How to make your website a lean, mean, money-making machine

March 2, 2012

A charity’s website is its window to the world – a chance to capture attention, show what the charity does, engage and involve supporters and raise funds. Virtually every charity now has a website, but many could still benefit from refining their online fundraising approach.

Addressing the basics

Bigger charities will have their own established web team and perhaps even agency support too. The result is their websites generally look great and are fit for purpose when it comes to supporting organisational objectives. But for those of you without such resources there are some simple ways of ensuring your website is doing its job:

• Look at your website from the perspective of your target audiences. Try and talk to five of each of your key audience groups (for example volunteers, donors, people who’ve supported a campaign but haven’t donated, beneficiaries). Ask them how they use the site, what actions they take, where else they look online for information, etc. 
• Don’t ignore feedback. It should be used to inform your designs, content and navigation. Once you’ve made changes to your site, test again with some of those audiences.
• Keep your content current. Make sure you are telling engaging stories about the work you are doing and your latest fundraising campaigns. There are some great open source Content Management Systems (CMS) out there, meaning that you can create attractive looking sites without paying hefty license fees and can then manage your own content without the need for external support.
• Be sure your site is search engine optimised. Online searches are one of the main ways people find charities to support, so improving the visibility of your website is a must.
• Make it clear on the homepage what you do and why you need support. This sounds obvious but can be overlooked in the desire to create a dynamic, interactive website.
• Get to the point. Give clear calls to action and provide clear ways in which they can get involved and stay involved beyond that first donation.

Making it count

But creating a great website is by no means the end of the story. I have come across far too many charity websites that have done all the right things in terms of making it clear what they stand for, and kept me engaged and motivated through stories of why they need my help and how money raised is spent, only to fall at the last hurdle.

When I click on the donate button, I can be directed to an unbranded third party website or taken to a plain, long form that goes on for pages until I lose interest. So if fundraising is a key objective for a charity – and I wonder for which ones it isn’t – it’s incredibly important to make this last stage of the process as engaging as the rest of the website.

• Be concise. Make sure your donation form isn’t too lengthy or demanding. Even someone interested in your charity doesn’t want to spend hours to register to donate.
• Illustrate outputs. Make it clear where money will help by providing examples for common donation sums eg ‘£10 will help by providing …’
• Don’t forget pictures. Use imagery that reflects the rest of your website or that particular campaign to ensure an emotive yet joined-up experience for the donor.
• Be polite. Manners count online too – say thank after the donation has been processed.
• Get social. With so many people sharing information on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and more, make it easy for them to do so here – allow supporters to share with their network that they have donated money to your cause, a valuable endorsement.

In a nutshell, keep your site engaging, efficient and evolving to strengthen your supporters’ online relationship with you and ultimately strengthen your bottom line.

Julia Woodcock (@JCTemple) is Head of Marketing (UK) at Convio, which provides cloud-based marketing and fundraising software alongside design and digital consultancy services.

Five things charity communicators can learn from Mad Men

February 24, 2012

“If you don’t like what’s being said, change the conversation.”

Those are the words of Don Draper, top creative in the US drama Mad Men, set in a 1960s New York advertising agency.

I came to Mad Men, which first aired in 2007, quite late and I’m busy working my way through four seasons’ worth of box sets to catch up. I don’t feel entirely guilty for giving the show so much of my time. It seems to me that there are so many parallels between what we do as charity communicators and what the ad men and women at Sterling Cooper do in the show.

I’m a firm believer in learning lessons from popular culture and Mad Men is full of them.

Here are five things I think we can learn from the US show.

1. Tell a story

Mad Men’s Don Draper knows how to tell a story. When his colleagues flail in meetings, he’ll stand up and make their ideas come to life by telling the story of the campaign they’ve come up with. Good charity writing should do the same, whether it’s a grant application or direct mail. Say you have to sell a campaign to a donor. Starting by telling them about what you want the campaign to achieve and going on to talk about the logistics won’t tell your story nearly as effectively as it would if you began by saying why it is needed. That’s because you need to first show the change you want to achieve and gain your readers’ empathy.

