Charities working together: Cooperation or competition? Peter Maple. Arthritis Care, 18 Stephenson Way, London NW1 2HD, UK;. Tel: +44 171 9167500; Fax: ...
Charities working together: Cooperation or competition? Peter Maple Arthritis Care, 18 Stephenson Way, London NW1 2HD, UK; Tel: +44 171 9167500; Fax: +44 171 916 1505
Received (in revised form): 4th January, 1996 Peter Maple has been fundraising actively for many years. He started as a volunteer at college and latterly has acted professionally as Arthritis Care's Director of Communications and Fundraising. As Rag chairman at college he helped bring together all the colleges in the town and put the net proceeds of the charity week up by 400 per cent. After nearly twenty years in the computer industry, initially in sales and later in marketing, he entered paid fundraising through consultancy. He joined the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) as campaign manager then moved to Arthritis Care in September 1992. En route he gained an MBA from Cranfield. Peter Maple is an active member of ICFM and worked for the London group's executive committee for three years helping to arrange speakers and venues before being elected as a member of the National Executive, where he served on both the Resources and the Public Affairs Committees.
ABSTRACT In the voluntary sector groupings of charities come together for a wide variety of reasons. This paper looks at some examples, in which the author has particular knowledge or interest, in the particular j e l d of fundraising ventures, and suggests other familiar areas where greater cooperation might produce substantially greater rewards. I t seeks to show where common interests can outweigh any cotnpetitive fears and where subordinated individual priorities generate incrementally better results.
INTRODUCTION In the private sector joint ventures, particularly for new technological developments, are common and accepted practice. They often give the participants a clear understanding of their partners who may well be, in other areas, direct competitors. Sometimes, as in the case of Camclot, the successful bidders for the National Lottery franchise, the participating companies form an independent organisation to run the enterprise. Other times a looser, less formal, structure allows collaboration to mutual advantage. As an alternativc to mergers and acquisitions a joint venture has much to commend it in terms of agreed limits for investment, time frames and individual priorities. SOMETHING OLD One always hopes for something new, something different, even exciting when reading a new fundraising book or article. Often the best one can realistically hope for is old wine in new bottles, because, as with so many aspects of fundraising one can argue that there is nothing completely new under the sun. Redmond Mullin in his keynote speech at the ICFM Convention, NEC, Birmingham in July 1992 referred to sonic of St Paul's letters as classic fundraising asks. So there is nothing new in charities collaborating to mutual advantage. Alexandra Rose Day is a classic
example of public collections for a variety of charities, and ‘Cards for Good Causes’ is another most successful example of such enterprise. Formed originally as the 1959 Group of Charities by 25 founder members, they are now joined by dozens of ‘guest charities’ each year in more than 200 temporary card shops each Christmas. Syndicated Christmas catalogues are another prime use of shared resources to obtain economies of scale and benefits of risk reduction for smaller charities. In a different way charities join together for major sponsorship events such as the London Marathon and the Great North Run. Yet that is no guarantee of success. Each can compete with another for limited support within a defined audience and too much can be spent on promoting the event with over ambitious expansion plans. The Aerobathon dibicle is just one of the better known examples of failure. But in the pooling of resources, the sharing of expertise and the reduction of risk, there is a seductive feel for the smaller, resource-strapped charity. And, perhaps more impbrtantly, the public is beginning to notice that ten, twenty or forty mailshots through the letter box at Christmas is neither appealing, nor very economic for the participants. So what might be done to plug into that dissatisfaction with the status quo? Is there a way in which charities can cooperate not only to raise awareness but also to recruit committed supporters? SOMETHING NEW Several animal charities have come together under a single banner, ‘St Assisi’, to promote payroll giving. The syndicate has been extremely successful for its constituent members, creating a unified brand in potential donors’ minds rather
