Fundraising Gone Wild!

One of the best ways for fundraisers to get new ideas is by learning from their peers in the nonprofit sector. And despite the economy and continued budget cuts, 2010 saw no shortage of successful fundraising campaigns.

Over the course of the year, FundRaising Success will share stories from some of the most successful campaigns 2010 had to offer from nonprofit organizations of all shapes, sizes and missions. To kick off this four-part series, we highlight two animal-welfare groups: the Gorilla Organization's Great Gorilla Run and the Arizona Humane Society's 12th annual Pet Telethon.

— Joe Boland, senior editor

The Great Gorilla Run

Each year, the U.K.-based Gorilla Organization emb
arks on its Great Gorilla Run campaign in London to raise money and awareness to save endangered gorillas. But this isn't just any ordinary fundraising campaign. The event itself involves participants dressed in gorilla suits running seven kilometers (4.3 miles) for the cause. And the way it's marketed is unique as well.

The 2010 run was dynamic and unique, says Sam Davies, events manager for the Gorilla Organization.

"How many other fundraising campaigns use people dressed in gorilla suits to recruit and raise funds?" he asks.

As you can imagine, the event draws a diverse crowd — one runner traveled all the way from Australia to take part in the 2010 event held Sept. 26 — thus the organization targeted a range of audiences by using both new and tried-and-true methods of marketing.

The Gorilla Organization utilized everything from direct mail to e-mail, social media, e-newsletters, canvassing, search, and online and offline advertising with the goal of raising more money than the year before (more than 230,000 pounds or $373,132). Perhaps the biggest element of direct marketing was the use of leafletting — groups of people dressed in their gorilla suits and branded T-shirts went out early in the morning and set up shop outside of London's major train stations to hand out event leaflets to the city's 3 million or so daily commuters.

Other offline marketing techniques included advertisements in magazines and other publications — mostly targeted at runners — that drove people to the Great Gorilla Run website landing page, and corporate sponsors such as children's playground/climbing park creator Go Ape promoted the run by giving out leaflets and 
posters as well.

Direct mail also was coordinated with community partners. The Gorilla Organization mailed letters, leaflets and posters in a packet to gyms, fires stations, police stations and Army barracks in the U.K. to disseminate, while also encouraging them to put together their own teams for the run.

That was just the start of it. All of the posters, leaflets and letters drove potential participants and donors to the website, GreatGorillas.org. 
There, they could register or find ways to donate to the organization or sponsor a runner. To bolster traffic, the Gorilla Organization used several online marketing components as well. E-mails went to subscribers of Runners World magazine — about 90,000 — as 
a recruitment technique, and monthly e-newsletters were deployed to the housefile of about 3,000 comprising past participants and others who have shown interest in the Gorilla Organization.

The event also was promoted through social media — Facebook friends and Twitter followers were encouraged to participate, fundraise and donate throughout the year — search engine optimization and online advertising.

"We use things like Facebook advertising, which works very well because we only pay on a pay-per-click basis," Davies says. "So there's no wastage on that — we're only paying for people who come to our website, and the website, hopefully, converts them into runners. We've also had some success with affiliate advertising on running websites that featured our events."

Despite being a relatively small organization undertaking so many channels, all the marketing was done in-house. The only outside help came from South East Direct Marketing, which handled the printing.

But the multichannel campaign was nothing new for the Gorilla Organization. The Great Gorilla Run has been a successful multichannel fundraising campaign for years, raising approximately 1.3 million pounds (more than $2 million) from about 2,500 runners in London alone.

Objectives

The campaign aimed to recruit 600 runners to take part in the Great Gorilla Run, raise more money than in 2009 (aiming to hit 250,000 pounds, or $405,000), and raise the profile of the Gorilla Organization and the Great Gorilla Run. That involved a media strategy of promoting the event using a multichannel campaign to a varied target audience.

A few years ago, the Gorilla Organization did a survey of its runners and found that more than 80 percent of them were 25 to 34 years old, with a pretty even 50-50 split male/female. Expanding on that, the main targets were professionals in London and the surrounding areas with an interest in conservation and animals — individuals who enjoy doing something fun and a little different and those who enjoy taking part in running events. Participants tend to be in the 25- to 40-year-old range, and donors are a little older.

Another targeted audience was people who want to do the event and raise money for gorillas as a one-off event. The Great Gorilla Run was listed as one of Time Out magazine's "top 1,000 things to do before you die," so it has mass appeal beyond London. That's why participants of the 2007 
San Francisco Gorilla Run and others were sent targeted communications as well.

