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Oxfam looks to books in fundraising and awareness drive

Fundraising | 15 Jul 2009

Oxfam has launched a major high-end literary push to raise its profile, and income, as a book retailer.

On July 4, the charity, which is the largest second-hand book seller in Europe, released a collection of short stories by top authors and launched its first annual literary festival, Bookfest. It is hoping the initiatives will stem the decline in charity shop donations and increase the £1.6m it already earns from book sales each month.

Ox-Tales is a series of four books of short stories, each centred on one of the four elements which in turn relate to an aspect of Oxfam’s work: fire for conflict resolution; air for climate change; earth for agricultural development and water for water projects.

Booker prize-winning authors, among others, have contributed short stories to the volumes, which have already received high praise by leading literary critics. Interest in the books, priced at £5 each, has led Oxfam to offer pre-orders for the series.

Oxfam spokesman Stuart Fowkes told Professional Fundraising that the books “are first and foremost something that are going to be of interest to readers and people who are interested in books. But of course, wherever we can, we will remind people that all this is going to a wider cause.”

Literary festival launched

The release of Ox-Tales coincided with the launch of Bookfest, a two-week book festival comprising of nearly 300 events around the UK. Ranging from children’s events and shop coffee mornings to a reading at Queen Elizabeth Hall, the festival kicked off with simultaneous launch events in Oxford, London and Edinburgh.

Fowkes said: “This year we’ve focussed our attention on books, because books are the second-biggest selling category after clothing [in our shops]. After last year’s push on clothing it made sense this year to try and do something with books.”

But while the focus on books is a campaign specific to this year, the charity expects Bookfest will become an annual event.

“What we are saying is: Oxfam’s here and we know books. That’s the first thing we want to get across to people,” said Fowkes.

Oxfam’s book campaign began in May when it was the first major charity partner of the Hay Festival. The charity raised more than £17,000 via book sales at the event, using the festival to boost its profile as a book retailer. The partnership allowed Oxfam to operate public book collections and saw the prestigious Prize of Hay renamed the Oxfam Prize. 

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