Marketing and Small Charities.
Another long one I’m afraid. (This is longer and edited version of one I did for my employer)
When it comes to marketing, charities and fundraising companies such face a problem. The usual approach to marketing is to outline the benefits for the customers. So for example if you worked for a greengrocer your marketing could focus on the health benefits of eating fruit and veg. However with charities the benefit rarely goes directly to the person paying.
Of course it is always possible to focus on long term or hidden benefits. For example the idea that you should donate to Cancer Research now, because you want to be sure that it or something like that will be around should you ever get cancer. Or, more tenuously, You should give to Help the Children because it makes you feel good. However this approach sells charity as a selfish activity, something that many donors won’t want to see themselves as being. In fact one of the big appeals of donating to charity for individuals is that it is a chance to do something good and unselfish.
Having said that, there is a large market for this ‘selfish sell’; some of the most generous sources of donations are corporations. However corporations are answerable to their shareholders. They rarely donate, rather they invest. Why invest in a charity? Because it’s good PR. In effect this is a simple exchange, they provide you money, and you give them some ethical brownie points.
Individual donors are somewhat more complicated. While the feel good factor will help persuade people to donate it is something the vast majority of charities have. At least any that isn’t set up for disposed dictators! Emotional appeals are one route that charities often go down. Think of the stereotypical leaflets with starving children on them. There is a reason why they are so widely used and that is that they get an effective response. However for small charities this doesn’t really help. Say you’re a small charity trying to feed a village in Ethiopia, you release your starving children leaflets and nothing happens! Why is this? Has everyone stopped caring? Or is it that they saw your leaflet, thought ‘I must do something’ and donated to Save the Children? What’s happened, well it’s an issue with brand awareness. Save the Children, Plan and similar organisations have been doing the same thing for so long that the images are now linked with them in many people’s minds. Smaller charities simply don’t have that link.
So what’s a small charity to do? Well the first thing is to be different. By providing an innovative service they not only stand out from the crowd, but they generate news stories which provide free advertising and awareness. In general small charities can get a lot of coverage from local newspapers by providing giving them stories that will interest their readers.
Another factor that a lot of small charities can use is local interest. The classical church roof fund is a great example of this. By supporting a local project or solving a local problem they can bring the benefits of their actions home to potential donors more easily than larger charities. Though for this to work the goal must be clear and obvious. For example fixing a church roof, or creating a youth club.
For example if your charity’s goal is to create and run a youth club, then donors know what you do. You can outline benefits for them and the area and they can measure your progress. In contrast if you goal is to help local children, then it is much harder for people to judge whether your successful, if you can do it, and why they should give to you rather than another charity offering a similar service.
Having raised awareness it is important for the small charity to engage with potential donors who will want to know not just what the charity does, but how it does and how efficient it is. After all very few people would be happy if they found that £4 out of every £5 donated went towards brand new computers for charity staff. And the newer, smaller charity will have deal with more scepticism than a larger better established one. Despite this, charities, with the exception of Help for Dictators, tend to have a lot of goodwill towards them from the start. So if you can get the attention of donors and engage with their questions, you’ll likely find them enthusiastic and helpful.
