From SOFII, aggregator of proven fundraising materials and insights, here is their list of the “23 all time great fundraising campaigns”.
Each comes with a link describing or illustrating the campaign.
I have two favorites on this list …
The UNICEF card that launched that’s organization’s fundraising in 1946 — just because it’s so iconic. [A little tricky to navigate ... but the card drawing is there!]
The Station WDCN, Nashville “thank you” to a donor — because it exemplifies the best of donor stewardship.
But also read the disheartening results of legendary fundraiser Ken Burnett’s ‘mystery shopper’ test for America’s PBS stations, from which the WDCN response was extracted — nearly half the stations tested didn’t acknowledge the donation at all! That was in 1994 … hopefully things have improved!
Have they?
Tom
P.S. My only question … Who ever heard of a “Top 23″ list?!
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Hi Tom,
Many thanks for this very helpful plug for SOFII’s Best of the Best showcase.
Every time The Agitator gives SOFII a mention we get a spike of interest from across the Atlantic. Which is great, as from time to time it acts as a reminder to our US friends, who don’t seem as keen on registering as some other populations and are harder to keep interested and reactivate/ get to revisit SOFII.
Which is a shame as there’s useful new stuff on SOFII every week. Registration, like the rest of the site, is free and easy.
Have things got better since 1994? I doubt it. Would love to be proved wrong though.
And why 23? Well, we started with 21 (seemed like the key to the door or something, a nice handy number), and privilege of course decreases when shared. So we’ll probably keep it under 50, but we’d love to be able to showcase a small number of truly brilliant campaigns that by common consent are judged the best in the world.
This was our first attempt and isn’t definitive. The first 21 were not selected very scientifically (by regularity of use and popular request). Since then we’ve added only two, by recommendation. We’d love to have more great stuff coming forward but getting fundraisers to share their exhibits is like pulling teeth. Surprises me, of course, as I originally assumed fundraisers would want to show off their brilliance.
But no, collectively it seems we’re surprisingly shy. Or perhaps too busy. Or people assume it’s harder to do than it is.
To any Agitator readers out there, if you have a campaign or a promotion that you think could join or even unseat any of SOFII’s current Best of the Best, do please send it in. We’ve made the process real easy – see http://www.sofii.org.
Thanks Tom and Roger, all best as ever,
Ken