Strike a Match

Fundraising is all about striking the right match — matching donors with the right messages and programs, matching values with the proper corporate partners, matching stories to your campaigns, matching passion with need, and securing matching gifts.

Here, two nonprofit organizations share how they secured the proper matches to run three extremely successful fundraising campaigns.

Toronto-based Kids Help Phone secured a corporate partner to match gifts to its holiday campaign. And the Coast Guard Foundation struck matches with two campaigns — matching donors’ desire to help during an emergency for a Coast Guard tragedy and incorporating a matching gift in its annual Memorial Day campaign.

Kids Help Phone: Buy a Kid Some Time

When most people think about the year-end holiday season, they think of joy and happiness, particularly for children. The gifts, the time with family, the parties, the time off from school — all these things help bring kids a special energy and excitement this time of year.

But Toronto-based Kids Help Phone (KHP) — a toll-free, 24-hour, bilingual, anonymous phone-counseling, Web-counseling and referral service for children and youths — often encounters a different kind of feeling come the holidays.

“A lot of the stories and calls and conversations we have are at Christmas and the holidays time,” says Susan MacLean, KHP’s manager of annual giving. “It can be a very challenging time period for [the children who call in]. Something happens in their life, and they think they’re supposed to be happy but they’re not, so they feel left out.

“It’s a challenging time of year for them, and we want to make sure the donor base is aware that this is a different time of year for them. We want to make sure they’re seeing that, and they want the children to have a good holiday.”

In order to get that message across, KHP sat down with its agency partner, Stephen Thomas Ltd., in 2009 to come up with a concept that would convey how important KHP’s work is, particularly this time of year. How could KHP break through the clutter at year-end with a hard-hitting, motivating message, stressing that thousands of Canadian children need help, particularly during the holiday season?

After plenty of deliberation, KHP and Stephen Thomas developed the idea to “Buy a Kid Some Time.” The concept was to highlight how donations help support the organization by paying hotline staffers to be on hand to take calls, hence buying a kid some time to talk, to chat and to have a chance at a happy holiday.

“The campaign really pivots around the holidays from a child’s perspective,” says Taslim Somani, vice president of marketing strategy at Stephen Thomas. “During the holidays it became really apparent that they’re not very happy times for a lot of kids … especially for kids from troubled homes, victims of abuse, financial difficulty, those struggling in school and with bullying.

“The holidays and Christmas should be a happy time, but lots of kids are in a lot of trouble and need Kids Help Phone more than ever. We strongly believed if we told that story it’d be something that would resonate with parents, teachers, grandparents and that people would be thrilled to help Kids Help Phone help any kid in need anytime. They’re not far removed — it could be their child, their niece or nephew, their grandchild, their student. That was the big idea of the campaign.”

The launch
At the beginning of November 2009, KHP rolled out its inaugural Buy a Kid Some Time campaign. It was both a way to engage its annual donors and to bring on KHP’s event donors as annual givers with another opportunity to donate.

The initial rollout included a number of components. As a digitally focused campaign — there is no direct-mail component specifically for Buy a Kid Some Time — it incorporated a series of six to seven e-mails, a video, a dedicated microsite and other media ads. And as part of the “buy a kid some time” theme, donors were taken to a mini-catalog for donations, where they could donate, for instance, X amount of dollars for 15 minutes, the equivalent of an average call. Different amounts of time — at different price points — meant different services KHP could provide to kids in need.

Thanks to generous corporate support, KHP was able to extend its reach beyond its e-mail file and event donors with billboards throughout Toronto, a full-page ad in the Globe and Mail, display ads, Google advertising and corporate matching gifts.

“This was a brand-new campaign in 2009 with Stephen Thomas, and we were pretty excited about it,” MacLean says. “It was successful, so we decided to invest a little more in 2010, and we’ve done different things over the years … a lot of things to put it top of mind.”

In the first two years of the campaign, KHP and Stephen Thomas did a lot testing with its e-mails, testing subject lines, copy length, hard-hitting messages vs. softer messaging, featuring dollar amounts for the ask vs. not. And with the campaign winning a 2010 Direct Marketing Association International ECHO Award, the gleanings from those early tests drove the direction of the campaign for future years.

