Would You Fundraise To My Face?

When I think of all the people I love or have loved I think of their big smiley faces. I think of their voices and their laughing and their crying and the jokes that nobody else would understand.

You're probably the same. Yes, there are (really) memorable phone calls and e-mails and text messages. But they really don't compare. Face-to-face, one-on-one...those are the life changing moments.

That's why it works so well in fundraising. The impact you can have on someone through your voice and tone and facial expressions and body language is huge.

Your message is crucial, but if it's not delivered properly then even the most important message in the world will flop.

The obvious problem is that you can't deliver your message face-to-face, one-on-one, to everybody. And what we forget is that other medium were invented as substitutes for face-to-face: Mail, TV, radio, billboards, e-mail, SMS - they are all cost-effective substitutes but they all work best when they feel like a single human is talking to you, and only you.

We forget this all the time.

When we sit in front of a computer to type our message we start to write words we would never say out loud. When we create advertisements we try to be clever. Our mail sounds robotic and our TV ads have completely lost the plot.

We need to work to be humans. We need to personalise. We need to tell stories. We need to be emotive. We need to read our copy out loud. We need to show our appeals to our mothers and children. Street fundraisers are a great testing ground - if you can't say it face-to-face to a complete stranger then why would you unleash it to millions of readers and viewers?