than a confusion of competition. ‘Blind Care’ now operates in a similar way for a variety of charities working in the field of sight impairment. Six quite different but related ‘caring’ charities (Arthritis Care, Blue Cross, Shelter, ChildLine, John Grooms and Y Care) operate under the title ‘Caring Together’ not just for employee giving but for a variety of corporate ventures, sponsorships and collaborations. Once again the idea of creating a single brand, to reduce perceived competition in the potential supporter’s mind, is an important one. The syndicate has varied its payroll giving programme but continues to plan and execute joint ventures in terms of working with certain companies who can see a competitive advantage in working with such a brand. In a project not so very far from that, four other charities came together to organise a photographic competition ‘Images of Caring’ This was created by Winged Fellowship in 1994 and run by Winged Fellowship, Parkinson’s Disease Society, Alzheimer’s Disease Society and Arthritis Care in 1995. Following the success of Winged Fellowship’s own photo competition the decision was made to involve three more like-minded organisations in order to expand and publicise the event more effectively. Indeed the second competition brought a much larger number of entries and while the fundraising potential was not fully exploited, three of the four intend to repeat the exercise. Each event has a variety of objectives but shares an ovcrriding one - to raise funds and recruit new supporters, who it is hoped will prove to be long-term friends of the charities involved. Could such groupings work for direct marketing? Quite simply, why not? The Disasters Relief Committee operates on behalf of aid agencies (including Save the Children, British Red Cross, ActionAid,
Oxfam and Christian Aid) in the event of crises like Rwanda, allowing donations to be made over the the counter or straight into an account through High Street banks and building societies. If the public responds to such appeals, even given the appalling nature of such tragedies, why should they not respond to a welltargeted, appropriate communication on behalf of say four charities, with an attractive proposition? These charities will also be cutting their individual costs by 75 per cent through shared costs and overheads. This might be through shared advertising, or a well-produced letter or newsletter jointly representing the partners, which might generate more sympathy and response.
SOMETHING BORROWED The owners of fast moving consumer goods brands have known for a long time that television advertising is a vital component in building awareness and knowledge about their particular products and services. Direct Response Television (DRTV) has been proved to be a highly effective medium when used for prompted responses and appeals, such as the various Telethons that take place. Recent changes in the advertising regulations now mean that charities can advertise directly for donations. Some like the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) have already used DRTV with some significant success, but the costs generally are perceived as being far too high for all but the largest fundraisers. ‘Casualty Action’ a group of like minded charities devoted to the needs of ex-servicemen and women (The Ex-Services Mental Welfare Society, Solders’, Sailors’, and Airmen’s Families Association (SSAFA) and St Dunstans) has combined to produce a DRTV
advertisement. The cost of production (and fulfilment for response) split four ways made it economical to create, but airtime proved expensive even in the lead up to VE Day. Thus apart from donations prompted by the advertisement ‘in memoriam’ it is unlikely that it would have recouped its production costs. Nevertheless shared costs when divided around a common theme offered the opportunity to try something that none of the charities individually would have contemplated. Moreover, new donor recruitment was achieved at a cost ratio comparable to other, more traditional, direct marketing methods.
‘SOMETHING BLUE, OR RED OR GOLD’ In a not dissimilar vein, a number of charities have already launched, with mixed success, ‘Affinity Cards’ - these are credit cards branded with the charity’s own logo often in its own specified colours, so that supporters can help simply by using the card. With the overwhelming rise in electronic funds transfer, telephone banking and loyalty schemes it seems a reasonable prediction that charities and, for example, financial service companies or large retail chains, will work much more closely together for long term mutual advantage. Once again a syndicate of membership charities with a variety of audiences but a common theme, or even better an existing brand, could perhaps capitalise on a much wider distribution than they ever could individually. It has already been done by a group of larger charities, but why stop there? For some time other affinity schemes in insurance, travel, and so on have been proposed to, and used by a number of charities, large and small. For example ‘Flying Flowers’ have offered charities a
donation each time one of their supporters orders a flower delivery quoting the appropriate, agreed campaign code. O f course the company benefits most through a very cost effective source of new business. A departure from this low profit/low risk style of marketing has recently been launched through three larger charities. Age Concern, British Heart Foundation and Imperial Cancer have combined to form a new trading company that will handle directly the marketing, processing of orders and accounting on behalf of all three. ‘Charity Flowers Direct’ at an investment of &200,000 each is not an undertaking for the faint hearted, but the results could be very profitable indeed if the participants can promote the service effectively and gain a reasonable market share. Indeed already more than 40 other charities are reported by ‘Charity’, a CAF publication (October 1995), to have shown interest in signing up as part of the syndicate.
