Charity stories

Published on May 14, 2014 by

Beware! Are your EOFY appeal letters as good as these?

In the last couple of weeks, I’ve seen the first of the EOFY appeal envelopes arrive in my mailbox.

The verdict?

I’m impressed.

Aside from my own clients, I support several non-profits. In previous years, they’ve had – shall we say – rather lacklustre direct mail.

But several have really lifted their game this year. Improvements include:

1. Very well crafted propositions – specific rather than generic offers I’d really be interested in giving to.

2. Very good use of story – these non-profits seem to have actually gotten someone out there to interview beneficiaries. Rather than plonking in a ...

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Published on April 2, 2014 by

The 3 biggest issues I’m seeing right now with 2014 tax appeals

Sorry to all for not being more regular with posts but I’ve been working very hard on several tax appeals – possibly even yours!

One thing I find very interesting. Sometimes more attention seems to be paid to haggling over minor phrasing than to issues that will actually make the biggest difference to appeal results. Hence this post.

The issues causing me the most concern as I try to get the best possible results for clients are these:

1. Getting appropriate stories and images

For some reason, people seem to think that getting beneficiaries or field workers to say nice ...

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Published on September 18, 2013 by

Digital storytelling for charities is about shareable content

No point in getting fabulous raw, real-time beneficiary-generated content if nobody sees it. Or cares about it. That’s why your digital storytelling content must be highly shareable.

The success of the GHNI and WaterAid projects outlined in my previous posts were dependent on supporters spreading the word online.

So what made the content highly shareable in these cases?

Close enough real time. People, including your donors, are used to instant status sharing, retweeting or 30-second posting online of what they’re thinking, doing, or looking at right now. ...

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Published on September 16, 2013 by

Digital storytelling ideas for your charity

I’m going to say upfront, this is an ideas post. It’s based on AJ Leon’s digital storytelling case studies as told to the F&P Forum last week.

It’s about changing the traditional model of storytelling from polished, charity-generated print stories to raw, real-time beneficiary-generated digital content.

Because I think it’s easy to dismiss AJ Leon’s digital storytelling model, I wanted to offer some ideas on how it could be adapted to your non-profit.

I’m not making any guarantees on whether these ideas will work. I just want to get ...

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Published on September 11, 2013 by

Digital storytelling for charities – in the hands of beneficiaries

At last week’s F&P Forum, I heard two case studies from self-proclaimed professional troublemaker AJ Leon about digital storytelling.

One featured a tiny, tiny non-profit called Global Hope Network International. Using digital storytelling, a mobile phone and a $250 budget, they managed to raise $72,000 in three hours to fund community development work in the village of Ola Nagale in Kenya.

The other campaign was The Big Dig for WaterAid in the UK. It saw £2.2 million pouring in for water projects in Malawi.

I don’t want to describe the projects in great detail here. Suffice ...

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