FILM AND TELEVISION FUNDRAISING
Shouldn’t you be looking at a picture instead of reading this? Recent coverage of refugee issues has reminded us of the importance of powerful images to drive supporter engagement. And beyond this, we’ve seen that if good causes don’t tell great stories, then supporters will create their own, better, stories without us. Move too slowly, and your cause becomes redundant, as Derek Humphries explains.
I
still recall the feeling in the pit of my stomach. I was looking at a photo online. A little boy, about two years old, nicely dressed, a red t-shirt, sandals. Lying like little kids lie when they are sleeping. But he wasn’t sleeping. He was dead. Washed up on a holiday beach in the Mediterranean, one of the thousands of people who have died fleeing the trauma in Syria and other countries. The public had known for many months that people were dying, crammed into unseaworthy vessels. People dying, thousands of them, because even these desperate boats felt safer than the land they were driven from. When the picture appeared, no one thought about the thousands. They thought about that one little boy, the same age as a little boy in their family, an utterly innocent little boy. As Stalin is reputed to have said: ‘Ten thousand deaths is a statistic. But one death is a tragedy.’ The image I saw was a horrible reminder of this enduring truth. Politicians and normal people reacted differently. Too many politicians spouted pathetically tough rhetoric, and even put up razor-wire to close their borders. And normal people? For many of them the image was a tipping point. Many drove across Europe to give refugees
lifts in their cars. Thousands registered to offer a room in their home to refugee families – what an extraordinary and kind thing to do! People made welcome signs and took their children to welcome refugee children, they took their compassion direct because it was the quickest way to help. The lessons we can learn here are many and varied, but here are seven fundraising lessons that leaped out at me: 1. This isn’t about refugees. It could be climate change, HIV/AIDS, sex trafficking, famine…it’s simply about how individual people are moved by the plight of individual people. This is so easily overlooked when organisations are tied up in brand messaging and strategic communications frameworks.
3. Giving direct feels great. I went shopping with my 10-year-old to buy tents, cooking oil, tinned food etc to take to a camp in Calais. It felt great, and what an education (for her and me)! That’s how we need to make supporters feel. 4. Raw emotion inspires giving. Organisations are way too good at sanitising what they have to say. If your systems and guidelines are diluting the emotion, tear them up. The cleverest advertising idea means little in comparison to raw reality. 5. Visuals and footage trump text. I write a lot, so that last sentence doesn’t come easy to me! But we all know it’s true. Ask what is the one image that will move people’s hearts to support you? And edit, edit, edit.
2. Supporters move faster than organisations. People took aid direct because they couldn’t see a better way to help. UNHCR and others are doing great work – yet supporters felt they could help more quickly by doing it themselves. In an age where fundraisers are obsessed with the notion of storytelling, supporters simply found that the story was more rewarding without organisations getting in the way.
6. Great journalism and great fundraising are very similar. Big, complex issues need to be distilled down to a level people can understand. 7. When the public has an emotional need to give, charities do a public service by channelling that emotion into positive action. What this means is: people care. And when they care, they want to do something.
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F&P Magazine | December 2015 / January 2016
Insight, analysis and inspiration for nonprofit executives and leaders
And charities need to move really fast to offer people that opportunity. And if we don’t, then people will create their own ways to help without us. It’s always been clear to me that the notion of compassion fatigue is nonsense. Sadly, what we do see is organisations suffering from ‘inspiration fatigue’. If good causes can’t move quickly and involve supporters as the heroes of inspiring stories, then supporters will just get on with being wonderful with us.
CHARITY THAT BYPASSED THE CHARITIES IN A CALAIS, FRANCE, REFUGEE CAMP The general public, including fundraising professionals, are increasingly moved to take aid direct. Phil Woollam is a leading expert, currently in a senior role with UNHCR in Europe. As a private individual he raised money and procured goods to take to a refugee camp in Calais, France. I too raised money (several hundred dollars), and along with one of my daughters bought tents and food stuffs for the camp. It’s a tough experience seeing an enormous need while having a relatively small amount to spend on meeting that need. There were difficult choices to make. And that, in microcosm, is what faces good causes every single day. A vital lesson is to liaise with experts on the ground so that one buys and delivers the right thing at the right time. Turning up at a camp unannounced with the wrong things can cause chaos.
Right: Derek Humphries’ daughter, Betty, helped her dad drop off goods to private fundraiser, Phil Woollam, who delivered them to refugees in Calais.
Then drop a line to plain talking, fluent in fundraising DTV. Email info@dtvgroup.asia to speak with Alex, Kerri, Angeline, Derek or Peter. Or find out more at www.dtvgroup.asia
Insight, analysis and inspiration for nonprofit executives and leaders
F&P Magazine | December 2015 / January 2016
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