The adjustments
After sending six to seven e-mails for the campaign in 2009 and 2010 to anywhere from 50,000 to upward of 75,000 e-mail addresses, KHP began to scale back on budgeting for the campaign. Due to myriad factors, including continued economic instability and KHP’s lack of government funding, it could not invest as much in the campaign as it did in the early years.

In order to compensate for a smaller budget, KHP lowered its revenue target and decided to go from six or seven e-mails starting in early November for the campaign to four e-mails starting at the end of November. And in 2012, it also sent the e-mails to a smaller list of more regular givers — an audience of about 34,000 e-mails.

On top of that, there were some creative refreshes for the campaign to focus on the storytelling and the corporate match.

Scaled back but still on target
Despite the scaled-back effort last year, the 2012 campaign proved to be just as effective as years prior. To help make up for less direct messaging, KHP focused heavily on integrating social media to help drive supporters to the buyakidsometime.ca microsite. KHP’s social-media manager made sure to post messages across social media about the campaign at the same time the e-mails were being deployed. All through November and December, Buy a Kid Some Time messages were displayed to drive new and existing donors to the campaign. Facebook in particular was used as an acquisition tool, and e-mails were sent to KHP’s core, targeted list of e-mail subscribers and event participants.

Since these donors are “very much a digital audience,” according to Somani, there was no direct mail integrated into this campaign. The primary focus was on e-mail. The first e-mail each year is an introduction to the campaign, utilizing stories from children who have called in around the holidays. Then, there are subsequent appeals that ramp up the urgency for the campaign, including a video e-mail with an emotional call to action, focusing on the matching gift and various touchpoints with different triggers to get people to donate.

The earlier messages really focus on the stories, with the video element perhaps the most powerful. It relays the difficult situations and dire tales of depression the children call in with at a time usually focusing on joy. Then it shifts more to a time-sensitive appeal, as demonstrated by two of the messages last year.

The first one was sent with the subject line, “Urgent: Buy a Kid Some Time before it’s too late.” When recipients clicked through, before the start of the letter, there was a post from a teenage boy that was posted on the KHP help site in bold, italic type: “It’s Christmas day and no one cares. I’m really depressed and all I can think about is how meaningless life is, it’s full of lies and sorrow. I really hate Christmas. I tried to kill myself last year and I don’t want to do that again. Please help.”

Talk about a powerful introduction, one that puts the donor right in the mind-set of the recipients of KHP’s services.

The short, four-paragraph e-mail reads: “Right now, you need to know that Kids Help Phone is trying to keep up with the urgent demand for our services. Any kid or teen with nowhere else to turn, like the one who posted the message above, needs the professional guidance you make possible with your donation. Your gift really does save lives because it means someone can be there to answer the phone when a desperate kid calls and to respond online to their urgent requests for support. But we can’t be there for them without you. That’s not a platitude. It’s simply the truth.

“Please Buy A Kid Some Time now. Give the gift of compassionate, professional counselling this holiday. A gift of just $25 buys a kid 5 minutes — precious time that could save a life.

“Your donation will have double the impact. Parmalat Canada will match your donation up to a maximum of $30,000 — so your generosity will make an even bigger difference.

“Help us keep our promise to kids — to be there whenever they cry out for help.”

The letter is signed by KHP President and CEO Sharon Wood, followed by Facebook, YouTube and Twitter links, and a link to the KHP website. Also included are three hyperlinks directly to the donation page of the microsite in the body of the e-mail, as well as a “Buy Time” button in top right of the e-mail.

Notice the message touches on every aspect of the campaign — a direct story from a child KHP serves, a direct ask, demonstrating what “buying time” actually provides and a mention of the matching gift provided by dairy manufacturer Parmalat Canada.

Another e-mail on Dec. 31 follows a similar template. With the subject line, “Give now: It’s not too late. Stand up for kids!” the e-mail has the tagline, “Please give before it’s too late,” with an image of a girl out in the snow. Another short, five-paragraph message follows, with the same buttons and prompts as the earlier e-mail: “Your generosity is critical in helping transform a young person’s life forever. Please make a difference!

“There are only a few hours left until the 2012 tax deadline — so please make your charitable donation to Kids Help Phone by midnight to receive your tax receipt.

“Donations given to this year’s campaign will be matched by Parmalat Canada up to a maximum of $30,000. So any gift you give will have double the impact.

“Thank you for helping us keep our promise to kids in Canada — and Happy New Year from everyone here at Kids Help Phone.”

