Buerk to go as face of Remember a Charity 2

Fundraising | Gemma Ware | 1 Mar 2008

Michael Buerk will no longer be the face of Remember a Charity (RAC) following a decision by the legacy campaign to move away from awareness-raising and towards changing the behaviour of people who leave charitable gifts in their wills.

Speaking exclusively to PF, Stephen George, chair of RAC and development director of legacies at NSPCC, said the newsreader had raised lots of awareness since he began fronting the campaign in 2005, but “now was the time to look critically at what we’re to do next”. There is some evidence to suggest the public are turned off by celebrity-led legacy campaigns as they can present the act of leaving a legacy as something for rich people and appear removed from daily life.

RAC is in the midst of a strategic review that George said would result in a new social marketing campaign Buerk to go as face of Remember a Charity aimed at changing the behaviour both of donors and professionals who write wills. It plans to commission research into how to best achieve this.

George said the strategic review would look at the campaign’s marketing, partnership and membership strategies. He said RAC would reassess the membership fees it charged charities, which are surrounded by “a lot of myth”. However, he refused to reveal how much charities currently paid to be part of the scheme. “In a refocused strategy we will need to have a robust pricing structure that everyone is comfortable about,” he said, adding that RAC would look closely at member benefits to make sure charities “got value for money”.

RAC currently has 140 charity members, but George said it had no target at the moment for how much it wanted to grow. He said the turnover of charities had been “fairly consistent” during the last few years, with charities dropping in and out depending on their legacy strategy. “I’m really confident that in a very short space of time lots of other charities will want to rejoin.”

RAC is aiming to engage with its members in April as part of the review, before revealing its new direction in the summer and launching a new campaign in the autumn.

Last month it was announced that Jonathan Parris would step down as the director of the coalition at Easter to be replaced in the interim by its former membership and marketing manager, Suzanne Levy. George said RAC would put on hold its search for a new director until a review of RAC’s staffing and governance structures in September.

Directory: Remember A Charity
Who's Who: Gemma Ware

Place a comment

Stephen George
Chair
Remember a Charity
20 Mar 2008

Your recent piece about Remember A Charityâ€™s new approach unfortunately focused on the Campaignâ€™s use of Michael Buerk. It is worth noting that our main focus is on a much broader proposition â€“ making a deliberate shift from awareness raising to a social marketing approach. This is a very exciting development for the Campaign.

It is important to clarify the impression that your readers may have taken from such a headline. Firstly, our current TV advertising campaign featuring Michael Buerk has naturally come to an end. Secondly, our current press adverts fronted by Michael will continue to run for the medium term. Thirdly, as we shift from awareness raising to behaviour change it will be a natural time to review the Campaignâ€™s future use of celebrities, in the context of effecting social change. This is a natural process and is part of a significant refreshment of the Campaignâ€™s next phase.

It is worth stressing that Michael Buerk has contributed greatly in a voluntary capacity to Remember A Charityâ€™s Campaign. We would like to thank him very much for the incredible work he has done in raising awareness of the importance of leaving a gift to charity in your will. We will remain in dialogue with Michael in order to determine how we can best work together in the future.

[Reply]

David Edge
11 Mar 2008

I find it unusal management decision to drop a successful campaign before you have a tried and tested replacement. There be a gap before the new campaign is launched so the public face is not shown.

[Reply]

Comments

[Cancel] | Reply to:

Name *

Email *

Organisation

Job Title

Comments *

Verification *

* Please read our Community Standards

Close »

Community Standards

The civilsociety.co.uk community and comments board is intended as a platform for informed and civilised debate.

We hope to encourage a broad range of views, however, there are standards that we expect commentators to uphold. We reserve the right to delete or amend any comments that do not adhere to these standards.

We welcome:

Robust but respectful debate
Strongly held opinions
Intelligent relevant discussion
The sharing of relevant experiences
New participants

We will not publish:

Rude, threatening, offensive, obscene or abusive language, or links to such material
Links to commercial organisations or spam postings. The comments board is not an advertising platform
The posting of contact details for yourself or others
Comments intended for malicious purpose or mindless abuse
Comments purporting to be from another person or organisation under false pretences
Gratuitous criticism, commentary or self-promotion
Any material which breaches copyright or privacy laws, or could be considered libellous
The use of the comments board for the pursuit or extension of personal disputes

Be aware:

Views expressed on the comments board are left at users’ discretion and are in no way views held or supported by Civil Society Media
Comments left by others may not be accurate, do not rely on them as fact
You may be misunderstood - sarcasm and humour can easily be taken out of context, try to be clear

Please:

Enjoy the opportunity to express your opinion and respect the right of others to express theirs
Confine your remarks to issues rather than personalities

Together we can keep our community a polite, respectful and intelligent platform for discussion.