2014 Gold Awards for Fundraising Excellence Campaign of the Year: The Children's Center

With messaging no one could argue with, TCC launched a comprehensive campaign that included these elements:

• Direct mail: a two-stage direct-mail approach targeting volunteers and lapsed donors that featured a personalized pledge sheet as well as a Web address and QR code directing donors to a custom, responsive landing/donation page.
• Email: a series of five emails sent three weeks apart to reinforce the campaign messaging and call to action, with a link back to the custom landing/donation pages.
• Social media: TCC leveraged its 27-member, internal social-media team and a number of external key influencers, providing prewritten tweets and Facebook posts with selected campaign images, as well as Facebook cover images to make it easy for them to spread the word about the campaign. There was also a presence on Pinterest and Instagram.
• Telephone/face-to-face: continuing its traditional use of these channels.
• Donor acknowledgment letters: Campaign-specific thank-you messages helped close the loop.

Thinking outside the box to reach millennials, Gen X and Gen Y, the campaign also included: