Charity fundraising in uncertain times

These are difficult times for Charities. Government support has been eroded and so has Corporate sponsorship. There remains the generosity of Joe public and he is less enthusiastic these days.

According to the Charities Aid Foundation, regular giving though still providing around £10 billion in donations is now accounted by fewer people.

These fewer supporters therefore give more individually. Charities are also increasingly reliant on legacy contributions. One medium sized Charity recently announced that it collects 50% of total income from legacy gifts. In the past legacy income were regarded as welcome windfalls. They were unpredictable and though wealthy supporters were courted and encouraged to include the charity in their wills, the results were long in showing. Charities that tend to do well offer care, sympathy and the possibility of relief via research for cures of long drawn out suffering from specific illnesses like Alzheimer’s, Cancer and Heart disease.

All this implies that many Charities have falling income and so legacies while accounting for a larger share of total income, this is from a smaller cake.

There are of course many factors that account for the decline in public generosity. One may be the effects of the recently introduced General data privacy regulation.

Organisations that used to communicate regularly with their customers and supporters via the mail now need the express permission of people on their mailing list to continue this practice. Direct mail used to account for 70% of the total ad spend of Charities. It was the most efficient advertising vehicle acquiring up to 80% of income raised via advertising. The most recent analysis of advertising spend shows that Direct Mail now accounts for 36%.

Charities have switched ad spends into the Television medium, which though a great way of promoting the cause is less effective in raising money directly. Some use it to promote their own lotteries. Many advertise in daytime programmes and these whilst less expensive cater for a downmarket audience. Ideally TV should be part of a multi-media strategy.

Some enterprising direct response advertisers get around GDPR by continuing to use the mail by substituting the term “Householder” for named individuals. Others analyse their supporters by Mosaic post codes and thus expand their householders mailing list.

Inserts in carefully selected newspapers and magazines also provide scope for a wider telling of the story to a more relevant audience. There is even space to remind supporters of the benefits of charitable bequests without making it the sole reason for advertising.

And then there’s the quality press, selective and very adaptable.

How to get Ahead in Advertising

The function of advertising is to inform and persuade. Before you can do that, you have to grab the attention of the prospect. This can be difficult. Attracting attention means diverting the mind from other more important issues. This difficulty often leads to over prioritising entertainment, so that one remembers the advertisement but not the brand being promoted.

Years ago, I did some small scale research which involved showing prospects cut down versions of commercials with the branding components missing. The commercials were selected to make the case, but I was still surprised by the high proportion of viewers who couldn’t recall the brands. Particularly since these were heavily promoted brands.

Some advertisements having attracted attention then fail to suggest good reasons for prospects to think better of the brand.

Rosser Reeves invented the concept of the Unique Selling Proposition, where a brand offered a valuable benefit which was either unique to the brand or was not capitalised by competitors. Many successful brands benefited from this USP concept in the second half of the 20th century. Sadly it seems to be less common now.

Which is why the brands that sell on a USP benefit stand out.

Think of brands who attract attention and then suggest positive user benefits and Direct Line comes to mind. They use Harvey Keitel in his wise guy persona. Then he provides tangible benefits not promoted by competitors.

Landlord protection for unpaid rents is one. A taxi ride home after a car accident is another. This is good advertising and as such is very effective.

Insurance companies suffer from an increasing level of customer complaints and simply trumpeting clichés makes for waste.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BoiUG8DOUc

Lessons from two smart cities

Observing how other cities are adopting change is arguably the fastest way towards sustainability for your own environment.Two cities I have recently visited are involved in novel ways of improving the lives of their people.

Consider Singapore. In geographical terms, it’s about half the size of London and supports a population of nearly five and a half million people.

Inevitably it is characterised by a multitude of high-rise buildings but the other overwhelming impression is just how green it is.

It wasn’t always so.

In 1965, when they gained independence, Singapore was “filled with slums, choked with congestion, where rivers became open sewers, no natural resources and few jobs for the workforce. Now it’s a clean, modern metropolis, economically successful and the highest rate of home ownership anywhere”.

Veteran architect and urban planner Cheong Koon Hean oversees the city’s public housing has developed the concept of livable density which is about “creating quality of life despite that density”. Pocket sized public gardens are linked by canals and pretty bridges, Vertical gardens adorn the sides of buildings, whole floors are given over to gardens used by everyone. Three million trees grow in luxuriant profusion amidst rivers and ponds. The botanical gardens are beautiful and it’s orchid collection not to be missed. Bishan park is part of network whose ultimate goal is the provision of 400 miles of walking and cycling tracks. By 2030, Singapore will be gauged by the Green mark standard whose aim is to reduce energy use and carbon emissions. Renewable energy is being developed rapidly and the smart money says they will achieve their targets.

San Francisco is one of my favourite cities. They have a target: 50% of their electricity will come from renewable sources by 2020. Since solar panels and wind turbines already account for 40% of electricity purchased, the target is likely to be exceeded.

It also has policies on recycling and composting. It aims to eliminate landfills and incinerators by 2020.All food waste, grass cuttings and foliage is collected and converted to compost as “fine as sand”. Hotels are involved in this recycling programme too because it saves them money. The City now bans the sale of small plastic bottles and are installing drinking fountains. Supermarkets are now no longer allowed to hand free plastic bags to their customers. The city is now targeting bans on packaging materials such as polystyrene and cellophane and developing the use of old fashioned washable diapers.

No reason why our cities cannot emulate Singapore and San Francisco.

Does technology only have to serve the rich?

The divisions in this country have been bought into sharp focus since the recent referendum. Some people in the winning side are behaving as if they have been given a mandate to take us back to the days of the black shirts.

There is less goodwill towards people who have settled here despite their contribution to the economy. Has compassion for the third world poor diminished too?

And yet the advances in science and technology means that much more can be done to help.

Apparently, the Earth is hit by 430 quintillion Joules of energy from the Sun every single hour: That’s enough to meet the World’s energy needs for a year. Furthermore solar energy has never been cheaper at thirty cents per watt. Installations of solar panels are growing exponentially and battery technology has improved dramatically too.

That is why countries like China and India are investing so heavily as are companies like Tesla, Apple and Google. Low-level technology such as spray-on can transform windows and glass in buildings into solar panels. In Britain, schemes already exist to convert pedestrian footfalls into energy to light up buildings.

Sustainable energy that doesn’t need huge infrastructures and national grids can transform poor people’s lives. Better standards of living in their own Countries can mean fewer migrants, less carbon emissions and global warming.

Schumacher was right when he wrote about how low level technology could help the disadvantaged in his book: ‘Small Is Beautiful’ forty years ago.

Ultimately, Helping the poor in the third world, helps us too. 

The law of unintended consequences

In China and India there are more young men than young women. The problem in China was exacerbated by the one child policy, but in both countries was created by a cultural preference for baby boys. The technological advances that allowed the gender of the unborn baby to be determined and the availability of surgery for abortion did the rest.

The cultural norm had been early marriage. Now with a gender gap, young women could exercise choice. So goodbye to dowries and being second-class citizens. Now better educated, women had real power. The drift towards automation left many young men unemployed echoing Mahatma Gandhi’s warning: “What we need is not mass production, but manufacturing by the masses”.

The surplus to requirement young men drifted, joined gangs, formed bad habits and sometimes turned criminal. A few became the prey of recruiters to terrorist groups where the incentives were money, pornography and drugs.

Their salvation will only come if they are given opportunities to educate themselves possibly through the internet. In rural areas, Satellite TV and mobile phones leap-frogged the traditional route of terrestrial television and landlines. Now the concept of a linked world as imagined by the communication theorist Marshall McLuhan could do the same for education. Online schools and Universities will emerge to teach basic education and higher knowledge.

Technology can also create jobs. Electricity can be made available without a national grid through solar panels and improved storage batteries. Graphene can be extracted from the methane created by cow dung and fabricated into suitable material forms. 3D printing may also be possible, reducing the need for long journeys to an industrial hub.

