Over the peak giving season in June, a number of Australian charities such as The Royal Flying Doctor Service (QLD), Habitat for Humanity Australia, Sydney Children’s Hospital Foundation and Save the Bilby Fund successfully used matched giving in their fundraising campaigns.
One charity that achieved great fundraising success with matched giving is the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre (ASRC) who held an online telethon for World Refugee Day.
There are so many reasons why the ASRC campaign was hugely successful. Let’s look at just five of the tactics that made this online telethon a winner.
1
Choose The Right Day To Celebrate
One of the smartest moves by ASRC was to choose to run their event on World Refugee Day.
World Refugee Day not only has strong ties to the work of ASRC but also falls on 20 June each year, when the motivation to donate for tax is high.
Being an internationally celebrated day means that support is generated from all around the world.
Australia is often the first country to celebrate international days due to its timezone. This has the perk of being some of the first pieces of content on social media for the day, giving ASRC the opportunity to bring about better engagement and momentum.
2
Limited Matched Giving Offers
With the support of a very generous donor, ASRC were able to double donations made by the public at key times of the day. This added incentive for supporters to give by having their donation amount matched.
With this opportunity only being available at key times during the day, urgency and scarcity marketing tactics were created, this opened the floodgates of generosity for supporters wanting their gift to go twice as far.
Perhaps one of the most successful tactics during the day was to send out two rounds of SMSes, only while the donation matching was available.
The first text was sent at 8am, when matched giving was first available. The second text was sent at 5pm, as a reminder to those supporters that hadn’t donated yet.
Both outbound SMSes resulted in outstanding return on investment (ROI) of greater than 10x for the organisation.
4
Chose A Short And Inspiring Keyword For Text To Give
Selecting the right SMS keywords is vital to inspire, and this team chose well with the keywords of HOPE, CARE and HOME.
Not only are these words inspiring to give but also short 4 letter words that are easy to remember, spell and text.
By making donating simple and easy, their campaign spread like wildfire on social media. SMS was used as an additional way for supporters to donate via an inbound channel.
5
Build A List Of Second Time Donors
By building a list of previous donors, you can make their next donation experience even quicker and easier. With previous donors you already have all the key details you need: name, email, donation amount, payment details. You can use these existing details to pre-fill the supporters donation form and make donating as easy as one click.
6
Engage Relevant Celebrities
One of the joys of telethons is the chance to engage with celebrities who support your cause. ASRC invited their relevant celebrities to post on social media, and engage as the campaign progressed. This also included regular updates from their CEO, which helped make the day even more fun online.
Not only did engaging celebrities extend the reach and engagement of the ASRC campaign, telling the successes of the day live as it unfolds made it an exciting event for the whole community.
These are just a few of the tactics used by ASRC as they go from strength to strength, for your charity the tools and tactics may be slightly different. We look forward to seeing what charities continue to test and trial in future campaigns!
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