By George they've got it - not!

It’s been a celebfest of charity this weekend with the Comic Relief juggernaut delivering not only its third instalment of ‘Let’s Dance’ but also the worldwide internet sensation ’24 Hour Panel People’ in which David Walliams appeared on 19 consecutive panel shows over 24 hours.

So naturally I’m going to blog about something much smaller as I do like being perverse.  It’s hard to gain celebrity support – just ask the folks across the charity sector who make it look easy; and once you’ve got it, it’s difficult to maintain and develop.  Some of the most committed supporters are those who have an affinity with the cause.

I’m particularly sympathetic to small charities which are founded by people who themselves have experienced a problem and work doggedly to support others going through the same thing.  A classic example was Bob Woodward who founded CLIC (now CLIC Sargent).

I’ve talked about the use of Twitter by charities before in Tweet Off! but was disappointed to be sent this tweet that was spotted by a friend recently:

My friend’s comment? “Ridiculous”.

It’s from a very small charity.  It shows a lack of understanding which seems common across the sector.

I won’t identify the charity as is it’s so small that I doubt it has any paid staff and is run by a group of parents whose children share a rare and horrible condition.  Having done a lot of research on them I have a great deal of sympathy for what they do but I have to concur with the ‘Ridiculous’ comment. 

So why is it ridiculous?  They want to align their brand with that of a celebrity – a perfectly reasonable idea.  The problem is that they think they can do this with the celeb doing nothing and that they will still raise awareness.

Firstly it would be impossible for a patron to do nothing.  At very least they would have to agree to support the charity, approve the use of their name and a quote.  They’d also need to supply a photo and possibly a signature. 

However they’d need to do far more if the aim is to raise awareness (as opposed to reinforcing existing supporters).  Whilst the charity has understood that a celebrity endorsement can gain you media coverage the reality is that unless they do media interviews or start tweeting about the cause it is unlikely that they will raise any awareness.

So how would I go about it?  I’d talk to my existing supporters and see if, in their networks, they know someone with a profile – always remembering that if it’s a small local charity where it’s about local coverage you don’t need a national name (think about the ‘stars’ of your local radio station or football club).

If not I’d go away and do lots of research.  Why would someone want to support my organisation?  As I always say, celebrities are people too and frequently support a cause because it is either relevant to them (maybe a family member has been affected) or fits in with an issue about which they are passionate – such as Duncan Bannatyne who is a big advocate of giving up smoking (he’s supporting this Wednesday’s No Smoking Day).

If you’re a charity about children then targeting someone who’s a parent is more likely to gain support.  But imagine you got a lorry load of direct mail every week to support a diverse range of charities. Think about which one you’d pick over another - that’s the decision many celebrities face.  Find a reason to be relevant to the individual you approach. 

But the other thing this charity has missed is that a celebrity is the cherry on the cake, it’s not the cake as another colleague in the industry argues 'the charity liaison who says "happy to give you my expertise but you don't need a celeb" is worth their weight in gold'. There are a huge number of ‘real life’ magazines as well as the women’s pages of newspapers and a really good story about how the condition affects the lives of children and their families could also help raise awareness.

Ooops!

I've posted a new blog over at Guardian Voluntary Sector Network on research that I thought missed the point and stated the obvious at the same time!

Boom! Boom! (with a Kazoo)

Getting into the psyche of the great British Public is something that can really make a fundraising project take off.  You have to hand it to the lovely folks at Comic Relief when it comes to being creative.  After last week’s Inbetweeners Rude Trip they come up with something truly ridiculous.

We love the stupid, the inane.  Just tune in to Radio 4 on a Monday at 6:30pm to hear I’m Sorry I haven’t a Clue.  Well the lovely peeps at Radio 3 have come up with the Big Red Nose Show.  But what’s got Twitter buzzing is that using the audience they’re planning to create the world’s largest Kazoo orchestra – check out #bbckazoo.

The event is hosted by Radio 3’s Katie Derham and of course that classical music stalwart Basil Brush (not that I’m name dropping but I have actual met Basil)!  When I saw the video above it really made me smile.

Of course playing the kazoo is easy and anyone can do it.  But what’s clever is that to help the event along they have a stellar line-up of stars who, coincidentally I’m sure, happen to have popular twitter accounts and spurred on today by Emma Freud.

Nice use of social media and a silly idea that engages people.  I’d be amazed if they didn’t sell out and break the world record. Mind you when I said the Inbetweeners would do well they crashed their car!

If in doubt resort to smut!

From Jules and Sandy, through Are You Being Served to Julian Clary, who famously liked a warm hand on his entrance, there’s nothing we Brits like more than a smutty innuendo.  It probably goes back to the very earliest days of Music Hall.

We’re also a bit of a fan of the underdog or the awkward geek.  Not for us the All American Football Hero and the Homecoming Queen.  So it seems like the peeps over at Comic Relief should be onto a winner with The Inbetweeners Rude Road Trip.

In simple terms it’s four guys in a car trying to visit 50 places with rude place names in 50 hours.  Naturally it’s being filmed and the end result will be available to download from iTunes for £1.89.  This is the video trailer:

What’s good about this project is that it engages with the social media generation.  There’s a chance to ‘join in’ – at the time of writing over 5,000 people had put comments and suggestions for Britain’s rudest place names on their Facebook page.

But not only have they got Facebook going they’ve also got the Twitterati enthused.  Check out #rudetrip. Plus they’re keeping followers up to date by posting pics as they go – here’s an example (although not suitable for lovers of House Elves).

So that’s: 

1. Great celebs for the target audience (tick)
2. Interactivity on Facebook AND Twitter (tick)
3. Keeping people engaged & making them comeback (tick)
4. Raising money….ahhh, we don’t know yet

My general feeling is that social media doesn’t deliver when it comes to fundraising.  Just look at the disaster of Last Tweet and Testament.  In that case around 70% of the US$1m fundraising target came from one donor.

This is different.  Firstly there’s the video to download.  At less than the price of a Starbucks Latte I can see that doing well – it’s a pocket money price. Given the audience that seems like a good price point AND you get something in return.  I have to confess to being a little surprised that when I went to the donation page the amount had been filled in with a suggested £40.  Call me a cheapskate but that seemed a little high.  Since I’m not a fundraiser I’ll just assume that Comic Relief know what they’re doing. [Since writing this the suggested donation amount has changed to £10]

All in all, if they got no press coverage and didn’t transmit something on telly, I’d be amazed if this project didn’t do well (probably the kiss of death – a bit like Richard predicting who’s going to win on Pointless [see my blog on Guardian Voluntary Sector Network to understand that]).  The point I’m making here is that this would work for any charity, not just the big rollercoaster that is Comic Relief.  It’s the creativity behind the idea and the clever use of social media that makes this so strong.

Guardian Voluntary Sector Network

In case you don't already read it I've just written a piece for the Guardian Voluntary Sector Network - you can read it by clicking here. It's all about getting cerlebrities on to quiz shows.

Using a celebrity's name in vain

It’s always a clever trick when you can tie an issue you care about in to one of the biggest news stories of the week.  So what better than to link your issue to the X Factor Final?  After all you know the tabloids will be dedicating acres of news print to the topic.

I’m assuming that was the laudable aim of War on Want when they issued a press release titled ‘Dannii in M&S 'sweatshops' storm’.  They were talking about the claim that research showed that workers in two Indian factories which produce clothes for M&S were paying below a living wage. So the tenuous link was Dannii Minogue’s an X Factor judge; Dannii Minogue’s in the M&S ads; therefore ‘X Factor Judge is involved’.

They should be complimented for their creativity and also for the fact that they explained what a living wage was in India.  I get fed up with charities saying ‘look how little this person earns’ without explaining what a living wage is in that country.  For instance, to quote their figures, £126 a month is living wage in that area of India – which we would find miniscule but it’s always important to have the proper context otherwise figures are meaningless.

However back to the celebrity element.  Let’s ignore the tenuous link.  Let’s also assume all the information in the press release is accurate since I have no way of knowing.  Do they want Dannii to support them?  If so this is not how I’d have gone about it.  One she’s under contract to M&S therefore she cannot publicly speak about them, nor can she respond. Two Dannii is not in an M&S sweatshop storm.  This is guilt by association for the sake of a very slim topical peg.  Apart from appearing in the advert how is she involved?  Call me old fashioned but I somehow doubt she’d be making a decision about where M&S get’s its clothes made.

So what have they achieved?  Well they’ve linked her to something of which she probably had no knowledge or responsibility - so that’s a potential relationship they’ve lost.  They've used her name, without her apparent agreement, to try and gain coverage.  However it’s worst than that.  Whilst stars may come and go agents and publicists are around forever and have very long memories.  If you were Hackford Jones PR, (Dannii’s UK PR agency), how would you feel about a future approach from this charity?  Their other clients include Davina McCall, Ant & Dec, Denise Van Outen, Mylene Klass, Tess Daly and Vernon Kay to name but a few.

A quick Google search show’s very little take up by the media (two websites and a minor wire service).  Wouldn’t writing to Dannii in private have been a more effective way of letting her know about the issue?  Working with celebrities is all about building relationships over time.  Relationships that have to involve trust.  None of that appears here.  What’s more if I was an existing celebrity supporter would I become nervous about how the charity might treat me?

Whilst I don’t blame the charity for trying to gain support for an important issue I question whether the positives here (and there don’t seem to be many) outweigh the negatives from a celebrity relationship perspective.

Would you credit it?!

Yesterday saw the ICAP charity day.  The company describes itself as ‘the world’s premier interdealer broker and provider of post-trade risk & information services’.  Since 1993 they’ve been donating all revenues from one day’s global trading to charity.  In the last couple of years that’s been over £11m annually.

Picture from ES website

Like the BGC trading day, which it pre-dates by a number of years, the charities organise celebrity supporters to come along and encourage the traders, as well as getting a chance to make a trade.

 The event got great coverage and made the front cover of London’s Evening Standard, featuring a picture of former Doctor Who star, David Tennant and inside was a picture of Bond actor, Daniel Craig.  There was a great credit for ICAP – deservedly so.  What there wasn’t was a reference to the individual charities the stars were supporting. 


Picture from ES website



It reminded me of a couple of times when great celebrity supporters have failed to get a mention for the charity involved.  One was Nicole Kidman launching Cancer Research UK’s Breast Cancer Awareness Month at Madame Tussauds which got picked up but with no mention of the charity.  Another was when Hollywood A-Lister Ashton Kutcher visited a training exercise with the RNLI.  This one, which was tied in to a film launch, didn’t even get picked up. 

In the ICAP case whilst a mention for the charity would have been nice it wasn't essential.  The main reason for asking for the celebrity support is to reinforce the relationship between the charity, ICAP and its staff.  If the stars help raise the profile of the corporate supporter that’s great and worth using up an ask.

Getting the support of the sort of big names mentioned here is a terrific achievement and never easy.  However they do not guarantee you publicity.  Putting all your eggs in a celebrity basket is always a risk and doesn’t always pay off, which is fine if you recognise this, but it can be hard getting directors and trustees to understand.  Thus managing expectations in advance of an event is incredibly important.

I won't say he told me so....but he told me so......

In shock news it looks like Rob Dyson might have been right (see the tweets below). Last week I was extolling the virtues of Keep a child Alive’s celebrity ‘digital suicide’ fundraiser whilst he was taking a more conservative stance. Read Rob’s analysis here.

  

The aim is to raise US$1m.  Until then the stars will refrain from tweeting and facebook.

The big launch was six days ago and I’d have expected the bulk of the money to have come in in the first day or two.  However as you can see from the web site they have so far raised less than US$300,000, or under 30% of the target.

The question now is will it reach the $1m mark before the PRs, record companies and managers start telling the stars to get back online?  They haven’t broken ranks yet but I’d be amazed if they didn’t. 

In what will probably be a post mortem, rather than a debrief, the questions will be have they understood social media well enough?  Rob clearly didn't think so (see his blog mentioned above).

From a fundraising perspective did they get the price point right? For many peopel a fixed donation can form a barrier to entry. Think of the fan bases, they are frequently young, many teenagers, with more limited disposable income.  Maybe US$10 (about £6.40), when they get nothing in return, is too high.  Think of a 14 year old girl on a pay-as-you-go contract.  Is she likely to be happy with a $10 charge taken from her credit?  Maybe lowering the price point to $2/3 would have helped.  It's a difficult call to work out the price point at which you maximise participation.  For example 100 people paying $10 is good but 500 people paying $3 is better

Lady Gaga, Ryan Seacrest and Usher will die – tomorrow!

Even with celebrity support it’s not always easy to get good coverage so when a fundraising event is talked about in the New York Times and on the BBC News website you know someone’s doing something right.