So, instead of:

Our pancreatic cancer research centre will be the biggest in the world with 100 scientists and high tech laboratories that will help develop better treatments for the devastating disease.

You could have:

Sam Jones never touched cigarettes, ate his five a day – every day – and went to the gym before work. “I’ve always been health conscious,” says the 55-year-old father of two. “I never dreamed I’d get cancer – and I’d never heard of pancreatic cancer.”

Diagnosed with pancreatic cancer three months ago, doctors can’t tell Sam why he developed the disease because they don’t know exactly why people get it. We are launching a pancreatic cancer research centre to help change this – to save the lives of people like Sam.

2. Think outside your office

Creative staff at Mad Men’s Sterling Cooper, especially main character Don Draper, are always scribbling on bits of paper, napkins and notebooks when they think of an idea. In the same way, let ideas for your charity’s communications digest, develop and come to mind when you’re away from your desk and the meeting room. An idea for a great slogan is likely to pop into your head when you allow yourself to stop thinking about it for a bit and, in my experience, the best headlines or introductions are rarely formed when you stare at a blank screen.

3. Beware of stereotypes

Many episodes of Mad Men show us that when advertising campaigns are based on stereotypes, such as gender or race, they fail. Of course, Mad Men is set in 1960s North America and we’ve moved on a long way since then – thankfully. Though many charity causes battle against common stereotypes, often their communications can help perpetuate them. Do you need to swap “chairman” for “chairperson” or “mankind” for “humanity”? Does it matter whether someone is married or single? Does the reader even need to know someone’s background? Is their age important? Only include information like this if it is essential to your point, otherwise the detail can be a value judgement.

4. Discuss your ideas – and listen to everyone else’s

There are a lot of meetings in Mad Men – from discussing ideas for campaigns to who’s going to work on them. And while sometimes organisations are guilty of having too many meetings about meetings, it’s equally easy not to have them at all. I’m sure we’ve all sent an email to someone who we really should have phoned. It’s a good idea to organise regular meetings with departments you’d like to contribute to your communications to get more buy in from them. So, you could organise a meeting with your fundraising team to find out what support you could offer each other in the next month or with policy to get them to explain issues they want you to communicate to the wider world in plain English.

5. Challenge the status quo

Mad Men shows how society has become less sexist, racist and elitist. By highlighting the fact that not everything has changed since the 1960s, though, it also shows how far we still have to go before everyone is equal. In every communication your charity produces you should show how far society has come in solving the problem you want to solve, and what else needs to be done. People need to know why you exist (what you do) and what concrete things you want to see happen in the future (why you do it). This might sound like an obvious thing to say but there are far too many charity websites, annual reviews and strategy documents which don’t explain either.

Trina Wallace is a charity copywriter. Sign up for her top charity communication tips at www.trinawallace.com or follow her on Twitter @trinawallace

How marketers can stay focused on the big picture in tough times

February 17, 2012

Will 2012 be a bumpy ride or a car crash for the sector? Funding cuts, restructures and an almost inevitable re-entry into recession create an environment euphemistically known as ‘challenging.’ A well known marketing director recently told me that his work these days involved constant fire fighting, to the point where he felt he was no longer able to focus on strategic marketing.

Many of us will get understand why he feels this way. As the pressures on us grow, resources become scarcer and competition increases, the going is getting even tougher. No one is denying that. But getting mired in short term fixing of problems can negate the considerable value and load-reduction that marketers can bring to their organisations.

Marketers understand what your target audience needs, how to make sure that those needs are meet, and the opportunities and threats that could affect your charity. We need to avoid tunnel vision at all costs. We’re big picture people, and it’s vital that we preserve that approach to help guide our charities through the difficult terrain ahead. Otherwise, how can we take our organisations where they need to go?

Here are some ideas to help you stay focused in tough times:

Find a quick way to stay up to date with breaking news

I use Twitter and other social media tools to stay on top of issues that could affect my charity.

Connect with people who inspire you

This could mean having a coach or a mentor who acts as a sounding board outside your organisation (CharityComms has an excellent mentoring scheme). Or it could involve coffee with a friend or contact who works in another field but who always leaves you feeling positive and energised.

Don’t try to do everything

I’ve blogged before about how saying yes to every request can leave you spread far too thinly. No one can produce consistently good quality work in that situation. My aim is to give every project the time and attention it deserves, and that means having to say ‘no’ occasionally. It was tough at first, but I’m getting better at it.

Don’t take workplace politics personally

Marketing and comms professionals are in the unique position of having to work right across our organisations, with many different departments and stakeholders. This can inevitably lead to the occasional fraught situation as we are dragged into internal politics. Don’t fight those battles. It’s important to avoid taking this to heart and to stay neutral. Your job is to keep your project on track and help everyone stay focused on the benefits of getting your marketing project off the ground.

Get some perspective on things

Find ways to offload and unwind – whatever will help you get some headspace and come back to your work refreshed. As part of my commute, I like to walk for at least half an hour every day. Sure, it takes longer than hopping on the tube, but it’s my thinking time when I let my mind wander. I often have my best ideas then.

Whatever 2012 brings, it’s unlikely to be pretty. But if charity marketers can stay focused on the big picture then I honestly believe we can play a key role in helping our charities survive and thrive. Are you up for the challenge?

Zoe Amar is Head of Marketing and Business Development at Lasa, a charity which provides services to Shelter, Age UK and thousands of other charities across the UK. She is also on the board at Bright One and is a Chartered Marketer. Zoe tweets from @zoeamar.

Looking backwards to stand out

February 13, 2012

Retro marketing – or repackaging stuff that’s been around before – is a well-used marketing and communications technique. And because it’s well-used, it is getting tougher to recall many campaigns or products; commonplace things don’t stand out. 

When VW created the new Beetle, Smile Train persisted with what looks like a 1970’s fundraising mailpack and Adidas reintroduced vinyl sports bags, they were among the first of their peers (certainly that I noticed) to deliberately look to their own history to achieve standout in today’s very crowded markets.

But when everyone does the same thing, retro stops being a movement or a specific approach and just becomes what everyone is doing.  Bang goes the standout and wave bye-bye to any comms cut through.

However, it can be a different story when organisations choose to hark back to something that either wasn’t successful first time round or considered naff at the time. For example, I’ve been around long enough to remember when direct mail wasn’t that common, and passing notes around school and then the office was a recognised means of communication – not just something to be laughed at!

In 2012, we might consider both of these things overdone or perhaps a bit naff. And I thought I did, until I received this note in the mail:

I know it might appear contrived, but it ticked the right boxes:

• I read it because it was something I just hadn’t seen in such a long time – a classroom note!
• It was different from everything else in my post that day (or in ages).
• It didn’t tell me anything else at all, so if my curiosity was piqued I had to follow through.
• It included a digital call to action – go to their website – which I did.
• The website (www.ireallylikeyou.co.uk) extends the tease with a countdown timer to Valentine’s Day – so at the time of writing, I still don’t know what the website is about! I will almost certainly go back and find out, though.

Is there anything in your comms or marketing history that you’ve discounted because it was naff, a bit clichéd or just tired?  Is there a technique in there that might just be worth reviving to help achieve some cut through?  Me, I’m thinking about advertising on beer mats again.

Clearly, just because a tactic is older and being reused, that doesn’t mean it can drive donations, successfully lobby MPs or make journalists pay attention. But if it’s different enough, relevant to what you’re trying to say, doesn’t undermine your brand and doesn’t have to stand alone (that is, it’s part of a suite of activity like the notes above) then it may just get you noticed.

And being noticed in a media-saturated world is what we’re after.

What do you think?

Kevin Baughen is the founder of Bottom Line Ideas, a Trustee and serial volunteer.Say hallo on Twitter @KevBaughen.

Climbing an engagement ladder

February 10, 2012

How many of you use engagement ladders?

