“The Japanese tsunami and fundraising”

It’s now nearly two weeks since the dreadful tsunami hit Japan. Unlike its 2004 predecessor when disaster relief fundraising started at a huge scale almost the next day, there was initial confusion as to whether a first-world economy like Japan needed support.

When the scale of the problem became apparent only a select few organizations became involved and started direct appeals. These included the Red Cross, and our own client The Salvation Army, who had relief workers on the ground less than 24 hours after the tsunami hit and who began emergency appeal advertising within the first week. We weren’t surprised by the results we are seeing to press advertising, search and other online appeals.

What has surprised us is the results we are seeing to other charity donor recruitment during the last two weeks.

Those of you who know us well know that we work with some 18 charities, including a number of development organizations such as Oxfam, WaterAid and Care.

We have a number of campaigns running, typically multi-media integrated campaigns, using DRTV, door drops, inserts, search, online display and email.

We have seen a significant increase in response to these campaigns since the tsunami hit, most noticeable to the sms response from drtv.

To our minds this serves to underline, once again, that the recession cannot be blamed for poor fundraising performance. As fundraisers the challenge is to show a clear demonstrable need. Show that need, and the means to alleviate it, and one can fundraise in any environment.

Mike Colling
Managing Director