To mark World Aids Day Keep a Child Alive is ‘killing off’ a host of celebrities.  The ever growing list includes Lady Gaga, Justin Timberlake, Kim Kardashian (pictured above), Katie Holmes, Alicia Keys (pictured below), Usher and Ryan Seacrest.  You can see the line-up on the event's website.  Of course these stars won’t really be dying; they will be killing their digital lives for a day – no tweets and no facebook updates.  Before they go offline each star will post a ‘Last tweet and testament’. 

But fans need not fear since they can bring their favourite celebrities back to digital life by donating to the charity. The money is used to provide HIV medication to children in Africa and India.

It’s a clever idea that, like Christian Aid’s Quiz Aid, uses the fan base of a celebrity and combines it with social media – bypassing more traditional approaches such as producing print materials and using direct mail.

The money collection – always an important part of any big fundraiser – is also fast and immediate with donations of US$10 via text or online.  Alternatively supporters can scan the barcode on the t-shirt, using a smartphone, to donate.  For a small organisation it’s an ambitious fundraiser that punches well above its weight.  With the celebrities having around 30 million fans, if only 1% of their followers donate that could turn into US$3m from one event; not bad for a charity which brought in US$4.3m in 2008 (last year for which figures are available).  In addition that’s 30 million who’ll be made aware of the issue and their work.

The social media model of fundraising is still in its infancy so it’ll be interesting to see how well this works.  I’ll update when they announce some figures.

Having just extolled the virtues of this celebrity led project I can hear celebrity managers across the UK running for cover as their fundraisers demand a similarly stellar line up to promote their own ‘big fundraisers’.  But there’s a little fact I haven’t mentioned; the name of one of the charity’s co-founders.  It’s none other than Ms Alicia Keys – she’s passionate about the Keep a Child Alive’s work and has visited its projects in Africa.  Being on the celebrity circuit and having strong music industry contacts may have had just the smallest influence on stars signing up to a small charity – sometimes it’s not what you know it’s who you know.

Call Me!

I can’t remember the number of times I’ve asked a celebrity to encourage people to call a phone number for more information, support or to get a fundraising pack.  In the UK nearly 11 million people tuned in to see celebrities ask us to call 0345 7 33 22 33 and donate to Children In Need (I believe the donation line is still open).

Fantastic I thought a charity appeal that gets it.  Not the ask for money, the phone number.  So many charities have non-geographic numbers but they are not 03 numbers and many don’t even seem to know about them, even though they’ve been around for years. Why does this matter? Well because I’m a cheapskate is the real answer.

89% of adults in the UK own a mobile phone but more importantly 14% of adults live in a home with no landline. I’m one of the latter – all my calls are made by mobile.  I have a contract with an agreed number of minutes each month. Should I call an 0800 number (which are particularly popular for help and support lines as they are free from landlines) I will get a charge on my bill from my service provider as 08 numbers are excluded from my call plan.  Ironically if I’m having financial problems and want to call the Debt Advice Foundation I am going to end up owing more money!  That wasn’t a swipe at that particular charity. A huge number of charities use 0800 (free from a landline) or 0845 (no more than a local call).  However if I call Pudsey Bear the call must be included in my mobile call plan in the rules set down for Ofcom – and are no more than an 01 or 02 number from a landline.

Non-geographic numbers were set up to be inclusive and many charities embraced these to become more accessible.  However it’s a changing telecoms market and what was once the cheapest way for individuals to reach charities is no longer so.  With 7 million people having no landline (based on a population of about 50 million adults) that’s a lot of people who are potentially not being reached.  Whilst I’m hardly at the forefront of innovation (can I admit I’ve never used a games console?) it seems surprising that so few organisations have switched to 03.  Indeed when they were launched in March 2007 some 03 numbers were specifically kept so that some 08 numbers could simply change the 8 to a 3.

Oh, and just in case you hadn’t noticed, there are now pan European 116 numbers which are free from mobiles and landlines in the UK.  The first three were allocated at the end of last year to Missing People, Childline and the Samaritans.

Whether it’s Ofcom’s failure to get the message out about these changes, telecoms providers not informing customers or charities not keeping up with a fast changing world I don’t know.  The only numbers I’ll be calling – and asking my celebrities to promote (I so know that’ll come back to haunt me) - will begin 03.