Grouping supporters into different segments based on their activity and relationship with your organisation is paramount to success. If you don’t know what your supporters have been doing, you can’t tailor your messaging accordingly and you risk losing them. For example, asking an existing donor for a £10 gift when they already give a monthly donation is not a successful communications strategy – you may anger your donor, and lose their support and money altogether.

How you group your supporters and determine their groups is up to you. It depends on what your objectives are, but here are a few ideas:

• active campaigner (taken more than a certain number of actions in the last year)
• active donor (given a certain amount of money over the last year)
• campaigner / donor (supporters who have given money and taken action in the last year)
• fundraiser (people who have raised money for you as part of an event)

And combinations of the above!

The engagement ladder bit comes in when you have your groups and set the objective of moving your supporters up a ladder by engaging them in different asks. You can have multiple engagement ladders, depending on the types of supporters you have (campaigners, fundraisers, volunteers, etc), or you can include everyone on the same one. Again, it just depends on your strategy and what you want to achieve.

The ladder entry point

Not everyone will start at the bottom of the ladder and work up. Some will join at points along the way. As long as you have your groups in place, you’ll be able to report on the various entry points, as well as where people are getting stuck. You’ll then be able to tweak your messaging and try out different tactics for recruitment and engagement.

Most importantly, if you aren’t tracking activity you’ll never be able to find out what’s working and what isn’t for your ladder(s) and it will simply crumble.

Climbing the ladder

It’s important to get a clear picture as to if and how supporters are moving up your ladders. Through supporter profiling, you can regularly run reports based on the boundaries you have set. For example, if you’ve set a segment for standard campaigners – ie anyone who has taken part in fewer than three actions in the last year – running a profile will pick up the details of these supporters. Some supporters in this segment then take a few more actions, which lift them out of the standard campaigners group and into the super activist segment. When you next run your profile, you’ll be able to see who has moved up.

If you don’t have any profiling tools available then loading all your data into spreadsheets and manually moving your supporters along when they take an action is another (albeit slower) option.

Stay relevant

Once you know what groups your supporters are in, every time they receive an email from you, or click through to a landing page from the email, the copy and asks they see should be relevant to them. If they see copy relating to what they have done for you in the past, they are more likely to want to carry on helping.

If they take part in an action that moves them onto another rung in the ladder (for example, moving up to a ‘peer to peer fundraiser’ from a ‘campaigner’), then you should thank them accordingly and make sure future messages reflect this change in group – if you don’t, you could be back to square one with them.

If you aren’t using engagement ladders you should try them out to see how they work for your organisation – I’m sure you’ll be really pleased with the results.

Jonathan Purchase is Head of Market Development in the UK for Engaging Networks, a leading provider of Internet software enabling organisations to run effective e-campaigns, raise funds, and grow online communities. Contact him here: jonathan@engagingnetworks.net.

Improve your press releases

January 27, 2012

Getting your stories into newspapers, magazines and television broadcasts is not an easy task.

At our Editorial Skills for Charities Workshop, Karen Ackerman and Jo Waters led sessions on how to improve your communications with journalists and increase your chances of getting media coverage. Here are some top tips from the day.

Tip 1. It’s not about you

Other people do not care about your charity as you do. A journalist won’t care that you’ve started a brand new awareness day, or hired a new chief executive. When you sit down to write your press release, ask ‘So what?’ of every paragraph. Why should the journalist care? Why should a publication’s target audience care?

Tip 2. Get their attention fast

You need a good headline. That single sentence at the top of your press release is as important as the rest of the copy put together, and the time and effort you put into writing it should reflect that.

Tip 3. Know your target

Do you know when the paper you want to get coverage in goes to print? A magazine’s lead times? Or when the TV show you’re targeting is filmed or broadcast? To improve your chances of your press release getting noticed – or simply read – you need to catch journalists at the right time.

You also need to know what each kind of publication requires – write a list and make sure you have ticked all the boxes. For example, a good picture can often sway a newspaper’s decision to pick up a story; either send a clear, good quality picture or have a photo call.

Tip 4. Know their target

So, you’ve done your research and know how the publication you’re targeting works. But what about their target audience? Get hold of a publication’s media pack (check out examples from The Daily Mail) – they’re invaluable for understanding who the journalists are writing for.

Tip 5. Always include a case study

The importance of a good case study really can’t be overstated. And if your case study is willing and available for interview, flag this up at the bottom of your press release.

If you do have a particularly strong case study, let any journalist you’re pitching to know if you’ve contacted other publications or freelancers with it; it’s good manners, and if they are a freelancer it prevents them trying to sell the story to people who’ve already heard it.

Tip 6. Keep it simple

No one enjoys being hit with a mass of information. And no one enjoys having to solve a press release that bad grammar and bizarre formatting have made a puzzle. Keep your sentences and paragraphs short, and your story simple (you should be able to explain it in three sentences).

Before you send out your press release, get someone outside your department or organisation to read through it to check you haven’t used jargon.

Tip 7. Keep in touch

Always follow up your press release. If it wasn’t picked up, don’t be shy to ask why; you might get more insight into what that particular journalist or publication is looking for.

Ellie Brown is Communications Officer at CharityComms – say hallo on Twitter @CharityComms. You can find more resources from the Editorial Skills for Charities Workshop here: www.charitycomms.org.uk/editorial_skills_for_charities_resources

Why is The Guardian supporting a tax on charities?

January 17, 2012

I’ve written a blog for The Guardian today. They didn’t pay me to write it. But if I want to send a copy to my trustees at CharityComms from The Guardian, I will be charged a copyright licence fee. However if you, as a private individual, want to send it to a friend, they won’t charge you. Indeed, they positively encourage you.

The same is true for all charities. The Guardian is part of a media licensing system that charges charities to make copies of newspaper articles. Currently the system applies only to paper copies, but The Guardian is pushing for this to be extended to digital copies through its agent the Newspaper Licensing Agency (NLA).

Think about this for a moment. When The Guardian chooses charities for its Christmas appeal, these charities are charged if they want to circulate copies of their Guardian coverage to colleagues at work. If charities are shortlisted for, or win, a Guardian award, The Guardian wants to charge them for circulating copies at work. On the one hand they are rightly encouraging charities to engage with them, but when they do, the charities are charged for a copyright licence.

The Guardian is not alone in this. The NLA is owned by the UK’s eight major newspaper groups (Associated Newspapers, Financial Times, Guardian Media Group, Independent News and Media, Northern and Shell, News International, Daily Telegraph and Trinity Mirror). Each year the NLA raises over £26 million in copyright fees, of which about £1.3 million comes from charities – around 5%. The NLA’s running costs account for about a quarter of all that is raised, and the rest is distributed between 1,400 newspapers.

We think this system is unfair on charities for four main reasons:

• Charities are paying to get their own coverage back. Our research shows that in the vast majority of cases charities copy newspapers to keep a track of the coverage they have generated, often as part of the requirement to show the impact of their work. Charities are paying to share the coverage they have generated. Indeed in many cases the newspaper article is largely lifted and copied from the charity’s own press release. So the charity writes the release, the newspaper copies it and then the charity is charged to share the copies. This is a bit like Take That being charged to attend their own concerts by the sound engineers.
• Charities’ coverage is mainly local, but the NLA forces them to pay for national licences. Our research shows that the vast majority of coverage for charities is not national but regional or local. This is because local papers have a very good relationship with charities at the local level. However under the NLA’s licensing system, a charity has to pay for national coverage licensing even if it only has local or regional coverage.
• Media licensing is not cheap. Our research shows that it typically costs £1 for every article copied, and the largest charities are paying over £10,000 for media licensing. There is a charity discount, but this fixed at £158 no matter how big the fee.
• Why should charities pay when individuals can circulate articles freely? Of all the byzantine complexities of media licensing, the fact that individuals are encouraged to circulate online articles while charities are soon to be charged (held up only by a legal case) is the most baffling. Apparently this is because we are doing it for commercial gain!