“Help keep kids safe, please give while there’s still time.”

This time, the message focused mostly on the urgency of time and the tax receipt, with a shorter message. A little less emotional, but still striking a chord with donors on New Year’s Eve.

KHP then followed up with a thank-you e-mail and tax receipt to donors, and for donors over a certain threshold, there were separate e-mails and/or thank-you calls.

“We like to chat with our donors, find out more about them. We do that with our regular annual givers of a certain amount, say thanks with a letter and a call,” MacLean says. “We’re curious about where they’re coming from and why, what brings them back. And we try to put survey questions in our thank-yous to get a sense of what brought them in to give.”

This combination of efforts proved to be effective, as KHP hit its revised revenue target, proving the 2010 ECHO Award-winning idea still works.

“This campaign resonates on a very deep level. People give very generously and give multiple gifts. One year, a woman in California who used to live in Canada donated three gifts of $300 and another $100 gift,” Somani says. “From a donor standpoint, people respond positively to this campaign.”

2013 and beyond
For this year’s campaign, KHP and Stephen Thomas decided it was time for a change in the look and feel. For the first four years, the microsite hadn’t really changed, using heavier photography of kids in darker times. This year they decided to change the look entirely.

There is a lighter feel to the Buy a Kid Some Time site this year, highlighted by an interactive quiz “so donors can get a sense of the number of kids who call, things we get asked, etc. It’s a fun quiz that doesn’t take long, an element that will hopefully drive home the message,” MacLean says. Also, the donation page has been updated to change how people can donate, moving away from choosing products and instead choosing donation amounts. For example:

• 5 minutes: $25 supports the mobile app, where kids can download the app and find information they need in less than five minutes.
• 15 minutes: $50 will connect a child directly to a caring counselor by phone. The average length of a call is 15 minutes.
• 20 minutes: $75 can help kids use the online Bullying Safety Planner. Kids can take up to 20 minutes to create and print their plans.
• 30 minutes: $100 supports interactive games and tools — fun and engaging activities that offer information and support.
• 45 minutes: $150 connects a teen to a counselor on live chat, great for kids not comfortable calling. Chats average 45 minutes.
• 60 minutes: $200 gives a young person in crisis professional counseling and referrals to local support. A call could be one to two hours.

The donation page notes that “Each increment of time is symbolic, when you buy time, you are making a donation to Kids Help Phone, and your contribution will be applied to where the need is greatest.”

Also, there is a monthly giving option — a holy grail for fundraising — and all the requisite donation form information.

More updates include adding a clock to the logo, emphasizing the time element — a graphic that can move in certain media — a new French site for its French-Canadian supporters, and helping ramp up the campaign again to six e-mails beginning earlier November, coinciding with Bullying Awareness Week.

KHP also took advantage of an opportunity that popped up out of the blue, MacLean says, with advertising on local transit through the month of December.

“We’re hoping that will be seen like crazy, hoping people will see and react to the plea from a child,” she adds.

Ideally, MacLean admits, she would like to see direct mail and the e-mail campaign parallel one another to talk to supporters in multiple channels, but for the Buy a Kid Some Time campaign, it really is focused online and through mobile. Clearly, that digital focus is working, as Buy a Kid Some Time continues to buy youths in need time to talk, time to heal and time to improve their situations.

“At the beginning, this was a novel way of us talking to our donors,” MacLean says. “People came to it and said it was great, and they expect it year after year. Then people see a matching gift — [this year’s match is from financial-security company Great-West Life, up to $50,000] — as an added incentive. They come back to it year after year.

“We have a really fantastic donor base, very loyal annual givers,” she adds. “We get a great response rate from a smaller donor base. Our donor base knows they’re giving back to an organization that matches their values and does good work.”

Somani credits the KHP staff just as much as the messaging for the success of the campaign.

“The idea of buying a kid some time has really resonated with the entire organization [and] received support from the entire organization internally. Everyone works toward that goal for these children. All the people are committed to the campaign,” she says.

“Really more than anything the concept is so strong and resonates with so many people. We receive great feedback and great results,” Somani adds. “The level of internal support from KHP has driven our ability to go out and refresh the campaign each year as well.”

Coast Guard Foundation: An Emergency and a Match

Emergency appeals are old hat for disaster-relief organizations such as the American Red Cross and The Salvation Army. They are part of their annual direct-response fundraising plans, with a formula of how to incorporate emergency
appeals with other solicitations.