"It seems strange to contact people in America about a run taking place in England, but we have so many people coming from abroad," Davies says. "It's quite amazing how far some people will come to take part in it."

With so many channels and a diverse target audience, Davies expected the most response to come from people who picked up leaflets from the team in the streets. The hope was that prospects would sign up to take part in the Great Gorilla Run and raise sponsorship to support gorillas.

Creative

The main creative for the campaign were the posters and leaflet fliers. Both used a green-and-yellow color scheme, with the central image a gorilla's face wearing a Gorilla Organization branded headband. On the flier, the copy "Could You Run 7K Dressed as a Gorilla?" ran across the top, with the URL, GreatGorillas.org, scrolled across the bottom.

On the back, the image of the gorilla was in the top right corner, with the copy, "Join the Great Gorilla Run 2010 Sunday 26 September," to the left. Below that read, "The charity fun run with a difference … Join 100s of gorilla runners on the streets of London and help save an endangered species from extinction."

The clear call to action was to the right, highlighted in a white stamp: "To register for the Great Gorilla Run and to receive your free gorilla suit, go to: greatgorillas.org or call 0207 916 4974."

To add a little more to the creative, photos of past events were included, as well as a testimonial: "The most fun event for conservation going on anywhere in the world."

The poster was similar, though the call to action wasn't spelled out, and there were no photos or phone number — just the tagline, date, quote and website.

Coinciding with the offline creative was the Great Gorilla Run London Update, an e-mail newsletter that was deployed to about 3,000 people on the Gorilla Organization's own database, as well as e-mail marketing sent to a running website's database of 90,000. The e-newsletter thanked donors; updated them on how much money has been raised to date and how much more there is to go; honored the biggest fundraisers; and awarded prizes to the best pictures, videos, biggest team, best dressed, farthest 
traveled, etc.

The e-mails were broken up into short sections, using images, links and videos, as well as a call to action to sign up if you haven't already. Plus, the message was filled with links to explore further, and images of gorilla runners ran down the right-hand side.

To further enhance the experience, each month the newsletter focused "on one particular type of fundraising … things like organizing a quiz night at your local pub; approaching your employer for match giving, which essentially doubles any fundraising you bring in; and also organizing smaller events like coffee or dinner parties to encourage people to support that way," Davies says.

The Gorilla Organization also constantly put out messages on Twitter and Facebook to communicate with potential runners and runners who were signed up to promote fundraising. Runners were encouraged to post videos and photos on social-media sites as well. Those videos, photos and testimonials from previous runners and even celebrities were used to enhance the online experience even more.

Strategy and deployment

The 2010 campaign began in February 2010 and continued until the date of the run itself, Sept. 26, 2010. During those seven months, the organization sent out marketing communications constantly through all the channels: 100,000 leaflets and posters were distributed throughout London (all printed on recycled paper); 300 packs of posters and leaflets were sent to gyms, police, firefighters and Army personnel, with each pack accompanied by a letter encouraging recipients to form a team for the Great Gorilla Run; 12,000 e-mails were sent to Runners World magazine subscribers, deployed in two batches; and monthly e-newsletters were sent to runners and supporters who had shown interest in 
the organization.

Results

At the deadline for the March issue of FS, the results of the campaign were still coming in because the Gorilla Organization gets tax reimbursements on any donations made to runners for the event. On top of that, the economic uncertainty put a little doubt in how the final results would pan out, Davies admits.

"We really weren't sure how it was going to affect the run, but we found that while the runners' donor numbers have gone down slightly, the donation amounts have actually gone up," he says.

When it had all shaken out, nearly 600 people signed up to participate in the run, and nearly 250,000 pounds (almost $500,000) has been raised to date.

Tracking where those 600 people and 250,000 pounds came from is a little more difficult for the organization. Davies says the Gorilla Organization identifies where response comes from by asking people where they heard about the event when they signed up — 50 percent of participants reported that they heard via word-of-mouth or other, so it's difficult to judge exactly what drove participation.

However, nearly all the money raised came in online through the personal fundraising pages of each runner.

Even in the face of tough economic times, the campaign realized its objectives and was quite a success. There are no plans in sight to change or discontinue the Great Gorilla Run. In fact, it's quite the opposite. The Gorilla Organization is hoping to continue to raise the bar on the amount of money the Great Gorilla Run brings in, as well as continue developing new ways to engage participation and donations.

