Hints and tips on promoting your appeal

Start it with a bang

There is no doubt that a launch event for your Mosaic Appeal is a sure-fire way of getting it off to a good start.

• Pick a day that gives you enough time to organise things.

• Find a venue.

• Find a sponsor for the reception. This is likely to be one of your best corporate supporters. Ask them to pick up the tab for the drinks and nibbles. Offer them promotional opportunities

• Identify your key prospects. Send them an invitation, and ask them to bring along people similar to themselves. Make sure that they know that it is a launch of an appeal and that they are to bring their credit cards.

• At the launch, if Broadband is available you can take payments online but you won't get through enough transactions to make it worthwhile. On the site there is the facility for you to download and print off forms* that will allow your potential donors to fill out a form giving their credit card details and give it to you. You will then be able to complete their application at your leisure.

• The Mosaic Appeals system allows you to download an application that will display each of your sponsors' messages as a rolling display. Hook up to a large-format screen and it will run through each of your sponsors messages updating them as they are added.

Find a key individual or patron

You need to identify a key individual or individuals who are supporters of your campaign and who are prepared to act as appeal patrons. This can be a media or sports personality, but equally might be the head of a large corporation or Association. Such individuals may choose to make a donation themselves, but more important is the pressure they can bring to bear on their associates and contacts. A senior partner of a large city firm may contact each of his partners to ask them to support the appeal. In our experience, the benefit from this is very worthwhile.

Recommend a friend scheme

At every opportunity you will need to widen the circle of people who are aware of the appeal and the least expensive way of getting in touch with those people is to ask your existing contacts to do it for you.

Send an email to your existing donors and say how well your appeal is doing with their help, but you need to ask them for one more favour:

Ask them to choose at least ten people from their address book, and send them an email asking them to go on to the Mosaic Appeals site and buy a tile. They can also ask those people to whom they are sending the message, that if buying a tile is not for them, that they can play just as valuable a role by sending on the email to ten further people.

The sample text for the emails is on the Mosaic appeals website*. All you need to ask your contact to do is click on the 'recommend a friend*' button on your appeal's page of your site, create a message and add the names from your address book.

Use your existing emails and website

If you add a flash to your emails and your website asking your contacts and suppliers to support your appeal, not only will it spread the word, but it will demonstrate your support for your chosen charity.

On the Mosaic Appeals website you have the facility to download a button to add to your website or to your emails. You may need to ask your web developer to do this for you, but if you get stuck, you may contact our technical team on 01303 863800.

Add a prize

Everyone knows when they buy a raffle ticket that they are giving a donation to a cause, but it sugars the pill when there is the prospect of winning a prize.

Prizes can be hidden behind 'Golden Tiles' the numbers of which can be chosen in advance- although this may mean that you may have to sell all of the tiles before a winner comes up!

Alternatively, you can allocate prizes to the sequence in which tiles are bought - you might choose every 23rd tile, or something less obvious!

You'll need sponsors for the tiles, but it is usually possible to get prizes such as holidays, or tickets to events. It will be up to you to secure these prizes from commercial sponsors. For a major prize, you may want to consider an insurance-backed offer. Suppose for example, at a launch event, you want to offer the prize of a mini if someone chooses the right tile, then you find a sponsor who will pay an insurance premium and if the tile is chosen on the night, then that donor wins a prize (and you win a good PR opportunity).

Love your contacts

The Mosaic Appeals system is set up to allow you to conduct email campaigns, and when people donate they are given the opportunity to sign up to receive your promotional materials. This is important because it will allow you to develop your donor database.

The Mosaic appeal site is set up in such a way that you can create newsletters and send them to your opt-in donors. Keep them up to date with news of the work of the appeal and successes. Don't keep badgering them for more donations but do ask them if they have any friends or acquaintances that they think would be interested in receiving the newsletter.

Exploit the press opportunities

Opportunities from press coverage exist all the time with your Mosaic appeal. It is still interesting enough for newspapers to want to run a story when an appeal is launched and they will be especially interested if someone wins a major prize.

* These additional features will be added shortly

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Last updated: Thu 30 Oct 08