At today’s CharityComms AGM, we begin our campaign to exempt charities from the media licensing regime. And we start with The Guardian, because for all its professed desire to support the charity sector, it is right at the heart of this regime that takes money from charities; money that could be better spent on our important work. This newspaper is one of the shareholders of the NLA and it has a director on the board. We believe that The Guardian should show leadership and join our campaign to exempt charities from the media licensing regime.

We’d love to hear from charities that they support our campaign: the more we have backing us, the stronger our voice will be. We won’t charge you to share this article – so please feel free to pass it on. If you would like to register your charity’s support, please email me at vicky@charitycomms.org.uk, and share your views and experiences in the comments section of The Guardian article, below this post and on our Facebook page. We’ve also had coverage in PR Week and Third Sector, so feel free to comment on those stories too. You can also share on Twitter using #copyrightfees.

Vicky Browning is director of CharityComms, the professional body for charity communicators. The research report on media licensing and charities is available from the CharityComms website at www.charitycomms.org.uk/resources/guidelines/charity_media_licensing

Give your brand away

January 13, 2012

You spend years plugging away at the comms coalface of the charity you work for, incrementally increasing understanding of the need for presenting a coherent brand profile to the outside world, and that brand guidelines are there to help rather than hinder. Your chief executive and senior leadership team get it, your trustees are on board – even community fundraisers are sticking to the script. You sit back, a contented smile on your face as you contemplate the praise you’ll be showered with as the charity benefits from all that hard work.

Then the bloody goalposts move.
 
The rise of social media is requiring a hasty re-write of the rules of communication and engagement with the public, and at the heart of that re-write is the urgent need to reconsider the relationship between your brand and the people you communicate with. The days of passive communications consumption are long, long gone. Now, via the miracle social media, not only do the people we are trying to communicate with have a voice, they also have multiple channels to air that voice. The brand doesn’t belong to the organisation anymore; it belongs to everyone the organisation engages with.
 
Old school brand communications, in many cases, were about presenting a united front; about an order, rigour and control over what was communicated from the inside out by anyone associated with the brand. This approach is no longer fit for purpose (if it ever was), because the proliferation of channels without an editing process make it virtually impossible to control messages in this way. Pandora’s box has been opened, and a huge number of organisations have had their fingers very publicly burned trying unsuccessfully to nail it shut again. Two elements of this step change in communications are exercising organisations the most: the speed with which a single utterance on social media can blow up into controversy and widespread mainstream media coverage, and the delicate balance between the faux intimacy of social media communications and the need to represent your brand accurately and sincerely.
 
One recent flare-up that illustrates both points is the hole dug by Ed Milliband through his now infamous “blackbuster” tweet. It started with an attempt, by a man accused of being robotic, to sound more human, and led within hours, via an unfortunate spelling mistake, to widespread derision and ridicule.
 
With social media it is easy to think you are damned if you do and damned if you don’t, but that doesn’t have to be the case. Getting the right balance between intimacy and formality isn’t a new skill but something that anyone who works in customer services is engaged in every day of their working lives. The principles that apply to that context are exactly the same for social media communication: be yourself and talk to others as yourself, but remember you are wearing the name badge of your employer.
 
The other key thing that people who are good at customer services do is listen. Social media provides your brand with the opportunity to interact with the people you want to reach, to listen and respond rather than simply sending out dictates or shouting into the dark. The best brands spend more of their time asking and responding rather than telling these days. Charities are no different in this respect, and have a head start as the great majority of them are already people-focused organisations and retain immense good will with the vast majority of the general public. They need to make the most of that head start by releasing the iron grip on their brand, and by starting to embrace sharing.
 
Peter Gilheany is Director of Campaigns at Forster, the social change communications consultancy. Follow Forster on Twitter @Forster4Change.

Sharing success within your organisation

December 16, 2011

I spoke at CharityComms’ Making the Business Case for Communications Seminar last week, focusing on The ‘Get Heard’ Report, a piece of research Amazon PR conducted with the CIPR to explore the extent to which comms is valued within charities. It was a fascinating project – which is why we’re still talking about it now.

