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NCVO to launch celebrity-laden giving campaign

Fundraising | Tania Mason | 5 Feb 2009

The NCVO is preparing to launch a celebrity-backed campaign to encourage the public to donate £2 a month to charity, and is approaching other umbrella bodies to secure their backing for the campaign.

The campaign is likely to revolve around the question ‘What do you believe in?' and the intention is to use famous people talking about the issues that concern them.

Louis High, the NCVO's head of communications and campaigns, said it would feature celebrities making statements such as "I believe that all children should be able to grow up free of fear. What do you believe in?", or "I believe in equality for disabled people. What do you believe in?".

Promoting causes, not charities

The campaign will promote generic causes, such as the environment or human rights, rather than singling out specific charities. This would enable civil society groups that aren't charities, such as Amnesty International and Greenpeace, to benefit from the campaign too.

It will urge people to give small, regular donations of £2 a month to their favourite cause, to ensure their local charities are supported during the recession and beyond. A recent survey carried out by PricewaterhouseCoopers survey expects charity incomes to fall by £2.3bn in 2009 - a large hit on last year's total of £10.6bn.

It will manifest itself mainly as a PR and media campaign, but possibly also as advertisements and inserts in local press. The NCVO is hoping to secure a media partner.

High said budgets were still being finalised. "We are committing some money at our end, but we are hoping to be making use of a lot of free stuff too."

He said members of his team had already begun approaching other umbrella bodies to ask them to sign up and lend their support.

Several months in the planning

The news appears to respond to a call for just such a campaign in Professional Fundraising blogs last week, but the NCVO said it has been working on the concept for four or five months. The campaign will form part of the umbrella body's 90th anniversary celebrations this year.

Some ‘testers' were run locally over the Christmas period, with regionalised versions of a press release sent out to areas where the NCVO had been able to research and assemble relevant case studies from its membership.

High added that the campaign might also encourage people to volunteer as well as donate - "It might say ‘give £2 a month, or give two hours of your time".

• Read Tania Mason's blog about this story

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Directory: National Council of Voluntary Organisations (NCVO) | PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP
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