And the Winners Are … the 2014 FundRaising Success Gold Awards for Fundraising Excellence

Beyond the numbers is the wonderfully consistent messaging that seamlessly carries through the many touchpoints involved.

In this case, multichannel also meant multigenerational, as one of the stated goals of the campaign was specifically to reach the next generation of donors, while at the same time targeting existing and lapsed donors, and acquiring new donors from the organization’s traditional donor profile (45 years and up).

It was a tall order that took some big thinking.

“Reaching the millennial group is easier said than done,” writes R. Trent Thompson, senior director of brand and strategic communications at The Children’s Center, who submitted the campaign. “The majority are not yet established in their careers and have not accumulated enough wealth to be captured by the many lists and databases available to funders. Reaching this particular segment was indeed the greatest challenge of the campaign.”

While current donors and future philanthropists may be moved in different ways, TCC settled on a message that everyone could get behind: “Children are the future of Detroit. If you want to heal Detroit, then we must first heal the children. For a brighter, future Detroit — help Detroit’s children heal, grow and thrive.”

With messaging no one could argue with, TCC launched a comprehensive campaign that included these elements:

• Direct mail: a two-stage direct-mail approach targeting volunteers and lapsed donors that featured a personalized pledge sheet as well as a Web address and QR code directing donors to a custom, responsive landing/donation page.
• Email: a series of five emails sent three weeks apart to reinforce the campaign messaging and call to action, with a link back to the custom landing/donation pages.
• Social media: TCC leveraged its 27-member, internal social-media team and a number of external key influencers, providing prewritten tweets and Facebook posts with selected campaign images, as well as Facebook cover images to make it easy for them to spread the word about the campaign. There was also a presence on Pinterest and Instagram.
• Telephone/face-to-face: continuing its traditional use of these channels.
• Donor acknowledgment letters: Campaign-specific thank-you messages helped close the loop.

Thinking outside the box to reach millennials, Gen X and Gen Y, the campaign also included: