Storytelling has to be matched to a ‘big idea’, fundraising consultant Stephen Pidgeon has said.

In a session at the International Fundraising Congress yesterday called 'Message and creative integration - the only way forward', Pidgeon told delegates that integrated campaigns need a good proposition first and then emotional stories that will deliver it.

“You’ve been told by people here that you must tell stories,” he said. “Of course you must, but I read stories everyday in newspapers. Fundraising stories have to do different things – you want action, you want me to give you money.”

Campaigns need “big ideas”, he said: “Unless you’ve got one, don’t ask me for money.”

Pidgeon highlighted some successful integrated campaigns, including the Stromme Stiftelsen’s Jobb-Skaper (job creator) appeal in Kristiansand, Norway, which saw the foundation take over the city using local media, painting buildings the pink of its logo, hanging banners from cranes, using social media, and local celebrities doing face-to-face fundraising, to get people signed up to regular monthly gifts.

He praised the campaign, but said they forgot paper and would have benefited from doordrops and inserts.

“If you ever do integration, include paper,” he said. “It is the medium that drives nearly all donations in the world.”

Pidgeon was the founder of Target Direct (later Tangible Response), a direct mail agency.

Another campaign he showcased was Save the Children’s 2014 Gaza appeal, which included two ads - one asking for money and the other asking for action.

It came after the charity ran a similar call to action in 2009 when Israel was bombing Gaza, which asked people to text ‘ceasefire’. Pidgeon said 190,000 people responded and 9.5 per cent were converted to regular gifts. “Logically the texts are not going to have any influence on the politicians so what’s the point? But it is giving me an outlet for the way I feel,” he said.

Save’s recent appeal included a “scrappy” quickly-thrown-together mailshot, telephone and email. The charity also published an ad with the names of 373 children and babies killed in the conflict.

“As a donor I want my favourite charities to have views about things that are wrong. If you think something is wrong, go for it,” he said.