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Success from failure celebrated by Scope

Fundraising | Becky Slack | 2 Oct 2008

The team behind a direct mail pack that not only asked for a donation but requested supporters take a campaigning action has been selected as this year’s winner of the Tom Crocker Award for Creativity, organised by Scope.

Scope launched the internal award last year to recognise their fundraisers in memory of Tom Crocker, the son of Sandy Collington, former vice chair of the charity, as a means by which to celebrate its fundraising department. Such was the success of the venture that is has been repeated and expanded with the introduction of an additional award, The Edison Award, which celebrates achievements that are born out of failure.

Entries to the Tom Crocker Award included the Basis/DisLIB application, which resulted in a £4.2m grant to Scope and a number of partner charities, the Raiser’s Edge Power User group which aims to make data management more effective, and a challenge event which saw wheelchair users scale the heights of Ben Nevis.

However, it was the direct mail appeal with campaign ask – the first of its kind by Scope - that caught the judges attention for its bravery and results; not only did it raise £77,000 against a target of £38,000 but it also generated over 2,700 campaigning responses against a target of 645.

Entries to the Edison Award included a revamp of Scope’s face-to-face activity to include the use of PDAs for the first time in the sector’s history, and three failed applications to a variety of corporates that had been successfully revamped. It was one such application that was selected as winner. The corporate partnerships team had attempted to win an Accenture grant four times before they were successful, demonstrating that if fundraisers try, try and try again they achieve their goals.  

Louise Graymore, head of fundraising effectiveness, said she was delighted with the results.

The judges for the Tom Crocker Award were Louise Jagger, director of charities at GCAP media and former director of fundraising at Scope, Becky Slack, then editor of Professional Fundraising, Lindsay Boswell, chief executive of the Institute of Fundraising and Ian MaCrae, editor of Disability Now and Sandy Collington.

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Directory: Scope
Who's Who: Becky Slack