My #IWITOT 6 minutes from #IFC2015

At last week's IFC I was asked to speak at I Wish I'd Thought Of That. I've pasted the words I tried to learn below.

Hello. My name’s Paul de Gregorio and I’m Head of Mobile at Open Fundraising, I’m really honoured to have been asked to talk to you all about the fundraising idea ‘I Wish I’d Thought Of’.

I’m going to talk about Save the Children UK’s 2009 Gaza Ceasefire campaign.

There isn’t a single campaign out there that has inspired me more in my career.

So I hope in a few minutes’ time it will have inspired you as well.

 

On the 27th December 2008 the Gaza conflict began.

As is always the case in any conflict, in any part of the world, it’s the civilian population that bears the brunt.

So, on the 5th January Save the Children decided to act. They launched a campaign to demand a ceasefire so vital food, shelter and medical supplies could be delivered. And they asked the public to support this demand.

 

Five days later this ad was run in four newspapers over one weekend.

I love this campaign because it was big, it was bold and it was impactful.

100,000 people responded to the ad by the end of the weekend. 180,000 responded in total.

At the outset there was no fundraising plan. This was a campaigning ask:

Add your voice. Sign the petition. Demand a ceasefire.

But as the scale of the public response became clear, rapid decision making took place at Save the Children which resulted in fundraising becoming central to the campaign.

A telephone fundraising agency was hired to talk to responders about financial support in addition to their petition action. Tests were conducted and rollout was swift.

90,000 calls were made. 10% of those spoken set up a monthly gift. That’s 9,000 new monthly givers almost overnight.

I love this campaign because the creative is brilliant.

Everything about it, the words and the picture, make you want to do something.

It makes you angry, it shocks you, it’s an ask you just can’t say no to.

 

Look at this image. Taken just two days before the first ad was run. It’s a photograph of Mohammed, a three year old boy being comforted by his mother after a bomb strike. It’s a picture that re-enforces the horror of conflict for children.

And the words; some of the words are incredible.

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH

RELENTLESS BOMBING IN GAZA IS KILLING A CHILD EVERY THREE HOURS.

HOW MANY MORE MUST DIE -- BEFORE THIS STOPS?

And the call to action is perfect:

We have to act now.

Every person can make a difference.

Take action. Add your voice to our plea.

We’ll make sure your message is heard.

Selecting SMS as the only way to respond was inspired. Because sending an SMS takes seconds. You’ve been moved to act and taking the action is frictionless.

I love this campaign because it proved to me that there was new life in UK fundraising…

If I’m honest, at the time this campaign was launched, I was getting a little frustrated at the fundraising techniques being employed in the UK.

Huge volumes of cold telemarketing calls were being conducted to recruit monthly givers, targeting responders to mail, telephone or online surveys.

In order to drive these massive volumes, there was a huge growth in the number of companies selling these lists to charities. And no shortage of charities willing to test them.

But to me it felt as if the people being called had displayed no real engagement in the charity calling them beyond ticking a box.

The Save the Children Gaza campaign proved that there was another way. That investing in campaigning actions was as effective, if not more so, than simply ‘buying’ prospects.

That if you could drive a genuine emotional engagement with your cause, you could take people on a journey to other methods of support.

Speaking of which I love this campaign because it proved that when fundraisers and campaigners work well together amazing things can happen…

I’ve spoken to a lot of people at Save the Children about this campaign. And the most striking thing is that fundraising was never part of the initial plan.

This was a campaign to mobilise the support of the public. Not to raise money.

But the quick thinking and acting of the senior team at Save the Children meant that this outpouring of support for the issue of the day was effectively translated into monthly donations.

There is a lot of talk in charities all over the world about the need to remove departmental silos. To align organisations behind the needs and wants of the beneficiary and supporter.

This campaign is a fantastic example of what is achievable when smashing silos becomes a reality and not just a buzzword

And last, but by no means least, I love this campaign because it was genuinely transformational for UK fundraising…

It showed us that it was possible to drive mass engagement with a non financial, but cause led proposition. Something that is common place now.

It showed us that mobile, specifically SMS, was a critical tool for fundraising and activism and it was the catalyst for a huge growth in the use of mobile to recruit and retain supporters.

And for me personally, it’s the campaign that gave me the inspiration to do the job I strive to do well today. To fuse creative, strategy and technology to create campaigns that bring huge numbers of people towards amazing causes and hopefully help change the world.

And that’s why the Save the Children Gaza appeal is the campaign I wish I’d thought of.

Thank you.

Moved by the words of a child...

Because it’s a very good idea to meet in real life the people you ‘meet’ on Twitter I went out for a coffee and some cake with Flora yesterday. Flora is Direct Marketing Manager at Medical Aid for Palestinians. So, we had coffee and cake and we shared some fundraising stories and opinions, we had a lovely time.

Flora told me about an ad MAP ran in November last year in the aftermath of Israeli airstrikes on Gaza. An ad designed and written in-house, an ad with no images, an ad that led with a quote from an 11 year old child. I asked Flora to send me the ad and she did.

It made me really angry and it’s been on my mind all day.

It's the voice of a child that makes me angry. It’s knowing that Maryam’s words are real.  

The airstrikes started on Wednesday 14^th November. The ad appeared in the Guardian on the 17^th. 

I’m a great believer that urgency and a looming deadline can often deliver the best ads.

Ads that are clear, have impact and haven’t been toned down by re-writes and interference.

It’s simple, clear, compelling, raw and authentic. And it worked. I love it.

MAP are an amazing organisation, doing amazing work. I support them, if you want to as well that would be lovely.

Mobile for individual giving

The lovely people behind Spring asked me to write a guest post for their new blog. It was published on their site on 08 October 2011. It's very quickly becoming a very useful resource, I'd recommend you check out their website.

Every time I leave the house for work I check for three things, my wallet, keys and my mobile and I’m sure I’m not the only one. When I’m on the train a high percentage of my fellow travellers aren’t reading newspapers or books, they are staring into their mobile phones or tablets.

They are reading e-books, playing games, catching up with the news, interacting with their mates on Facebook, reviewing their calendars or working. I think it’s safe to say that as a nation our mobile phones have become vital to our everyday lives.

As fundraisers we need to be thinking now how we are going to harness the power of mobile to help us raise funds and communicate our messages. Because if mobile is this important to our supporters, it needs to be really important to us.

There have been some amazing campaigns over the last few years, which have really shown the potential of mobile and it all started with the simple SMS or text message. Text messages are great. You don’t need a smartphone to receive or send a text message. Everyone uses text to communicate. Text messages are perfect for fundraisers as they are instant and you can send one in seconds. So it’s no wonder that it’s text that so far has really captured the imagination of fundraisers.

In the beginning we had text to protest 

In 2009 Save the Children ran a series of press adverts appealing to the public to call for a ceasefire in Gaza. Text response was central to the proposition and response was phenomenal. Over 180,000 people responded in one weekend from adverts placed in three or four newspapers. With every response came a telephone number, so very quickly this pool of highly engaged campaigners were converted into close to 9,000 new monthly giving donors.

It was the first large-scale example of how mobile, text, campaigning and fundraising could be integrated to achieve multiple objectives. It really was the moment when fundraisers realised that the technology could really help them drive mass participation.

Then we had text to donate 

The next step change was the success of the campaign led by Joe Saxton for mobile networks to reduce the percentage of text donation they kept.

This really opened up text to donate as a viable fundraising method. But we all very quickly learnt that you can’t just stick a text number on a print or TV advert and expect instant success. Successful campaigns have mobile and text at their core, they have a clearly defined ‘itch’, the issue or situation that makes us feel uncomfortable and ‘scratch’ the action we can take to relieve the situation.

The advert below was the reason why I wanted to work where I work now. The itch in this case is clearly the fact that a child dies every 45 seconds from malaria. The scratch, just as simple, you can provide a net, right now for £3, which will save a child’s life.

And now it’s text to engage

Charities at the forefront of mobile and text giving are quickly realising that the opportunity is far greater that than simply building a pool of donors for a series of direct debit asks. Testing further text to donate appeals, the impact of campaign updates, thank you messages, asking donors to share the ask into their social networks and the provision of information for donors to keep and refer back to on their phone, are all things charities are currently testing.

And as smartphone penetration increases we are able to deliver very rich and engaging content via links to mobile optimised web sites included in text messages. It won’t be too long before the charities leading in this area will have detailed supporter journeys for their text donors just as they do for cash and direct debit supporters.

That will be the next big step change for mobile and individual giving in general.