Others may become economic migrants and in addition to a better life, they will have a better chance of finding a partner. Many societal thinkers believe that migration is not only inevitable but could be a force for good in an ageing Western world. Educated or self-taught, they will find opportunities in the new digital world as explored in Professor Douglas McWilliams new book: The flat white economy.  Immigrants, particularly the skilled ones add to the store of capital and even the others take jobs that the native population don’t want. Imagine the NHS without Doctors and Nurses from abroad.  The digital explosion in London depends on the importation of skills from abroad.

Immigration could actually be beneficial for the ageing West and not the bogey it’s currently depicted to be. In fact it might be a case when ‘the law of unintended consequences’ could be a force for good.

What is the incentive for saving?

People appear to have gone off the habit of saving. For years wiser folk have recommended putting aside one-seventh of income for the proverbial rainy day.

The average savings ratio is now a meagre 5%, so why are we ignoring this advice?

Some are too poor. Day to day survival is a battle for many. They are targets for the payday loan crooks, some of who charge 1200% interest.

The fear of debt that kept our Grandparents cautious appears to have evaporated. Indeed the economy is largely based on borrowing. Get a car on the never-never. Use your credit card to fund a holiday. Furnish your home with the notional zero percent interest.

For the few thrifty folk, there seems little incentive to save. Conventional saving accounts are not being encouraged by Banks and Building Societies. Current interest rates are as low as 0.6% and that scant return is liable to tax. George Osborne’s plan to have Banks not deduct 20% of interest paid will only help the less well-off wage earners on the lower tax threshold. They will welcome this change, but they will account for a tiny proportion of savers.

ISA’s were popular when the tax free interest they generated was worthwhile. Today the rates for Cash ISA’s are at best 1.41%. A poor return for an Economy purporting to be growing by 2.5%. So the drift to Share ISA’s should grow, if and it is a big if, they generate a better return. Here the fine print becomes a warning.

Share prices can go down and in the volatile climate, careful savers may consider that now is the time to indulge and spend.

Then there is the Pension savers, an incentive tax scheme, whereby tax is deferred until the rainy days your savings can be retrieved. The Chancellor would like to collect these taxes when he’s still in charge, but fears a political backlash.

So it’s up to the Business in the wealth management sector to offer benefits that encourage people to save.

But what can they say?

Some try to demonstrate trustworthiness in a generic sense but without a proposition most are not credible. Hiscox did this well and Lloyds have the most beautifully shot series of films with memorable sound tracks. Others talk about longevity which in the light of recent failures elicits little positive response. Without upward trending performance graphs some can try calling on the reputations of wizards like Warren Buffet, Anthony Bolton and Neil Woodford, but it’s still a difficult sell. 

Advertising needs to have a credible and persuasive sales proposition in the way Rosser Reeves meant.

And that depends both on the financial service companies and talented creative people in advertising.

Reasons to holiday in St Kitts and Nevis

I knew very little about these islands. Like most of you, I had known they were in the Caribbean and guessed their economy was largely based on Sugar and tourism.

What I didn’t know was their differences with other islands in the West Indies. Was the scenery more stunning than that of St Lucia? Were the locals friendlier? Was it easier to get to than Barbados?

It is likely that this holiday hot spot is desirable but is it sufficiently different from its promoted sister nations to merit consideration? What it needs is uniqueness and reasons to go now. Non deferability in fact.

Selling Travel provided both factors in their March issue in an article headlined “Celebrating in St Kitts“. It listed six things to do in the islands at different times of the year.

On the 27^th of March, the fifteenth annual ocean swim between Nevis and St Kitts is open to all. Two and a half miles of excitement and fun.

In June St Kitts will host a tri-nation cricket tournament featuring the West Indies, South Africa and Australia.

Other events include a music festival, Restaurant week, Latin fiesta and at year end Carnival.

As Selling Travel says: “One of the best ways to experience the colour, personality and culture of St Kitts is to visit the island when a major event or festival is taking place”.

I was sufficiently intrigued to investigate further. Flights from London are regular. Next a call to a travel counsellor and a visit to the website provided the reassurance that the islands were attractive, sufficiently unique and offered things to do for people who wanted more to do than fly and flop.

However these reasons need to be promoted , perhaps by working with British Airways and relevant tour operators initially and if possible by mounting an effective advertising campaign.

Tell prospects about St Kitts and Nevis and they will come.