Great Fundraising Organizations, by Alan Clayton. Book cover.

Do you turn your stories into direct fundraising activity?

We’ve said it and read plenty of times about how a great story can help to ‘sell’ your charity to a supporter or donor. But just having the great story is only half the job; it’s (obviously) about how we use the story to underpin a fundraising ask that makes it valuable.

I thought I’d share with you a ‘test’ campaign run by Make-A-Wish UK which is simple in its approach, didn’t cost very much and, in my opinion at least, ticks several of the boxes needed to make a ‘story’ really useful for fundraising.

The charity grants wishes (experiences) to children with life-threatening conditions and as such has plenty of stories featuring the children they’ve helped over the years. The wish stories include before, during and post-event elements and prove much more powerful when delivered face to face.

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Great Fundraising Organizations, by Alan Clayton. Buy now.

Make A Wish child MayTherefore, the fundraising team decided to test whether they could emulate the positive reactions they generated when speaking to people face to face via other channels and the “Remember Princess May” campaign was created.

Emails were sent to supporters with one including a picture of May (a previous wish child) on the two-year anniversary of her death. The picture is all about the great experience the wish created for May and the positive memories it built for her family. But more powerfully, the email linked to a Youtube video of May’s dad who tells more of May’s story, explains how Make-A-Wish helped bring some joy to not only May’s life but to the whole family.

His story, just like his emotion, is genuine and powerful and it this context which enables him to honestly and openly ask that viewers donate to the charity to help more families like his.

The campaign was also featured in the Make-A-Wish supporter newsletter, building on the messages featured in the email and volunteers also received updates not just on the campaign messages but also on results and to encourage them to support the campaign wherever possible.

The campaign isn’t perfect (what is?) but there’s lots to learn from their approach:

As we said above, there are things the team could do differently if they decide to roll out the approach on a larger scale:

I’ve donated and I hope the ‘test’ succeeds. What do you think about how they shared this story?

 

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