good route to take.

Here's a few more links you might find interesting.

• One of Adrian Salmon's campaigns is featured on SOFII here.
• Article I picked up via twitter, which shows how Oxford University are approaching the problem.
• Mark's post about how universities and arts organisation dominate the highest level of giving.

 

How do these adverts make you feel?

Have you got your donor hat on? Great, let's begin.

Here's a selection of adverts – old and new, online and offline – for you to look at. Then we'll see how you react to them...

(Help the Aged, press advert)

(ChildLine £3 pack)

 (DEC press advert)

(Smile train press advert)

  

 Sightsavers press ad

(Dogs Trust press advert)

(Cancer Research UK press advert)

(Friends of the Earth press advert)

 

(DEC press advert)

 

Unicef banner advert

   

 (Oxfam press advert)

You can take your donor hat off now. Did you notice what happened? 

They're in a (rough) order. I started with adverts that present you with a problem that you, as a donor, can solve. The sums of money being asked for vary, but all make the donor feel powerful.

Then the adverts start to change and present larger-scale problems with less tangible solutions. These can – worst case scenario – make a donor feel powerless. Their gift seems like a drop in the ocean.

At Bluefrog, we try to make sure that doesn't happen. For every piece of fundraising, we address four principle need states, one of which is 'combat helplessness'

So would we ask you to change the world? Or fix the system? Probably not, because it's more than most people can deal with – even if they are getting a helping hand from other like-minded individuals.

Mark sums it up in this post by saying 'Show donors what they can do, not what they can't'.

Of course, some causes lend themselves to straightforward propositions. With others, you have to work a little harder (or more imaginatively) to find a way of making the donor feel their contribution is a vital one. That's why I like the Goma DEC advert, where in the midst of a large-scale disaster, there's an attempt to breakdown the costs and combat a donor's feeling of helplessness.

The theme of helplessness came up in Adam Curtis's three-part documentary ‘All Watched Over By Machines Of Loving Grace’. Did you see it? I suspect the series would have had a wider following amongst fundraisers if its title had more clearly revealed its theme – the death of altruism.

In it, Curtis looked at the rise of philosophies which either directly reject altruism or lead to it. One was Ayn Rand's Objectivism. Another was the belief system, associated with people like Richard Dawkins, which resulted from George R Price's mathematical theories. 

Price pioneered the idea that we are governed by our genes and even altruism can be understood via mathematics. He became convinced that an individual 'altruistic' act only exists to further the survival of the mass of human beings – in particular, those humans most like us. This is the genetic understanding of altruism. It is just a kind of self interest. And it leads to the belief that we are little more than genetically driven machines, who can do little to change the course of events.

If you watched the programme, you'll realise that particular philosophy pretty much drove George Price mad. It's certainly depressing. That's why I like adverts that make donors feel powerful.

All the pieces shown above are recruiting new donors, but combating helplessness needs to run through a donor communication programme. By proving donations are used to make a difference - in newsletters and feedback pieces – you can build a relationship of trust.

Advice from 'proper' writers

Recently, I've been listening to some interviews with well-known authors. And it struck me that the advice they shared applied very nicely to the writing we do as fundraisers.

 So here's the useful stuff from the first three.

1. What makes a good writer by Armistead Maupin*

Do you have the habits of a good writer? Here's how Armistead Maupin describes them:

"I am always gathering. In my last novel, I let my character say, 'I'm rather like a magpie. I save the shiny bits and discard the rest and I've done that all my life'."

TAKEAWAY TIP: 'Shiny bits' can be found anywhere - in a book, a newspaper, a film, a blog and direct from the mouth of a real life person. Spend your time gathering interesting facts or thoughts, then your mind will be well-stocked with things that can be transformed into ideas. 

*Armistead Maupin is the author of Tales of the City

 

2. Getting started with Andrea Levy*

Andrea Levy talks very interestingly about how she got started as a writer. She was thinking about doing an evening class and decided to have a go at writing beforehand. So this is what she did next...

"I read [what I'd written] aloud to my husband and I was so scared."

TAKEAWAY TIP: One of the best ways to see if your copy 'works' is to read it aloud – to yourself, if there's no one else around. If you find yourself gasping for breath, your sentences are too long. If you trip up on certain sentences or paragraphs, rewrite them to make them easier to read. If you find that you're bored, it's time for a serious rethink.

I may be making an assumption too far, but I included the end – where Andrea said she was scared – because I thought that was also a useful steer. If you really engage in what you're writing, it is a bit scary. Don't let what you write make you feel too comfortable.

Andrea goes on to point out that there are many ways to learn the craft of writing. 

"[at an evening class]...I learned such a lot about writing, not in a teacher/blackboard sort of way, but by listening to other people's writing and listening to what the teacher said about it." 

TAKEAWAY TIP: Practice your own writing, but also read good examples of other people's. I'm guessing there is also plenty of charity mail you get through your door. There's also SOFII and Osocio a click away. Keep hold of the best stuff to inspire you.

Andrea goes on to talk about how she learned a vital skill – telling a story.

"I learned about story-telling...and I realised I could just not worry about the grammar and actually go for the feeling, for the story and how you gain someone's interest."

TAKEAWAY TIP: It's incredible useful to have a firm grasp of grammar, good spelling and a decent vocabulary, but the best writers break the rules. Using 'But' or 'And' isn't the cardinal sin many would have you believe. Neither is a sentence that is just one word long. Or without a verb.

Don't write. Communicate.

And there's more good advice in what Andrea says above. In good fundraising copy, we need to find what 'really appeals' to a donor. Know your audience and pick out what will interest them. Go for 'the feeling'.

*Andrea Levy, winner of the Orange Prize 2004 for Small Island

 

3. From first draft to final with Ian McEwan*

So you write and re-write something and what happens next? 

"I get the stage when I won't look at it again. You need the surprise. You need the distance of time to look back and see it through another set of eyes."

TAKEAWAY TIP I think this is very good advice indeed. Spend too much time with a piece of copy and, eventually, you can't see the wood for trees. Put that work to one side – and bingo! A day or two later it's fresh again and you can spot the language repetitions, clunky transitions and other problem areas.

So on to the sign-off process - perhaps the trickiest part of all. These authors don't have a committee of stakeholders reviewing their novels. That's probably why they're so good! My experience, unfortunately, is the more people involved in a sign-off process, the more bland and unresponsive the copy becomes. So how can we change that? Reduce the number of people involved ideally, but also make sure they're the right people. Here's what Ian McEwan does...

"I have a coterie of friends in Oxford and I give them the finished draft...They are permitted to be as brutal as they like...I think you do need sceptical friends to give you the benefit of a truthful opinion.

"A friend of mine said, 'I think this novel is absolutely awful. I think you should put it in a drawer and forget about it.' I didn't speak to him for 18 months. I hadn't learnt the rules of the game...You've got to allow them to say that. Now I could take it."

TAKEAWAY TIP: A 'sceptical friend' – I like that idea, particularly because I'd be expecting them to ask me questions about what I've written, not having a go at doing it themselves. I also like this quote because a fundraising copywriter (in an agency, a charity or freelance role) also needs to be able to 'take it'.  

*Ian McEwan, winner of the Booker Prize 1998 for Amsterdam (I prefer Atonement though)

 

 

These insights were shared on Radio 4's Desert Island Discs. If you have access to I-player, you can download the programmes here.

Could you give Messi fundraising a go?

If you're interested in football (soccer), you'll probably at least entertain the notion that Barcelona is the finest team in the world. 

Gifted individuals and incredible teamwork both contribute to Barca's success – and so does their seven second rule.

Have you heard of it? It seems that if a Barca player loses the ball, manager Pep Guardiola expects them to win it back within seven seconds. Seven seconds, then they should be back in control of the game with the ball at their feet. It's a winning formula clearly, but what's it got to do with fundraising?

Well, do you have the same expectation – that if you lose a donor, they'll be 'won back' as quickly as possible?

This is where it becomes more difficult, as Amanda Santer from ActionAid explained in her post from late last year (click to read). 

Determining that a donor has lapsed almost inevitably takes time. We're not talking about seven seconds either. A cash donor in a DM programme will often be put into the 'lapsed' category after two long years without giving. A regular giver may have ended their gift several months a charity knows/takes any action.

This can lead to a feeling that it's too late to go back. I've certainly seen (and received) slightly apologetic letters asking for support to re-start many months after it ended.

I'm with Amanda when she suggests we need to do better. We need to 'win back' a donor – not just offer them the same experience again. At ActionAid, a donor win back strategy was built around a more personal conversation with a 'lapsed donor' – seeking to address the particular reason they had for ending their support, which also provided useful pointers on areas of donor care to work on.

Amanda explains all this in her post and when I talked to her about it, she made this important point. Reactivating lapsed donors is often seen as an admin function, when in fact it needs a fundraising/donor care strategy behind it.

So charities, like Barcelona, need a win-back strategy. And if we can't manage seven seconds, perhaps we should be speedier still – and take take action to prevent donors lapsing in the first place. Mark has already blogged about online feedback mechanisms like WSPA's Animal Protector, so I'll just point you in the direction of his post on this important donor retention tool.