Voluntary Organisations (NCVO) has calculated that despite 2100 million per week being spent on the various offerings, the fact that only 5 . 6 ~ in the S goes to the National Lottery Charities Board means charities will finish up perhaps 240 million per year worse off (NCVO press release, July 1995). Yet Littlewoods and others are convinced that the lottery market, especially that for ‘Instant Competitions’ has been expanded and their own national competitive offering, using individual charities’ own gaming board licences went national in October 1995 ( T h e Guardian, 2nd October, 1995). Larger charities are each benefiting by receiving 24 per cent of the proceeds of each 2lm lottery. Vernons Pools and other competitors are also entering the enlarged market. Is there now an opportunity for a syndicate like ‘Caring Together’ to benefit its member charities?
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‘DO THEY KNOW IT’S CHRISTMAS?’ What about a catalogue, not with six different covers as ‘per the usual syndicated Christmas offering, but with only one showing six like-minded charities encouraging friends to cut costs and do a one-stop shop. Charities could then broaden their appeal a t both a local and a national level with a sharing of lists, reactivation programmes and coherent, attractive propositions to meet donors’ real needs and not those perceived by others. Giving tangible benefits and adding value has always had an extra attraction for donors so this must surely continue to grow in popularity.
LIFE’S A LOlTERY What of the effects of the National Lottery? The National Council for
LEGACIES ‘THE LAST GREAT FUNDRAISING OPPORTUNITY’ George Smith said this in his keynote speech at the ICFM Convention, NEC, in Birmingham in July 1994. Will Aid, a consortium of five overseas charities and solicitors, has worked very successfully in this area. It is run every other year. In 1990 23,000 people made wills and donated 2575,000, in 1992 35,000 people made wills and donated 2950,000 and in 1994, while numbers were down, still around 15,000 made wills and donated S830,OOO. But what more, corporatcly, can othcr charities do? For those charities that already benefit from legacy income, a jointly funded campaign to raise that 14 per cent to say 28 per cent would see a huge increase in voluntary income. N o change in market share would be strictly necessary, no
increase in competition, just a very large increase in available income -even with average legacies falling. Simply persuading people who have made a will to help a favourite cause, painlessly, through their wills, seems such an obvious message that it is surprising no groups or consortia have yet started a DRTV campaign. For the brave few who do something about this, one suspects there will be an enormous reward. The number of people mentioning one or more charities in their wills has already risen from 9 per cent to 14 per cent over the last ten years. A fact, the author is personally convinced, that is due in no small part to the effort expended on promoting Will Aid. So why should a syndicate of likeminded charities not work hard to generate enquiries and then develop an initial response from vague interest in making an altruistic will, through to actually selecting a ‘good cause’ and, with appropriate advice, writing the cause, or
hopefully causes, into a new or existing will? Even with average legacy gifts in decline, not many groups of supporters can be counted on for an average of &10,000 to &20,000. Perhaps therefore, the challenge for the second half of the decade is less towards recruiting increasing numbers of occasional donors, and much more towards bringing all the vital groups of supporters into convergence. In short, to persuade new supporters to pledge a gift in their wills and to introduce the concept of a final gift to those old friends who are perhaps only now beginning to contribute at a level appropriate to their means and desires. Economies of scale abound and as we have seen with Will Aid the ability to motivate people to mention a charity or list of charities in their wills can have a significant effect on the number of people so doing. That surely must be one of the best long term investments that any group of charities could possibly make.
