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I recently noticed a comment from Alice Davis on the Sound Seekers feedback form, which attributed some of the success of their appeal to: "engaging corporate partners and other charities to spread the word about our appeal". The same day I had a conversation with Mike Daw at the National Eye Research Centre and he too talked about other charities sharing the news of their Radio 4 Appeal.

So I contacted Alice Davis and Mike Daw and asked them a few questions:

Who should you approach?

Alice:

We approached two charities that we have a good relationship with. Both charities are large and focus on hearing loss. We also contacted diaspora led organisations that we have spoken to in the past but haven’t yet formed a strong relationship with.

I think it is important to contact charities that you have at least spoken to before, who know who you are, understand what you are doing and what you are trying to achieve. We found that all the NGO’s we contacted were extremely keen to support us as they all have either a link to hearing loss or a link to Africa.

Mike:

To some extent we were a bit lucky with some coincidences of timing. Earlier in the year we had engaged a PR company to do some campaigning to raise awareness of the lack of investment in eye research. At the forefront of this campaign was a parliamentary reception at the House of Commons and we wanted as many stakeholders as possible to be present and that included representatives from major charities with an interest in sight loss.

We don’t represent a threat to these larger charities and they all generously embraced both the campaign and the appeal to their supporters and stakeholders which substantially increased the breadth of support we ultimately achieved.

What are you asking those charities to do?  

Alice:

We asked all charities to promote our appeal throughout their own organisation as well as via their own personal network. We asked them to tweet about our appeal as well as retweet some of our tweets. Some also volunteered to post on their facebook page. We provided them with general information about our appeal and about Sam Evans, our presenter.

We also provided them with photos of Sam Evans at the recording day. It was really interesting to see that other NGO’s who work in a similar area retweeted about our appeal without being asked. .

Mike:

For the appeal itself we were mostly looking for retweets, likes and shares of our posts but also getting our material out to their regional offices and supporter groups (mailings, intranets etc). We produced a postcard to promote Jade’s appeal and offered to supply in bulk to groups who could distribute for us (although not many did).

They were offered visibility on all our campaigning materials, opportunities to provide quotes (in support of our message of course) and mentions in some of our tweets and Facebook posts. 

How do you 'write that email' – if it is counter-intuitive to ask others to publicise your appeal?

Alice:

I first emailed each of the NGO’s and organisations telling them about our appeal. I then had a number of follow up telephone conversations to discuss what we wanted them to do and answered any questions they had.

Mike:

Don’t write an email!!!! Identify a key contact (probably in PR, comms), phone them up, explain what you’re trying to achieve and how that could benefit them (I came from the corporate world and I’m sorry but I’m only interested in how your campaign benefits my organisation, unless perhaps you can identify their CSR person but even then you’ve got to demonstrate how your campaign meets their CSR objectives)