"To get so many runners still registering for the run and then on top of that raising 400 pounds (about $650) from their friends and family that may be worried about jobs or have financial difficulties is incredible. We're going to keep going," Davies says. "This campaign is very successful for a charity of this type, and it will be used again and again." •

The 
AHS 
Pet 
Telethon

The Arizona Humane Society (AHS) has been doing its annual pet telethon for more than a decade, but never has the event faced such uncertainty. The state of the economy has left many pet owners in the area struggling to afford to keep their pets. As a result, AHS has seen a significant increase in admissions without an uptick in adoptions.

"The perfect scenario for us is that those admission numbers decrease and adoptions increase," says Kelsea Vescova, director of marketing and development at AHS. "Unfortunately, we're seeing the opposite trend."

That means there is more pressure on the animal-welfare organization to raise funds. Yet its own budget constraints have made that difficult to the point that the annual pet telethon held each August had its air time cut by more than half. In past years, the telethon ran for six and a half hours. In 2010, it was reduced to three hours.

Somehow, the Arizona Humane Society had to find a way to raise just as much — if not more — money to address the increased need in less time on air.

To do that, AHS launched a multichannel campaign that included traditional communications along with innovative approaches.

"Through our partnership with ABC15 (Phoenix), who is our telethon media partner, we did do a 30-second promotional spot that began running on July 19," Vescova says. "We also had a telemarketing component, a direct-mail component, and then we also had a 30-second advertising campaign that ran two different commercials three weeks out from the event."

AHS also incorporated e-mail, social media and search, working with search marketing firm Covario to implement the search marketing campaign.

Objectives

The goal of the pet telethon every year is to raise as much money and support as possible so AHS can fulfill its mission and care for as many animals as possible. In 2010, however, the objective was twofold. Last year, AHS did a perception study and learned that while the organization had strong name recognition and favorable public perception, people didn't necessarily know the scope of its programs and services, Vescova says.

"So we really wanted to leverage the telethon as an opportunity for people to tune in and learn about all the different programs and services that we offer for the community," she adds. "Our goal for the telethon was not only to raise funds for a very worthy cause, but also to increase our overall awareness."

Additionally, AHS wanted to enhance its online communications, delving more into social media and search to test how they could work for the organization. Thus it embarked on an emotional campaign geared toward pet lovers, "which represent about 70 percent of those in the Phoenix market," according to Vescova, to tune in to learn more about pet homelessness in the community and donate to the cause.

Creative

The direct mailer sent out was a postcard mailing. On the front of the postcard was the pet telethon logo — the words Pet Telethon inside a bone, with the silhouettes of a dog and a cat resting above the bone. Underneath read the tagline: "Give help. Give hope. Give life."

Below that was a call to action, "Put your compassion in action," followed by the date and time of the telethon itself and the ABC15 logo. Then below that were the top five reasons to watch, and the pettelethon.azhumane.org URL. On the reverse, AHS had a thank-you note acknowledging recipients for past support and encouraging them to tune in again this year. It ended with another call to action: "To see the many ways your gift helps homeless animals, sign up to receive a reminder to tune in, or to donate online, visit pettelethon.azhumane.org."

That was just one element of the creative. Teasers were also sent along with the top five reasons to watch. One had a picture of a kitten, targeted to cat lovers, and the other had an image of a dog, aimed at dog lovers. Posters were also versioned for cat lovers and dog lovers. The kitty poster had three images of kittens, with text between each picture: "A hard sell would be to tell you we cared for 33,849 pets last year," "A hard sell would be to tell you that we spayed and neutered 19,334 pets. Or that we gave second chances to 11,508 sick and injured pets," and, "But this isn't a hard sell. This is a soft sell. A ridiculously precious and lovable and cuddly soft sell." Each number was in blue type, and then the "Put your compassion in action" text followed along with the logo and pet telethon info.

The dog poster had the same format but used slightly different language: "Bark if you knew Arizona Humane Society took in 33,849 pets last year," "Bark if you knew everything AHS does is made 
possible only through donations," and, "Bark if you knew AHS found homes for 16,513 homeless animals."

AHS also incorporated e-mails, sending countdown messages. Each day, an e-mail would go out with the number of days left until the pet telethon. Every message began with a reminder that the 12th annual telethon airs Saturday, Aug. 14, and then slightly changed the next sentence — "Besides watching Pat McMahon eat a real dog bone, there are many reasons to tune in!" or "Tune in and see lots of lovable dogs, puppies, cats, kittens and critters available for adoption at AHS!" Each e-mail then read, "If you already have plans, you can still help by donating online anytime!" The "donating online" text was hyperlinked to the pet telethon microsite, and a large "Donate Now" icon was below.