But how do emergency appeals both get executed and affect nonprofit organizations that do not regularly deal with them? That’s the scenario the Coast Guard Foundation (CGF) found itself in last year.

In late February 2012, a U.S. Coast Guard helicopter crashed during a training mission, claiming the lives of four Coast Guard members. The tragedy was a shock to the Coast Guard family, and the Coast Guard Foundation, which is missioned to provide education, support and relief programs to benefit Coast Guard members and their families, knew it had to help. But it also had to think through how an emergency campaign would affect its donors and its annual Memorial Day appeal.

After deliberation with its full-service agency partner, LW Robbins, the CGF was able to quickly roll out an emergency appeal that preceded its annual Memorial Day campaign.

Emergency preparedness
The key to any fundraising appeal is planning, and that is especially true in an emergency. While no one knows when an emergency will present itself or what form it will take, it’s vital to have steps already in place to deploy such a campaign.

That’s why LW Robbins and CGF always have a plan, complete with stock templates, in place for when such cases arise. And it helps that LW Robbins and CGF already executed such a campaign in 2008, when another tragic crash in Hawaii took the lives of Coast Guard members.

“The first time we did an emergency appeal for the Coast Guard Foundation, they were very concerned about going out and having the appearance of taking advantage of the situation,” says Andy Laudano, vice president of fundraising at LW Robbins. “But the truth of the matter is when they did it, the response rate was through the roof and they didn’t get one complaint. People were excited to support the campaign.

“We knew this was not just a good way to fundraise, but a good way to reach out to members, show them the mission in action, show them something tangible happening now,” he adds.

With the past experience and the help of LW Robbins, CGF was able to use the templates already in place to turn around an appeal quickly once the tragedy hit and get it out within 48 hours. In order to raise as much money as possible as quickly as possible for bereaved families, LW Robbins and CGF created an inexpensive, “rapid response” format to convey urgency so donors would act immediately.

This direct-mail package had what LW Robbins refers to as a “cheap and dirty” look. It’s nothing fancy — all lasered so it could be produced as quickly as possible; a raw, rough look contrasting the usual polished look of CGF mailings; Courier font to replicate a “typed-in-the-office” feeling; etc.

This no-frills mailer got right to the point. The No. 10 outer envelope simply has the teaser, “EMERGENCY REQUEST,” in all caps, next to the CGF logo, along with a simple window with the recipient’s name and address. Inside is a simple one-page letter, just seven paragraphs long, which begins, “I’m writing you today with a heavy heart.”

It then describes the tragic crash in Mobile, Ala., and how CGF is asking for the donor’s help in aiding the families of the fallen Coast Guard members. It asks recipients to donate either to the “Family Disaster Relief Fund” or the “Fallen Heroes Scholarship Fund,” and includes direct-mail best practices such as underlined text, heavy use of “you” and “thanks in advance.” It’s also signed by CGF President Anne B. Brengle and followed by a postscript: “To put your gift to work even faster, give online at www.coastguardfoundation.org.”

The reply form is perforated at the top of the letter. It reads: “Yes! I want to contribute to the Coast Guard Foundation’s …” and then offers the choices of the Family Disaster Relief Fund, Fallen Heroes Scholarship Fund or “Where My Gift Is Needed Most.” It also offers ask strings based on prior giving history, as well as a place to write in an amount.

Also included is a form for credit card gifts, which also asks about employee matches and offers a monthly giving option. And the business reply envelope enclosed includes a deadline: “URGENT! Please respond by March 31, 2012” (the package was mailed March 9).

The results
The emergency mailing was rolled out to 9,381 donors and received an impressive 11.5 percent response rate. Overall, it brought in $78,470 in donations while costing just a fraction of that thanks to that “cheap and dirty” look and feel — $9,097 to be exact, meaning the cost to raise a dollar was less than 12 cents.

And according to Brad Sisley, chief operating officer and senior vice president of development at CGF, the appeal went beyond just the direct-mail recipients, particularly with the help of word-of-mouth and media coverage.

“The Coast Guard is a very tight-knit community. People know who we are, so we get a lot of white gifts in the mail from Coast Guard members, families, friends,” he says. “And people who want to support us in times like this come out of the woodwork.