Here are a few quick and easy things you can do to prevent lapsing:

• Call to say thank you. That's all. Just thank you.
• Send a simple piece of feedback in the post which shows the donor something they have achieved.
• Use your next newsletter to ask donors when they want to hear from you.

I'll finish with this - which shows the benefits of keeping the ball, and winning it back as soon as you lose it.

i. 

* Thanks to my fellow Villa fan and BF colleague, John Sturniolo, for the heads up on the seven second rule.

Hostilities will be engaged with our adversary on the coastal perimeter

Do you recognise this famous speech? Well, last time, I promised a post about Winston Churchill, so there's an enormous clue – except, of course, that isn't what he said at all.

"We will fight them on the beaches"

In 1953, Churchill won the Nobel Prize for Literature. He could write. As a politician, he spent a great deal of time persuading people he was right and persuasive writing really isn't far at all from what's at the core of good fundraising copy. So, today, some copy-writing tips from Churchill who, when you look into it, is an incredibly quotable person. 

Here's one I like: "The further backward you can look, the further forward you can see" which is an explanation of why this post (and the last) take a historical approach and why SOFII is such a vital resource for fundraisers.

1. "Broadly speaking, the short words are the best, and the old words best of all"

As Churchill demonstrated with his most famous speech, you need to say exactly what you mean if you want to reach people. Choose short words:

'Need' rather than 'require'

'Ask' rather than 'request'

'Gift' rather than 'donation'

At the same time, whether you realise it or not, you'll often be choosing the 'old words' Churchill refers too – words of Anglo-saxon rather than Latin origin.

If you read Tiny Essentials of Writing for Fundraising – a very useful little book – you'll find George Smith agrees.

Latin            Saxon

Information  News

Indicate       Show

Immediate   Now

George says, "The Saxon words have more force. If you don't believe me, try swearing with Latin-based oaths."

Well, I'll leave you to do that in your own time...

2. "If you have an important point to make, don't try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time – a tremendous whack."

That's Churchill again. When you are writing fundraising DM, you generally have to work hard to get your reader to engage with what you've written, so there's no point in hiding away the point you want to make. When I'm training copywriters, one of the first things I tell them is not just to think about what they're writing, but how people will read it.

That means making sure that the main point you want to make is in your letter, on your donation form and any supporting information. It doesn't mean being repetitive necessarily, but finding a new way of saying what you need to say. Varying paragraphs, bolding, highlighting, underlining and annotating - these are all ways of making sure people turn their attention to what you want them to read.

3. "All the great things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honour, duty, mercy, hope."

Okay, so maybe there's a less obvious link to fundraising copy, but there is one - honestly. What's highlighted here is that some of the most important things can be said elegantly, in just one word. 'Freedom, justice, honour, duty, mercy and hope' – these are all tremendous words. Emotive words. They sit on their own and suffer from having other words around them. It's a reminder that what we write as fundraisers shouldn't be neat, tidy and bland. It should be moving, because what we does matters.

4. "Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen."

Another cracker. And listening is a great way to become a better copywriter. Here's some great writers and thinkers I listen to a lot:

Ken Burnett (who could probably make a shopping list interesting to read)

Damian O'Brion (who introduced me to the idea of the copy checker)

Jeff Brooks (I love his description of good fundraising copy – 'rough' and 'dashed out')

George Smith (via his fabulous books)

And, of course, my colleague Mark Phillips, who has an annoying habit of being right.

But I also learn a lot from listening to the people who can tell you first hand about what makes a charity worth supporting.

• The people who are helped by a charity. I'm thinking about some of the young people I've met through Barnardo's, the families of a deaf and blind children with Sense and many, many more.
• Inspiring Chief Executives like Geoffrey Dennis at CARE International, Jeremy Hulme at SPANA and Richard Miller at ActionAid (to name but a few).
• The people who are doing the hard work on the ground. I've listened very carefully to field workers, social workers, vets and many others and stolen their words to describe the incredible work they do.

So if you want to be a good copywriter, don't work of pieces off paper. Meet people and listen. 

5. 'I'm just preparing my impromptu remarks'

So here's my last Churchill quotation, chosen because 1. It's funny. 2. It shows that good writing comes about not by accident, but as a result of a great deal of thought.

 

What can we learn about fundraising from Florence Nightingale?

Mark may be SOFII's 'History Man', but an interest in fundraising from the past runs a little deeper at Bluefrog. Recently, I was interested to learn that Florence Nightingale wasn't only a pioneer in the field of nursing, she was also an innovative fundraiser.*

Take this, for example – Nightingale's Rose Diagram. Is it the world's first infographic?

(Click to enlarge)

 
This beautiful hand-drawn diagram shows the causes of death during the Crimean war. The chart on the right covers April 1854-March 1855. The chart on the left covers April 1855-March 1856. In red, you can see the number of soldiers dying from their wounds. In black, the number of deaths from other causes. In blue is the number of soldiers dying because of the insanitary conditions in the field hospitals.

Out of 18,000 deaths, 16,000 were due to infectious diseases caught in hospital.

These deaths were preventable as the left hand figure shows. With clean conditions, lives were saved. 

So why did Nightingale produce this graph? Well, she wanted to raise money.

The Rose Diagram was part of a confidential report Nightingale prepared for Queen Victoria, detailing what had been learned in the field hospitals – that deaths could be reduced by hygienic practices. Believe it or not, this fairly basic precept of medical treatment was not met with universal agreement. In fact, the Chief Medical Officer at the time was one of many influential voices refuting Nightingale's claim.

She had to prove she was right in order to get greater investment in hospitals throughout the country.

Proving your donor's money will make a difference is at the heart of good fundraising, but I wonder how many charities take as rigorous an approach as Nightingale? And it's not just her use of statistics that impresses. The diagram itself is incredibly engaging visually and the first of its kind.

Unfortunately, I can't say we've ever produced anything so beautiful, but I can think of a couple of great appeals we've done in the past using the same principle of 'before' and 'after' – proving the effectiveness of the work we are asking donors to support. One was for Farm Africa.

Just like Queen Victoria, donors received a specially prepared report (shown below) detailing a scheme we wanted their help to fund. As it had already been through a pilot, we had proof the approach worked. 

 

Inside the report, we showed how fields were planted in the area and explained the problems experienced as a result.

We also showed an 'after' shot of a demonstration plot, planted using the new techniques, which delivered a bumper harvest. 

 

We also produced an infographic, which is nowhere near as lovely as the Rose diagram – room for improvement there!

   

I hope the Lady of the Lamp has inspired you. Coming soon, a post about what Winston Churchill can teach you about copywriting.

 

*I was watching The Beauty of Diagrams, BBC4 - did you see it?

Fun. Humour. Wit.

Three words that are not instantly associated with fundraising. Let’s face it, we’re more often dealing with the world’s weighty issues as we try and move people emotionally and inspire them to give.

I CAN, a UK charity that helps children with communication difficulties, has, however put fun, humour and wit at the heart of its fundraising. And I think it’s interesting to look at the new opportunities it’s given them to promote their cause.

Have you had a look at I CAN’s Adopt a Word scheme? If you haven’t, click here to have a look at how it works. You’ll be able to search for a word you’d like to adopt, find inspiration if you're lost for words and see some lucky words that have already been adopted by a celeb or two.

It’s a great way of getting people to engage with the cause. Words are often adopted as gifts (for a year), giving I CAN two potential leads to convert to committed giving.

I also like the way you can buy additional Adopt a Word gifts such as t-shirts, mugs etc. It’s another smart way of raising funds.

Follow @adoptaword and you'll find the fun runs right through to the Twitter stream, with regular word-based riddles, quizzes or facts to get you through the day.

At this point, I should declare my interest as we work with I CAN on parts of their Adopt a Word programme.

In the run up to Christmas, we came up with this advert, which is living proof that raising money via television no longer requires a big budget – especially if staff at your agency are in the ad and bring in the props from home!

  

We also produced these welcome materials, also on a tight budget, to go to word adopters and people who received a word as a gift.

 

(Click on the image if you want a closer look)

Fun, humour and wit run through this product (the welcome letter was really great to write). And you can see here how a donor responded to the instructions on how to care for their word (in this case, 'binoculars'). 'I love @adopt a word' - what an excellent start!

 

 When I was looking at the campaign results, I was a little surprised to see that one of the key drivers of traffic to the website was a small advert in the weekly popbitch email, not a communication much used by charities (!)

(Popbitch is, in its own words, 'a free weekly newsletter focusing on satirical celebrity gossip'.)

Which brings me to trying to sum up some of the advantages of coming up a 'fun' fundraising product.

1. A new audience – You have a new way of engaging donors (you often attract younger donors) and are occupying a less congested area of the marketplace.

2. New advertising spaces – You can promote your product in places other charities don't go (see popbitch).

3. Making donors feel good - If your product automatically puts a smile on a donor's face, it's a good starting point for building a relationship.