One of the big themes from the research, and which formed a focus for discussions at the seminar, was the need for comms professionals to prove their worth by becoming better at sharing their successes internally. This might sound simple – and to some degree it is, for big charities with big budgets and big teams, able to generate major campaigns and to spend time entering awards that will win them recognition. But for smaller organisations, the need to tell other departments what you’ve been doing and the value your work is adding to the organisation is often overlooked.

It can seem even more difficult to shout about successes that are built over a long period, through a steady flow of activity, as opposed to huge campaigns and news splashes. But as we all know, sustained communications at a lower level can be just as effective, and sometimes even more so.

So how can charity communications professionals do more to make sure the value of their work is seen by others? Well, to a large extent this boils down to a need to do more communications, but with a different focus. Naturally, your time and energy is centred on communicating with your primary audiences – usually those outside the organisation. But internal audiences are also crucial, and deserve just as much consideration in terms of when and where you approach them, and what you say. As my fellow speaker Kevin Baughen explained, you can’t expect to talk to the senior management team in the same way you’d talk to someone within the comms team, and you can’t assume everyone in the policy department has an in-depth understanding of what PR and comms involves, and how it can best contribute to their own objectives.

There’s no substitute for getting out there and speaking to people. Don’t rely on them reading coverage round-ups on email and understanding how hard you worked to achieve those pieces, or the value they add to the profile of the charity. Get away from your desk and go and have a real conversation. Find out what priorities different teams have, and take time to talk to them about how comms can help (and how it can’t!). Try to get time allocated to comms presentations in senior management team meetings, and make sure you speak their language – not the language of comms.

It’s also important to find the right way to share successes resulting from a joint effort. If you have worked closely with the fundraising team on a project that has delivered real benefits, avoid falling into the trap of over-claiming for your own role. It can be easy to do when you’re trying to make the case for your share of the budgets, but joint successes must be shared in a true spirit of collaboration. By doing so, you can help other departments understand that communications is intrinsically linked to every aspect of the organisation.

Louise Morriss is Managing Director at Amazon PR, a communications agency specialising in the voluntary sector. Follow Amazon on Twitter at @amzpr

Make your comms personal

December 12, 2011

“It’s all about me”.

It’s a ballsy way to start a presentation, but Angela Emms, director of family bereavement charity The Rainbow Centre in Bristol, is a ballsy woman. Speaking at the most recent CharityComms South West seminar, Angela is a great reminder of why comms should be personal. A fundraiser practically from infancy, Angela now uses her considerable personal presence and energy to connect with celebs, local businesses, the families of those the centre has helped and the wider community to drive the Rainbow’s comms and fundraising activities.

Angela is right. As a communications professional, it is all about you. It’s about the connections you make with your audience – whether internal or external, supporter, donor or beneficiary. And smaller organisations like The Rainbow Centre, whose fundraising comms rely so heavily on individual contacts, are a great demonstration of why the personal touch really helps you to connect, engage and make the difference.

It so happened we had another example of comms getting personal aired at the same event. Send a Cow comms manager Lorraine Finnegan shared her charity’s excitement at the early success of a recent comms initiative which personally thanks supporters for their fundraising efforts. A ticker-tape runs along the website name-checking donors. Personal thank yous are posted on Twitter and Facebook. The Send a Cow crew even went so far as to dress up in carrot, cow, sheep and chicken costumes to surprise pupils at a local primary school who had raised funds for the charity. Their video of the visit (check out the impressive udders just over a minute in) celebrates the school’s efforts in a really personal way.

Getting personal applies both internally and externally. Lorraine believes it’s the development of a much better, closer relationship between the Send a Cow comms and fundraising teams over the past year or so that led to the development of the ‘Thank you’ campaign. So while many charities are increasingly using data segmentation to target their audiences more carefully, it’s worth remembering that adding the truly personal touch often comes down to you.

Vicky Browning is director of CharityComms.