“People are very generous when something comes up like that. The Coast Guard is a small military service and the only U.S. service dedicated and trained to save lives. What the Coast Guard does goes beyond the military or the patriotic American,” Sisley adds. “There are recreational boaters, fishermen, the shipping industry — they all rely on the Coast Guard every day to keep the ports open, to provide rescue crews, to keep the seas clear. So when something like that happens where people die, it brings out all those people providing generous support.”

Beyond the reach, the package itself conveyed the proper tone.

“The emergency appeal was effective because it was communicated in a timely fashion. The subject of the package was being played out in the news, on TV and the Internet. It was happening right then and there,” Laudano says. “The timeliness and the emotion of the tragedy, and how it spoke directly to the mission of the organization, that was the secret to this appeal.”

Laudano adds that the simplicity of the package really helped as well, getting right to the point so donors could respond immediately.

Another key to this campaign’s success was the prior experience LW Robbins and CGF had doing an emergency appeal. They learned things from the prior emergency campaign, such as the ability to handle all the online donations that came flooding in, something CGF learned the hard way after the 2008 crash.

“What we found the first time we did this in 2008 is the need for a properly operating website that’s able to handle the volume of people willing to give online,” Sisley says. “A lot of people who get the mailing go online to give. In 2008, we didn’t have that ability to handle the volume, and our site kept crashing. We lost a lot of money that way, so we totally revamped our website and were able to take that volume this time around.”

Sisley also says “having an active, accurate, correct database is crucial so you can have access right away and know who to get the emergency appeal out to.” And he adds that you must have the ability to turn it around within a day or two with an urgent message.

“We’re out the door in just a couple days telling everyone there’s a need with a clear, concise message. It doesn’t have to be long. Tell what happened and what you need the donor to do,” he says.

That’s exactly what CGF and LW Robbins did, and it resulted in nearly $80,000 in less than a month. The campaign was such a success that it was honored with a New England Direct Marketing Association 2013 Award for Creative Excellence Gold Award, taking home the Direct Mail on a Shoestring (budget less than $10,000) gold.

Making a match
Just a couple short months after the 2012 helicopter crash, CGF was set to roll out its annual Fallen Heroes campaign, focused on helping families of Coast Guard members who die in the line of duty, just as was the case with the emergency appeal. Results for the campaign typically had a very high average gift but a lower response rate, so CGF was looking for a way to increase the response rate and revenue — a challenge in its own right.

Then there was the added challenge of sending another fundraising appeal shortly after a highly successful emergency appeal. LW Robbins and CGF worried that perhaps the emergency appeal would cannibalize the Fallen Heroes mailing.

And on top of that, there is always the challenge of educating donors on why it’s vital to support a government-funded organization.

“One challenge we have is to educate people on the fact that the federal government doesn’t pay for everything. The Coast Guard is the least funded military operation out of the five in the United States. We do things the Coast Guard doesn’t have the money to do or is not allowed to do with the money it does get from the federal government,” Sisley says. “We need to educate the donor base on that.”

That’s what the Fallen Heroes campaign is all about, building an endowment for the Fallen Heroes Scholarship Fund to support the children of Coast Guard members who lost their lives in the line of duty.

So to help build that endowment and lift response, CGF and LW Robbins had already made plans to alter the Fallen Heroes campaign with the hopes of increasing response — namely by incorporating a matching-gift offer and sending a follow-up
mailing.

CGF typically runs a matching-gift campaign at the end of the year, when people are already more inclined to give. The foundation sat down with LW Robbins and decided, since it already had a matching gift set for the end of the year and had another donor willing to match gifts for another appeal, why not incorporate the additional match to this Memorial Day Fallen Heroes campaign? The thought was that maybe the matching-gift offer would help increase response in a month that is typically less responsive for CGF donors.

With a donor committed to matching all gifts up to $20,000, CGF was hopeful it would incentivize donors enough to really push the campaign over the edge.

The campaign and creative
On May 17, the initial package was mailed to 9,168 donors. One segment received a No. 10 outer envelope with the teaser, “For a short time, you can double your gift to help the children of our fallen heroes …” with “double your gift” in bold italics. Another segment received an outer without a teaser, but both envelopes had the line, “Make your gift go twice as far. Details inside” on the reverse side.

The contents inside were the same for both segments — a two-page letter (front and back of one sheet of paper) with the reply slip perforated at the top, a BRE, and a brochure describing the CGF and the Fallen Heroes fund, which included a photo taken at the memorial services for the four Coast Guard members who died in the helicopter crash earlier that year.