Then, each e-mail had the story of an animal, followed by how your donation helps, another Donate Now button, a link to see the ways donors' gifts are put into action, links to social media and other info, and images of animals throughout.

Working with Covario, AHS also managed to incorporate a text search ad, playing off the e-mail communications countdown. And two 30-second commercials aired as well beginning a month out.

Strategy and deployment

The campaign strategy involved keeping the typical 45-year-old-plus donors engaged, as well as getting more 35-and-under donors involved. AHS has roughly 50,000 active donors on its housefile, but it didn't want to spend all its budget on mailing the entire database. So the organization mailed about 2,500 of its most active donors who had given at a certain level within the previous year. It began doing that about four weeks prior to the event.

On July 19, it ran its first commercial on ABC15 and aired the two commercials it shot the next three weeks prior to the telethon. Concurrently, e-mails and updates via Facebook and Twitter were being pushed out as well.

At the same time, AHS was in communication with Covario about developing a partnership. AHS told Covario it was in the midst of its pet telethon campaign, and Covario wanted to help right away. Its corporate responsibility slogan, after all, is "We're in the business of search, and there's no search more important than the search for a missing child or pet," says CEO Russ Mann.

"We devised a strategy with [Covario] about how we could leverage our Google AdWords account — we have a $10,000 grant that we weren't fully taking advantage of, so we thought there's an opportunity there to tailor some advertising to the telethon," says Meredith McCreight, online 
communications and marketing manager at AHS. "So Covario created some targeted messaging and began putting that out there a week before the telethon."

Ideally, Covario likes to leverage all areas of search for its clients, but given the tight time frame, things like content placement, banners, etc., were out of the equation, says Paul Grieselhuber, account manager at Covario at the time. "We basically took our highest-volume ad groups and keywords and those we thought would have the greatest overlap with the overall message of the campaign, and then we basically reworked our ad copy to create a sense of urgency as well as raising awareness about the event," he explains. "We launched about a week out, and starting at three days out we actually changed them to include a countdown each day for how long it was until the event."

The search component was targeted at new donors. A telemarketing campaign was instituted for active donors to AHS as well, with the executive director calling them to remind them of the telethon.

Results

By reducing the air time of the telethon itself and integrating new media, AHS was able to reduce its costs by 40 percent. And even with a lower budget and less air time to work with, it was able to achieve all of its goals.

Overall, 144,000 households tuned in, and there was a large increase in the amount of time people viewed the telethon. In 2009, only 16 percent of viewers watched for two to three hours, while 21 percent watched for one to two hours. In 2010, 52 percent of the audience watched for two to three hours, giving AHS the opportunity to engage its supporters and educate them further on the services and programs it offers.

Online donations also increased significantly, showing the power of search, e-mail, social media and the URL calls to action. Nearly twice as many online donations came in for 2010 compared to 2009, and the average online gift grew more than 20 percent. With the search component beginning its countdown the final three days, traffic jumped to the microsite: Three days out there was a 5 percent increase in traffic; two days out a 22 percent increase; and the third and final day resulted in a 42 percent increase in traffic over the baseline traffic statistics. Through the campaign, AHS also increased its social-media following and in a post-event survey uncovered that 20 percent of viewers heard about the event through Facebook.

Most importantly, AHS was able to bring in a higher net revenue in 2010.

"Even by lowering our expenses 40 percent — we shortened the length of the telethon by over 50 percent — we were able to maintain the number of households that actually tuned in, we were able to increase how long they actually watched, we were able to clearly make some significant difference in terms of online giving and increasing that, and our net was actually higher this year," Vescova says. "So we were absolutely thrilled with the overall results."

Now with more time to incorporate further search strategies, AHS plans to ratchet up the 2011 pet telethon campaign. Working with Covario, AHS is going to focus on SEO and increasing the Web rankings for the organization and the telethon. Also, AHS expects to continue walking the line between keeping the traditional channels of phone and mail to appease the older, most lucrative donors, as well as keeping current with new technologies, especially online, to cultivate younger donors and communicate with them where they are as they mature into 50-plus and 65-plus donors.

AHS has a text-to-give program, a friends-asking-friends, peer-to-peer campaign online it recently rolled out, and it will continue to explore online technologies and leverage the traditional direct-marketing channels. FS