Subject: Internal threats to your campaign
Within nonprofit organisations campaigners can often find themselves at odds with fundraisers and marketors. Messages that each want to use to achieve their goals can conflict with each other. This can be a difficult issue to resolve.
- What is the best way to deal with this tension?
- Is it a common problem or only present in certain types of organisation?
- Is it ok to disagree with your organisation's marketing messages? Are your opinions listened to?
If you have had experience of this, how did you resolve issues? Please share your experience to help others in a similar situation.
(You can remain anonymous by registering on KnowHow using a generic name (eg charityworker) - only your username will be shown).
This comment was last edited on Feb 12, 2010
I myself work for a charity that bases it's fund raising campaigns on the fear and loss of physical disability. I know a charity has to have donations to keep running, but i think it also has a duty to challenge negative public attitudes towards the people it is there to support as well.
Me and other staff have often said in consultation meetings that we feel that raising money using only negative messages reinforces the stereotypes that many people living with that disability feel is part of the problem.
I'd love to find out how other charities who are working in human rights and for people who society has negative attidues towards, to see if they have fund raising messages that make people get interested in giving money to their cause but without playing into the negative stereotypes that people have.
This comment was last edited on Feb 12, 2010
Sounds tough stokebloke. Am trying to think of examples of charities who appear to balance raising emotion for the cause to generate funds without presenting negative images.
- Macmillan seem to do a good job of not presenting people with cancer as victims
- Changing Faces
Maybe it is all about the language used - these sites don't talk about people in the third person and use words like together, us, we....
This comment was last edited on Feb 12, 2010
I thought the Samaritans 'Doodle' campaign was executed exceptionally well both stylistically and with regard to its target audience.
It's so easy to misjudge this kind of marketing at 'youth', but I thought the illustrations perfectly communicated the message(s) the Samaritans were trying to get across without being at all patronising and at the same time with a really striking, contemporary visual identity - they certainly caught my attention.
I think this image was probably my favourite, but they're all great imho.
This comment was last edited on Feb 12, 2010
On a similar topic, Third Sector has an article on their website today: 'Remember these? Five of the most memorable charity campaigns'.
I hadn't seen the NSPCC one before - quite unsettling.
This comment was last edited on Feb 12, 2010
