How to come up with great ideas
Where do great ideas come from? I don't know. John Cleese gets his from Mr Ken Levinshaw who lives in Swindon. He gets them from Mildred Spong who lives on the Isle of Wight. She refuses to say where she gets them from. I know...
Simplify
Hey Whipple, Squeeze this! is one of my favourite books on advertising. Whether you work for an agency or employ one you should read it. It will point out what you are doing wrong and show you how you can do things better. It was...
Where do you hide the good stuff?
As I first walk through the doors of a charity, I often find myself having an Indiana Jones type moment. It's nothing to do with dodging boulders or poison darts. What comes to mind is the closing scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark –...
Oxfam getting back to basics on TV
I wasn't that impressed with the old lady using her special vomiting power to fight the giant spider of injustice that featured in Oxfam's Be Humankind campaign last year. The huge distance from their cartoon to the real world was a big jump that I...
The misdirected power of the brand
Some people think I don't like branding. They are wrong. I love great brands. The trouble is that I don't think many charity brands are very well managed and there are a growing number of pieces of research that serve to confirm my beliefs. I...
How to create a great donation form
The donation form is the last great wilderness in the world of fundraising. Too often it has been seen as an administrative document that serves little purpose other than ensuring a gift can be added to a database record and thank you letter dispatched with...
Benchmarking the success of your email campaigns
If you are looking to compare the performance of your email campaigns in terms of open, click through and delivery rates, Marketing Online has a regularly updated set of benchmarking studies. As well as global and US surveys, it also includes reports on UK campaigns...
Fundraising and the Batman effect
When I was a child, I wanted to be Batman. And by that I mean the Adam West variety, not the johnny-come-lately versions played by Val Kilmer, Michael Keaton and others. I begged my mum and dad for the T-shirt, cape and mask and even...
Tone of voice
Having written and overseen the writing of hundreds of charity communications, I've come to the conclusion that the instructional approach that so many brand guidelines take to defining 'tone of voice' simply doesn't work when it comes to specifying how non-profits must use language. Most...
The importance of donor experience in the creation of your brand
Anyone who has followed this blog over the last year will know that I re-engaged (and re-started my direct debit) with Amnesty International UK through reading the tweets of @SusanneUre from Amnesty Canada. Yesterday I received the following in the post. One poly bag contained:...
The Essentials
Crack the Code to Regular Giving: Insights, Strategies, and a Special Giveaway!
‘Tis Halloween. Keep to the light and beware the Four Fundraisers of the Apocalypse!
Why do people give? The Donor Participation Project with Louis Diez.
A guide to fundraising on the back of a postcard
What does the latest research tell us about the state of fundraising?