Newspaper appeals: more than just the money

Newspapers are powerful fundraisers: Christmas Appeals have raised millions of pounds for charities and charities compete to become a paper’s named beneficiary. But increasingly the value lies more in the coverage than in income generated from readers’ donations.
 
Both The Times and The Guardian are bumping up coverage of their appeals this year. “This year’s appeal is unique because it will run over three years and we’ll be reporting in depth every day on progress through the web, paper, video and audio,” says Jo Confino from The Guardian.

Rosemary Bennett, Times writer, echoes this, “We’ve got much bigger coverage this year. On top of this, we’re pushing to get the appeal across other areas, from the T2 magazine through to the sports pages.”

Both papers are featuring international charities this year.  “Millions of pounds are donated to development but outside the glossy marketing, people don’t know if their money is making a difference. We’re hoping to inject some transparency and look at whether the money is changing lives,” says Confino. He does admit though that the paper’s domestic appeals, like The Observer’s 2006 Appeal for UK mental health charities, didn’t raise as much money as hoped. “People just don’t seem to want to give to domestic appeals”, he says.

The Times is featuring an international charity, Riders for Health, alongside two domestic charities. The publicly appealing work of Riders for Health, which provides motorbikes so health workers can reach inaccessible areas, was part of what attracted Bennett. “This charity just leapt out at me,” she says. “As a journalist I have to think about good stories and battle to get readers’ attention, and I’d never seen anything about this organisation before in a paper. The charity was also able to sustain 10-15 different stories over a month. We don’t want readers thinking, ‘Didn’t I read about this the other day?’”

The Guardian is also encouraging readers to give over a longer period. “There had been negative feelings about highlighting an issue, raising money, handing it over, and then just saying goodbye,” says Confino. “This time we really wanted to engage readers and we also feel it’s really important for the charity to have a committed income”.

The Times and The Guardian have both secured corporate match funding for their appeals. This matched funding partnering is a trend that looks set to grow and is being adopted by a number of the papers, such as the Financial Times which, for the first time, has secured matched donations.
 
“It’s the biggest sponsorship deal we’ve ever done,” says Confino, talking about The Guardian’s partnership with Barclays. This year is also the first where the Guardian/Observer group have put their money where their mouth is and donated £100,000 from their own corporate giving budget to the project.

Will it matter if donations drop or plateau as long as in-depth reporting increases? The papers seem clear on what their main role is. “It’s never been about how to raise the most money or how to beat last year’s figure,” says Confino. Bennett echoes this position. “I’m really clear with the charities that the crucial, most valuable thing we can offer them is publicity,” she says, “because we just can’t ever know how much money we’re going to raise”.

Jane Thomas is Marketing Executive at New Philanthropy Capital.