Major donor fundraising
ANC – emergency pre-election fundraising, from 1992
The ANC campaign that pioneered professional political fundraising in the UK and offered the British public the chance to play an active role in getting rid of apartheid forever.The campaign raised £2 million in six months with no budget and just one paid member of staff.
The Bruce Barton letter: the classic long copy letter from 1925 that pulled a 100 per cent response
He sounds like the racy detective hero from a 1930s crime thriller. But Bruce Barton is something else, for sure – a great copywriter and communicator.
UNHCR’s goodwill ambassador
Goodwill ambassadors have become the accepted public face of many INGOs, particularly those in the UN system. But UNHCR’s selection, recruitment and deployment of their public celebrity is a textbook example of how to do it. UNHCR has managed to engage a major celebrity with very simple means at virtually no cost.
The Wishing Well Appeal for Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital
It’s difficult to do justice to a capital campaign as wide, and complex. This is a condensed summary of a major capital campaign which, at the time, was the largest appeal ever mounted in the UK.
Farm Africa ‘ask for what you need’
How do you ask a maojor donor for $50,000 when she’s at the other end of a telephone line and you’re in a very noisy tapas bar? Do you make ‘the ask’ in the worst possible surroundings? The lesson from this case study is that as long as ‘the ask’ is right, it doesn’t matter where you are.
Nature Conservancy of Canada: legacy mailing
How NCC accessed the pot of gold at the end of the fundraiser’s rainbow with a classically straightforward but very appealing legacy piece. Without doubt, this carefully and sensitively crafted pack will raise funds very effectively for the cause and the organisation that created it.
Children’s Cancer Institute of Australia: bequest conversion pack
This very detailed exhibit shows clearly how to ask donors and potential donors for the biggest gift they’ll ever make – a legacy. The campaign achieved brilliant results and stands out in the charity sector as an example of good bequest (legacy) marketing. It showed that asking someone for a bequest doesn’t have to be daunting and risky, as long as it is done in a sensitive, respectful manner that offers an emotive and compelling case for support.
Great Ormond Street Hospital: legacy marketing 1856
Why is it that the giving and receipt of legacies figured strongly in Victorian literature, yet is largely absent today? The announcement in the annual report of The Hospital for Sick Children (later Great Ormond Street Hospital) appeared just four years after the hospital was founded, but it was already obvious that gifts of legacies would be very important to the health and development of the hospital.
The RNLI legacy letter
This letter raised £millions. It is a classic example of a direct appeal to supporters for information to help plan for future income. An example of a candid, plain-speaking, respectful letter to remind supporters that RNLI relies heavily on legacy income to fund their work.
Fund for a Free South Africa: high value mailing
Apart from its historical value this colourful, beautifully-crafted direct mail appeal package, designed to create maximum impact from a carefully targeted group.
Common Cause Citizen’s Committee: major donor upgrade
The letter and the rather interesting reply form get to the point, asking for money on the letter’s first page.
Nature Conservancy: launch of their Science Council
Many fundraisers shy away from asking for big gifts particularly through the mail, but experience constantly shows that if it is well done, it works.
Greenpeace’s optimistic tick-box suggestion: the ‘Stop Thorp’ campaign court case mailing
This exhibit works on many levels. At first glance the reply form opposite looks innocuous enough but really it’s a brilliant illustration of how, in times of need, donors will respond warmly to help a cause when it is clearly in trouble.
The first ever major donor dinner – c. 970 BC
With a clear target, a list of major prospects, an inspirational lead gift and a fantastic end result, the only thing that’s not ‘state of the art’ about this event is that it happened 3,000 years ago.
How Harvard University got its name - major gift fundraising in the seventeenth century.
The examples in this exhibit are almost 400 years old, yet it would seem that we are still making the same mistakes today when it comes to major gift fundraising.
