While most people are supportive of charitable causes, in order to raise the kind of funds which can actually make a difference to people’s lives, excellently crafted PR campaigns are required. The following campaigns elicit a range of emotions; some are humorous while others are extremely serious, but all are effective in their own way at encouraging people to donate.
1. The Ice Bucket Challenge
Last year, the internet was bombarded with an endless stream of videos of people chucking ice cold water over their heads, including celebrities, athletes, musicians and film stars. There have been over 2.4 million ice bucket related videos posted on Facebook and 3.7 million on Instagram. While many people found the sight of their best friends (and favourite football players) pouring ice water over their heads utterly hilarious, the real miracle of the campaign was how much money was raised for the Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) Association. From 29 July to 28 August 2014 ALS received $98.2m – compared with $2.7m donated during the same period the previous year.
2. HeForShe
For those that witnessed Emma Watson’s breathtaking speech at the UN about gender equality, it was difficult not to be moved. After recalling some of her own experiences of gender discrimination, Emma made it crystal clear that feminism had nothing to do with hating men, and instead formally invited men to participate, stating that: “Gender equality is your issue too”.
3. How to Shock a Celebrity
Non-profit organisation, End7, devised this ingenious campaign in order to deal with the problem of people turning away from grotesque images of the developing world and therefore not making donations. End7 produced a video showing the reactions of a selection of celebrities being shown images of curable but horrific diseases. By showing the reactions of the celebrities first, the viewer automatically feels more compelled to view the footage for themselves and thus donate.
4. Movember
The month of November is known to bring anguish and distress to girlfriends and wives around the nation as their partners grow (often unsightly) moustaches for the month. It seems that Movember has been around forever, but it was actually launched in 2013 to raise funds and awareness for men’s health causes such as prostate cancer and mental health issues. Having the men of our nation walk around with inappropriate facial hair for a month is certainly a lot of fun, but more importantly, over £346 million has been raised to date and over 800 programmes in 21 countries have been funded. Sometimes humour goes a long way!
5. Likes Don’t Save Lives
Unicef Sweden created a series of videos which expose the problem that people may feel moved by charitable causes, but without financial support no real life changes can be made. For instance, one of these videos portrays a man attempting to pay for his meal at a restaurant with Facebook likes, but the waiter will not accept it. The core point of the video is that vaccinations cannot be purchased with likes! These videos were viewed over 750,000 times in 195 countries.
Conclusion
These are some of the most effective PR campaigns used to generate funds for charities, and while they cover a range of tones, they are all excellent in terms of clarity of message and emotional impact. For more tips on how to run a PR campaign for a charity, please check out this previous article.
Tags: charity, charity campaign, charity PR, fundraising