The letter began: “Of all the services we provide to the Coast Guard, I can’t think of anything that’s more important than helping families of Coast Guard members who die in the line of duty. You’ve supported us so generously that I’m sure you feel the same way.”

It incorporated underlined text announcing the matching gift to the Fallen Heroes Scholarship Fund of up to $20,000 until June 30, then followed that with a bolded paragraph describing how the donor’s gift will be doubled.

Just as in the emergency appeal letter, this letter thanked donors, described the need, included underlined text and was again signed by Brengle. Also, there was a postscript that read: “Opportunities like this don’t come along very often, so please act now. Your gift must be received by June 30 for it to be doubled.” The last line was underlined, emphasizing the deadline and urgency for the matching-gift offer.

The reply slip also highlighted the matching gift, providing the option for donors to double their gifts, then providing an ask string that showed, for example, that a $50 gift would become a $100 gift. There was also a “Matching Gift Deadline: 6/30/12” reminder, as well as a premium offer of a 2012 CGF decal with a gift of $100 or more. And there was a “Please consider including the Coast Guard Foundation in your estate plans” note on the BRE.

Two weeks later, a follow-up mailer was sent, again with a teaser segment and a no-teaser segment. The teaser on the follow-up outer read, “There’s still time to double your gift! Matching Gift deadline extended.”

The contents this time included just one page, with type on the front and back, along with the same BRE. The six-paragraph letter was simple and straight to the point: “I wrote you recently about our Matching Gift Challenge, where your gift will be matched — dollar for dollar — up to $20,000 to support our Fallen Heroes Scholarship Fund.

“If you’ve already made a gift, thank you! If not, won’t you please consider doing so today? Every dollar you give by July 15 will go twice as far to provide college scholarships to children of Coast Guard members who die in the line of duty.

“So, if you make a gift of $XX, it will be matched with another $XX through the matching gift offer and double in value to $XX, while a gift of $XX will turn into $XX. And if you can possibly share $XX, it will be worth $XX.

“The truth is, members of the Coast Guard put their lives on the line every day to respond to emergencies at sea and protect America’s shores. Every time they step onto a cutter’s deck or climb into the cockpit of a helicopter, they know there’s a chance they won’t make it back.

“Please help show our brave Coast Guard members how much we value their courage and dedication. Let them know that if they are ever called upon to make the supreme sacrifice, their children will be provided for. Send your gift now while it can still be doubled through the matching gift offer.

“Thank you for your generosity. Above all, thank you for caring about the children of our fallen heroes.”

Again, there was both bold and underlined text, and the signer was Brengle. However, there was no postscript and no brochure.

The perforated reply slip had the same text except with the updated deadline.

Going above and beyond
This matching-gift campaign was a guinea pig for CGF, seeing if such an offer would boost results in a historically tough fundraising window. As it turns out, it did — big time. This campaign brought in $64,654 from donors with a 7.5 percent
response rate, beating 2011’s Fallen Heroes campaign response rate by 84 percent.

“People like the idea that their money is going to be used as efficiently as possible,” Laudano says. “… A match allows their $25 to be $50; it resonates well. It got them energized that their money was generating more for the cause.”

And as an unexpected bonus, the donor who provided the matching gift was so delighted with the success of the campaign that he decided to match the entire $64,654 — not just the initial $20,000. Thus, the campaign brought in $129,308 overall.

“The interesting thing about this match is that it also resonated really well with the donor,” Laudano says. “When the organization went back to the donor to let him know that the appeal with his matching-gift offer raised more than $60,000, he was so excited that he said he wanted to do something to support every donor, to match all their gifts.

“It was such a win-win-win on every side,” he adds. “There were a couple lessons learned: 1. You can take a match and make it work really well in the strongest mail-cycle months, and you can do it in the weakest time and raise the bar that way too. 2. You can take a donor who is already a great supporter of the organization at a very significant level and energize that donor to give even more when he realizes his contribution is making a big difference and being used effectively.”

LW Robbins and CGF also learned that an emergency appeal doesn’t necessarily have to cannibalize other campaigns throughout the year, as the Fallen Heroes campaign proved. Like the emergency appeal, this campaign also won a NEDMA 2013 Award for Creative Excellence, taking home Silver.