Charities which form part of the Disasters Emergency Committee are doing more of their own fundraising during appeals, raising nearly as much as the DEC itself, according to its annual report.
In the past, DEC has discouraged member agencies from fundraising too aggressively through their own brands during times of emergency appeals. The reasoning was that the public needed to be mobilised by one central campaign, rather than competing messages. However, last year the DEC changed its rules to allow member charities to fundraise more from their own supporters, which has led to a dramatic shift in the split between what the DEC raises, and what the charities raise themselves.
In the 2011 East Africa Appeal member agencies raised nearly as much as the DEC campaign. The DEC raised £40.7m, while £39m was raised by the 14 organisations. In contrast, just one year before, during the Haiti Earthquake Appeal, DEC raised more than double the sum fundraised by the separate charities (£72m for the DEC, and £35m between the member agencies).
The DEC has indicated that this shift towards more fundraising by the agencies will continue, alongside efforts to improve post-donation communication with those who give.
“The DEC will also work towards enabling member agencies to maximise the lifetime income from appeal donors and will seek to strengthen its own relationship with supporters by improving our communications to demonstrate how donations have helped,” the annual report reads.
The organisation plans to review its own communications strategy, with an emphasis on using digital channels to feed back on progress.
Five-fold increase in text donations
As reported last November, the DEC raised a record of £1.2m via text donations for its East Africa Appeal. This sum represented an increase of more than 500 per cent for the East Africa Appeal last year in comparison to previous appeals.
In its annual report, the organisation credited its new fundraising manager Polly Gilchrist, previously of the NSPCC, as having pushed up text donations.
